<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1 class="ac" style="margin-bottom:2em;">BIRDS AND ALL NATURE.</h1>
<p class="ac" style="margin-bottom:2em;"><span class="smaller">ILLUSTRATED BY</span>
COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY.</p>
<div class="vlouter">
<div class="volumeline">
<div class="volumeleft"><span class="sc">Vol. VI.</span></div>
<div class="volumeright"><span class="sc">No. 2.</span></div>
<div class="ac">SEPTEMBER, 1899.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2 style="margin-top:2em;"><SPAN name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></SPAN>CONTENTS</h2>
<table class="toctable" id="TOC">
<tr>
<td class="c1"> </td>
<td class="c2"><span class="sc">Page</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_POINTER">THE POINTER.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">49</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_PSYCHOLOGY_OF_BIRD_STUDY">
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BIRD STUDY.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">53</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#SHELLS_AND_SHELL-FISH">SHELLS AND SHELL-FISH.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">59</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_FLOWN_BIRD">THE FLOWN BIRD.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">61</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#FOREST_PARK_SPRINGFIELD_MASS">FOREST PARK,
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">61</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#MARBLES">MARBLES.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">62</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_WHIPPOORWILL">THE WHIPPOORWILL.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">66</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#TWILIGHT_BIRDS">TWILIGHT BIRDS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">67</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#AWESOME_TREES">AWESOME TREES.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">67</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_EDGE_OF_THE_WOOD">THE EDGE OF THE WOOD.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">68</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#ORES">ORES.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">71</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#YOUNG_WILD_BIRDS">YOUNG WILD BIRDS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">71</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#MANDIOCA">MANDIOCA.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">72</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#TRAVELING_BIRDS">TRAVELING BIRDS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">73</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#MINERALS">MINERALS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">74</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#ACCIDENTS_TO_BIRDS">ACCIDENTS TO BIRDS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">77</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_INFLUENCE_OF_PICTURES">
THE INFLUENCE OF PICTURES.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">78</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_SEA-CHILDREN">THE SEA-CHILDREN.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">79</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#NATURE_STUDY_IN_THE_PUBLIC_SCHOOLS">
NATURE STUDY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">79</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#BIRDS_AND_ORNITHOLOGISTS">BIRDS AND ORNITHOLOGISTS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">80</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#ACCORDANCE_OF_NATURE">ACCORDANCE OF NATURE.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">80</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_WATER_LILY">THE WATER LILY.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">83</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_WHITE_SWAN">THE WHITE SWAN.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">84</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#NEBRASKAS_MANY_BIRDS">NEBRASKA'S MANY BIRDS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">84</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#LURLALINE">LURLALINE.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">85</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#A_CONTRIBUTION_TO_CHILD-STUDY_LITERATURE">
A CONTRIBUTION TO CHILD-STUDY LITERATURE.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">85</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_YELLOW_PERCH">THE YELLOW PERCH.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">86</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#MOUNTING_OF_BIRDS">MOUNTING OF BIRDS.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">86</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#BIRDS_IN_TOWN">BIRDS IN TOWN.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">89</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#THE_OVENBIRD_GOLDEN-CROWNED_THRUSH">
THE OVENBIRD—GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">90</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"><SPAN href="#INSECT_LIFE_UNDERGROUND">INSECT LIFE UNDERGROUND.</SPAN></td>
<td class="c2">92</td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_POINTER" id="THE_POINTER"></SPAN>THE POINTER.<br/> <span class="xx-smaller"><span style="font-weight:lighter;"> (<i>Canis familiaris—Sagax avicularius.</i>)</span></span></h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THERE is a wide difference of
opinion among naturalists as to
the stock from which our dogs
of the present day came. Hallock
says that some have it the wolf,
others the jackal or fox, while not a
few claim that the wild dog of India is
the source from which sprang all the
varieties. He maintains, however, that
it cannot be declared with any degree
of certainty what the parent stock was.
Certain it is that to no one animal can
the paternity of these useful races be
credited, as they are so widely different
in form, color, and characteristics, and
man could never have developed and
brought together such vast differences,
opposite natures and shapes, as can be
seen in domestic dogs, unless the original
species were in possession of the
rudiments. Neither could food, climate,
nor any contrivance whatever so
completely alter the nature, decrease
the powers of scent, render the coat
short, long, or curly, lengthen or
shorten the limbs, unless separate types
had furnished the material.</p>
<p>Ancient bas-relief and monumental
delineations picture the dog as distinct
in its characteristics thousands of years
ago as at the present day, and fossil remains
have been repeatedly discovered
so little resembling either the wolf,
jackal, or fox, and so different in type,
as to be classified with the spaniel, terrier,
hound, bulldog, pointer, and pug;
and as we know these to be made dogs,
or in other words hybrids, the species
must have been fully as numerous as at
the present time.</p>
<p>There are numerous species of wild
dogs differing from one another almost
as much as our own domestic animals
of to-day. Granting that the spaniel,
greyhound, and terrier sprang originally
from the wolf, as some argue,
why not point out first why the male
dogs are so dissimilar? And again,
why are the wolves of different countries
unlike, and which species of wolf
is the true and only one? Without
wishing to conflict with the opinions of
those so much more learned on the
subject than ourselves, we would ask,
would it not be much more reasonable
to suppose, without positive proof, that
the origin of the domestic dog can be
referred to numerous aboriginal species,
crossing with the wild varieties—as we
know our dogs will frequently do, including
the wolf, jackal, and the fox, if
we like, climate assisting, and man aiding
by judicious intermixing and breeding—until
the present high standard of
this useful animal has been reached?</p>
<p>It is noticeable that we have in
America far more well-bred setters than
pointers, and greater attention seems
to have been paid in the last few years
in procuring the former blood than the
latter. This arises from the fact that
the setter is the greater favorite of the
two, and justly the choice of the sportsman
when he desires a dog that will
unflinchingly stand the rough-and-tumble
nature of our shooting. Of the two,
the point of the shorter-haired animal is
far the more marked when on game,
and the training once received by him
is always retained, and on each returning
season he enters the field to be depended
upon, while the setter oftener
has to be partially rebroken each year;
and if not owned by a sportsman who
shoots continually, becomes headstrong
and unreliable.</p>
<p>"For the person whose business will
not allow him to take his gun in hand
but two or three times in the autumn,"
says an authority, "we advise by all
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</SPAN></span>
means that his dog should be the
pointer; but for the one who takes advantage
of the open season for different
game from its beginning to its
close, we recommend the setter as best
able to bear continued work in all descriptions
of cover."</p>
<p>The short hair of the pointer enables
him to do work on the prairies while
"chicken" shooting where water is seldom
found, and which he can do without
for a long time; but in New Jersey, Delaware,
and Maryland, and in countries
where the game invariably takes to the
briery thickets on being started, the
pointer is at a disadvantage, as it refuses
to enter them.</p>
<p>The pointer originally is a cross of
the Spanish dog with the greyhound,
or foxhound, by which the delicacy of
the nerves of the nose, to some extent,
is diminished, and the body rendered
more light and elegant. No dog has a
higher step, sense of smell, or shows
greater intelligence or docility. The
principal reason that he becomes rigid,
or points, by the scent of game, is from
the extraordinary condition of his nervous
system, acquired centuries ago
and handed down by his ancestors.
According to Hallock, a thoroughly
broken pair of high-bred pointers are
so obedient to the voice and gesture of
their master and so well trained to act
with each other, that a wave of the
hand will separate them, one going to
the right and the other to the left, so
that they hunt the entire ground, crossing
each other regularly in front of the
sportsman as he walks forward. There
is one matter that is generally overlooked
in ranging with the pointer. If
in early life you have taught him to retrieve,
and a case occurs in the field
where he has to cross a stream, as the
dog returns with the bird, never tell
him "down charge." His coat is so
thin and his organization so delicate
that he is sure to catch cold; therefore,
by all means, allow him to run around
a little.</p>
<p>Points for the show bench, as given
by the <i>Fancier's Gazette</i>, are:</p>
<p>Head should be moderately long,
narrowing from the skull; the skull not
too prominent above the eyes, as this
gives a heavy appearance; rather deep
in the lip, but not any flaw, or very
slight; nostrils open, with level jaw;
eyes moderately bold; ears thin, set in
to the head, just where the skull begins
to recede at the sides of the head,
hanging flat on the cheek; throwing
the ears back so as to show the insides
has a bad appearance, and too often
indicates a cross; neck medium in proportion
to head, and body rather inclined
to be long, but not much so,
thickening from the head to the set-in
of the shoulders; no looseness of the
throat skin; shoulders narrow at the
meeting of the blade bones, with a
great amount of muscle, long in the
blades, set slanting, with arm of the
leg strong and coming away straight,
and elbow neither out nor in; the legs
not great, heavy boned, but with a great
amount of muscle; leg pressed straight
to the foot, well-rounded, and symmetrical,
with foot well rounded (this is
the forelegs and feet); chest moderately
deep, not over wide, but sufficiently
wide and deep to give plenty of
breathing-room; back level, wide in
loins, deeply ribbed and with ribs carried
well back; hips wide and full of
muscle, not straight in the hock, but
moderately bent; stifles full and well
developed; the stern nearly straight,
going off tapering to the point, set-in
level with the back, carried straight,
not above the level of back; symmetry
and general appearance racy, and much
beauty of form appears to the eye of
a real pointer breeder and fancier. The
weights considered best for different
purposes are from fifty pounds to
about sixty-five pounds. Coat short
and glossy, but a deal here depends on
condition.</p>
<p class="ac">POINTS IN JUDGING.</p>
<table class="toctable" id="POINTS_IN_JUDGING">
<tr>
<td class="c1">Head</td>
<td class="c2">25</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">Neck</td>
<td class="c2">10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">Shoulders</td>
<td class="c2">15</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">Legs</td>
<td class="c2">10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">Feet</td>
<td class="c2">10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">Loins</td>
<td class="c2">10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">Stifles</td>
<td class="c2">5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">Stern</td>
<td class="c2">15</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"> </td>
<td class="c2">——</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1"> </td>
<td class="c2">100</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><i>Color and Coat.</i>—The coat ought to be very
short and soft, and fine, and the skin thin
and flexible. Most people in England prefer
the lemon-and-white to liver-and-white,
or black-and-white.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="POINTER DOG.">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_006.jpg" id="i_006.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_006.jpg" width="600" height="445" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w30">265</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">POINTER DOG.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">CHICAGO:<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_PSYCHOLOGY_OF_BIRD_STUDY" id="THE_PSYCHOLOGY_OF_BIRD_STUDY"></SPAN> THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BIRD STUDY.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_i_alt.jpg" width-obs="38" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">IT is of advantage to know why a
given occupation is profitable,
why it is attractive or otherwise,
to what sort of minds it
is best adapted, and how it
should be conducted to yield the best
returns.</p>
<p>Other things being equal, the mind
acts most healthfully on what is most
pleasing. Children are attracted most
by things having life, character, color,
and rarity. Whatever has life appeals
directly to the young mind, especially
where the various stages of life are
apparent. Birth, infancy, the family
relation, society, paternity, sickness,
death, joy, sadness, homes, building of
nests, eggs, incubation, flying, singing,
fighting, foraging, searching covert
places, digging, boring, hammering,
wading, swimming, catching, devouring,
sentry duty, migration, gregariousness,
dress, differences in appearance
of sexes and ages, moulting, mimicking,
special equipment for occupations,
anatomy, physiology, hygiene, usefulness
to man, assistance in agriculture
and arboriculture, destructiveness to
noxious life, swiftness, deliberation,
expertness, stupidity, instincts for remarkable
performances, lack of judgment
in certain lines, loquacity,
vivacity, sympathy and mutual helpfulness,
resemblances to humanity and
differences, and apparent moral sensibility,
are among the leading features
of birds in general which make them
attractive to the youthful mind.</p>
<p>Where any of these subjects may be
utilized in the ordinary instruction of
children the results are more permanent
and direct than where the same
sort of instruction has been attempted
with material that appeals less strenuously
to the soul of the learner. That
which arouses the most intense activity
makes the most lasting impression.
Even where the impression is a painful
one the result endures; as in old
England the memory of landmarks
was impressed upon young boys by
showing and flogging the boys at
once. The unreasoning pain and the
sight of the landmark remained forever
associated. Modern research has
found that pleasant sensation opens
the mind and that attention is easily
concentrated where inclination also
leads. Whatever is discovered by the
pupil while thoroughly aroused is of
most lasting value. The ideas which
school men have for centuries been
trying to beat into the minds of
children by senseless and dull repetition
have been found to be easy of
acquisition and in many instances
matters almost of intuition if they may
first be brought into the consciousness
in a natural manner.</p>
<p>The instructor who has not the
time nor the tact and invention needed
to open the minds of his pupils first
and then arrange matters so that self-directed
activity will follow, will have
a great deal of hard work before him
if he hopes to compete with those who
have found the secret of the mind's
growth and act upon it intelligently.
Such teaching cannot produce the
results which are now being acquired
in our best schools.</p>
<p>A whole system of education could
be arranged with bird life as material
for arousing and fixing the interest of
the learner. But this is not our purpose.
A whole system should take in
all of the universe that is capable of
interesting the learner. Our purpose
is to take the most intensely absorbing
field and show how it may be tilled.
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</SPAN></span>
Birds are used because so much more
and better activity is to be secured by
using them as the material for school
work than from any other.</p>
<p>Why birds are so commanding to
the growing mind will become clear
to one who will patiently follow the
thought in the remainder of this
article. In avoiding technical terms
the statement has been weakened, but
it is believed that those who would
enjoy the reading better if the terms
were technical and closely accurate do
not need to have the matter stated to
them at all. Hence the statement is
made in the terms of common speech
with the object in mind of giving the
reasons to those not much accustomed
to the terms used by writers on
psychological topics.</p>
<p>The mind is somewhat like the eye.
It takes in whatever is before it. It
is never concentrated upon one object
alone, but has to occupy itself to some
extent with the surroundings of the
object. It is impossible to fix the
mind, or the attention, exclusively
upon one thing. We frequently ask
our pupils to do this, but it is impossible.
The mind at any one instant
resembles the surface of a wave of
water, part of what it carries is low,
another part higher, and some other
things are highest. But few things
can be at or near the crest at once.
Many things are around the base. As
with the eye a few objects are at or
near the focus, many things are where
they are sensed but are not in the
supreme position. And as the wave
of water runs along its course so the
mind moves forward. It will either
run directly away from the subject or
it will turn the subject over and carry
it along in continually changing
aspects. The mind cannot stand still.
It cannot keep anything more than an
instant except by turning the thing
about and perceiving it in relation to
other things. We still consider we
have the thing in mind after we have
ceased to think of it as a whole and
pass on to thinking of its relations to
other things.</p>
<p>The mind differs from the wave of
water in that it is not extensive to the
right and left of its course. It is like
a hill with a small crest that can hold
but few objects upon its surface.
When we say we are thinking profoundly
upon a subject we mean that
that subject and its connections are
continuously upon the crest of the
wave, and that unrelated things are
either not in the mind at all or they
are at least not at the focus.</p>
<p>The things that are in the mind but
not focal are continually striving, as
if they were alive and very active to
get at the focal point. Just as the eye
is continually tempted to wander,
making one object after another its
focal one, so the mind is bound to
travel unless it has been trained to
turn from the thing to its relations
and related things and from them
back to the main thing again. That
is the only way to pay attention. You
cannot pay attention to one physical
thing for more than an instant. But
you can hold a chain of connected
things running through the mind, but
the things are continually modified
by their relations and the absolutely
same thing is never again in the mind.
When it appears again it is clothed
upon or enlarged or modified by what
the mind has discovered about it and
its relations or has invented and
attached to it.</p>
<p>It is easy to repeat the multiplication
table without having it focal in
the mind. You may read half a page
of print with your focal point upon
some other matter. You may pray
and find in your mind at the same
moment a wicked thought. Worse than
this, you may continue your prayer
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</SPAN></span>
and the wicked thought may become
focal. Not by your desire that it shall
be so, but by the power of marginal
things in the mind which makes them
focal without your apparent anticipation
or desire to have them at the
focus. You cannot say that the multiplication
table is not in the mind
when you are repeating it and wondering
who will be at the party this
evening. It is there but not focal.
When you are reading the words of
the page the words may be in your
mind, but the focal point may be
occupied at the time by wondering
how the baby learned to climb so
young and guessing whether you
ought to catch her or run the risk of
her falling, and if she should fall how
much she would be injured, what the
people would think of you for sitting
there and letting her fall, why babies
have to fall so much, whether they
really learn much about slipping or
center of gravity by falls so early in
life, and a thousand other items in
child study. But the reading is in
your mind much as it used to be when
your teacher said to you, "Now I want
to see you keep your eyes on your
book for fifteen minutes without
looking off."</p>
<p>The mind grows at first by use of
the senses. The sight is the main
instrument of youthful mental growth.
Things which can be seen or visually
remembered are most appropriate subjects
for juvenile thinking. You cannot
well converse with children upon
the pleasures of hope, the uses of adversity,
nor any of the forms of mind
stuff that are called abstractions. True,
they like to play upon words and commit
them to memory so as to reproduce
them. But this is not because of
the real meaning of the words committed
but because the ear is pleased.
Children enjoy talking like adults
as well as looking and acting like
them in their unstudied masquerades.</p>
<p>The proper material for juvenile
mind action is what may be acquired
by the senses. All those subjects in
the second paragraph of this article
are mainly appeals to the senses.
These readily become focal in any
mind, but chiefly in the mind that has
never been trained away from the
senses by abstract thinking. No child
can pay attention to anything else
when a bird flies in at the window.
The bird and its act, its motive, its
fellows, its appearance, its nest, its
young, and a thousand other notions
rush to the focus of his mind, no matter
how diligently he may strive to
keep them down. Instead of repressing
in the mind what is naturally
inclined to become focal, education is
now finding out the value of permitting
these things to come naturally
into the mind and so operating upon
them that mental growth ensues with
little or no friction, and without asking
the learner to flagellate himself
continually that he may have knowledge
to use in that distant and half-believed-in
time when he shall be a
man.</p>
<p>Everyone knows that children are
delighted with colored pictures. But
there is an intensity of delight aroused
by a certain class of colored pictures
which has been a matter of surprise to
most educators and parents since color
photography has become practical for
illustration. Infants in arms, who
have never seen any birds except a
few of the size of a canary, are so fascinated
with the bird charts that psychologists
have found a new problem
presented.</p>
<p>If we look upon the child as he
views an accurate colored picture we
note that he is affected just the same
as if the bird itself were before him.
His imagination carries him beyond
the picture to the thing itself, even in
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</SPAN></span>
the instances where he has never seen
the bird nor any like it. As to his
mental state, we can say that the bird
rises directly to the focal point in his
mind, and it is not the bird picture
that holds him but the bird itself.
For teaching purposes this is peculiarly
fortunate, for the child is ready to
grasp any suggestion from the teacher
in order to enjoy the bird more at
length. All the subjects of school
work will ordinarily appeal to the
child, rising readily into the focus of
attention where the bird, its relations,
its acts, and things pertaining to it,
become the material for school activity.</p>
<p>This liveliness and readiness are
not so manifest where mounted specimens
are used, because the element of
death becomes focal at the first instant,
is displaced with difficulty, and continually
recurs with sickening frequency
during the exercise. The acts
associated with the capture and death
of the bird are too dangerously strong
to be avoided. They should by no
means be suggested.</p>
<p>Mr. Aima B. Morton puts it in this
way: Why do children like colored
pictures to abstraction? Because the
child is father to the man. And what
do we love more than tone and color,
music and pictures? It is an inherent
quality, the soul of life leading us
back to nature, the All-mother. We
have hung up pictures and maps of a
poor quality before the class for years,
and then lectured away at them <i>ad
infinitum</i> and <i>ad nauseam</i>, thinking,
because we understood, that the child
also understood. But this is not so.
We nearly always suppose too much,
especially in lower grades.</p>
<p>Diesterweg said: "If you speak
about a calf in the school room, bring
it in and show it." This principle is
still true to-day. All things in nature,
as far as possible, should be present <i>in
propria persona</i>. Where not possible,
we must try to approach that ideal by
bringing the very best, and natural
pictures of the objects, that is colored
ones, and the vivid imagination of the
child does the rest. It does not see
the picture, the object itself is there,
nature has entered the school room.</p>
<p>So we learn that bird study, aided
by color photographs, is psychologically
the most valuable means to the attainment
of school ends. It is attractive
to the young mind because it furnishes
material which rises most readily to
the focal point in the mind. It relieves
teacher and pupil of the strain
attendant upon work where it is difficult
to get the class to "pay attention."
It is chiefly adapted to growing minds.
No matter how strongly the matured
mind with its powers of abstract thinking
may be drawn toward it, it is yet
more attractive to the mind that has
not been trained to any sort of restraint.
To get the best results, bird
study should not be conducted with a
view to storing the child's mind with
scientific knowledge, nor for the sole
purpose of employing it effectively to
teach language and other branches of
school effort. But it should be pursued
as a mode of activity which
develops mind, acknowledging the
fortunate circumstance that school
learning and bird knowledge will both
be acquired at the same time, although
they are not the direct objects of the
pursuit.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="SHELLS.">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_017.jpg" id="i_017.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_017.jpg" width="407" height="600" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30"><i>Shells kindly loaned by J. M. Wiers.</i>.</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">SHELLS.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">CHICAGO:<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="SHELLS_AND_SHELL-FISH" id="SHELLS_AND_SHELL-FISH"></SPAN> SHELLS AND SHELL-FISH</h2>
<table style="width: 100%;" title="SHELLS AND SHELLFISH.">
<tr>
<th> </th>
<th><i>Scientific Name.</i></th>
<th><i>Common Name.</i></th>
<th><i>Named by</i></th>
<th><i>Where Found.</i></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 1.</td>
<td class="c1">Turbo Argyrostoma.</td>
<td class="c1">Silver Mouth.</td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">Singapore.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 2.</td>
<td class="c1">Strombus Bituberculata.</td>
<td class="c1">Kid Conch.</td>
<td class="c1"></td>
<td class="c1">West Indian Islands.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 3.</td>
<td class="c1">Nerita Peloronta.</td>
<td class="c1">Bleeding Tooth.</td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">West Indies.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 4.</td>
<td class="c1">Strombus Urceus.</td>
<td class="c1"></td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">Amboina.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 5.</td>
<td class="c1">Turbo Sarmaticus.</td>
<td class="c1">Turk's Cap.</td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">Algoa Bay.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 6.</td>
<td class="c1">Cypræa Argus.</td>
<td class="c1">Eyed Cowry.</td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">New Caledonia.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 7.</td>
<td class="c1">Helix Hæmastoma.</td>
<td class="c1">Red Mouth Snail.</td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">Ceylon.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 8.</td>
<td class="c1">Murex Pomum.</td>
<td class="c1"></td>
<td class="c1">Smet.</td>
<td class="c1">Florida.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 9.</td>
<td class="c1">Oliva Inflata.</td>
<td class="c1"></td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">Singapore.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 10.</td>
<td class="c1">Conus Arenatus.</td>
<td class="c1">Sandy Cone.</td>
<td class="c1">Hwass.</td>
<td class="c1">Red Sea.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 11.</td>
<td class="c1">Fasciolaria Tulipa.</td>
<td class="c1"></td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">West Indies.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 12.</td>
<td class="c1">Conus Leoninus.</td>
<td class="c1"></td>
<td class="c1">Gmelin.</td>
<td class="c1">Florida.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 13.</td>
<td class="c1">Spondylus Pictorum.</td>
<td class="c1"></td>
<td class="c1">Chem.</td>
<td class="c1">California.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 14.</td>
<td class="c1">Conus Litteratus.</td>
<td class="c1">Lettered Cone.</td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">Ceylon.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 15.</td>
<td class="c1">Haliotis Iris.</td>
<td class="c1">Green Abalone.</td>
<td class="c1">Gmelin.</td>
<td class="c1">Japan.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 16.</td>
<td class="c1">Terebra Maculata.</td>
<td class="c1">Marlin Spike.</td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">Sandwich Islands.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 17.</td>
<td class="c1">Murex Regius.</td>
<td class="c1">Red Murex.</td>
<td class="c1">Wood.</td>
<td class="c1">Panama.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 18.</td>
<td class="c1">Oliva Porphyria.</td>
<td class="c1">Tent Shell.</td>
<td class="c1">Linn.</td>
<td class="c1">Panama.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="c1">No. 19.</td>
<td class="c1">Murex Bicolor.</td>
<td class="c1">Pink Murex.</td>
<td class="c1">Val.</td>
<td class="c1">Mexico.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<div class="p2">
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_w_alt.jpg" width-obs="60" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">WHO does not love the beauty of
shells? Who, when visiting
the sea-shore, has not sought
them with eagerness? Their
beautiful colors are pleasing to
the sight.</p>
<p>The Indians have always loved shells on
account of their bright colors. No doubt
they many times tried to paint their faces
the same color. They used to make money
from the pink or purple portions of them.</p>
<p>There are thousands of different kinds of
shells. To get the full beauty of them we
must see them in their native homes amidst
the sands and stones and the roaring sea.</p>
<p>Mr. Emerson tells of finding the "delicate
shells on the shore," and how the fresh
waves seemed to add new beauty to them.
He wiped away the foam and the weeds
and carried them home. He could not take
the foam and waves and sky and ocean's
roar. He says the shells</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">"Had left their beauty on the shore,</div>
<div class="verse">With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar."</div>
</div></div>
<p>Did you ever place a large shell to your
ear and listen to its roar? It sounds like
the distant roar of the sea. Mr. Wordsworth
says:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">"I have seen</span></div>
<div class="verse">A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract</div>
<div class="verse">Of inland ground, applying to his ear</div>
<div class="verse">The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;</div>
<div class="verse">To which, in silence hushed, his very soul</div>
<div class="verse">Listened intensely; and his countenance soon</div>
<div class="verse">Brightened with joy, for from within were heard</div>
<div class="verse">Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed</div>
<div class="verse">Mysterious union with its native sea."</div>
</div></div>
<p>We can not all go to the sea to study its
wonders. So we will have to do the best
we can studying pictures of shells, making
collections of as many kinds as possible and
studying about the animals that have lived
in them.</p>
<p>Each shell, it matters not how small,
has been the home of a living creature.
Each has an interesting story for us if we
will but read it.</p>
<p>Shell-fish have no bones as other fish
have. They, therefore, need a solid house
in which to live. The shells not only serve
them for houses, but for bones to keep their
pliable bodies in shape, for ships in which
to sail, and for beautiful dresses, starched
and shining.</p>
<p>If these soft animals had no solid shells
they would immediately be eaten by other
animals of the sea or dashed to death by
the waves.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>But it is not alone the beauty of
shells that renders them interesting.
Conchology, which treats of shells,
is as a science at least as old as
the days of Aristotle, the study of
which was resumed, along with that
of the other sciences, when the
dark ages had passed away. Since
the beginning of the nineteenth century
it has given place to a more extended
and comprehensive study of
molluscous animals, the presence or
absence of a shell having been found
not to constitute one of the most important
characteristics which distinguish
different classes of mollusks.
Conchology was only the form of the
science suited to a time when the shell
was more considered than its inhabitant.
Yet it is claimed that the relations
between shells and the mollusks
which possess them are such that the
labors of the merest conchologists have
contributed to the real advancement
of science, both zoölogical and geological.</p>
<p>Shells consist of carbonate of lime
secreted by the animal and intermixed
with some animal matter. In the species
in which it is least developed it
appears as a hollow plate, which serves
as a protection to the breathing organ
and heart. The protuberances and
ridges seen on many univalve and
bivalve shells appear in the course of
their growth by the margin of the mantle,
turning out at a considerable angle
and thus building up a plate in this position
for a certain distance. This
growth then ceases, the mantle retracts,
or may be regarded as changing itself
into the shelly layers, and thus it extends
in the original direction, carrying
out the shell with it, till it turns again
to form a second plate or ridge; and
so the process goes on. Many mollusks
possess the power of altering and
enlarging their shells to adapt them to
their growth, which they appear to do
as if by an intelligent will.</p>
<p>The distinguishing marks of shells
are the number of parts of which they
are composed, and their peculiar forms
and prominences. Some consist of a
single piece, some of two pieces, and
some of three. The textures of shells
are described as pearl, fibrous, horny,
and some are glassy and translucent.
The pearly shells are in alternate layers
of very thin albuminous membrane
and carbonate of lime, which by their
minute undulations give the pearly
lustre. This structure is the least permanent
and in some geological formations
the shells that were provided
with it have disappeared, leaving only
their casts, while those of fibrous texture
are preserved unchanged. Colors,
however beautifully exhibited upon the
surface of shells, are to them no more
distinctive features than to the minerals
and flowers upon which they are
also prominently displayed. They are
most richly developed upon those surfaces
most exposed to the light and in
the class of shells found in shallow
waters.</p>
<p>The whole number of species of molluscous
animals known is estimated at
about twelve thousand recent and fifteen
thousand fossil. Many of the living
species furnish wholesome food,
and some are esteemed as delicacies.
The marine shells, by the immense
numbers in which they are produced,
perform an important office in abstracting
from the sea-water its excess of calcareous
matter and thus aid in maintaining
its purity.</p>
<p>As objects of beauty, shells have always
been admired and frequently been
used as ornaments. Some varieties
were used by the Athenians as ballots,
with the name upon them of the person
to be banished, whence the term
ostracism. Some shells have served
the purpose of coin among rude nations.
Others are noted for the pearls
which are secreted between their
valves around some foreign substances.
Mother-of-pearl is the polished shell of
nacreous. Rare species of shells are
highly prized by collectors, and single
specimens have been sold for large
sums. The South Sea Islanders use
the conch as an instrument of music,
blowing into the shell through the
broken top, thereby producing a loud
and mellow sound. It is a species of
sea conch which is represented by the
god Triton. In many rural parts of
the United States conches are used in
place of dinner bells or tin horns to
call persons from a distance.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_FLOWN_BIRD" id="THE_FLOWN_BIRD"></SPAN>THE FLOWN BIRD.</h2>
<p class="ac">R. H. STODDARD.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The maple leaves are whirled away,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">The depths of the great pines are stirred;</div>
<div class="verse">Night settles on the sullen day</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">As in its nest the mountain bird.</div>
<div class="verse">My wandering feet go up and down,</div>
<div class="verse">And back and forth, from town to town,</div>
<div class="verse">Through the lone woods and by the sea,</div>
<div class="verse">To find the bird that fled from me.</div>
<div class="verse">I followed, and I follow yet,</div>
<div class="verse">I have forgotten to forget.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My heart goes back, but I go on,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Through summer heat and winter snow;</div>
<div class="verse">Poor heart, we are no longer one,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">We are divided by our woe.</div>
<div class="verse">Go to the nest I built, and call,</div>
<div class="verse">She may be hiding after all,</div>
<div class="verse">The empty nest, if that remains,</div>
<div class="verse">And leave me in the long, long rains.</div>
<div class="verse">My sleeves with tears are always wet,</div>
<div class="verse">I have forgotten to forget.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Men know my story, but not me</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">For such fidelity, they say,</div>
<div class="verse">Exists not—such a man as he</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Exists not in the world to-day.</div>
<div class="verse">If his light bird has flown the nest,</div>
<div class="verse">She is no worse than all the rest;</div>
<div class="verse">Constant they are not, only good</div>
<div class="verse">To bill and coo, and hatch the brood.</div>
<div class="verse">He has but one thing to regret,</div>
<div class="verse">He has forgotten to forget.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">All day I see the ravens fly,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">I hear the sea-birds scream all night;</div>
<div class="verse">The moon goes up and down the sky,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">And the sun comes in ghostly light.</div>
<div class="verse">Leaves whirl, white flakes about me blow—</div>
<div class="verse">Are they spring blossoms or the snow?</div>
<div class="verse">Only my hair! Good-bye, my heart,</div>
<div class="verse">The time has come for us to part.</div>
<div class="verse">Be still, you will be happy yet,</div>
<div class="verse">For death remembers to forget!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="FOREST_PARK_SPRINGFIELD_MASS" id="FOREST_PARK_SPRINGFIELD_MASS"></SPAN> FOREST PARK, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THIS is one of the most beautiful
public parks in the United
States. In his annual report,
which is a handsomely printed
and illustrated volume, President
Marsh says that while there are few
changes during the year in the make-up
of the big family of birds and animals
that compose the zoölogical and
ornithological department, it continues
to be an ever-increasing source of
pleasure to the thousands of persons
who visit the park for recreation, and
no part of the park is more thoroughly
appreciated. The departure from the
usual plan of park menageries in arranging
an exhibit of domestic animals
has been a marked success, giving to
the park visitors a chance to become
acquainted with the more common
breeds of the higher types of our domestic
animals, an education in which
the average city resident is sadly lacking.
The exhibit of thoroughbred cows
has been especially a source of pleasure
and instruction. The collection
comprises seven thoroughbred cattle,
no two of the same breed, and children
and grown people alike take delight in
visiting the barns to see these splendid
animals, finding it as instructive as it is
entertaining.</p>
<p>This is a departure that might be
favorably considered by other boards
of park commissioners. All of the domestic
animals of superior breed might
be annually exhibited with great advantage
to the general public.</p>
<p>The ornithological and zoölogical
exhibits of Forest Park are hardly surpassed
anywhere, containing as they
do one hundred and eighty-nine specimens
of animals and three hundred
and ninety-seven of birds.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="MARBLES.">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><span class="ac w50 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_030.jpg" id="i_030.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_030.jpg" width="450" height="600" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac"> </td>
<td class="x-smaller ac">MARBLES.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac">CHICAGO:<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al ti30">OLD TENNESSEE.</td>
<td></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al ti20">ALPS GREEN.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al ti30">SIENNA.</td>
<td></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al ti20">MEXICAN ONYX.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al ti30">FLORENTINE VERMONT.</td>
<td></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al ti20">AFRICAN MARBLE.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></div>
<h2><SPAN name="MARBLES" id="MARBLES"></SPAN>MARBLES</h2>
<p class="ac">MR. GEO. D. MERRILL,<br/>
<span class="smaller">Head Curator, Department of Geology, U. S. National
Museum.</span></p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THE origin of the name marble,
like that of many another name
now in common use, is somewhat
obscure. By many authorities
the word is supposed to have
been somehow connected with the
Greek word meaning "sparkle." However
this may be, a sparkling appearance
is by no means universal among
marbles, but is limited to those which,
like the white statuary or other crystalline
varieties, have a granular structure,
the sparkling itself being due to the
reflection of light from the smooth
surfaces of the constituent minerals.
As used to-day, the word marble is
made to include any lime rock of such
color and hardness as to make it desirable
for ornamental, or even the higher
grades of building work. Stones of
precisely the same composition and
origin, which are not of the desired
color, are classed simply as limestones.</p>
<p>Accepting the definition given above,
it follows, then, that with a few exceptions,
to be noted later, marbles are
but hardened and otherwise changed
beds of marine sands and muds, containing,
it may be, still recognizable
fragments of the corals and mollusks
of which they were originally composed.
But inasmuch as these muds
were rarely of pure carbonate of lime,
but were contaminated with matter
from seaweeds and animal remains, or
by iron compounds, so the resultant
marble is not always white, but, if containing
matter from plants or animals,
gray, blue gray, or even black; and if
containing iron, buff, pink, or red. If
the change in form of the original
muds was just sufficient to produce
crystallization, we may have a marble
full of fossil remains which may be of
a white or pink color, standing out in
fine contrast with the darker ground.
If, on the other hand, the change was
complete, we may have a marble of
small granules, pure white in color, and
of a texture like loaf sugar, such as to
render it suitable for statuary purposes.</p>
<p>At one early period of the geological
history of the North American continent,
all that portion now occupied
by the Appalachian mountain system
was sea bottom, and on it was being
deposited not merely sediments washed
down from the land, but, in favorable
localities, deposits of lime, sand, and
mud. This deposit went on, on a gradually
sinking floor, for long ages, until
the lowermost beds were buried under
thousands of feet of the later formed
materials. Then began the slow uplifting
of the sea-bottom in the form
of long, parallel folds to form the
mountain ranges. During this uplifting
the lime sediments, which are the
only ones we need consider here, were
changed to marbles, and have since
been exposed and made available to
the quarriers through the wearing-down
action of rain and running streams.
So, then, a quarry is but an excavation
in the hardened mud formed on the
bottom of a very ancient sea.</p>
<p>In the Vermont marble region the
beds are highly inclined and of varying
colors. From the same quarry there
may be produced pure white, gray, blue-gray,
and greenish varieties, often variously
veined and blotched owing to
the collection of their different impurities
along certain lines. Some of
these quarries have been worked a
depth of two hundred feet and more.</p>
<p>Not all marble beds are upturned at
this steep angle, however, nor have
they been worked so deeply. In
Georgia, the quarries are often in hillsides,
extending scarcely at all, if any,
below the surface of the ground.
Where opened in the valley bottoms
they have the form of huge rectangular
pits, with perpendicular walls. In
Tennessee, many of the sediments
were so slightly changed that the fossil
remains are still easily recognized,
and the stone is of a pink or chocolate
red color, owing to the abundance of
iron.</p>
<p>The marbles are quarried mainly by
channeling machines, which cut out
the stone in blocks of any desired
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</SPAN></span>
size, or at least in sizes such as the
nature of the beds will allow. Blasting
is never resorted to in a properly
managed quarry, since the shock of
the explosion is likely to develop
flaws in so tender a material. When
freed from the quarry bed and brought
to the surface the stone is sawn into
the desired shapes by means of "reciprocating"
blades of soft iron, the
cutting material being sand, washed
under the blades by small jets of
water.</p>
<p>The use to which any particular
marble is put is governed largely by
its price and color, though texture or
grain often are taken into consideration.
The coarsely crystalline
white and white clouded marbles of
southern New York, Maryland, and
Georgia, are used almost wholly for
building purposes; the pink and variegated
marbles of Tennessee for interiors
and for furniture; while the white and
blue-grays of Vermont find a large
market for interiors, cemetery work,
tiling, and, to a much smaller extent,
for building.</p>
<p>It was stated before that not all our
marbles were changed (metamorphosed)
marine sediments. The exceptions
are (1) the onyx marbles,
which, though composed of carbonate
of lime, like the last, are deposited
from solution, and (2) the so-called
verdantique marbles, which are mainly
altered eruptive rocks. These last
differ widely from those we have been
describing, being of a prevailing green
color, though often variegated with
white or red. They are, in fact, not to
be classed with the lime rocks at all.
The names <i>verdantique</i>, <i>verte antique</i>,
and <i>verde antique</i> are but varying forms
of the same words, indicating a green
antique marble. The term antique has
been applied simply because stones of
this type were used by the ancients,
and particularly by the Romans.</p>
<p>The so-called onyx marbles are, as
noted above, spring deposits, differing
from ordinary lime deposits only in
color and degree of compactness. The
name has also been made to include
the stalagmites and stalactites in caves,
such as were used by the ancient
Egyptians in the construction of alabastrons,
amphoræ, funeral urns, and
various household utensils. The material
is translucent and often beautifully
clouded and veined in amber,
green, yellow, and red colors. Owing
to its mode of origin it shows a beautiful
wavy banding, or grain, like the
lines of growth in the trunk of a tree
when cut across the bedding. This
fact, together with its translucency, has
been the cause of the wrong use for it
of the name onyx, which properly belongs
to a banded variety of agate.
Equally wrong and misleading is the
name "oriental alabaster," which is
commonly applied to the Egyptian variety,
the true alabaster being a variety
of gypsum.</p>
<p>The larger part of our onyx marbles
comes to-day from Mexico, though
there are equally good materials of
this type in Arizona and California.</p>
<p>The foreign supplies come in part
from Egypt. Their use is almost
wholly for interior decoration, as wainscotings,
and the like, and for tops to
small stands, bases for lamps, and so
forth. These are by far the most expensive
of all the stones to which the
name marble is properly applied.</p>
<p>Some of the most noted of our foreign
marbles are those of Carrara,
Italy, which are ancient sediments
thought to have been changed
at the time of the uplifting which
formed the Apennines. They are of
white and blue-gray colors, sometimes
beautifully veined. A beautiful, mellow
yellow to drab variegated variety, very
close in texture and almost waxy in
appearance, is found near Siena, and is
known as Siena marble. It is a great
favorite for interior decorative work, as
may be seen to advantage in the vestibule
of the new public library building
in Boston, and the rotunda of the National
Library building at Washington.</p>
<p>Other marbles, which at the present
time are great favorites with the architects,
are the so-called Numidian marbles,
from Algeria. These are of yellow,
pink, and red color, and often
beautifully mottled. Their textures
are so close that they take a surface
and polish almost like enamel. Since
their first hardening these beds have
been shattered like so much glass into
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</SPAN></span>
countless angular fragments, and then
the whole mass, with scarcely any disturbance,
once more cemented into
firm rock. The result is such that when
large blocks are sawn into slabs, and
the slabs then polished and spread
out, the same series of veins, of angular
blocks and streaks of color, may be
traced from slab to slab, even repeating
themselves with only slight changes
throughout the entire series.—<i>Nature
and Art.</i></p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_WHIPPOORWILL" id="THE_WHIPPOORWILL"></SPAN>THE WHIPPOORWILL.</h2>
<p class="ac">MRS. MARY STRATNER.</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_a.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">A VALUED pet of ours is the
whippoorwill or <i>Antrostomus vociferus</i>.
When most of the other
songsters have tucked their
heads under their wings our whippoorwill
wakes up to the business of the
night.</p>
<p>First, he darts about catching insects
and moths for his babies' breakfast—for
this is their breakfast time—or if
his babies are not hatched he takes the
insects to the faithful mother-bird on
the nest. After this is done he thinks
his business cares are over, and he feels
free to enjoy himself.</p>
<p>Our especial whippoorwill always
selects the same spot, year after year,
just about ten yards from our front
door, in a clear white space on the
shell-walk, and there, squatted on the
ground and facing us as we sit on the
piazza in the moonlight, he vociferously
demands that we "whip poor
Will." This demand he keeps up for a
minute or two. Finding that we do
not intend to heed his request, as our
sturdy six-year-old Will objects, he
commences a low muttering kind of
grumbling.</p>
<p>Suddenly he has a new idea and he
now orders us to "Chuck Will's widow!
Chuck Will's widow!" but this order,
too, goes unheeded, as our Will has no
widow, and if he had why should we
chuck her?</p>
<p>Now he does some more grumbling
and finally flies away. We had almost
forgotten him, when back he comes
and squats in the same place. First
he gives a low "Chuck, chuck;" then
cries out shrilly, "You free Wheeler!
You free Wheeler!" We know of no
Wheeler who needs freeing, so again
we cannot comply with his wishes.</p>
<p>Then, as if disgusted with our unresponsiveness,
he flies up in a near-by
orange tree where he laments somewhat
like an Irishman: "O whirr-r,
whirro! O whirr-r, whirro!"</p>
<p>He keeps this up so long that it
causes some sleepy boy to say: "I wish
that old bull-bat would be still." And
sometimes the boy feels tempted to
get up and drive him away, but he remembers
in time that this feathered
friend rids us of many obnoxious insects.
For this reason the southern
whippoorwill, or bull-bat, is protected
by law in many of the states.</p>
<p>We know where <i>our</i> whippoorwill
nests every year in May, and we often
pay the mother-bird a visit in order to
get a peep at her brown speckled eggs,
and later at her two brown babies; but
we never bother them, contenting ourselves
with taking their picture with a
kodak.</p>
<p>This last is very difficult to do, for
mamma whippoorwill always selects
a dense, shady part of the woods for
her motherly duties. The nest is flat
on the ground, generally under a palmetto
leaf, which keeps off the rain.
It is composed of dry leaves which
seem to have been just scratched together,
and is not noticeable unless the
bird is there. Even then, the brown
color of the bird blends with that of
the ground and leaves, so that it takes
sharp eyes to detect her.</p>
<p>When the young birds first leave the
nest they sprawl about in a comical
manner. When in repose they squat
flat on the ground, with wings spread
out to the fullest extent, and they keep
up a rolling motion with their bodies
from side to side, for all the world as
if they wanted to roll over, but were
prevented from doing so by the position
of their large wings.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="TWILIGHT_BIRDS" id="TWILIGHT_BIRDS"></SPAN>TWILIGHT BIRDS.</h2>
<p class="ac">COLE YOUNG RICE.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Swallow, I follow</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Thy skimming</div>
<div class="verse">Over the sunset skies—</div>
<div class="verse">Follow till joy is dimming</div>
<div class="verse">To sadness in my eyes.</div>
<div class="verse">And hollow seems now thy twittering</div>
<div class="verse">High up where the bittering</div>
<div class="verse">Night-blown winds arise.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Throstle, the wassail</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Thou drinkest</div>
<div class="verse">Daily of chalice buds—</div>
<div class="verse">Wassail in which thou linkest</div>
<div class="verse">Thy notes of springtime moods—</div>
<div class="verse">Should docile thy elfish fluttering</div>
<div class="verse">Where twilight is uttering</div>
<div class="verse">Sorcery through the woods.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Plover, thou lover</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Of moorlands</div>
<div class="verse">Drained by the surfing sea—</div>
<div class="verse">Lover of marshy tourlands,</div>
<div class="verse">What is the world to thee?</div>
<div class="verse">Nay rover, wing on unquerying</div>
<div class="verse">O'er mallows ne'er wearying</div>
<div class="verse">Over the pebbly sands!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But sparrow, the care o'</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Thy nesting</div>
<div class="verse">Pierces thy vesper song—</div>
<div class="verse">Care o' the young thy breasting</div>
<div class="verse">Shall warm through the blue night long—</div>
<div class="verse">Till, an arrow, seems thy dittying,</div>
<div class="verse">Of pain to the pitying</div>
<div class="verse">Heart that knows earth's wrong.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="AWESOME_TREES" id="AWESOME_TREES"></SPAN>AWESOME TREES.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_w.jpg" width-obs="66" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">WE made a side trip to the big
trees of the Mariposa group,
which are about one hour's ride
from the hotel, says a correspondent
of the Pittsburg <i>Dispatch</i>. If
the smallest of these trees could be
planted anywhere in Pennsylvania the
railroads would run excursion trains to
it and make money. The trees in this
grove are so large that it takes a good
while to fully appreciate the facts
about the size of the biggest of them.
The "Grizzly Giant" is thirty-four feet
through at the base and over 400 feet
high. This tree would overtop the
spires on the Pittsburg cathedral by
over 100 feet. The trunk of this tree
is 100 feet clear to the first limb, which
is twenty feet in circumference. Many
other trees here are very nearly as large
as this one, and there are 400 in the
grove. Through several tunnels have
been cut and a four-horse stage can go
through these tunnels on the run and
never graze a hub. You get an approach
to an adequate idea of their
size by walking off 100 yards or so
while the stage is standing at the foot
of a tree and glancing from top to bottom,
keeping the stage in mind as a
means of comparison. The stage and
the horses look like the little tin outfit
that Santa Claus brought you when
you were a good little boy.</p>
<p>These trees are no longer to be called
the largest in the world, however. A
species of eucalyptus has been found
in Australia as large or larger. Emerson
warns us against the use of the
superlative, but when you are in this
region of the globe you can't get along
without a liberal use of it. He himself
says of Yosemite: "It is the only spot
I have ever found that came up to the
brag." And as I stood in the big tree
grove I remembered that some one
called Emerson himself "the Sequoia
of the human race."</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_EDGE_OF_THE_WOOD" id="THE_EDGE_OF_THE_WOOD"></SPAN> THE EDGE OF THE WOOD.</h2>
<p class="ac">ELLA F. MOSBY.</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THE ideal place for birds, says
Mr. Frank Chapman, is the
edge of the wood where field
and forest meet, and a stream
is not far off. If an orchard be in
sight, so much the better. It was my
delight to spend a summer, or part of
it, in just such a spot not long ago, and
I made many charming discoveries
here. In the first place I learned that
it is by no means necessary for birds
to "be of a feather" in order "to flock
together." I came one bright morning
on a flock of indigo buntings near the
water's edge, the proud father, in exquisite
blue, like finest silk, with shimmering
lights of green playing over it,
the mother in siena brown, and the
babies, neither blue nor brown, but a
sooty black, with only a solitary wee
feather now and then to show the blue
that was coming. What an odd, but
what a pretty, happy little family!</p>
<p>The banks of the stream were thickly
overgrown with milk-white elder,
orange butterfly-weed, and a thousand
feathery grasses and nodding leaf-sprays,
already touched on edge with
crimson or gold "thumb-marks." On
the tall stalks swung the goldfinches,
"a little yellow streak of laughter in
the sun," and every stake or post in the
fence near by made a "coigne of vantage"
for the merry wrens to call and
whistle. The calls of birds express,
bird-fashion, every feeling that the
heart of man knows—surprise, fear, joy,
hope, love, hate, and sorrow. If we
could only contrive to think <i>bird-thoughts</i>,
as perhaps an Audubon may
have done, or a Wilson, we might understand
these strange signals and
cries, often uttered by invisible speakers
from a world above ours.</p>
<p>I learned at this time that the quails,
or Bob-Whites, have many calls instead
of the <i>one</i> from which they are named.
There is the low, sweet mother-talk to
the brood, the notes of warning, the
"scatter calls" of autumn from the
survivors of an attack, "<i>Where are
you? Where are you?</i>" and a sort of
duet between male and female at nesting
time. When she leaves the nest,
she calls "<i>Lou-is-e!</i>" and he strikes in on
the last syllable with "<i>Bob</i>;" she
repeats, and he bursts forth "<i>Bob
White</i>!" with emphasis. Then the clear,
ringing whistles through midsummer
sound up and down the meadow from
one quail to another. The old farmer
interprets their colloquy thus:—</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">"Bob White, Bob White,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Pease ripe, pease ripe?"</div>
<div class="verse">"Not quite, not quite."</div>
</div></div>
<p>These birds are very tame during the
spring and fall, and will come into
town, on the edges of the streets, and
call from roof and door-step without
fear, sometimes even mounting into a
tree close beside a window and whistling
for an hour or two.</p>
<p>On the contrary, it is by the edge of
the wood and after the brood is reared,
that tree-top birds, like tanagers and
cardinals, grow most friendly and fearless.
Frequently, when I raised my
glasses to look at some plain brown or
gray bird, the scarlet of a tanager
would flash across the field, and the
rose glow of the cardinals appear in the
grass. The female cardinal, with her
lovely fawn tints and rose linings, and
her beautiful voice, equals the male in
interest. She is a bird of lively emotions,
and being rebuffed by a catbird
one day, made the lawn ring with her
aggrieved cries, while her mate sought
to comfort her most tenderly. They
are not graceful on the ground, but
they have a stout air of proprietorship
that is not unpleasing. Both of our
tanagers, the summer and scarlet, the
cardinals, and the brilliant orioles, live
together very peaceably, nor have I
seen any sign of envy, malice, or spite
among them. I suppose each one of
us has his own Arcadia; mine—and that
of these winged neighbors—assuredly
lies at the boundary-line between
shadowy forest and sunny meadow—at
the edge of the wood!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="ORES.">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="7"><span class="ac w100 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_045.jpg" id="i_045.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_045.jpg" width="420" height="600" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">268.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w15"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">ORES.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w15"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">CHICAGO:<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="7" class="x-smaller ac w80">SPECIMENS AT TOP OF PAGE ARE GOLD
BEARING ROCK.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">SILVER QUARTZ.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w15"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">NATIVE COPPER.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">TIN ORE.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w15"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">B. H.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w15">NICKEL PYRITES.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">LEAD CRYSTALS.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w15">BLUE CARBONATE COPPER.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">SPATHIC IRON ORE.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w15"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">KIDNEY IRON ORE.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">ZINC ORE.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w15"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w14">NEEDLE IRON ORE.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="ORES" id="ORES"></SPAN>ORES.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_n.jpg" width-obs="56" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">NICKEL is a silver-white, ductile
metal, discovered by Cronstedt
in 1751. It is closely allied to
iron and cobalt, and is associated
with many ores. Nickel, according
to Deville, is more tenacious than
iron. It is magnetic at ordinary
temperatures. Many of the copper
coins of the European continent and
the United States are alloys containing
various proportions of nickel.
Nickel-plating has become an industry
of great importance in the United
States. It is used for magnetic needles,
for philosophical and surgical instruments,
and in watch movements.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Spathic Iron Ore.</span>—Carbonate of
iron, when found in a comparatively
pure and crystallized state, is known as
spathic or sparry. In its purest form
it contains 48 per cent. of iron. The
ore is found near Hudson, N. Y., and
in Tuscarawas county, Ohio.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Copper.</span>—Copper is one of the most
anciently known metals, and its name
is derived from the island of Cyprus,
where it was first obtained by the
Greeks. In the earlier times it does
not appear to have been employed by
itself, but always in admixture with
other metals, principally tin, forming
bronze. Great masses of native copper
have been found both in North and
South America.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Tin.</span>—Tin is a beautiful silver-white
metal, with a tinge of yellow. There
was no tin produced in the United
States in 1896. The tin-producing
countries are Malacca, Banca, Bolivia,
Australia, and Cornwall.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Zinc.</span>—A metal of a brilliant white
color, with a shade of blue, and appearing
as if composed of plates adhering
together. It is not brittle, but less
malleable than copper, lead, or tin;
when heated, however, it is malleable,
and may be rolled into plates.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Lead.</span>—A metal of a dull white
color, with a cast of blue. It is soft
and easily fusible. It is found native
in small masses, but generally mineralized
by sulphur and sometimes by
other substances. It is the least elastic
and sonorous of all the metals.</p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="YOUNG_WILD_BIRDS" id="YOUNG_WILD_BIRDS"></SPAN>YOUNG WILD BIRDS.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THE thickness of the foliage on
the trees, the high vegetation
of the cultivated land, and the
natural tendency of young birds
to keep quiet and still, make the study
of them a matter of some difficulty.
In the hedgerows and by the wood-sides
unfamiliar notes and calls of birds
are constantly heard—the notes of
young birds, which cannot be identified
owing to the thickness of the foliage,
and though in the large woods the cry
of the young sparrow hawks and the
flight of the pigeons and woodpeckers
betray their presence, it is almost impossible
to watch them, or to ascertain
their way of procuring food. Probably
most of the larger species are fed by
the old birds long after they leave the
nest.</p>
<p>Of game birds, young partridges are
the most self-reliant, and young pheasants
the least able to take care of themselves.
The present writer has never
seen young quails, but as those coveys
which are hatched in England often
number as many birds as the quail
usually lay eggs, it may be presumed
that these, the smallest of all the game
birds, are not less active and precocious
than the young of the partridge. The
latter are almost as active upon land as
young wild ducks are upon the water.
They run swiftly and without hesitation,
even among thick vegetation, when
they are no bigger than a wren, and
follow or precede their mother through
mowing grass, hedgerows, or the sides
of furze breaks and copses, seeking and
catching insects all the while, and
neither losing themselves nor betraying
their whereabouts by unnecessary
noise or excursions.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="MANDIOCA" id="MANDIOCA"></SPAN>MANDIOCA.</h2>
<p class="ac">ANNA R. HENDERSON.</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_m.jpg" width-obs="70" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">MANDIOCA (<i>Jatropha Manihot L</i>.)
is the principal farinaceous
production of Brazil, and is
largely raised in nearly all parts
of South America; in fact, is the main
bread food of that continent, and is
therefore worthy of consideration.</p>
<p>It is difficult for dwellers in northern
climes to conceive of a land which
does not look largely to fields of wheat
or corn for sustentation; yet millions
inhabit such a region, and strange to
say, derive their bread from a root
which combines nutritious and poisonous
qualities.</p>
<p>Mandioca is indigenous to Brazil,
and the Indians, strange to say, discovered
methods of separating its nutritive
and detrimental qualities. The
Portuguese, learning its use from them,
invented mills for its preparation, and
it became the bread food of a great
tropical region where wheat and Indian
corn do not thrive.</p>
<p>The plant has a fibrous stalk, three
or four feet high, with a few branches
and but little foliage; light-green five-fingered
leaves. The roots are brown
tubers, often several inches thick, and
more than a foot in length.</p>
<p>It is planted from slices of the
tubers and is of slow growth, taking
eighteen months to mature. The poisonous
quality is confined to the juice
of the roots, and even this may be
rendered innocent by boiling. It then
becomes vinegar by fermentation. The
leaves may be eaten by cattle. The
roots must be ground soon after digging,
as they become putrid in a few
days.</p>
<p>The Indians scraped the roots to a
pulp with oyster shells, and after
pressing it, dried it before the fire, or
cut it under water into thin slices which
they dried.</p>
<p>I will now describe the Portuguese
method of making farina from mandioca,
as I witnessed it in my Brazilian
home, a <i>fazenda</i>, plantation, near
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The mandioca,
which loves a dry soil, was grown on
the hillsides among the orange and the
coffee trees. It was cultivated by the
hoe. When its great masses of tubers
were mature they were dug and hauled
to the farina house, a cool room, tile-roofed,
dirt-floored, and which contained
mill, presses, and drying-pans.
Then the merry work began. The
negroes, who love to work in company,
would sing, as, seated on benches or
stools, they scraped the brown skin
from the tubers. These were washed
and fed to the mill, while the children
took turns riding the mule which
pulled the creaking beam that turned
the mill.</p>
<p>The tubers are very juicy and, on
being ground, make a milky white
mass, which is put into soft baskets
made of braided palm leaves. These
baskets are placed under a heavy screw
press, and the milky juice which flows
from them is caught in tubs and set
aside to settle. In twenty-four hours
in the bottom of the tub is a deposit of
starch several inches thick. This is
the well-known tapioca of commerce,
extensively used for puddings and
other delicate foods; good also for
starching clothes. The clear juice
above it, a deadly poison, is drawn off
through underground tiles—that no
chicken or other living creature may
taste it. The damp pulp in the baskets
is transferred to large concave trays
of brass or copper placed over a
slow fire, where it is constantly
stirred until entirely dry. It is now
ready for use, is as coarse as corn
meal, but very white, and has a pleasant
flavor, resembling popcorn. It
cannot be made into loaves, as much
moisture would make it too glutinous
to bake. It is eaten dry or mixed with
beans or other vegetables at the table,
or it is dampened and salted and baked
on a griddle in a hoe-cake half an inch
thick. In this way it is very nice and
sweet. It is a favorite breakfast dish
made into a clear glutinous mush called
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</SPAN></span>
<i>pirao</i> (pronounced <i>pe-rong</i>). Brazilians
are very fond of the dry farina and
throw it into the mouth by a movement
so dexterous that it does not powder
the face.</p>
<p>This is the bread of Brazil. Though
wheat bread is sold in the bakeshops
of the cities, it is not used to any great
extent in the rural regions.</p>
<p>There is another species of mandioca
called <i>aipin</i> (pronounced <i>i-peen</i>), which
cannot be converted into <i>farinha</i>. It
matures in eight months and has no
poisonous qualities. It is a staple
article for the table, being baked like a
potato, and its taste resembles that of
a roasted chestnut.</p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="TRAVELING_BIRDS" id="TRAVELING_BIRDS"></SPAN>TRAVELING BIRDS.</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">Cleaving the clouds with their moon-edged pinions,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">High over city and vineyard and mart;</div>
<div class="verse">April to pilot them; May speeding after;</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">And each bird's compass his small red heart.</div>
<div class="verse ar">—<i>Edwin Arnold.</i></div>
</div></div>
<div class="p2">
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_r.jpg" width-obs="55" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">RIVER valleys, coast lines, and
mountain chains are the ways
followed by the migrating birds;
and frequent observations have
determined the fact that birds travel
at great heights, many as much as a
mile from the earth. This may be one
of the reasons why the tiny creatures
have such keen sight; for from this distance
they can obtain a far-reaching
view of the surrounding country and
distinguish landmarks readily.</p>
<p>If the weather is stormy or foggy,
then the birds are obliged to fly much
lower; and, too, it is then that the lights
along the coast attract them and such
countless numbers perish by being
beaten against the lighthouses, many
more birds being killed in the fall
season of migration than in the spring,
when the weather is less stormy.</p>
<p>They fly in vast numbers, and often
on still nights they can be heard calling
to each other. A good idea of
their number can be obtained by the
use of a telescope, which, if focused
on the moon, will often show the birds
on a brilliant background so that they
can readily be discerned. The motion
of their wings can easily be seen in this
way, and the immense numbers of them
better realized.</p>
<p>A good way to form an idea of the
distance covered each year by the birds
as they migrate is to take a single
bird and note its journey. The bobolink
makes his winter start in August,
rests awhile in the marshlands and then
visits the rice belt of the Southern
states, doing damage directly and indirectly
each year to an amount covering
several millions of dollars. Then
he flies over Cuba, and there his
name is <i>chambergo</i>. Next he lingers
along the coast of Yucatan, then goes
on south through Central America and
the island of Jamaica, in which place
they call him "butter-bird," on account
of his great plumpness, the result of
the rice-feeding, no doubt; and from
this place he makes one continuous
long journey for over four hundred
miles to Brazil, where he spends the
winter. Here he stays until early
spring, and then, if no accident has
come to him, he will again brighten
our months of blossoms by his chipper
presence and his delightful song.</p>
<p>One of the most curious things observed
in the fall migration of birds is
in this same bobolink. By some manner
of means many of these birds have
gone west, some as far as Utah, to
spend their summers, and when the
winter is coming they, too, take their
flight south, but not by the direct way
through Mexico, and then to Central
America, as would seem most natural,
but following their hereditary instincts
they come back to the Atlantic coast
and journey down it, along the whole
way to Florida, then across to Cuba,
and on with those from New Jersey
and New England until the winter
resting-place is reached. This bird
gives a most conclusive and interesting
illustration of the permanency of bird
routes and the "hereditary habit" of
the winged flocks.—<i>Bangor Commercial.</i></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="MINERALS.">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_059.jpg" id="i_059.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_059.jpg" width="416" height="600" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w30">269.</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">MINERALS.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">CHICAGO:<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">HORNBLENDT.</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">ROSE QUARTZ.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">AMETHYST</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30"></td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">PINK TOURMALINE RUBELLITE.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">CROCIDOLITE.</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">AGATE.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">SERPENTINE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">MALACHITE.</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">SULPHUR.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></div>
<h2><SPAN name="MINERALS" id="MINERALS"></SPAN>MINERALS.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_h.jpg" width-obs="64" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">HORNBLENDE.—A mineral
species, placed by Dana in the
augite section of the anhydrous
silicates. In common use the
name is limited, as it was formerly applied
only to the dark crystalline
minerals which are met with in long,
slender prisms, either scattered in
quartz, granite, etc., or generally disseminated
throughout their mass. The
color of the mineral is usually black
or dark green, owing to the presence
of much iron. It appears to have been
produced under conditions of fusion
and cooling which cannot be imitated
in the laboratory, the crystals obtained
artificially being of augite type.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Malachite.</span>—One of the native carbonates
of copper. It is sometimes
crystallized, but more often occurs in
concretionary masses of various shades
of green, which are generally banded
or arranged in such a manner that the
mineral, which takes a fine polish, is
much prized as an ornamental stone.
Great quantities of it are found in the
Siberian mines, and many beautiful
objects are manufactured from it.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Quartz.</span>—The most abundant of all
minerals, existing as a constituent of
many rocks, composing of itself the
rock known as quartzite or quartz
rock and some of the sandstones and
pure sand, forming the chief portion
of most mineral veins. In composition
it is silica, and when uncontaminated
with any foreign intermixture it
appears in clear, transparent crystals
like glass or ice. Pure quartz is largely
employed in the manufacture of glass
and is commonly obtained for this purpose
in the form of sand. Quartz veins
with few exceptions form the gangues
in which gold is found.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Tourmaline.</span>—A name applied to a
group of double silicates, composed of
many other minerals. The color of
tourmalines varies with their composition.
The red, called rubellite, are
manganese tourmaline containing lithium
and manganese, with little or no
iron; the violet, blue and green contain
iron, and the black are either iron or
magnesium-iron tourmalines. Sometimes
the crystals are red at one extremity
and green at the other, or green
internally and red externally, or <i>vice
versa</i>. Pink crystals are found in the
island of Elba. Tourmalines are not
often used in jewelry, although they
form beautiful gems and bear a high
price. A magnificent group of pink
tourmalines, nearly a foot square, was
given by the king of Burmah to Col.
Sykes, while commissioner to his court.
The tourmaline appears to have been
brought to Europe from Ceylon by the
Dutch about the end of the seventeenth
century, and was exhibited as a
curiosity on account of its pyro-electric
properties.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Agate.</span>—Of the quartz family, and is
one of the modifications in which silica
presents itself nearly in a state of
purity. Agates are distinguished from
the other varieties by the veins of different
shades of color which traverse
the stone in parallel concentric layers,
often so thin as to number fifty or more
to an inch. Externally the agates are
rough and exhibit no appearance of
their beautiful, veined structure, which
is exposed on breaking them, and still
more perfectly after polishing. Though
the varieties of agate are mostly very
common minerals in this country as
well as in the old world, those localities
only are of interest which have
long been famous for their production
and which still furnish all the agates
required by commerce.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Amethyst.</span>—So named because it
was supposed by the ancient Persians
that cups made of it would prevent
the liquor they contained from intoxicating.
The stone consists of crystallized
quartz of a purple or blue violet
color, probably derived from a compound
of iron and soda. The color is
not always diffused through it, and is
less brilliant by candlelight.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Serpentine.</span>—Serpentine differs in
composition from the other marbles.
It is a soft mineral of different shades
of green, of waxy luster, and susceptible
of a high polish. It is better
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</SPAN></span>
adapted to ornamental work within
doors than to be exposed to the action
of the weather.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Sulphur.</span>—An elementary substance
belonging to the class of metalloids.
It has been known from the earliest
times as the product of volcanoes, and
as a natural mineral deposit in clay
and marl formations. It also exists in
primitive rocks, as granite and mica.</p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="ACCIDENTS_TO_BIRDS" id="ACCIDENTS_TO_BIRDS"></SPAN>ACCIDENTS TO BIRDS.</h2>
<p class="ac">GUY STEALEY.</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_s.jpg" width-obs="60" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">STRANGE accidents happen to
birds as well as to people, and
some of them are as unexplainable
as those that fall to our lot.
I remember finding a meadow lark
suspended from a barbed-wire fence
several years ago, dead, its throat
pierced by one of the sharp barbs.
The bird had apparently attempted to
fly between the wires and, miscalculating
the distance, had dashed against
the barb.</p>
<p>Another curious case which came
under my notice was that of a small
water bird. While walking along the
bank of the river flowing through our
place, I discovered the little fellow
dangling from a willow, his head firmly
wedged in one of the forks. He had
been there some time, and how he ever
got caught in that fashion is a mystery.</p>
<p>But the strangest mishap of all I
ever witnessed occurred last summer.
I was picking peas in the garden when
my attention was attracted by the fluttering
and half choked cries of a bird
a little distance from me. Hastening
to the place I found a brown field bird
hanging from a pea vine. Around its
neck was a pea clinger, which formed
a perfect noose. As nearly everyone
knows, pea clingers form into all imaginable
shapes. The bird was feeding
under the vines and, being frightened
by my approach and in trying to escape,
had thrust its head through the clinger
with the above result. I soon freed
it and saw it fly away but little the
worse for the adventure.</p>
<hr class="sect" />
<p><i>To the Editor of</i> <span class="sc">Birds and All Nature</span>:</p>
<p>I find your periodical most interesting
and instructive, as it brings one
into closer relation with all forms of
life.</p>
<p>Better than a knowledge of Hebrew,
Greek and Latin is it to know what the
birds, the trees, and flowers all say,
what the winds and waves, the clouds
and constellations all tell us of coming
events.</p>
<p>There is a world of observation,
thought and enjoyment for those who
study nature in all her varying moods
that is denied those who, having eyes
see not and having ears hear not.</p>
<p>In looking over <span class="sc">Birds and All
Nature</span> I have noticed with pleasure
some articles from the pen of Caroline
Crowninshield Bascom that have particularly
pleased me. Her interpretations
of what her pet cats and birds
have to say, their manifestations of intelligence,
and the sentiments of affection,
or envy, jealousy, and malice;
their obedience and their moralities
under her judicious training. A woman
who can train a cat to live in harmony
with a bird, to see each other caressed
in turn by a beloved mistress, should
be on the county school board as a
successful educator. For boys and
girls can be more easily trained than
those in the lower forms of life. I trust
Miss Bascom will not try to harmonize
the cat with rats and mice, lest those
natural-born thieves increase to such
an extent that every municipality will
be compelled to have traps and police
in every nook and corner, in every
cellar and garret of all our private and
public buildings. There is a limit,
dear Miss Bascom, to peace and good
will on earth.</p>
<p class="ar sc">Elizabeth Cady Stanton.<br/>
<i>New York, July 1, 1899.</i><br/></p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_INFLUENCE_OF_PICTURES" id="THE_INFLUENCE_OF_PICTURES"></SPAN> THE INFLUENCE OF PICTURES.</h2>
<p class="ac">J. P. M'CASKEY.</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_i.jpg" width-obs="24" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">IF IT is a very good thing to hang
attractive pictures on the walls of the
home, then it is doubly so thus to
ornament the walls of the schoolroom.
"In the emptiest room," says
Ruskin, "the mind wanders most, for it
gets restless like a bird for want of a
perch, and casts about for any possible
means of getting out and away. Bare
walls are not a proper part of the
means of education; blank plaster about
and above them is not suggestive to
pupils." The landscape makes a bright
opening through the dead wall like a
window; flowers and ferns are suggestive
of the garden, the lane, the field, the
woods, the purling stream; of song-birds
in the air or among the branches,
and blue sky overhead. Animals suggest
a life with which we should be
more or less familiar. The portrait
speaks the man, what we know of him,
suggesting trains of thought that may
be most interesting and profitable.</p>
<p>A mother wondered why her three
brave lads had all gone to sea from an
inland home. She was speaking, in her
loneliness, with a friend who had called
upon her, and she could not suggest
any reason why they should all have
adopted the sea-faring life when none
of their friends or relatives had been
sailors. The man observed a picture of
a full-rigged ship hanging above the
mantel. It was perhaps the only picture
in the room, at least the only one
at all conspicuous. A thought struck
him. "How long has that picture been
hanging there?" he asked. "Oh, it has
been there ever since the boys were
little children." "It was that," he said,
"that sent your boys away. The sea
grew upon their imagination until they
longed for it, and sought it, and so they
are gone."</p>
<p>So a striking or attractive picture, in
the schoolroom as in the home, may
sink deep into the heart of the child,
and mean far more to him than much
of the work which the school program
usually imposes. He may forget the
name and lose all recollection of the
personality of the teacher and of most
of his schoolmates, but the striking
picture is a picture still. That he will
always remember. In our experience,
as we grow older, if we are at all observant,
we know more and more the
value of these things—how great a factor
in education they may become!</p>
<p>Men wonder sometimes how they
can expend a modest sum of money to
good purpose in giving pleasure and
profit to others. Get some pictures of
good faces, and flowers, and landscapes,
and other proper subjects, and put them
upon the walls of your nearest school-house,
or of some other in which you
may be interested. When you have
done this for one school you may want
to do it for a second, or you will suggest
to some other generous heart the
like gift of enduring value. What
chance have boys and girls with a dead-alive
teacher in a school-house whose
blank walls are eloquent of poverty?
Oh, the weariness of it!</p>
<p>Real, genuine, helpful, beautiful art
is now brought within reach of the million.
The arts of chromo-lithography
and half-tone engraving are putting
exquisite pictures, at low cost, wherever
there is taste to appreciate and
enjoy them. In our homes they are
everywhere. Why not everywhere also
upon schoolroom walls bare of these
choice educational influences? To
many a child good pictures come like
the ministrations of the angels. We
feel this, we know it; and for the years
remaining to us shall do what we can
to make school-life better for the pictures
on the wall.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_SEA-CHILDREN" id="THE_SEA-CHILDREN"></SPAN>THE SEA-CHILDREN.</h2>
<p class="ac">COLE YOUNG RICE.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Oh, mother, I lay</div>
<div class="verse">A-dreaming one day</div>
<div class="verse indent-5">By the wreck of the Alberdeen,</div>
<div class="verse">And I heard a singing</div>
<div class="verse">Under the sea</div>
<div class="verse">Of children swinging—</div>
<div class="verse">Their hair was green!—</div>
<div class="verse indent-5">In seaweed swings, and they called to me—</div>
<div class="verse">Oh, mother, they called to me"—</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Hush, hush thee, my child!</div>
<div class="verse">Thy prattle is wild,</div>
<div class="verse indent-5">For the children that dwell in the sea</div>
<div class="verse">Are the fishes swimming</div>
<div class="verse">Amid white shells</div>
<div class="verse">Whose pearly hymning</div>
<div class="verse">But echoed to thee</div>
<div class="verse indent-5">The strangled songs of the sinking swells—</div>
<div class="verse">My child, 'twas the song of the swells."</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"And, mother," they said</div>
<div class="verse">"Come to us!—oh, dread</div>
<div class="verse indent-5">Not the waves tho' they fret and foam;</div>
<div class="verse">They're far, far over</div>
<div class="verse">Us while we play</div>
<div class="verse">Beneath the cover</div>
<div class="verse">Of our sea-home,</div>
<div class="verse indent-5">All day, all day o'er the beds of the bay!</div>
<div class="verse">Oh, mother, the beds of the bay!"</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Hush, hush thee, my child!"—</div>
<div class="verse">But strangely he smiled</div>
<div class="verse indent-5">As he gazed at the weird-lit waves.</div>
<div class="verse">For he heard a singing—</div>
<div class="verse">"Come to us, come!"</div>
<div class="verse">He saw them swinging</div>
<div class="verse">In crystal caves,</div>
<div class="verse indent-5">And cried, "I'm coming! I'm"—ah, how numb</div>
<div class="verse">His death-dewy lips—how numb!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="NATURE_STUDY_IN_THE_PUBLIC_SCHOOLS" id="NATURE_STUDY_IN_THE_PUBLIC_SCHOOLS"></SPAN>NATURE STUDY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_a.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">AT THE Shaw banquet in St.
Louis the subject for the evening
was "Horticultural Education,"
and a good deal was
said as to the introduction of the
study in the public schools.</p>
<p>On the question of its interfering
with other school work, Prof. Jackman
of Chicago said: "The intimation has
been thrown out here to-night that
perhaps the child's study of nature
might interfere with something else in
the schools. I can assure such objectors
that it will interfere with some
of the things they are taught. It will
interfere with some of the dull routine
that you and I can recollect, which we
passed through when we were in these
schools. The children have waited all
too long for such an interference."</p>
<p>State Superintendent of Schools
Kirk, said: "It is my firm conviction
that a large part of what we now call
'geography' should be eliminated from
the school curriculum. Much of it is
so worthless or misleading as to retard
education and exhaust the children's
energies without any definite purpose.
Children should learn about the country
they live in, rather than the remote
regions of Asia and the Arctic
Zone."</p>
<p>One speaker declared that the recreation
time can be restfully utilized
for nature-study work. Memory is
good but observation is better, and
teachers are asking for specimens of
fruits, nuts, grains, grasses, woods,
leaves, twigs, buds, and flowers.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="BIRDS_AND_ORNITHOLOGISTS" id="BIRDS_AND_ORNITHOLOGISTS"></SPAN> BIRDS AND ORNITHOLOGISTS.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_b.jpg" width-obs="56" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">BIRDS has entered upon a new year
with the satisfaction of having
pleased its readers as well as having
rendered actual service to the
cause of education, ornithological literature
and art. Nature with her usual
prodigality has scattered thousands of
rare and attractive birds throughout
the world, and of these the editor of
<span class="sc">Birds</span> selects the most interesting species,
the loveliest forms and the richest
plumage for preservation by means of
magnificent illustrations, obtained
through the expensive process of color
photography. A unique treatment of
text makes the magazine interesting
and instructive to old and young alike.
The people of this locality are noted
for being lovers of birds and students
of nature, and it has given the three
greatest naturalists the world has ever
known. This is the native heath of
Audubon and Robert Dale Owen. Mr.
S. G. Evans, the well-known dry goods
merchant of this city, has a very fine
and complete set of Audubon's birds.
All this fills our eyes to think what the
world lost in the death of William
Hamilton Gibson. He made all life
seem related to our lives, all being to
appear one substance, all to be worthy
of interest, sympathy, love, and reverence.
There are strange and beautiful
stories told of his power to attract and
handle the shyest creatures. Once, it
is said, he went to a public library in
Brooklyn to make a sketch of some
rare butterfly, and had found a book of
plates from which he was studying his
subject, when, lo! there floated into the
great room one of the very specimens
he desired to picture, fluttered down
upon the open page, and at last rested
with throbbing wings beside its own
portrait. On one election day, Mr.
Gibson went to vote, and as he was
studying his ticket, there came in at
the open door, no one knew whence,
a stray pigeon, which flew at once to
him and perched upon his shoulder.
He caressed it in his tender fashion,
and murmured to it, and then it flew
away, no one knew whither. Once, too,
as he sat upon his veranda at The Sumacs,
his country home in Connecticut,
describing to a visitor the peculiar
markings upon the wings of a
certain song-bird, he suddenly arose,
stepped to a bush upon the lawn, and
coaxed into his hand the very bird of
which he was talking, and which he
brought to show to his astonished
guest. This sympathy with the world
of life outside of man fills his text and
his illustrations to overflowing.—<i>Evansville
(Ind.) Courier.</i></p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="ACCORDANCE_OF_NATURE" id="ACCORDANCE_OF_NATURE"></SPAN> ACCORDANCE OF NATURE.</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">For Nature beats in perfect tune,</div>
<div class="verse">And rounds with rhyme her every rune,</div>
<div class="verse">Whether she works in land or sea,</div>
<div class="verse">Or hide underground her alchemy.</div>
<div class="verse">Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,</div>
<div class="verse">Or dip thy paddle in the lake,</div>
<div class="verse">But it carves the bow of beauty there,</div>
<div class="verse">And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.</div>
<div class="verse">The wood is wiser far than thou;</div>
<div class="verse">The wood and wave each other know.</div>
<div class="verse">Not unrelated, unaffied,</div>
<div class="verse">But to each thought and thing allied,</div>
<div class="verse">Is perfect Nature's every part,</div>
<div class="verse">Rotated in the mighty heart.</div>
<div class="verse ar">—<i>Emerson.</i></div>
</div></div>
<div class="poetry-container p2">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">O painter of the fruit and flowers,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">We thank thee for thy wise design,</div>
<div class="verse">Whereby these human hands of ours</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">In Nature's garden work with thine.</div>
<div class="verse">And thanks that from our daily need</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">The joy of a simple faith is born.</div>
<div class="verse">That he who smites the summer weed</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">May trust thee for the autumn corn.</div>
<div class="verse">Give fools their gold and knaves their power,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall,</div>
<div class="verse">Who sows a field or trains a flower</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Or plants a tree is more than all.</div>
<div class="verse">For he who blesses most is blest,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">And God and man shall have his worth</div>
<div class="verse">Who toils to leave as a bequest</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">An added beauty to the earth.</div>
<div class="verse ar">—<i>Whittier.</i></div>
</div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="WATER LILIES.">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_076.jpg" id="i_076.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_076.jpg" width="405" height="600" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w30">270.</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">WATER LILIES.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">CHICAGO:<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_WATER_LILY" id="THE_WATER_LILY"></SPAN>THE WATER LILY.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THIS is the name of an aquatic
plant of the genus <i>Nymphæa</i>,
distinguished for its usually very
fragrant flowers and large, floating
leaves; applied also to the yellow
pond lily of the genus <i>Nuphar</i>. The
species alba has a large flower filled
with petals, so as almost to appear
double; it raises itself out of the
water and expands about seven o'clock
in the morning, and closes again, reposing
upon the surface, about four in
the afternoon. The roots have an
astringent, bitter taste. They are used
in Ireland and in the island of Jura
to dye a dark brown or chestnut color.
Swine are said to eat it, goats not to
be fond of it, kine and horses to refuse
it. The flowers, the herb, and the
root were formerly used in medicine,
but are all now obsolete.</p>
<p>The lotus resembles our common
white species in the form of the flower
and leaves, but the latter are toothed
about the edge. It is a native of the
hot parts of the East Indies, Africa,
and America, is very common in parks,
lakes, and rivers in Jamaica and grows
in vast quantities on the plains of lower
Egypt, near Cairo, during the time
they are under water. It flowers there
about the middle of September and
ripens toward the 12th of October.
The Arabians call it <i>nuphar</i>. The
ancient Egyptians made a bread of the
seed of the lotus dried and ground.</p>
<p>All the species of water lilies grow
well in large pots of water with a few
inches of rich soil at the bottom.
They are propagated by dividing the
root, and some sorts which produce
bulbs are increased by the offshoots
from these. Mr. Kent, who cultivated
these plants to great perfection, found
that the bulbous-rooted nymphæa, if
limited in their growth for want of
water, or from cold or excessive heat,
were apt to form bulbous roots and
cease growing for the season. Hence
the necessity of water and heat to
make them flower freely.</p>
<p>The plant known especially in this
country as the water lily, frequently
as pond lily and sometimes as water
nymph, was dedicated by the Greeks
to the water nymphs. The fruit, which
ripens under water, is berry-like, pulpy
and thin, and each of its numerous
seeds is enveloped in a thin sac. Of
about twenty species two are found in
the United States. Our common species
has almost circular leaves, which
often cover a broad surface of water
on the margins of lakes and ponds,
forming what are known as lily pads.
The flowers are often over five inches
across, of the purest white, and have a
most agreeable sweet scent. In some
localities the flowers are tinged with
pink, and they are found, though
rarely, with the petals bright pink
throughout. The leaves also vary in
size and sometimes are crimson on the
under side. The root stalk, as large as
one's arm and several feet long, is
blackish outside and marked with
scars left by the leaves and flower-stems;
it is whitish within. Though
the plant often grows in water several
feet deep, the leaf and flower accommodate
themselves to the depth, and
they may sometimes be found where
there are but a few inches of water.</p>
<p>At a place called Dutchman's
Slough, we are informed by Mr. George
Northrup, about half a mile above the
outlet of Calumet Lake, south of
Chicago, grow great quantities of
water lilies, which are gathered every
season for the Chicago market.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_WHITE_SWAN" id="THE_WHITE_SWAN"></SPAN>THE WHITE SWAN.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THIS magnificent bird is well
known from being kept in
a half-domesticated condition
throughout many parts of
Europe, whence it has been carried to
other countries. In England, according
to Newton, it was more abundant
formerly than at present, the young
being highly esteemed for the table.
It was under special enactments for
its preservation, being regarded as a
"bird royal," which no subject could
possess without license from the
crown, the granting of which license
was accompanied by the condition
that every bird in the "game," the
old legal term, of swans should bear a
distinct mark of ownership on the bill.
Originally this ownership was conferred
on the larger freeholders only,
but it was gradually extended, so that
in the reign of Elizabeth upwards of
nine hundred distinct swan marks,
being those of private persons or corporations,
were recognized by the
royal swanherd, whose jurisdiction
extended over the whole kingdom. At
the present time the Queen's companies
of Dyers and Vintners still
maintain their swans on the Thames.
The largest swanery in England is that
belonging to Lord Ilchester.</p>
<p>It has been stated that the swan was
introduced into England in the reign of
Richard Cœur de Lion; but it is now
so perfectly naturalized that birds having
the full power of flight remain in
the country. There is no evidence to
show that its numbers are ever increased
by immigration from abroad,
though it is known to breed as a wild
bird in the extreme south of Sweden,
whence it may be traced in a south-easterly
direction to the valley of the
Danube.</p>
<p>The nest of the swan is a large mass
of aquatic plants, is often two feet
high and six feet in diameter. The
eggs are from five to nine in number,
of a grayish-olive color. The young
are hatched in five to six weeks,
and when hatched are clothed in
sooty-gray down, which is succeeded
by feathers of dark soot-gray. This
suit is gradually replaced by white;
but the cygnets are more than a year
old before they lose all trace of color
and become wholly white.</p>
<p>The swan of North America is considerably
larger than that of the old
world. The first species is the trumpeter,
so-called, of which the bill is
wholly black, and the second (<i>Cygnus
columbianus</i>, or <i>americanus</i>) has the colored
patches on the bill of less extent
and deepening almost into scarlet.</p>
<p>Fossil remains of more than one
species of swan have been found.</p>
<p>Our picture presents this stately
bird swimming among water lilies, a
sight that may be seen in summer in
some of our American parks, notably
the Central Park of New York City.
Chicago and Cincinnati have some fine
specimens. For portrait and sketch of
the black swan, see Vol. III, pp.
<SPAN href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34294/34294-h/34294-h.htm#Page_66">66,
67</SPAN>.</p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="NEBRASKAS_MANY_BIRDS" id="NEBRASKAS_MANY_BIRDS"></SPAN> NEBRASKA'S MANY BIRDS.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_n.jpg" width-obs="56" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">NEBRASKA is distinctively the
bird center of the United States.
It contains more species than
any other state in the Union, and
ornithologists who have studied its
feathered possessions have classified
417 distinct species that may be seen
within its boundaries. Of these 225
species breed here and the remainder
are migrants who drop in on us at certain
seasons and then pass on to their
breeding-grounds. The natural features
of Nebraska are largely responsible for
this remarkable variety of feathered
population. It includes a diversity of
country that offers attractions for
hundreds of songsters. For instance,
the mocking-bird and the cardinal
grosbeak, who are distinctive Southern
birds, frequently appear in the southern
corner of the state, and in the west we
have a large number of what are usually
regarded as mountain birds, but which
come down from the foothills at intervals
to the kingdom of Quivera.—<i>Omaha
Bee.</i></p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="LURLALINE" id="LURLALINE"></SPAN>LURLALINE.</h2>
<p class="ac smaller"><i>Old Irish Air.</i></p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">There was a little water sprite, her name was Lurlaline;</div>
<div class="verse">Amid the water lilies white sometimes she might be seen.</div>
<div class="verse">She was a fairy child, Lurline, could sit secure and cool,</div>
<div class="verse">Upon those lily leaves so green you see in some lone pool.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">There would she sit the summer day, singing a song
so bright;</div>
<div class="verse">You never heard the song, you say, and don't believe
it quite?</div>
<div class="verse">But that perhaps is just because when you quite near
her stood,</div>
<div class="verse">You did not notice where she was, or listen as you should.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">It happened in the month of June, the happy summer time.</div>
<div class="verse">She always sang a lovelier tune and wove a lovelier rhyme,</div>
<div class="verse">And you, too, like to Lurlaline, a lovelier song
would sing,</div>
<div class="verse">If only you knew what they mean, the flowers and
ev'ry thing.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">If you were like a water sprite—the water sprites
know well</div>
<div class="verse">The wondrous things of day and night, and all they have
to tell;</div>
<div class="verse">They know and love the creatures wild, and all the flowers
that grow;</div>
<div class="verse">They live with them and love them well, God's hidden pets
they know.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And now if you want more to know what Amodine saw there,</div>
<div class="verse">You first must love all things below, in water, earth, and
air;</div>
<div class="verse">You first must love all things that move among the trees
and flowers,</div>
<div class="verse">And then you shall have more to love in shining fairy
bowers.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="A_CONTRIBUTION_TO_CHILD-STUDY_LITERATURE" id="A_CONTRIBUTION_TO_CHILD-STUDY_LITERATURE"></SPAN> A CONTRIBUTION TO CHILD-STUDY LITERATURE.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_i.jpg" width-obs="24" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">IT HAS been a blessed thing for the
child and for humanity that the
former has at last attracted our
attention in a way to force upon
us the conviction that it is time we
found out what to do with him. People
of scientific bent think this can be
done by measurement and test experiments.
Many fond and utterly unscientific
mammas think it can be done
by an all-absorbing deference to the
child's whims; by setting the child on
a pedestal and pouring ointments over
him and bringing him sweetmeats and
nectar on silver platters. I am not
sure but it was this latter conduct on
the part of the parent that called the
attention of teachers to the need of a
thorough study of the child and his
requirements. For nothing else is so
detrimental to the child's development
as this growing tendency to pamper
him.</p>
<p>The old method of treating the child
was to ignore him; to let him be seen
and not heard; to think that because
he was young he could run errands all
day, eat what was left at table, sleep
in the coldest bed at night, and be
thrust into the corner as an undesirable
piece of furniture. Now the custom
is exactly the reverse. In most well-to-do
families the child is the central
figure, and the parents stand around to
minister to him. Nothing is too rich
for him, and he becomes the darling,
terror, and tyrant of the household.</p>
<p>As between the old boxing-glove
method and this modern kid-glove
method of handling the child the
former is preferable—the hardier ones
survive; but no character is proof
against the seductive enervation of
pampering.</p>
<p>These facts in regard to the development
of youth have not escaped the
notice of that keenest of observers,
Rudyard Kipling. In "Captains Courageous"
he has given us his opinion
as to the best means of rescuing boys
and girls who threaten to become
utterly worthless, and of transforming
them into useful men and women.—<i>Child-Study
Monthly.</i></p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="YELLOW PERCH.">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_090.jpg" id="i_090.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_090.jpg" width="600" height="406" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w30">271.<br/>
<i>Subject loaned by Chicago Academy of Sciences.</i></td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">YELLOW PERCH.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">CHICAGO:<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_YELLOW_PERCH" id="THE_YELLOW_PERCH"></SPAN>THE YELLOW PERCH.</h2>
<p class="ac smaller">(<i>Perca fluviatilis.</i>)</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THIS is a fresh-water fish and is
generally distributed over Europe,
northern Asia, and North
America, and so well known as
to have been, it is said, selected for the
type of an entire family of spiny-rayed
fishes, the <i>percidas</i>, which is
represented in European fresh waters
by several other fishes such as the pope
and the pike-perch. It inhabits rivers
as well as lakes, and thrives best in
waters of a depth of not less than
three feet; in large, deep lakes it frequently
descends to depths of fifty
fathoms and more. It occurs in Scandinavia
as far north as the 69th parallel,
but does not extend to Iceland
or any of the islands north of Europe.
In the Alps it ascends to an altitude
of four thousand feet.</p>
<p>The shape of the body of the perch
is well proportioned, but many variations
occur, some specimens being
very high-backed, others low and long-bodied.
Sometimes such variations
are local, and Agassiz and other naturalists
at one time thought it possible
to distinguish two species of the common
perch of Europe; but it can be
separated specifically from the North
American form. The brilliant colors
of the perch render it easily recognizable
even at a distance. A rich greenish-brown,
with golden reflections,
covers the back and sides, which are
crossed with five or seven bands. A
large black spot covers the membrane
between the last spines of the dorsal
fin, and the lower parts are bright vermillion.
In the large, peaty lakes of
North Germany a beautiful variety is
not uncommon, in which the golden
tinge prevails, as in a gold-fish.</p>
<p>The perch is carnivorous and voracious.
It wanders about in small
shoals within a certain district, playing
havoc among small fishes, and is therefore
objectionable in waters where
more valuable fry is cultivated. Perch
of three pounds in weight are often
caught; one of five would now be regarded
as an extraordinary specimen,
though in rare instances we read of
individuals exceeding even that weight.
An old fisherman, Mr. George Northrup,
a man of rare intelligence, tells us
that of thousands of perch caught by
him he never took one that weighed
above three pounds.</p>
<p>Perch are good, wholesome food
and highly esteemed in inland countries
where marine fish can be obtained
only with difficulty. The nearly allied
pike-perch is one of the best European
food fishes. It is very prolific, begins
to spawn when three years old, in
April or May, depositing the ova on
water plants.</p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
<h2><SPAN name="MOUNTING_OF_BIRDS" id="MOUNTING_OF_BIRDS"></SPAN>MOUNTING OF BIRDS.</h2>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t_alt.jpg" width-obs="73" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THE mounting of birds and the
small animals of the field and
forest is an art which is possessed
by few people, yet which
is not difficult and which especially
appeals to the lover of nature. It is an
art which it is well worth while popularizing,
for it can be made the vehicle
for the expression of a great deal of
beauty, while preserving and making
use, in the interests of scientific study,
of materials which otherwise would be
irretrievably lost. There has been need
for some time of an authoritative work
on the subject, something which would
enable the amateur to mount birds and
animals and which would be full and
complete as to the information it conveyed.
This want has been met by
Mr. John Rowley, the chief of the Department
of Taxidermy in the American
Museum of Natural History, who
has written a convenient volume of
something over two hundred pages on
"The Art of Taxidermy," which has
just been published by the Appletons.
In the foreword with which the author
introduces the book he says that the
name "taxidermy" was formerly applied
to the trade of most inartistically
upholstering a skin, but that of late
years it has made wonderful strides.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="BIRDS_IN_TOWN" id="BIRDS_IN_TOWN"></SPAN>BIRDS IN TOWN.</h2>
<p class="ac">ELLA F. MOSBY.</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_w.jpg" width-obs="66" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">WRENS are friendly to man. The
little house wren in summer,
and the Carolina wren in winter,
give us a merry roundelay
for all sorts of weather. Bewick's
wren, Mr. Torrey says, "greatly prefers
the town to woods and meadows,"
and even the winter wrenkin, dear little
saucy brownie that he is, vouchsafes us
a glimpse of himself now and then in
the city. As for the bigger kinsfolk,
the mocking-bird and catbird, they
love the shrubbery of our lawns, and
gardens, and sing close at hand. Nor
are the thrushes, shy as they are in the
breeding season, hard to discover during
the migrations. A Swainson's
thrush will sit for an hour or so, almost
within touch, his big liquid eyes regarding
his human neighbors placidly.</p>
<p>Strange to say, I have seen but few
swallows or sparrows in town, except
the chipping or "door-step" sparrow
and the purple martin which belongs to
the swallow tribe, though the misnamed
chimney swallow does <i>not</i>. The song
of the martin, "like musical laughter
rippling through the throat," and the
"giggling twitter" of the chimney
dweller, often seem to drop to us out
of the air as they dart overhead. Even
pewees and cuckoos visit us after their
broods are reared, the wistful cry of the
first and the rattling call of the latter,
sounding oddly from some tall tree
close by the crowded street. At this
time too, the grackles perch upon the
roofs, and nighthawks and whippoor-wills
are heard overhead in the dusky
twilights.</p>
<p>One would not naturally expect to
find game birds or birds of prey in a
city, yet the Virginia quail frequently
sends forth his ringing "bob white!"
from any low roof or fence in the spring
or early fall; and more than once long-billed
water-birds have been caught by
the street lamps at night. The eerie,
tremulous cry of the little screech-owl
sounds from the apple tree, and in
winter he flies with a soft thud against
the window pane, attracted by the light
shining through the snow. Some owls
choose a belfry tower as their favorite
shelter, and live there year after year.</p>
<p>Our most glorious bird-day is when
the orioles appear in flashing black and
gold with ringing whistle, or their orchard
cousins in ruddy chestnut tints,
alternately singing and scolding, <i>chack!
chack!</i> and little later, come the scarlet
and summer tanagers to the parks and
public gardens, lighting up the tall
trees with their splendid color, and
making the neighborhood ring with
their <i>chip-chur</i> and <i>chicky-tuck!</i> as if in
call and answer. One day I saw these,
and not far away, the crested cardinal,
glowing like a tropical flower, and the
red-headed woodpeckers close by, and
some redstarts glittering and flitting
from bough to bough, truly a study in
red!</p>
<p>As for the smaller birds, humming
birds, kinglets, vireos, and warblers, the
trees of any city yard will be a frequented
hostelry for all during their
wonderful journeys, and for many as a
summer home. Those that love the
tree tops are seen all the better by human
inhabitants of upper stories, and
some of our most charming bird-books
give us the experiences of a busy
woman in a New York flat, or of another
in a Chicago back yard, and of
more than one invalid, watching these
free, joyous lives with unenvious delight.
A good glass, either opera-glass
or field-glass, will open many a pretty
bit of house-weaving, and brood-rearing
to an observer shut in by walls
and pavements, and bring many a
pleasant acquaintance. At this very
moment, a slender grey catbird glides
through the boughs close by my upper
window, with a low <i>chuck, chuck!</i> as I
glance at him. He knows I am a
friend, but would fain enjoin silence,
for a black cat prowls below.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</SPAN></span></p>
</div>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_OVENBIRD_GOLDEN-CROWNED_THRUSH" id="THE_OVENBIRD_GOLDEN-CROWNED_THRUSH"></SPAN> THE OVENBIRD—GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH.</h2>
<p class="ac">NELLY HART WOODWORTH.</p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_a.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">A MARVELOUS choral is the rare
ecstasy song of the ovenbird
(see Vol. III,
<SPAN href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47326/47326-h/47326-h.htm#page126">126-7</SPAN>).
It was
first recorded, at a comparatively
recent date, by that versatile
writer—poet, essayist, naturalist—Mr.
John Burroughs. After speaking of
the bird's easy, gliding walk, it being
one of the few birds that are <i>walkers</i>,
not <i>hoppers</i>, he says its other lark trait,
namely, singing in the air, seems not
to have been observed by any naturalist.
Yet it is a well-established characteristic,
and may be verified by any
person who will spend a half-hour in
the woods where this bird abounds on
some June afternoon or evening. I
hear it frequently after sundown when
the ecstatic singer can hardly be distinguished
against the sky. Mounting
by easy flights to the top of the tallest
tree, he launches into the air, with a
sort of suspended, hovering flight, and
bursts into a perfect ecstasy of song—clear,
ringing, copious, rivaling the
goldfinch's in vivacity and the linnet's
in melody. Its descent after the song
is finished is rapid, and precisely like
that of the titlark when it sweeps
down from its course to alight on the
ground.</p>
<p>The same writer speaks of waking
up in the night, just in time to hear a
golden-crowned thrush, the ovenbird,
sing in a tree near by. It sang as loud
and cheerily as at midday. My first
acquaintance with this rare overture
was at the close of a hot day in July,
as I was walking with a naturalist. A
splendor floated in the air like a musical
cloud as strange notes of gladness
rang through the twilight with
the clearness of a silver bugle. It
came again, a clear, sweet, outpouring
song, which I recklessly attributed to
several goldfinches singing, as they
often do, in concert. The trained ear
of the naturalist was not so easily
deceived, and when my attention was
called to the more gushing character
of the melody I wondered that it could
have escaped notice. It was a very
irrigation of song, the bursting of some
cloud overhead that scattered melodious
fragments all about, a mating-choral
unheard, probably, after the
nesting season is over.</p>
<p>Entering the woods in early summer
this bird is sure to shake out its ordinary,
rattling chorus—"Teacher,
<i>Teacher</i>, <span class="sc">Teacher</span>," the notes delivered
with tremendous force and distinctness
and the emphasis increasing—a vibrant,
crescendo chant as unlike the
brilliant ecstasy song as can be imagined.</p>
<p>The ovenbird is also called the
golden-crowned thrush, for no conceivable
reason unless it is that the bird
is <i>not</i> a thrush, but classed with the
warblers. Or is it that its white
breast, thickly spotted with dusky,
resembles the thrush's? There is a
peculiar delicacy in the texture of its
olive-green robes, as fine as if woven
in kings' houses, while, set deep in
hues of the raven's wing, it wears that
regal appurtenance—a crown of gold.</p>
<p>While watching from a rocky height
a pair of hermit thrushes that were
housekeeping in a hemlock beneath,
an ovenbird flew from a maple bough
to a high clump of ferns near by. In
its beak was a quantity of dry grass,
bulky material that interfered sadly
with both walking and flight. The
small burden-bearer managed, however,
to progress slowly, moving its
head from side to side to disentangle
the grasses and lifting its little feet in
the daintiest manner, until it disappeared
where the ferns were thickest.
Pretty soon it came in sight again,
sauntered about with diverting nonchalance,
and was off, alighting upon
the same bough to drop down into the
same corner of the thicket. This behavior
was not without an inference;
it was an advertisement of future
hopes too plainly written to escape
notice; I might have been stone blind
and seen straight into the future! The
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</SPAN></span>
nest must have been within a circle of
a few feet, but with rank greenery
above and underfoot the accumulated
leafage of the ages, soft and penetrative
as if placed layer by layer for the
bird's special accommodation, any
square foot might have held the treasure
and kept the secret of possession.</p>
<p>Soon after a farmer told me of a
strange nest, a curiously covered house
with a low door, within which the sitting
bird could be seen. The bird's
flight as it left the nest first attracted
his attention, just in time to prevent
his foot from crushing through the
roof. He had never heard of ovenbirds
or of roofed-over nests, and was
so interested in this new page of
natural history that "once a day when
he went for the cows he went round
that way to see how things were getting
on there."</p>
<p>"Every time I went," he said, "I
expected to find that the cattle had
spoiled it!"</p>
<p>After describing his interesting tenants
he offered to share the pleasure
of their acquaintance, saying most
kindly, "I wouldn't mind leaving the
hay field any time to take you there!
I've done my share of haying, I guess;
the boys don't want me to work so
hard; come up to-morrow and I'll go
with you!"</p>
<p>I was there with to-morrow and was,
if possible, more amazed at the adaptation
of the "oven" to its surroundings
than with the structure itself.</p>
<p>The bird was sitting and not at all
disposed to leave on our account; she
merely drew in her pretty head, cuddled
closer to the ground, and waited.
Both house and tenant were so thoroughly
blended in color with the environing
leafage that, when pointed
out, it was difficult for the eye to
locate them. Possibly the brave little
housekeeper divined the situation; or
did she presume upon a previous acquaintance
with the friendly farmer?
The proprietor of the establishment, a
little man-milliner with a bow of
orange ribbon in his bonnet, sang
through the fragrant morning as if
glad of an opportunity of speaking to
a gracious audience, interlarding his
song with rushing over to his family—<i>vault</i>,
I was going to say, for being
sunken a bit in the ground and dark
within, it suggested a mausoleum. A
tiny ledge of slate, tilted vertically,
made a strong wall upon one side of
the small estate; young beeches, kept
down by browsing cattle, grew where
the rear-gates should have been, and a
maple twig partially screened the entrance.
Evergreen ferns crowded
between the "oven" and the wall, their
leaves interlaced, above the roof, with
others opposite, the tips of two being
caught down and interwoven with the
roofing. The nest was made of dry
leaves, lapped and overlapped, padded
and felted in one compact arch—a veritable
arch of triumph! Upon July 15th
six creamy-white eggs, dotted with
brown and lilac, lay safe within, these
being duly replaced by a round half-dozen
"little ovens," whose mouths
were always open. Indeed, more food
was shoved into those open-mouthed
storehouses than would have supplied
a village bakeshop, and still there was
room for more. Warm rains soon gave
the nest an unyielding texture; so
matted and felted that the full weight
of the hand left no impression, and I
questioned whether the foot, set
plumply down, would have crushed it
out of shape entirely.</p>
<p>When the young birds had flown I
brought home the nest as a unique
souvenir of summer. Removed from
the picturesque setting it was no
longer interesting; its charm was that
of environment; its beauty the marvel
of adaptation.</p>
<p>So surely does Nature equip each
bird with an individuality that distinguishes
it from all others! Not only
have they common rules followed in
obedience to the law of instinct, but
each species has special gifts developed
according to the law of its
nature, a law of harmony so delicately
enforced that the law itself is not perceptible.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="INSECT_LIFE_UNDERGROUND" id="INSECT_LIFE_UNDERGROUND"></SPAN> INSECT LIFE UNDERGROUND.</h2>
<p class="ac">L. O. HOWARD, PH. D.,<br/>
<span class="smaller">Entomologist U. S. Department of Agriculture, and Curator
Department of Insects, U. S. National Museum.</span></p>
<div>
<ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t_alt.jpg" width-obs="73" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div>
<p class="drop-cap">THERE is an old German child's
story of a little girl who being
told that if she could find a
place to hide her first silver
piece where no eye could see her, and
then dance round it three times, she
would have her wish. She sought
everywhere for such a place, but always
some bird or squirrel or mouse or insect
was near by, and even when she
dug beneath the ground, there too
were little crawling creatures watching
her.</p>
<p>It may be said that this story was
meant to show that animal life is found
almost everywhere, and certainly beneath
the surface of the ground there
are hundreds of kinds of insects working
steadily away at their different
occupations; for whatever disagreeable
things you may find to say about insects,
you can never justly call them
lazy. The scriptures recognized this
fact in the well-known command to
the sluggard, and the old nursery rhyme
about the "busy bee" emphasizes the
same characteristic.</p>
<p>The truest underground insects are
those which pass their entire lives beneath
the surface of the earth; which
are born there, live and grow and die
without seeing the light of day. Such,
for example, are the true cave insects,
a number of forms of which are found
in the great caverns in different parts
of the world. Some of these insects
feed upon the vegetable molds and low
forms of plant life found in caves;
others feed on dead animal matter and
still others upon living insects. Nearly
all are of pale colors and are blind or
nearly so, for they have no use for eyes
in the darkness. All are supposed to
be descendants of above-ground forms,
which through many generations of
life in the darkness have lost their
color and their power of sight. The
genealogy of these true cave forms
may be guessed at with some certainty,
for we know insects which are only
partly transformed in structure from
above-ground forms to true cave
species. Such are certain beetles which
live in the catacombs of Paris, and certain
other insects which have been
found in the old and deep burrows of
the land tortoise in Florida.</p>
<p>But we do not have to go to caves to
find many other true underground insects.
Rich, loose soil abounds in such
creatures which live upon the decaying
vegetation (soil humus or vegetable
mold) or upon one another. The most
abundant in numbers of individuals are
the little spring-tails or bristle-tails,
minute creatures seldom more than a
sixteenth of an inch in length and
which frequently swarm in the ground
in such numbers that the earth seems
fairly alive. These little creatures are
by no means confined to the surface
soil, but have been found in great
armies at a depth of six feet or more
in stiff clay, which they have penetrated
by following the deeper rootlets
of trees. Certain of these little insects
have also become so accustomed to
this lightless life that they have lost
their eyes.</p>
<p>Other true underground insects are
found in the nests of ants, where they
fill many different functions. They
may be grouped, however as follows:
1. Species which are fed by the ants
and from which the ants derive a benefit
by eating a certain secretion of the
insect. 2. Species which are treated
with indifference by the ants and which
feed upon the bodies of dead ants and
other animal and vegetable debris to be
found in ants' nests. The ants are certainly
not hostile to these insects and
evidently gain some unknown benefit
from their presence. 3. Species which
live among the ants for the purpose of
killing and feeding upon them. The
first true ants' nest insect was only discovered
and studied at the beginning
of this century, but since that time
hundreds of other species have been
found, and a mere catalogue of their
names fills a book of over 200 pages.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="BEETLES.">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="7"><span class="ac w100 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_104.jpg" id="i_104.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_104.jpg" width="411" height="600" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="7" class="x-smaller ac">BEETLES.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w20">272.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w12"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w12"></td>
<td></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w12"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w12"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w20">CHICAGO:<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w20">(CHLAENIUS<br/>
SERICEUS.)</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w12">(LIBIA<br/>
GRANDIS.)</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w12">(CICINDELLA<br/>
REPANDA.)</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w12"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w12">(CICINDELLA<br/>
GUTTETA.)</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w12">(CICINDELLA<br/>
LECONTEI.)</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w20">(BRENTHOS<br/>
MANTIS.)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w22">(ALAUS<br/>
GARGOPS.)</td>
<td class="x-smaller al w10"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w16">(PASMACHUS<br/>
MARGINATUS.)</td>
<td class="x-smaller al w4"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w16">(NECROPHORUS<br/>
ORBICOLLIS.)</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w10"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w22">(DICAELUS<br/>
PURPURATUS.)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w22">(CALOSOMA<br/>
SCRUTATOR.)</td>
<td class="x-smaller al w10"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w16">(COTALPA<br/>
LANIGERA.)</td>
<td class="x-smaller al w4"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w16">(CYCHRUS<br/>
ANGUSTICOLLIE.)</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w10"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w22">(CALOSOMA<br/>
CALIDUM.)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="xx-smaller al w22">LUCANUS ELEPHAS (Male).</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w10"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w16"><br/>
</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w4">CYNASTES TITYUS.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w16"><br/>
</td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w10"></td>
<td class="xx-smaller al w22">PASSALUS CORNUTUS.<br/>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>Such insects are called "myrmecophilous
species" or "ant lovers." The
man who has done the most in the
study of these interesting creatures is
Dr. Wasmann, a Jesuit priest, who lives
in Holland, and who has devoted many
years to this work, and a difficult task
it has been! If one digs into an anthill
the inhabitants are at once alarmed
and the greatest confusion results, so
that it is necessary to study them in
artificial nests in glass jars, or in some
other way.</p>
<p>Although the most of these "ant-loving"
insects are strictly subterranean
species, living their whole lives
underground, the ants, among which
they live, do most of their foraging
above ground, and thus may be taken
as typical of a second group of underground
insects—those which have their
homes below ground for protection or
concealment, but which themselves
live, at least part of the time, above
ground. Volumes have been written
about the wonderful habits of ants, of
their community life, of the division of
labor among them, of their slave-making
customs, of their courage, patriotism,
and indefatigable industry, of
their highly developed instinct, which,
in fact, becomes real intelligence; so
that almost everyone knows the main
facts about these wonderful little insects,
and we can spend our time to better
advantage on those underground creatures
about which there is less general
information. It will suffice to say that
most ants have their nests, consisting
of tunnels and chambers, underground;
that there their queen lays her eggs
and the young are carefully tended by
workers until they have reached the
adult stage, and there the food is stored
for use in the winter months. There is
a curious kind of ant in the southwestern
states and Mexico called the
honey ant. Certain individuals in a
colony of these honey ants have enormously
distended stomachs and are fed
by the other ants with a kind of grape
sugar, or honey, during the summer,
as they hang suspended by their legs
from the roof of an underground chamber.
When winter comes the other ants
are fed by these honey-bearers, which
give put the stored-up honey from their
mouths drop by drop.</p>
<p>There is an interesting class of underground
insects which, in their early
stages, hide in especially dug pits and
lie in wait for their prey, but which,
when full grown, live above ground.
Such are the ant-lions and the tiger-beetles.
The young ant-lion is a
heavy-bodied, clumsy-looking creature,
with very long and sharp jaws, which
digs for itself a funnel-shaped pit in
loose, dry sand, using its flat head and
jaws as a spade in digging. Then it
hides itself at the bottom of the pit,
its body completely covered with the
sand, and waits until some unlucky little
insect comes along and stumbles
over the edge of the hollow. The side
of the hole is made at such an angle
that the sand slips down with the
weight of even an ant and carries it
towards the open jaws of the ant-lion.
Every struggle which the poor creature
makes to escape causes the sand to
slide down faster, and the ant-lion at
the bottom jerks up a shower of sand
with its head, which hastens the miniature
avalanche until the poor victim
is within reach of the powerful jaws
and is devoured. The adult ant-lion is
a beautiful, gauzy-winged creature, not
at all like its blood-thirsty larva.</p>
<p>The young tiger-beetle, or "doodle
bug," as it is called in the South,
digs a straight burrow in hard soil,
such a hole as would be made by pushing
a small lead pencil into the ground.
This creature, like the young ant-lion,
has a clumsy body and powerful jaws,
and on its back are two projections
armed with hooks which help it to
climb up and down in its burrow. It
waits for its prey at the mouth of its
hole, which it closes with its head, thus
making a sort of trap-door. The little
insect which steps upon this trap-door
doesn't have time to say its prayers
before it is devoured by the voracious
"doodle." Should a large, strong insect
walk over the burrow, the tiger-beetle
larva retreats precipitately to
the bottom of its hole, which is sometimes
eighteen inches below the surface
of the ground.</p>
<p>There are many other insects which,
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</SPAN></span>
when young, live below ground, and
become above-ground flying creatures,
when full grown, which have not the
carnivorous tastes of the forms we have
just mentioned. Many of these species
live on the roots of plants and others
upon the vegetable mold of rich soils.
The large white grubs so often found
in the soil of grass lands belong to
both of these classes. They are the
larvæ, or young, of several kinds of
the clumsy beetles known as scarabs.
The larvæ of the common brown May-beetles,
for example, are root-feeders,
living mainly on grass-roots, and they
are sometimes so abundant and destructive
as to destroy valuable lawns.
The roots are sometimes so uniformly
eaten off by these white grubs that the
sod may be rolled up like a roll of
carpet. The white grubs of the beautiful
large green beetles, known as June-beetles,
or fig-eaters, in the South (they
do not occur in the more northern
states), although they look almost precisely
like the May-beetle larvæ, are
not injurious and feed only upon the
vegetable mold of the soil. The wire-worms,
which are the young of the
click-beetles, or "snapping-bugs," feed
upon the roots of plants; there are
plant lice which live underground and
suck the sap from plant roots, like the
famous grape-vine phylloxera; there
are caterpillars which live almost
entirely underground and feed upon
living roots; there are maggots which
have the same habit; and there are
even bark lice or scale insects which
live attached to rootlets in the same
way that the other species live above
ground on the limbs and twigs of trees.</p>
<p>Other insects living above ground
all their lives hide their eggs underground.
Most grasshoppers, for example,
do this, and many of the closely
related crickets not only hide their
eggs in this way, but live underground
themselves in the day time, and come
forth at night to feed, or to collect
grass leaves, which they carry into
their burrows and eat at leisure. Other
insects also hide below ground during
the day and feed only at night. The
full grown May-beetles do this, and
the cut-worms also. The cut-worms
are soft-bodied caterpillars and are
greedily eaten by birds and carnivorous
insects, so it is essential to their safety
that they conceal themselves as much
as possible. There is an interesting
cut-worm which occasionally becomes
so numerous that it has to migrate in
great armies in search of food, and
these great masses of caterpillars hurry
on, driven by hunger, by day as well as
by night, followed by flocks of birds
and other enemies until the majority
of them are destroyed. This cut-worm
is generally called the "army worm."</p>
<p>Other caterpillars, while living above
ground and feeding on the leaves of
plants, instead of spinning cocoons for
their protection when they transform
to the helpless chrysalis or pupal condition,
burrow beneath the surface of
the ground and there transform without
a cocoon. Hundreds of species do
this and sometimes these brown pupæ
are so abundant that they are turned
up in numbers with every spadeful of
earth.</p>
<p>We are now able to say that the insects
found beneath the surface of the
earth are as follows:</p>
<p>1. Insects which live underground
during their whole lives, feeding (<i>a</i>)
on roots and rootlets; (<i>b</i>) on dead and
decaying vegetable matter; (<i>c</i>) on
other insects.</p>
<p>2. Insects which live in the nests of
ants.</p>
<p>3. Insects which have their nests
underground, but which get their food
elsewhere.</p>
<p>4. Insects which live underground
only in their younger stages of life.</p>
<p>5. Insects which hide their eggs or
pupæ underground.</p>
<p>6. Carnivorous insects, and insects
which feed on decaying animal matter,
which occasionally burrow underground
in search of food.</p>
<p>I hope it will be clear from what we
have said that insects must take an
important part in the changes in the
character of the soil which are constantly
going on, quite as important
indeed as do the earthworms about
which Darwin wrote.</p>
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