path: root/47952-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 47952 ***

  BIRDS AND ALL NATURE.

  ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY.

  VOL. V. MAY, 1899. NO. 5.




CONTENTS.


                                                   Page
  THE CEDAR WAXWING.                                193
  THE PREACHER-BIRD.                                194
  COFFEE.                                           197
  AN ABANDONED HOME.                                198
  THE CONY.                                         203
  COFFEE.                                           204
  THE TWO ACORNS.                                   210
  A DEFENSE OF SOME BIRDS.                          211
  MARCH AND MAY.                                    212
  BONAPARTE'S GULL.                                 215
  EGG COLLECTING.                                   216
  THE BABOON.                                       217
  THE SUMMER POOL.                                  218
  THE FEATHER CRUSADE.                              221
  GOD'S SILENCE AND HIS VOICES ALSO.                222
  THE OWLS' SANCTUARY.                              223
  THE WATER THRUSH.                                 227
  THE TARSIER.                                      228
  THE TRAILING ARBUTUS.                             229
  THE HAIRY-TAILED MOLE.                            230
  TREES.                                            233
  THE CINERARIA.                                    236
  INDEX VOL. V.
  INDEX VOLS. I., II., III., IV., V.                  i




  [Illustration: FROM COL. F. M. WOODRUFF.
                 5-99
                 CEDAR WAXWING.
                 5/7 Life-size.
                 COPYRIGHT 1899,
                 NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]

THE CEDAR WAXWING.
(_Ampelis cedrorum._)

LYNDS JONES.


There is no more beautiful bird in our northern states, if there be in
the whole country, than our waxwing. Many birds are more gorgeously
appareled, and with many there are more striking contrasts exhibited,
but nowhere do we encounter a texture more delicate covering a bearing
more courtly. One despairs of adequately describing the silky softness
of the plumage and the beautiful shades of color. But the perfecting
of color photography has made that task unnecessary. We may wonder
why some crested birds have this regal insignia bestowed upon them by
nature, but it would be impossible to think of the waxwing without
his crowning glory. Not less characteristic are the horny appendages
resembling red sealing wax attached to the secondary wing feathers and
sometimes also to the tail feathers. They seem to be outgrowths of the
tip of the shaft. These, with the yellow-tipped tail, form the only
bright colors in the plumage.

The cedar waxwings are gregarious, except during the breeding-season,
wandering about the country in flocks of a dozen individuals, more or
less, stopping for any considerable time only where food is plentiful.
Their wandering propensities make their presence a very uncertain
quantity at any season of the year. During the whole of 1898 they were
present in considerable numbers at Oberlin, Ohio, nesting in orchards
and shade trees plentifully, but thus far in 1899 very few have been
seen. No doubt their presence is not suspected even when they may be
numerous, because they do not herald their appearance with a loud
voice nor with whistling wing. Their voice accords perfectly with
their attire, their manners are quiet and unassuming, and their flight
is well-nigh noiseless. One moment the flock is vaulting through the
air in short bounds, the next its members are perched in a treetop
with erected crests at attention. If all is quiet without cause for
suspicion, the flock begins feeding upon the insect pests, if they are
in season; upon the fruit, if that is in season. So compact is the
flock, both in flight and while resting, that nearly every member might
be taken at a single shot. The birds are so unsuspicious that they can
easily be approached, thus presenting a tempting prize to the small
hunter who may design the beautiful plumage for some hat decoration.

In common with the goldfinch, the waxwings are late breeders, making
their nests in June, July, and August. They seem to prefer rather
small trees and low ones, nesting in orchard trees and in ornamental
shrubbery as well as in shade trees. The nest is not usually an
elaborate affair, but rather loosely made of twigs, grass, rootlets,
and leaves, often lined with grape-vine bark, thus hinting that the
species has sprung from an original tropical stock, which necessarily
makes its nest as cool and airy as practicable. The eggs are unique
among the smaller ones, in their steely bluish-gray ground, rather
evenly overlaid with dots and scratches of dark brown or black, thus
presenting an aggressiveness out of all harmony with the birds. But
the peculiar colors and pattern aid greatly in rendering the eggs
inconspicuous in the nest, as anyone may prove by noticing them as
they lie on their bed of rootlets or leaves. They are usually four in
number in this locality, but may vary somewhat according to the season
and individual characteristics.

The food of the waxwing is varied both according to season and other
conditions. Wild fruit, berries, and seeds form much of their food
during the fall and winter months. Mr. A. W. Butler states that,
"in winter nothing attracts them so much as the hack-berry (_Celtis
occidentalis_). Some years, early in spring, they are found living
upon red buds." The investigations of the food of this species by
Professor F. E. L. Beal prove that the greater share of it consists of
wild fruit or seeds with a very small allowance of cultivated fruits.
Animal matter forms a relatively small proportion of the food, but this
small proportion by no means indicates the insect-feeding habits of the
birds. It might well be suspected that so varied a diet would enable
the birds to accommodate themselves to almost any conditions, largely
feeding upon the food which happens to be the most abundant at the
time. Thus, an outbreak of any insect pest calls the waxwings in large
flocks which destroy great numbers to the almost entire exclusion of
fruit as a diet for the time. It cannot be denied that the waxwings
do sometimes destroy not a little early fruit, calling down upon them
righteous indignation; but at other times they more than make amends
for the mischief done.

Of the voice Mr. A. W. Butler says, "They have a peculiar lisping note,
uttered in a monotone varying in pitch. As they sit among the branches
of an early Richmond cherry tree in early June, the note seems to be
inhaled, and reminds me of a small boy who, when eating juicy fruit,
makes a noise by inhalation in endeavoring to prevent the loss of the
juice and then exclaims, 'How good!' As the birds start to fly, each
repeats the note three or four times. These notes develop into a song
as the summer comes on; a lisping, peculiar song that tells that the
flocks are resolving into pairs as the duties of the season press upon
them." After the pairing season there is a great show of affection
between the two birds, which often continues long after the nesting
season has closed.




THE PREACHER-BIRD.
(Red-eyed Vireo.)

JENNY TERRILL RUPRECHT.


Listen near a grove of elms or maples and you will not fail to hear
its song, a some what broken, rambling recitative, which no one has so
well described as Wilson Flagg, who calls this bird the preacher, and
interprets its notes as "_You see it! You know it! Do you hear me? Do
you believe it?_"--_Chapman's Bird-Life._

    Apostle of the grove across the way,
      Surpliced in color of the foliage,
    I list enchanted to thy sermon-lay,
      As if it were the wisdom of a sage;
    "_You see it! You know it! Do you hear me? Do you believe it?_"
      Ah! thou wouldst quicken memory to-day.

    Nor morning's chill, nor noon-tide's languorous heat,
      Doth hold thy voice in thrall, O, preacher fair;
    Perched on the greenest bough, thy message sweet
      Thou pourest out upon the vibrant air,
    "_You see it! You know it! Do you hear me? Do you believe it?_"
      Over and over in a swift repeat.

    Apostle of the grove! Thy song divine
      The God of Nature gave thee note by note,
    To gladder, fuller make the message thine,
    Rippling in beauty from thy dainty throat.
    "_You see it! You know it! Do you hear me? Do you believe it?_"
      Would that apostleship so sweet were mine!




COFFEE.

ANNA R. HENDERSON.


Coffee is a native of Abyssinia, being first used by the natives of the
district called Kaffa, whence its name. It is still found wild in parts
of Africa.

It was introduced into Arabia in the fifteenth century, and is so well
suited to that soil and climate that the Mocha coffee has never been
excelled. It became so popular that in 1638 the Mohammedan priests
issued an edict against it, as the faithful frequented the coffee shops
more than the mosques.

In 1638 the beverage was sold in Paris, but did not win favor for a
few years until it was introduced to the aristocracy by Soliman Aga,
the Ambassador of the Sublime Porte at the Court of Louis XIV. Coffee
sipping became fashionable, and before the middle of the seventeenth
century was the mode in all the capitals of Europe.

Cromwell ordered the closing of the coffee shops of England, but its
popularity did not wane.

In 1699 coffee was planted in Batavia and Java. In 1720 three coffee
shrubs were sent from the Jardin des Plantes in France to the Island of
Martinique.

The voyage was long, and water becoming scarce two of the plants
perished, but Captain Declieux shared his ration of water with the
other plant, and it lived to become the ancestor of all the coffee
groves in America.

On the coat of arms of Brazil which adorns every flag of that country
is a branch of coffee, a fit emblem, as Brazil produces three-fourths
of the coffee of the world. It was first planted there in 1754, and the
first cargo was shipped to the United States in 1809.

It can be grown from seeds or from slips. Shrubs begin bearing the
second or third year, and are profitable for fifteen years, some trees
continue bearing for twenty-five years.

They are planted six or eight feet apart, and not allowed to grow more
than twelve feet high; and are not pruned, so that the limbs bend
nearly to the ground. The long slender drooping branches bear dark
green, glossy leaves, directly opposite to each other. Between these
leaves bloom the flowers; clusters of five or six white star-shaped
blossoms, each an inch in diameter. These jessamine-like flowers touch
each other, forming a long snowy spray bordered with green. Nothing can
exceed the beauty of a coffee grove in bloom, and its fragrance makes
it a veritable Eden.

It is beautiful again when the berries are ripe. They resemble a large
cranberry, each berry containing two grains, the flat sides together.
The fruit is slightly sweet but not desirable. Three crops are gathered
in one year. I have in memory a coffee plantation in the mountains of
Brazil, where the pickers were African slaves. They made a picturesque
sight, picking into white sacks swung in front of them, occasionally
emptying the fruit into broad, flat baskets. Each man will pick more
than thirty pounds a day, and at sunset they wind down the mountain
paths with their broad baskets of red berries balanced on their heads.

The ripe fruit is put through a mill which removes the pulp. The wet
berries are then spread to dry in the sun on a floor of hardened earth,
brick or slate.

The coffee terrane in my memory was about eighty feet square, laid
with smooth slate, and slightly sloping. It had around it a moulding
of plaster with spaces of perforated zinc for the escape of water.
Orange and fig trees dropped their fruit over its border and it was an
ideal spot for a moonlight dance. The coffee house was near, and an
approaching cloud was a signal to gather the coffee in.

When dry the grains are put through a mill, or where primitive
methods prevail, pounded in a mortar to remove a thin brittle shell
which encloses each grain. The coffee is then put into sacks of five
_arrobas_, or 160 pounds each and carted to the warehouses of the city.




AN ABANDONED HOME.

BY ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE.

    "Say, was thy little mate unkind,
    And heard thee as the careless wind?
    Oh! nought but love and sorrow joined
      Such notes of woe could waken."


CHAPTER II.

"Well, I'm glad to get over to this tree again out of the sound of
mother's voice. Duty to my husband; that's all she could talk about.
All wives help to build the home-nest," she says, "and indeed do the
most toward making it snug and comfortable, and that I must give up my
old pastimes and pleasures and settle down to housekeeping. Well, if I
must, I must, but oh! how I wish I had never got married."

Not a word was exchanged between the pair that night, and on the
following morning Mrs. B., with a disdainful toss of her head,
ironically announced her willingness to become a hod-carrier, a mason,
or a carpenter, according the desires of her lord.

They elected to build their nest in the maple-tree, and you can imagine
the bickerings of the pair as the house progressed. Mrs. B's. groans
and bemoaning over the effect, such "fetchings and carryings" would
have upon her health, already delicate. How often she was compelled
from weakness and fatigue to tuck her head under her wing and rest,
while Mr. B. carried on the work tireless and uncomplaining.

"She may change when she has the responsibility of a family," he mused,
"and perhaps become a helpmeet after all. I must not be too severe with
her, so young and thoughtless and inexperienced."

So the nest at length was completed.

"My!" said a sharp-eyed old lady bird, whose curiosity led her to take
a peep at the domicile one day while Mrs. B. was off visiting with
one of her neighbors, "such an uncomfortable, ragged looking nest; it
is not even domed as a nest should be when built in a tree. And then
the lining! If the babies escape drowning in the first down-pour, I
am sure they'll be crippled for life, if not hung outright, when they
attempt to leave the nest. You know how dangerous it is when they get
their feet entangled in the rag ravelings and coils of string, and if
you'll believe me that shiftless Jenny has just laid a lot of it around
the edges of the nest without ever tucking it in. The way girls are
brought up now-a-days! Accomplishments indeed! I think," with a sniff,
"if she had been taught something about housekeeping instead of how to
arrange her feathers prettily, to dance and sing, and fly in graceful
circles it would have been much better for poor Mr. B. Poor fellow, how
I do pity him," and off the old lady flew to talk it over with another
neighbor.

Unlike some young wives of the sparrow family, Mrs. B. did not sit on
the first almost spotless white egg which she deposited in the nest,
but waited till four others, prettily spotted with brown, and black,
and lavender lay beside it.

"Whine, whine from morning till night!" cried her exasperated spouse
after brooding had begun. "Sitting still so much, you say, doesn't
agree with you. Your beauty is departing! You are growing thin and
careworn! The little outings you take are only tantalizing. I am sure
most wives wouldn't consider it a hardship to sit still and be fed
with the delicious grubs and dainty tidbits which I go to such pains
to fetch for you. That was a particularly fine grub I brought you this
morning, and you ate it without one word of thanks, or even a look of
gratitude. Nothing but complaints and tears! It is enough to drive any
husband mad. I fly away in the morning with a heavy heart, and when I
see and hear other sparrows hopping and singing cheerfully about their
nests, receiving chirps of encouragement and love from their sitting
mates in return, I feel as though--as though I would rather die than be
compelled to return to my unhappy home again."

"Oh, you do?" sarcastically rejoined Mrs. B. "That is of a piece with
the rest of your selfishness, Mr. Britisher, I am sure. Die and leave
me, the partner of your bosom, to struggle through the brooding season
and afterward bring up our large family the best I may. Oh," breaking
into tears, "I wish I had never seen you, I really do."

"Oh, yes, that has been the burden of your song for days, Mrs. B. I'm
sure I have no reason to bless the hour I first laid eyes on you. Why,
as the saying goes, Mrs. B., you threw yourself at my head at our very
first meeting. And your precious mamma! How she did chirp about her
darling Jenny's accomplishments and sweet amiability. Bah, what a ninny
I was, to be sure! Oh, you needn't shriek and pluck the feathers from
your head. Truth burns sometimes, I know, and--oh you are going to
faint. Well faint!" and with an exclamation more forcible than polite
Mr. B. flew away out of sight and sound of his weeping spouse.

Wearily and sadly did Mrs. B. gaze out of her humble home upon
darkening nature that evening. Many hours had passed since the flight
of Mr. B., and the promptings of hunger, if nothing else, caused her to
gaze about, wistfully hoping for his return. The calls of other birds
to their mates filled the air, and lent an additional mournfulness to
her lonely situation.

"How glad I shall be to see him," she thought, her heart warming toward
him in his absence. "I'll be cheerful and pretend to be contented after
this, for I should be very miserable without him. I have been very
foolish, and given him cause for all the harsh things he has said,
perhaps. Oh, I _do_ wish he would come."

Night came down, dark and lonely. The voices and whirrings of her
neighbors' wings had long since given place to stillness as one after
another retired for the night. The wind swayed the branches of the tree
in which she nested, their groanings and the sharp responses of the
leaves filling the watcher's mind with gloomy forebodings.

"I am so frightened," she murmured, "there is surely going to be a
storm. Oh, I wish I had listened to Mr. B. and not insisted upon
building our home in the crotch of this tree. He said it was not wise,
and that we would be much safer and snugger under the eaves or in a
hole in the wall or tree. But, no, I said, if I was compelled to stay
at home every day and sit upon the nest it should be situated where I
could look out and see my neighbors as they flew about. That was the
reason I was determined it should not be domed. I wanted to see and be
seen. Oh, how foolish I have been! What shall I do? What shall I do? I
am afraid to leave the nest even for a minute for fear the eggs will
get cold. Mr. B. would never forgive me, then, I am sure. But to stay
out here in the storm, all alone. Oh, I shall die, I know I shall."

Morning broke with all nature, after the rain, smiling and refreshed.
Sleep had not visited the eyelids of the forsaken wife and with heavy
eyes and throbbing brain, she viewed the rising dawn.

"Alas," she sighed, as the whirr of wings and happy chirps of her
neighbors struck upon her ears, "how can people be joyous when aching
hearts and lives broken with misery lie at their very thresholds?
The songs and gleeful voices of my neighbors fill me with anger and
despair. I hate the world and everybody in it. I am cold and wet and
hungry. I even hate the sun that has risen to usher in a new day.

"I must make an effort," she murmured as the morning advanced and Mr.
B. did not return, "and get home to mother. I am so weak I can scarcely
stand, much less fly. I am burning with fever, and oh, how my head
throbs! Such trouble and sorrow for one so young! I feel as though I
shall never smile again."

She steadied herself upon the edge of the nest and, turning, gazed
wistfully and sadly upon the five tiny eggs, which she now sorrowed to
abandon.

"I may return," she sighed, "in time to lend them warmth, or may find
my dear mate performing that office in my absence. I will pray that it
may be so as I fly. Praises would be mockery from my throat to-day,
mockery!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Why, Jenny!" shrieked her mother as Mrs. B. sank down exhausted upon
the threshold of her old home. "Whatever _is_ the matter with you, and
what has brought you here this time of day?"

"I am hungry and sick, mother, and I feel as though, as though--I am
going to die!"

"And where is Mr. Britisher? You've no business to be hungry with a
husband to care for you," tartly replied her mother, whilst bustling
about to find a grub or two to supply her daughter's wants.

"I have no husband, I fear, mother. He is--"

"Dead!" shrieked the old lady. "Don't tell me Mr. Britisher is dead!"

"Dead, or worse," sadly replied her daughter.

"Worse? Heaven defend us! You don't mean he has deserted you?"

"He left me yesterday afternoon in anger, and has not returned."

"Highty, tighty, that's it, is it? Well, you have brought it all upon
yourself and will have to suffer for it. I am sure your father talked
enough about idleness and vanity for you to have heeded, and time and
time again I have told you that every husband in the sparrow family is
a bully and a tyrant, and every wife, if she expects to live happily,
must let her mate have his own way."

Mrs. B. sighed, and wearily dropped her head upon her breast.

"You must go back," emphatically said her mother, "before the
neighborhood gets wind of the affair. Mr. Britisher may be home this
very minute, and glad enough he will be to see you, I am sure. So go
back, dear, before the eggs grow cold and your neighbors will be none
the wiser."

"I am going, mother, but oh, I feel so ill, so ill!" said the bereaved
little creature as she wearily poised for her flight.

"She does look weakly and sick, poor thing," said the mother with a
sigh watching her out of sight, "but I don't believe in interfering
between husband and wife. Mr. Britisher, indeed, gave me to understand
from the first that the less he saw of his mother-in-law the better,
remarking that if that class would only stay at home and manage their
own household affairs fewer couples, he thought, would be parted. I
considered that a rather broad hint, and in consequence have never
visited them since they began housekeeping. He has only gone off in a
huff, of course, and everything will come out all right, I am sure."

Ere nightfall, however, motherly anxiety impelled her to fly over to
her daughter's home.

Alas, only desolation and ruin were there. At the foot of the tree lay
the form of Mrs. B. Exposure, sorrow, and excitement had done their
work. It was a lifeless form which met her tearful gaze.

The fate of Mr. Britisher was never known. Rumor assigned his absence
to matrimonial infelicity, but his more charitable neighbors, as they
dropped a tear to his memory, pictured his mangled form a victim to the
wanton cruelty or mischievous sport of some idle boy.

A gentleman passing by one day saw the dismantled nest upon the ground
and carelessly stirred it with his cane.

"What is that, uncle?" queried a little maid of some five summers who
walked by his side.

"That, little one," came the answer slowly and impressively, "is an
abandoned home."

"An abandoned home," I repeated, as his words floated up to my window.
"Aye, truly to the casual observer that is all it seems, but, oh, how
little do they dream of the folly, the suffering, the sad, almost
tragic ending of the wee feathered couple whom I saw build that humble
home."




  [Illustration: FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
                 5-99
                 HYRAX.
                 3/4 Life-size.
                 COPYRIGHT 1899,
                 NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]

THE CONY.

C. C. M.


The specimen of this animal presented here (_Hyrax abyssinicus_) is
the best-known of the species. It measures from ten to twelve inches
in length; the fur consists of somewhat long, fine hairs, gray-brown
at the base, lighter gray in the middle portions, merging into a
dark-brown surmounted by a light-colored tip, the resulting general
color of this combination being a mottled pale-gray.

The Book of Proverbs, enumerating four animals which it describes as
"exceeding wise," says: "The conies are but a feeble folk, yet they
make their houses in the rocks." The conies are mentioned by various
writers as well-known animals in days of remotest antiquity. They are
found in the wild, desolate mountain regions of Africa and western
Asia, and the variety inhabiting Syria and Palestine is probably
referred to in the Hebrew text of the Bible under the name of "laphan,"
which Luther translated by the word, "rabbit," and in the authorized
and revised versions is rendered "cony." They inhabit all the mountains
of Syria, Palestine, and Arabia, perhaps also of Persia, the Nile
country, east, west, and south Africa, frequently at elevations of six
thousand or nine thousand feet above sea-level, and "the peaks and
cones that rise like islands sheer above the surface of the plains--the
presence of the little animals constituting one of the characteristic
features of the high table-lands of northeastern Africa." It is stated
that if the observer quietly passes through the valleys he sees them
sitting or lying in rows on the projecting ledges, as they are a lazy,
comfort-loving tribe and like to bask in the warm sunshine. A rapid
movement or unusual noise quickly stampedes them, and they all flee
with an agility like that usual among rodents, and almost instantly
disappear. A traveler says of them, that in the neighborhood of
villages, where they are also to be found, they show little fear of
the natives, and boldly attend to their affairs as if they understood
that nobody thinks of molesting them; but when approached by people
whose color or attire differs from that of their usual human neighbors,
they at once retreat to their holes in the rocks. A dog inspires them
with greater fear than does a human being. When startled by a canine
foe, even after they have become hidden, safe from pursuit, in their
rocky crevices, they continue to give utterance to their curious,
tremulous yell, which resembles the cry of small monkeys.

Brehm confirms the statement of another traveler, who called attention
to the striking fact that the peaceable and defenseless cony lives
in the permanent society and on the best of terms with a by no means
despicable beast of prey, a variety of mongoose.

In regard to their movements and mental characteristics, the conies
have been placed between the unwieldy rhinoceros and the nimble rodent.
They are excellent climbers. The soles of the feet are as elastic and
springy as rubber, enabling the animal to contract and distend the
middle cleft or fissure of its sole-pad at will, and thereby to secure
a hold on a smooth surface by means of suction. In behavior the conies
are gentle, simple, and timid. The social instinct is highly developed
in them, and they are rarely seen alone.

The conies have been regarded as the smallest and daintiest of all
the existing species of odd-toed animals. Naturalists, however, have
held widely divergent opinions as to the classification of the pretty
cliff-dwellers. Pallas, because of their habits and outward appearance,
called them rodents. Oken thought them to be related to the marsupials,
or pouched animals. Cuvier placed them in his order of "many-toed
animals," which classification has also been disputed, and Huxley has
raised them to the dignity of representatives of a distinct order. Who
shall decide where all pretend to know?




COFFEE.
(_Coffea Arabica L._)

DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER,
Northwestern University School of Pharmacy.

     "Directly after coffee the band began to play."
                                  --_Greville, Memoirs, June 5, 1831._


Coffee is the seed of a small evergreen tree or shrub ranging from 15
to 25 feet in height. The branches are spreading or even pendant with
opposite short petioled leaves, which are ovate, smooth, leathery, and
dark green. The flowers are perfect, fragrant, occurring in groups of
from three to seven in the axils of the leaves. The corolla is white,
the calyx green and small. The ovary is green at first, changing to
yellowish, and finally to deep red or purple at maturity. Each ovary
has two seeds, the so-called coffee beans.

The coffee tree is a native of the tropical parts of Africa, in
Abyssinia and the interior. The Arabians were among the first to
transport it to their native country for the purposes of cultivation.
From Arabia it was soon transplanted to other tropical countries.

The name coffee (_Kaffee_, Ger., _Cafféier_, Fr.) was supposed to have
been derived from the Arabian word _Kahwah_ or _Cahuah_, which referred
to the drink made from the coffee beans as well as to wines. It is now
generally believed that the word was derived from Kaffa, a country of
the Abyssinian highlands where the plant grows wild very abundantly.

From Kaffa the coffee plant found its way into Persia about the year
875, and still later into Turkey. According to popular belief, the
drink coffee was the invention of the Sheik Omar in 1258. Others
maintain that the drink was not known until even a later period. The
mufti, Gemal Eddin of Aden, made a trip to Persia in 1500, where he
learned the use of coffee as a drink, and introduced it into his own
country for the special purpose of supplying it to the dervishes
to make them more enduring in their prayers and supplications. In
1511 coffee had already become a popular drink in Mecca. About this
time Chair Beg, the governor of Mecca, issued an edict proclaiming
coffee-drinking injurious and making the use of coffee a crime against
the laws of the Koran. It was prophesied that on the day of judgment
the faces of coffee drinkers would be blacker than the pot in which
the coffee was made. As a result of this crusade the coffee houses
were closed; the coffee plantations were destroyed, and offenders were
treated to the bastinade or a reversed ride on a donkey. The next
governor of Mecca again opened the coffee houses, and in 1534 Sultan
Soliman opened the first coffee houses in Constantinople, which were,
however, again closed by Sultan Murad II., but not for long. In 1624
Venetian merchants brought large quantities of coffee into northern
Italy. In 1632 there were 1,000 public coffee houses in Cairo. In 1645
coffee-drinking had already become very common in southern Italy. A
Greek named Pasqua erected the first coffee house in London (1652).
Coffee houses appeared in other cities in about the following order:
Marseilles, 1671; Paris, 1672; Vienna, 1683; Nürnberg and Regensburg,
1686; Hamburg, 1687; Stuttgart, 1712; Berlin, 1721. In 1674 the ladies
of London petitioned the government to suppress the coffee houses. To
discourage the use of coffee it was maintained that the drink was made
from tar, soot, blood of Turks, old shoes, old boots, etc.

These coffee houses were of great significance, as may be gathered
from the rapidity with which they spread and the general favor with
which they were received. They were visited, not so much on account
of the drink that was dispensed there, but rather for the purpose
of discussing political situations; they constituted the favorite
meeting-places for anarchists, revolutionaries, and high-class
criminals. At times it even became necessary to close them entirely in
order to check or suppress political intrigues or plottings against the
government. At the present time the saloons take the place of coffee
houses in most countries, and many of them are still the hotbeds of
anarchy and crime. In Turkey, where alcoholic drinks are prohibited,
coffee houses have full swing.

The Dutch again seemed to have been the first to attempt the
cultivation of the coffee plant. In 1650 they succeeded in
transplanting a few trees from Mecca to Batavia. From 1680 to 1690
the island already had large plantations; others were soon started in
Ceylon, Surinam, and the Sunda islands. About 1713 Captain Desclieux
carried some plants to the French possessions of the West Indies
(Martinique). It is reported that only a single plant reached its
destination alive, which is the ancestor of the coffee trees of the
enormous plantations of the West Indies and South America.

The plant thrives best in a loamy soil in an average annual temperature
of about 27 degrees C., with considerable moisture and shade. Most
plantations are at an elevation of 1,000 feet to 2,500 above the
sea-level. In order to insure larger yields and to make gathering
easier the trees of the South American plantations are clipped so as to
keep their height at about 6 feet to 6.5 feet. The yield begins with
the third year and continues increasingly up to the twentieth year. The
fruit matures at all seasons, and is gathered about three times each
year. In Arabia, where the trees are usually not clipped, and hence
comparatively large, the fruit is knocked off by means of sticks. In
the West Indies and South America the red, not fully matured fruit is
picked by hand. The outer hard shell (fruit coat, pericarp) is removed
by pressure, rolling, and shaking. The beans are now ready for the
market.

All of the different varieties or kinds of coffee found upon the
market are from two species of _Coffea_; namely, _C. Arabica_ and
_C. Liberica_; the latter yielding the Liberian coffee, which is of
excellent quality.

There are a number of so-called coffees which are used as substitutes
for true coffee, of which the following are the more important.
California coffee is the somewhat coffee-like fruit of _Rhamnus
Californica_. Crust coffee is a drink resembling coffee in color, made
from roasted bread crusts steeped in water. Mogdad or Negro coffee
is the roasted seeds of _Cassia occidentalis_, which are used as a
substitute for coffee, though they contain no caffeine. Swedish coffee
is the seeds of _Astragalus Boeticus_ used as coffee, for which purpose
it is cultivated in parts of Germany and Hungary. Wild coffee is a name
given to several plants native in India, as _Faramea odoratissima_,
_Eugenia disticha_, and _Casearia laetioides_. Kentucky coffee is a
large leguminous tree (_Gymnocladus Canadensis_) of which the seeds
(coffee nut) are used as a substitute for coffee.

The coffee beans are roasted before they are in suitable condition
for use. At first the green beans were used. According to one story,
a shepherd noticed that some of his sheep ate the fruit of the
coffee tree, and, as a result, became very frisky. Presuming that
the coffee beans were the cause, he also ate of the beans and noted
an exhilarating effect. The use of the roasted beans was said to
have originated in Holland. Roasting should be done carefully in a
closed vessel in order to retain as much of the aroma as possible.
This process modifies the beans very much; they change from green or
greenish to brown and dark brown and become brittle; they lose about
15 to 30 per cent. of their weight, at the same time increasing in
size from 30 to 50 per cent. The aroma is almost wholly produced by
the roasting process, but if continued too long or done at too high
a temperature the aroma is again lost. The temperature should be
uniform and the beans should be stirred continually. It should also be
remembered that not all kinds or grades of coffee should be roasted
alike. In order to develop the highest aroma, Mocha coffee should be
roasted until it becomes a reddish yellow, and has lost 15 per cent of
its weight. Martinique coffee should be roasted to a chestnut brown,
with a loss of 20 percent in weight; Bourbon to a light bronze and a
loss in weight of 18 percent.

The various coffee drinks prepared differ very widely in quality. This
is dependent upon the varying methods employed in making them. The
following method is highly recommended. It is advised to purchase a
good quality of the unroasted beans and proceed as follows:

1. _Sorting Berries._--Carefully remove bad berries, dirt, husks,
stones, and other foreign matter usually present in larger or smaller
quantities.

2. _Roasting._--Roast as indicated above. Coat the hot beans with sugar
to retain the aromatic principles; cool rapidly and keep in a dry place.

3. _Grinding._--Grind fine just before the coffee is to be made.

4. _Preparing the Coffee._--Coffee is usually made according to three
methods; by infiltration, by infusion, and by boiling. Coffee by
infiltration is made by allowing boiling water to percolate through
the ground coffee. It is stated that much of the aroma is lost by this
method. In the second process boiling water is poured upon the ground
coffee and allowed to stand for some time. This gives a highly aromatic
but comparatively weak coffee. In the third process the coffee is
boiled for about five or ten minutes. This gives a strong coffee, but
much of the aroma is lost. Since these methods do not give an ideal
coffee an eminent authority recommends a fourth, as follows: For three
small cups of coffee take one ounce of finely ground coffee. Place
three-fourths of this in the pot of boiling water and boil for five or
ten minutes; then throw in the remaining one-fourth and remove from the
fire at once, stirring for one minute. The first portion of the coffee
gives strength, the second the flavor. It is not advisable to filter
the coffee as it is apt to modify the aroma. Allow it to stand until
the grounds have settled.

Coffee is very frequently adulterated, especially ground coffee. It
is stated that the beans have been adulterated with artificial beans
made of starch or of clay. It is not uncommon to find pebbles which
have been added to increase the weight. Most commonly the beans are
not carefully hulled and sorted so that a considerable percentage of
spoiled beans and hulls are present. The coffee plant seems to be
quite susceptible to the attacks of various pests. The coffee blight
is a microscopic fungus (_Hemileia vastatrix_) very common in Ceylon
which has on several occasions almost entirely destroyed the coffee
plantations. The coffee borer is the larva of a coleopter (_Xylotrechus
quadripes_) which injures and destroys the trees by boring into
the wood. The pest is most abundant in India, while another borer
(_Areocerus coffeæ_) is common in South Africa. Another destructive
pest is the so-called coffee bug (_Lecanium coffeæ_).

Ground coffee is adulterated with a great variety of substances. The
roasted and ground roots of chicory (_Cichorium intybus_), carrot
(_Daucus carota_), beet (_Beta vulgaris_), are very much used. The rush
nut (_Cyperus esculentus_), and peanut are also used. A large number of
seeds are used for adulterating purposes, as corn, barley, oats, wheat,
rye, and other cereals; further, yellow flag, gray pea, milk vetch,
astragalus, hibiscus, holly, Spanish broom, acorns, chestnuts, lupin,
peas, haricots, horse bean, sun flower, seeds of gooseberry and grape.
The seeds of _Cassia occidentalis_ known as "wild coffee" are used as a
substitute for coffee in Dominica and are said to have a flavor equal
to that of true coffee. Sacca or Sultan coffee consists of the husks
of the coffee berry, usually mixed with coffee and said to improve its
flavor. In Sumatra an infusion is made of the coffee leaves or the
young twigs and leaves. This is said to produce a refreshing drink
having the taste and aroma of a mixture of coffee and tea. Efforts have
been made, especially in England, to introduce leaf coffee with but
little success.

  [Illustration: FROM KOEHLER'S MEDICINAL-PFLANZEN.
                 5-99
                 COFFEE.]

     DESCRIPTION OF PLATE.

     _A_, twig with flowers and immature fruit, about natural size; 1,
     Corolla; 2, Stamens; 3, Style and stigma (pistil); 4, Ovary in
     longitudinal section; 5 and 6, Coffee bean in dorsal and ventral
     view; 7, Fruit in longitudinal section; 8, Bean in transverse
     section; 9, Bean sectioned to show caulicle; 10, Caulicle.

As already stated, most of the many varieties of coffee upon the market
are obtained from one species, and are usually classified according to
the countries from which they are shipped. The following are the most
important varieties:

  _I. African, or Ethiopian Coffee._

  1. Abyssinia.
  2. Galla.
  3. Kaffa.

  _II. Arabian, Levant, or Mocha Coffee._

  1. Bohuri.
  2. Sakki.
  3. Salabi.

  _III. Dutch Indian Coffee._

  1. Java.
  2. Batavia.
  3. Tscheribon.
  4. Samarang.
  5. Menado of the Celebes.
  6. Dadep of the Celebes.
  7. Sumatra.

  _IV. American Indian Coffee._

    1. Manila.
    2. Cavita.
    3. Laguna.
    4. Batanges.
    5. Mindanao.

  _V. French Indian, or Bourbon Coffee._

  _VI. English Indian Coffee._

    1. Nilgeri.
    2. Madras.
    3. Ceylon.
      _a._ Native.
      _b._ Plantation.

  _VII. West Indian and Central American
  Coffee._

    1. Cuba (Havana, Santiago.)
    2. Jamaica.
    3. Santa Lucia.
    4. Trinidad.
    5. Domingo.
    6. Porto Rico.
    7. Martinique.
    8. Guadelupe.
    9. Dominica.
   10. Granada.
   11. Costa Rica.
   12. Guatemala, Nicaragua, Salvador.

  _VIII. South American Coffee._

    1. Surinam.
    2. Berbice, Demerara.
    3. Venezuela, La Guayra, Caracas.
    4. Puerto Cabello, or Coast Porto Rico.
    5. Brazil.

Coffee owes its stimulating properties to an alkaloid caffeine which
occurs in the beans as well as in other parts of the plant. Caffeine
also occurs in other plants; it is the active principle in Guarana and
is perhaps identical with theine, the active principle of tea. It is
generally believed that moderate coffee-drinking is beneficial rather
than otherwise. It has ever been the favorite drink of those actively
engaged in intellectual work. It has been tested and found satisfactory
as a stimulant for soldiers on long or forced marches. Injurious
effects are due to excessively strong coffee, or a long-continued use
of coffee which has been standing for some time and which contains
considerable tannin. Caffeine has been found very useful in hemicrania
and various nervous affections. It has also been recommended in
dropsy due to heart lesion. Strong, black coffee is very valuable in
counteracting poisoning by opium and its derivatives. Coffee will
also check vomiting. Strong coffee is apt to develop various nervous
troubles, as palpitation of the heart, sleeplessness, indigestion,
trembling. According to one authority, it is the aromatic principle of
coffee which causes sleeplessness.




THE TWO ACORNS.

DR. CHARLES MACKAY.


    In ancient time, two acorns, in their cups,
    Shaken by winds and ripeness from the tree,
    Dropped side by side into the ferns and grass;
    "Where have I fallen--to what base region come?"
    Exclaimed the one. "The joyous breeze no more
    Rocks me to slumber on the sheltering bough;
    The sunlight streams no longer on my face;
    I look no more from altitudes serene
    Upon the world reposing far below--
    Its plains, its hills, its rivers, and its woods.
    To me the nightingale sings hymns no more;
    But I am made companion of the worm,
    And rot on the chill earth. Around me grow
    Nothing but useless weeds, and grass, and fern,
    Unfit to hold companionship with me.
    Ah, me! most wretched! rain and frost and dew
    And all the pangs and penalties of earth
    Corrupt me where I lie--degenerate."
    And thus the acorn made its daily moan.
    The other raised no murmur of complaint
    And looked with no contempt upon the grass
    Nor called the branching fern a worthless weed
    Nor scorned the woodland flowers that round it blew.

    All silently and piously it lay
    Upon the kindly bosom of the earth.
    It blessed the warmth with which the noonday sun
    Made fruitful all the ground; it loved the dews,
    The moonlight and the snow, the frost and rain
    And all the change of seasons as they passed.
    It sank into the bosom of the soil.
    The bursting life, enclosed within its husk,
    Broke through its fetters; it extended roots
    And twined them freely in the grateful ground;
    It sprouted up and looked upon the light;
    The sunshine fed it; the embracing air
    Endowed it with vitality and strength;
    The rains of heaven supplied it nourishment.
    And so from month to month, and year to year,
    It grew in beauty and in usefulness,
    Until its large circumference enclosed
    Shelter for flocks and herds; until its boughs
    Afforded homes for happy multitudes--
    The dormouse and the chaffinch and the jay
    And countless myriads of minuter life;
    Until its bole, too vast for the embrace
    Of human arms, stood, in the forest depths,
    The model and glory of the wood.
    Its sister acorn perished in its pride.




A DEFENSE OF SOME BIRDS.

ABBIE C. STRONG.

_To the Editor of Birds and All Nature:_


In the October number of BIRDS AND ALL NATURE was an article containing
a list of the enemies of song birds and ordering their banishment, if
one would enjoy the presence of the little songsters. Included in the
list were the blue jays. There was also an article entitled, "A new
Champion for the English Sparrow."

I always rejoice when someone comes forward in defense of the despised
class, finding them not wholly faulty. The same hand created all, and
surely each must be of some use. I feel like saying something in favor
of the blue jay. I am sure that all will acknowledge that the jay has
a handsome form and rare and beautiful plumage, which at least makes
him "a thing of beauty;" he may not be "a joy forever," but surely a
delight to the eye. Formerly my home was in northern Iowa, living many
years in one place in a town of about 6,000 inhabitants. Our lawn was
spacious for a town, filled with shrubbery and trees, both evergreen
and deciduous. We did not encourage cats, usually keeping dishes of
water here and there for the accommodation of the birds, and other
attractions which they seemed to appreciate, as numerous migratory
birds came each season, taking up their abode with us, to their evident
enjoyment and giving us much pleasure. The jays were always with us,
were petted and as they became friendly and tame, naturally we were
much attached to them. The limb of a tree growing very close to a back
veranda had been sawed off and a board nailed on the top forming a
table, where we daily laid crumbs and a number of jays as regularly
came after them. They were fond of meat and almost anything from the
table. I found the jay to be a provident bird; after satisfying his
appetite he safely buried the remainder of his food. I often noticed
them concealing acorns and other nuts in hollow places in the trees,
and noticed also that they were left till a stormy day which prevented
them from finding food elsewhere as usual. I saw one bury a bit of meat
under leaves near a dead flower twig; there came a rather deep fall
of snow that night, but the bird managed to find it the next day with
little difficulty and flew off with a cry of delight. The jay nested on
the grounds, but that did not seem to prevent other birds from coming
in great numbers and variety and making their little homes there also.
I recall one year which was but a repetition of most of the years. The
jays had a nest in a crab apple tree, a cat bird nested in a vine close
to the house, a robin came familiarly to one of the veranda pillars
in front of the house and built her solid nest of mud and grass. A
brown thrush took a dense spruce for her nesting-place. A blackbird,
to my surprise, built a nest in a fir tree. A grosbeak built a nest on
a swaying branch of a willow at the back of the lot, and a bluebird
occupied a little house we had put in a walnut tree for her convenience.

The orioles were always in evidence, usually making their appearance
in early May when the fruit trees were in bloom; first seen busily
looking the trees over for insects. Generally they selected an
outreaching branch of a cottonwood tree, often near where they could
be watched from a veranda, building their graceful nests and caring
for their little ones. The chattering little wrens never questioned
our friendliness, but always built loose little nests quite within our
reach, either in a box we provided for them or over the door; at the
same time others had their little homes in cozy places in the barn, or
in the loose bark of an old tree. Each bird attended to its own affairs
without perceptible molestation from others, as a rule. It was evident,
however, that the jays were not tolerated in company with other birds
to any great extent, and I fancy they had a rather bad reputation, for
I noticed the birds took a defensive position often when a jay made
its appearance near their homes without any apparent evil intent, that
I could discover. I would sometimes see as many as five varieties of
birds after one jay; they were always victors, too. The robin, I always
observed, could defend himself against a jay, never seemed afraid to
do so, and indeed seemed to be the aggressor. The blue jay may be a
sly bird, a "robber and a thief," though I never detected those traits
to any especial extent; but he is handsome and brightens the winter
landscape. To be sure, I found that he was fond of green peas and corn
and did not hesitate in helping himself, also sampling the bright
Duchess apples. The robin is equally fond of all small fruits, and
greedy as well.

The bluebirds came regularly in the early spring for years, then ceased
apparently when the sparrows made their appearance. The sparrows made
many attempts to usurp the little house provided especially for the
bluebird, but were not allowed to do so and never gained a footing on
the premises; still the little spring harbinger ever after kept aloof
from us. In the winter season the English sparrow came occasionally
to share the bluejays' tidbits, but was promptly repulsed, although
other birds came freely. The dainty little snowbird, several kinds of
woodpeckers, now and then a chickadee, and some other winter birds
came also. I had ways of enticing the birds to come near where I could
watch their habits and peculiarities. All birds fear cats. There are
cats and cats--some never molest birds or little chickens, but, as a
rule, they seem to be their natural enemies. Little boys, I am sorry to
say, cause great destruction of birds, often thoughtlessly, by trying
their marksmanship. I would banish every "sling shot!" It is even
worse than taking eggs, for they are generally replaced; but when the
mother-bird is taken a little brood is left helpless to suffer and die.
Thoughtful kindness towards little birds should be encouraged among
children. I would have one day each year devoted to the subject in all
public schools. It would bring birds under the observation of many who
otherwise would pass them by unnoticed, and when one takes an interest
in anything, be it flowers or birds, he or she is less likely to cause
their destruction.




MARCH AND MAY.


    "The brown, brown woods of March
      Are the green, green woods of May,
    And they lift their arms with a freer swing
      And shake out their pennons gay.
    And the brown, dead world of March
      Is the living world of to-day;
    Life throbs and flushes and flashes out
      In the color and fragrance of May."




  [Illustration: FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
                 5-99
                 BONAPARTE'S GULL.
                 4/9 Life-size.
                 CHICAGO COLORTYPE CO.
                 COPYRIGHT 1899,
                 NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]

BONAPARTE'S GULL.
(_Larus Philadelphia._)

LYNDS JONES.


The whole of North America is the home of this pretty little gull--from
the Bermudas to Labrador on the east, California to the Yukon on the
west, and from the Gulf of Mexico at least to the Arctic circle.
This species is often common near streams and other bodies of water
large enough to furnish their food of fish. I have often seen flocks
of twenty or more birds passing over central Iowa during the vernal
migrations, sometimes even stooping to snatch some toothsome grub from
the freshly turned furrow, but oftener sweeping past within easy range
in that lithe, graceful flight so characteristic of this small gull.
To the farm boy, shut in away from any body of water larger than an
ice pond, where no ocean birds could ever be expected to wander, the
appearance of this bird, bearing the wild freedom of the ocean in his
every movement, is truly a revelation. It sends the blood coursing
hotly through his veins until the impulse to get away into the broader
activities of life cannot be put down. I know not why it is, but some
birds, seen for the first time, seem to waft the perfume of an unknown
country to us, well-nigh irresistibly calling us away upon a new field
of exploration or endeavor.

The flight of Bonaparte's gull is worthy of careful study. In common
with the other members of the group of gulls, he progresses easily by
continuous leisurely wing beats, each stroke of the wings seeming to
throw the light body slightly upward as though it were not more than a
feather's weight. In the leisurely flight the watchful eye is turned
hither and thither in quest of some food morsel, which may be some
luckless fish venturing too near the surface of the water, or possibly
floating refuse. The flight is sometimes so suddenly arrested that the
body of the bird seems to be thrown backward before the plunge is
made, thus giving the impression of a graceful litheness which is not
seen in the larger birds of this group.

It is only in the breeding-plumage that this species wears the slaty
plumbeous hood. In the winter the hood is wanting, though it may be
suggested by a few dark spots, but there is a dusky spot over the ears
always. It seems doubtful if the birds attain the dark hood until the
second or third year, at which time they may be said to be fully adult.

It was formerly supposed that this gull nested entirely north of the
United States, but later investigations have shown that it nests
regularly in northern Minnesota and even as far south as the Saint
Clair Flats near Detroit, Mich. It may then be said to nest from the
northern United States northward to the limit of its range. It is rare
along the Alaskan coast of Bering Sea, and there seems to be no record
of it along the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

The nest is always placed in elevated situations, in bushes, trees,
or on high stumps, and is composed of sticks, grasses, and lined with
softer vegetable material. The eggs are three or four in number and
have the grayish-brown to greenish-brown color, spotted and blotched
with browns, which is characteristic of the gulls as a group.

While the gulls are fish-eaters and almost constantly hover above
the fishers' nets, often catching over again the fish which the
nets have trapped, we never hear of any warfare waged against them
by the fishermen. On the contrary, the gulls are always on the most
friendly terms with them, gladly accepting the fish found unworthy
of the market. But let a bird of whatever kind visit the orchard
or chicken-yard, for whatever purpose, and his life is not worth a
moment's consideration. We need again to sit at the feet of fishermen
as earnest inquirers.




EGG COLLECTING.

FRED MAY, School Taxidermist.

_To the Editor of Birds and All Nature:_


I am glad the magazine of birds is furnishing its readers so many
points about the good qualities of our birds. And as they are being
protected more every year by the state laws and by the lovers of birds,
I think they are sure to increase. I have often been asked about the
decrease in bird life. The blame is generally put on the taxidermist,
collector, sportsman, and schoolboy, which I claim is all wrong. The
taxidermist collector of to-day is a lover of bird-life, and only
hunts specimens to mount for a scientific purpose. This gives our
school children a better chance to study them. The schoolboy and girl
of to-day are doing great good in the protection of bird-life, and
your book of birds has a warm friend among them. The true sportsman
always lives up to the laws and takes a fair chance with dog and gun.
The plume and bird collector will soon be a thing of the past, as hats
trimmed with choice ribbons and jets are fast taking the place of those
covered with feathers and birds. Now the persons who hide behind all
these, and who destroy more bird-life in a single season than all the
hunters and collectors of skins, are never brought to the eyes of the
press. These are the people who have a fad for egg-collecting. They not
only rob the nest of its one setting, but will take the eggs as long
as the bird will continue to lay, and, not satisfied with that, will
take the eggs from every bird as long as they can find them. They will
even take the eggs after incubation has begun, and often-times, after
a hard climb for the eggs, will destroy the nest. There are thousands
upon thousands of settings of eggs of every kind taken every year by
these fad egg collectors and you will see in some of our magazines on
ornithology offers of from fifty to five hundred settings for sale.
Now, what is an egg to this egg collector? Nothing. But to the lover of
birds there is a great deal in that shell. There is a life; the song
of the woods and of the home. In that shell is the true and faithful
worker who has saved our farmers and our city homes and parks from
the plagues of insects that would have destroyed crops and the beauty
of our homes. Shall the law allow these nest-robbers to go on summer
after summer taking hundreds of thousands of settings? If it shall I
am afraid the increase in our bird-life will be slow. With the help
of our game wardens and sporting-clubs a great deal of this could be
stopped, and a great saving could be made in game birds' eggs. Our
country school children can protect our song birds' nests by driving
these collectors, with their climbing irons and collecting cans, from
their farms in the breeding-season. Yes, it often looks sad to see a
song bird drop at the report of the gun of the skin collector. But when
we think of the bird-egg collector sneaking like a thief in the night
up a tree or through a hedge, taking a setting of eggs on every side
while the frightened mother sits high in the tree above, and then down
and off in search of more, only to come back in a short time to take
her eggs again--what is bird-life to him? What would he care to be
sitting in the shade by the lake or stream listening to the song of the
robin, or after a hard day's work in the hot summer, be seated on his
porch to hear the evening song of the warbler and the distant call of
the whippoorwill? Let the lovers of bird-life commence with the spring
song, with the building of the nest, and save each little life they can
from the egg collector. Will this man, if he may be called a man, look
into his long drawers filled with eggs, and his extra settings for sale
and trade? Let him think of the life he has taken, the homes he has
made unhappy. I should think he would go like Macbeth from his sleep to
wash the blood from his hands.




  [Illustration: FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
                 5-99
                 COMMON BABOON.
                 1/3 Life-size.
                 COPYRIGHT 1899,
                 NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]

THE BABOON.


Naturalists seem to be agreed that the baboons (_cynocephalus_),
while one of the most remarkable groups of the monkey family, are the
ugliest, rudest, coarsest, and most repulsive representatives of it.
The animal stands in the lowest degree of development of the monkey
tribe, and possesses none of the nobler shapes and qualities of mind
of other species. Aristotle called the baboons dog-headed monkeys, on
account of the shape of their heads, which have a resemblance to that
of a rude, fierce dog.

The baboons are found throughout Africa, Arabia, and India. In the main
they are mountain monkeys, but also live in forests and are excellent
tree-climbers. In the mountains they go as high as nine thousand to
thirteen thousand feet above the sea-level, but give preference to
countries having an elevation of three thousand or four thousand feet.
Old travelers assert that mountainous regions are their true home.

The food of the baboons consists chiefly of onions, tubers, grass,
fruit, eggs, and insects of all kinds, but, as they have also a
greedy appetite for animal food, they steal chickens and kill small
antelopes. In plantations, and especially vineyards, they cause the
greatest damage, and are even said to make their raids in an orderly,
deliberate, and nearly military manner.

Brehm, who observed them closely, says that they resemble awkward dogs
in their gait, and even when they do stand erect they like to lean on
one hand. When not hurried their walk is slow and lumbering; as soon
as they are pursued, they fall into a singular sort of gallop, which
includes the most peculiar movements of the body.

The moral traits of the baboons are quite in accord with their external
appearance. Scheitlin describes them as all more or less bad fellows,
"always savage, fierce, impudent, and malicious; the muzzle is a coarse
imitation of a dog's, the face a distortion of a dog's face. The look
is cunning, the mind wicked. They are more open to instruction than
the smaller monkeys and have more common sense. Their imitative nature
seems such that they barely escape being human. They easily perceive
traps and dangers, and defend themselves with courage and bravery. As
bad as they may be, they still are capable of being tamed in youth,
but when they become old their gentle nature disappears, and they
become disobedient; they grin, scratch, and bite. Education does not
go deep enough with them. It is said that in the wild state they are
more clever; while in captivity they are gentler. Their family name is
'dog-headed monkeys.' If they only had the dog's soul along with his
head!" Another traveler says that they have a few excellent qualities;
they are very fond of each other and their children; they also become
attached to their keeper and make themselves useful to him. "But
these good qualities are in no way sufficient to counterbalance their
bad habits and passions. Cunning and malice are common traits of all
baboons, and a blind rage is their chief characteristic. A single word,
a mocking smile, even a cross look, will sometimes throw the baboon
into a rage, in which he loses all self-control." Therefore the animal
is always dangerous and never to be trifled with.

The baboons shun man. Their chief enemy is the leopard, though it
oftener attacks the little ones, as the old fellows are formidable
in self-defense. Scorpions they do not fear, as they break off their
poisonous tails with great skill, and they are said to enjoy eating
these animals as much as they do insects or spiders. They avoid
poisonous snakes with great caution.

This animal is said to be remarkable for its ability in discovering
water. In South Africa, when the water begins to run short, and the
known fountains have failed, it is deprived of water for a whole day,
until it is furious with thirst. A long rope is then tied to its
collar, and it is suffered to run about where it chooses. First it
runs forward a little, then stops, gets on its hind feet, and sniffs
the air, especially noting the wind and its direction. It will then,
perhaps, change its course, and after running for some distance take
another observation. Presently it will spy out a blade of grass, pluck
it up, turn it on all sides, smell it, and then go forward again. Thus
the animal proceeds until it leads the party to water. In this respect
at least, baboons have their uses, and on occasions have been the
benefactors of man.

The baboons have, in common with the natives, a great fondness for a
kind of liquor manufactured from the grain of the _durra_ or _dohen_.
They often become intoxicated and thus become easy of capture. They
have been known to drink wine, but could not be induced to taste
whisky. When they become completely drunk they make the most fearful
faces, are boisterous and brutal, and present altogether a degrading
caricature of some men.

As illustrating the characteristics of fear and curiosity in the
baboon, we will quote the following from the personal experience of Dr.
Brehm, the celebrated traveler. He had a great many pets, among others
a tame lioness, who made the guenons rather nervous, but did not strike
terror to the hearts of the courageous baboons. They used to flee at
her approach, but when she really seemed to be about to attack one of
them, they stood their ground fairly well. He often observed them as
they acted in this way. His baboons turned to flee before the dogs,
which he would set upon them, but if a dog chanced to grab a baboon,
the latter would turn round and courageously rout the former. The
monkey would bite, scratch, and slap the dog's face so energetically
that the whipped brute would take to his heels with a howl. More
ludicrous still seemed the terror of the baboons of everything
creeping, and of frogs. The sight of an innocent lizard or a harmless
little frog would bring them to despair, and they would climb as high
as their ropes would permit, clinging to walls and posts in a regular
fit of fright. At the same time their curiosity was such that they had
to take a closer look at the objects of their alarm. Several times he
brought them poisonous snakes in tin boxes. They knew perfectly well
how dangerous the inmates of these boxes were, but could not resist the
temptation of opening them, and then seemed fairly to revel in their
own trepidation.




THE SUMMER POOL.

BUCHANAN.


    There is a singing in the summer air,
    The blue and brown moths flutter o'er the grass,
    The stubble bird is creaking in the wheat,
    And, perched upon the honeysuckle hedge,
    Pipes the green linnet. Oh! the golden world--
    The star of life on every blade of grass,
    The motion and joy on every bough,
    The glad feast everywhere, for things that love
    The sunshine, and for things that love the shade.




THE FEATHER CRUSADE.

E. K. M.


Just as the Audubon societies and the appeals of humanitarians in
general have had some effect in lessening the demand for the aigrette
for millinery purposes, and their banishment, as officially announced,
from the helmets of the British army, there springs up a new fashion
which, if generally adopted, will prove very discouraging--especially
to the birds.

"She made a decided sensation last evening at the opera," says Miss
Vanity's fond mamma. "Those blackbirds with outspread wings at either
side of her head were simply fetching. They drew every lorgnette and
every eye in the house upon her. Not a woman of fashion, or otherwise,
I venture to say, will appear at a public function here-after without a
pair of stuffed birds in her hair."

A melancholy outlook truly, though as an onlooker expressed it, the
effect of the spreading wings was vastly more grotesque than beautiful.
The poor little blackbirds! Their destruction goes on without abatement.

"I like the hat," said a gentle-looking little lady in a fashionable
millinery establishment the other day, "but," removing it from her
head, "those blackbirds must be removed and flowers put in their place."

"A member of the Audubon Society, probably," queried the attendant,
respectfully.

"No," was the answer, "but for years the birds have been welcome
visitors at our country place, great flocks of blackbirds, especially,
making their homes in our trees. This year, and indeed the last, but
few appeared, and we have in consequence no love for the hunters
and little respect for the women who, for vanity's sake, make their
slaughter one of commercial necessity and greed."

'Tis said fashion is proof against the appeals of common sense or
morality, and one must accept the statement as true when, in spite of
all that has been said upon the subject, the Paris journals announce
that "birds are to be worn more than ever and blouses made entirely
of feathers are coming into fashion." The use of bird skins in Paris
for one week represent the destruction of one million three hundred
thousand birds; in London the daily importation ranges from three
hundred to four hundred thousand. It is honestly asserted that, in the
height of the season, fifty thousand bird skins are received in New
York City daily.

At the annual meeting of the Audubon Society of New York state a
letter was read from Governor Roosevelt in which he said that he fully
sympathized with the purpose of the society and that he could not
understand how any man or woman could fail to exert all influence in
support of its object.

"When I hear of the destruction of a species," he added, "I feel just
as if all the works of some great writer had perished; as if one had
lost all instead of only a part of Polybius or Livy."

Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke sent a letter in which he said the sight of an
aigrette filled him with a feeling of indignation, and that the skin
of a dead songbird stuck on the head of a tuneless woman made him hate
the barbarism which lingers in our so-called civilization. Mr. Frank M.
Chapman, at the same meeting, stated that the wide-spread use of the
quills of the brown pelican for hat trimming was fast bringing about
the extinction of that species.

    In front of my pew sits a maiden--
      A little brown wing in her hat,
    With its touches of tropical azure,
      And the sheen of the sun upon that.

    Through the bloom-colored pane shines a glory
      By which the vast shadows are stirred,
    But I pine for the spirit and splendor
      That painted the wing of that bird.

    The organ rolls down its great anthem,
      With the soul of a song it is blent,
    But for me, I am sick for the singing
      Of one little song that is spent.

    The voice of the curate is gentle:
      "No sparrow shall fall to the ground;"
    But the poor broken wing on the bonnet
      Is mocking the merciful sound.




GOD'S SILENCE AND HIS VOICES ALSO.

DR. N. D. HILLIS.


Nature loves silence and mystery. Reticent, she keeps her own counsel.
Unlike man, she never wears her heart upon her sleeve. The clouds that
wrap the mountain about with mystery interpret nature's tendency to
veil her face and hold off all intruders. By force and ingenuity alone
does man part the veil or pull back the heavy curtains. The weight of
honors heaped upon him who deciphers her secret writings on the rock or
turns some poison into balm and medicine, or makes a copper thread to
be a bridge for speech, proclaims how difficult it is to solve one of
nature's simplest secrets. For ages man shivered with cold, but nature
concealed the anthracite under thick layers of soil. For ages man
burned with fever, but nature secreted the balm under the bark of the
tree. For ages, unaided, man bore his heavy burdens, yet nature veiled
the force of steam and concealed the fact that both wind and river were
going man's way and might bear his burdens.

Though centuries have passed, nature is so reticent that man is still
uncertain whether a diet of grain or a diet of flesh makes the ruddier
countenance. Also it is a matter of doubt whether some young Lincoln
can best be educated in the university of rail-splitting or in a modern
college and library; whether poverty or wealth does the more to foster
the poetic spirit of Burns or the philosophic temper of Bach. In the
beautiful temple of Jerusalem there was an outer wall, an inner court,
"a holy place," and afar-hidden within, "a place most holy." Thus
nature conceals her secrets behind high walls and doors, and God also
hath made thick the clouds that surround the divine throne.


CONCEALMENTS OF NATURE.

Marvelous, indeed, the skill with which nature conceals secrets
numberless and great in caskets small and mean. She hides a habitable
world in a swirling fire-mist. A magician, she hides a charter oak and
acre-covering boughs within an acorn's shell. She takes a lump of mud
to hold the outlines of a beauteous vase. Beneath the flesh-bands of
a little babe she secretes the strength of a giant, the wisdom of a
sage and seer. A glorious statue slumbers in every block of marble;
divine eloquence sleeps in every pair of human lips; lustrous beauty
is for every brush and canvas; unseen tools and forces are all about
inventors, but they who wrest these secrets from nature must "work like
slaves, fight like gladiators, die like martyrs."

For nature dwells behind adamantine walls, and the inventor must
capture the fortress with naked fists. In the physical realm burglars
laugh at bolts and bars behind which merchants hide their gold and
gems. Yet it took Ptolemy and Newton 2,000 years to pick the lock
of the casket in which was hidden the secret of the law of gravity.
Four centuries ago, skirting the edge of this new continent, neither
Columbus nor Cabot knew what vast stretches of valley, plain, and
mountain lay beyond the horizon.

If once a continent was the terra incognita, now, under the microscope,
a drop of water takes on the dimensions of a world, with horizons
beyond which man's intellect may not pass. Exploring the raindrop with
his magnifying-glass, the scientist marvels at the myriad beings moving
through the watery world. For the teardrop on the cheek of the child,
not less than the star riding through God's sky, is surrounded with
mystery, and has its unexplored remainder. Expecting openness from
nature, man finds clouds and concealment. He hears a whisper where he
listens for the full thunder of God's voice to roll along the horizon
of time.




THE OWLS' SANCTUARY.

PROF. HENRY C. MERCER.


Seven bluish-white, almost spherical eggs, resting on the plaster floor
of the court-house garret, at Doylestown, Pennsylvania, caught the
eye of the janitor, Mr. Bigell, as one day last August he had entered
the dark region by way of a wooden wicket from the tower. Because the
court-house pigeons, whose nestlings he then hunted, had made the
garret a breeding-place for years, he fancied he had found another nest
of his domestic birds. But the eggs were too large, and their excessive
number puzzled him, until some weeks later, visiting the place again
(probably on the morning of September 20), he found that all the eggs
save one had hatched into owlets, not pigeons.

The curious hissing creatures, two of which seemed to have had a
week's start in growth, while one almost feather-less appeared freshly
hatched, sat huddled together where the eggs had lain, close against
the north wall and by the side of one of the cornice loop-holes left by
the architect for ventilating the garret. Round about the young birds
were scattered a dozen or more carcasses of mice (possibly a mole or
two), some of them freshly killed, and it was this fact that first
suggested to Mr. Bigell the thought of the destruction of his pigeons
by the parent owls, who had thus established themselves in the midst of
the latter's colony. But no squab was ever missed from the neighboring
nests, and no sign of the death of any of the other feathered tenants
of the garret at any time rewarded a search.

As the janitor stood looking at the nestlings for the first time, a
very large parent bird came in the loop-hole, fluttered near him and
went out, to return and again fly away, leaving him to wonder at the
staring, brown-eyed, monkey-faced creatures before him. Mr. Bigell
had thus found the rare nest of the barn owl, _Strix pratincola_, a
habitation which Alexander Wilson, the celebrated ornithologist, had
never discovered, and which had eluded the search of the author of
"Birds of Pennsylvania." One of the most interesting of American owls,
and of all, perhaps, the farmer's best friend, had established its home
and ventured to rear its young, this time not in some deserted barn of
Nockamixon swamp, or ancient hollow tree of Haycock mountain, but in
the garret of the most public building of Doylestown, in the midst of
the county's capital itself. When the janitor had left the place and
told the news to his friends, the dark garret soon became a resort for
the curious, and two interesting facts in connection with the coming
of the barn owls were manifest; first, that the birds, which by nature
nest in March, were here nesting entirely out of season--strange to
say, about five months behind time; from which it might be inferred
that the owls' previous nests of the year had been destroyed, and
their love-making broken up in the usual way; the way, for instance,
illustrated by the act of any one of a dozen well remembered boys who,
like the writer, had "collected eggs;" by the habitude of any one of a
list of present friends whose interest in animals has not gone beyond
the desire to possess them in perpetual captivity and watch their sad
existence through the bars of a cage; or by the "science" of any one of
several scientific colleagues who, hunting specimens for the sake of a
show-case, "take" the female to investigate its stomach.

Beyond the extraordinary nesting date, it had been originally noticed
that the mother of the owlets was not alone, four or five other barn
owls having first come to the court-house with her. Driven by no one
knew what fate, the strange band had appeared to appeal, as if in a
body, to the protection of man. They had placed themselves at his mercy
as a bobolink when storm driven far from shore lights upon a ship's
mast.

But it seemed, in the case of the owls, no heart was touched. The
human reception was that which I have known the snowy heron to receive,
when, wandering from its southern home, it alights for awhile to cast
its fair shadow upon the mirror of the Neshaminy, or such as that
which, not many years ago, met the unfortunate deer which had escaped
from a northern park to seek refuge in Bucks County woods. At first it
trusted humanity; at last it fled in terror from the hue and cry of men
in buggies and on horseback, of enemies with dogs and guns, who pursued
it till strength failed and its blood dyed the grass.

So the guns of humanity were loaded for the owls. The birds were too
strange, too interesting, too wonderful to live. The court house was no
sanctuary. Late one August night one fell at a gun shot on the grass
at the poplar trees. Then another on the pavement by the fountain.
Another, driven from its fellows, pursued in mid air by two crows,
perished of a shot wound by the steps of a farm-house, whose acres it
could have rid of field mice.

The word went out in Doylestown that the owls were a nuisance. But we
visited them and studied their ways, cries, and food, to find that they
were not a nuisance in their town sanctuary.

In twenty of the undigested pellets, characteristic of owls, left
by them around the young birds, we found only the remains, as
identified by Mr. S. N. Rhoads of the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia, of the bones, skulls, and hair of the field mouse
(_Microtus pennsylvanicus_) and star nose mole (_Condylura cristata_).
"They killed the pigeons," said someone, speaking without authority,
after the manner of a gossip who takes away the character of a neighbor
without proof. But they had not killed the pigeons. About twelve pairs
of the latter, dwelling continually with their squabs in the garret,
though they had not moved out of the particular alcove appropriated by
the owls, had not been disturbed. What better proof could be asked that
THE BARN OWL IS NOT A POULTRY DESTROYER?

It was objected that the owls' cries kept citizens awake at night.
But when, one night last week, we heard one of their low, rattling
cries, scarcely louder than the note of a katydid, and learned that
the janitor had never heard the birds hoot, and that the purring and
hissing of the feeding birds in the garret begins about sundown and
ceases in the course of an hour, we could not believe that the sleep of
any citizen ever is or has been so disturbed.

When I saw the three little white creatures yesterday in the
court-house garret, making their strange bows as the candle light
dazzled them, hissing with a noise as of escaping steam, as their brown
eyes glowed, seemingly through dark-rimmed, heart-shaped masks, and as
they bravely darted towards me when I came too near, I learned that one
of the young had disappeared and that but one of the parent birds is
left, the mother, who will not desert her offspring.

On October 28 two young birds were taken from their relatives to
live henceforth in captivity, and it may be that two members of the
same persecuted band turned from the town and flew away to build the
much-talked-of nest in a hollow apple tree at Mechanics' Valley. If so,
there again the untaught boy, agent of the mother that never thought,
the Sunday school that never taught, and the minister of the Gospel
that never spoke, was the relentless enemy of the rare, beautiful, and
harmless birds. If he failed to shoot the parents, he climbed the tree
and caught the young.

If the hostility to the owls of the court house were to stop, if the
caged birds were to be put back with their relatives, if the nocturnal
gunners were to relent, would the remaining birds continue to add an
interest to the public buildings by remaining there for the future as
the guests of the town? Would the citizens of Doylestown, by degrees,
become interested in the pathetic fact of the birds' presence, and
grow proud of their remarkable choice of sanctuary, as Dutch towns are
proud of their storks? To us, the answer to these questions, with its
hope of enlightenment, seems to lie in the hands of the mothers, of the
teachers of Sunday schools, and of the ministers.




  [Illustration: FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
                 5-99
                 GRINNELL'S WATER THRUSH.
                 Life-size.
                 COPYRIGHT 1899,
                 NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]

THE WATER THRUSH.

C. C. MARBLE.

    I never see a skylark fly
    Straight upward, singing, to the sky,
    Or hear the bobolink's glad note
    Issue with frenzy from his throat,
    As though his very heart would break
    In bars of music, but straight
    I think, brave, happy bridegrooms they,
    And this must be their wedding-day.
                                        _C. C. M._


The water thrush (_Seiurus noveboracensis_) has so many popular names
that it will be recognized by most observers by one or more of them.
It is called small-billed water-thrush, water wagtail, water kick-up,
Besoy kick-up, and river pink (_Jamaica_), aquatic accentor, and New
York aquatic thrush. It is found chiefly east of the Mississippi River,
north to the Arctic coast, breeding from the north border of the
United States northward. It winters in more southern United States,
all of middle America, northern South America, and all of West Indies.
It is accidental in Greenland. In Illinois this species is known as
a migrant, passing slowly through in spring and fall, though in the
extreme southern portion a few pass the winter, especially if the
season be mild. It frequents swampy woods and open, wet places, nesting
on the ground or in the roots of overturned trees at the borders of
swamps. Mr. M. K. Barnum of Syracuse, New York, found a nest of this
species in the roots of a tree at the edge of a swamp on the 30th of
May. It was well concealed by the overhanging roots, and the cavity
was nearly filled with moss, leaves, and fine rootlets. The nest at
this date contained three young and one egg. Two sets were taken,
one near Listowel, Ontario, from a nest under a stump in a swamp, on
June 7, 1888; the other from New Canada, Nova Scotia, July 30, 1886.
The nest was built in moss on the side of a fallen tree. The eggs are
creamy-white, speckled and spotted, most heavily at the larger ends,
with hazel and lilac and cinnamon-rufous.

As a singer this little wagtail is not easily matched, though as it is
shy and careful to keep as far from danger as possible, the opportunity
to hear it sing is not often afforded one. Though it makes its home
near the water, it is sometimes seen at a considerable distance from it
among the evergreen trees.




THE TARSIER.


Along with Tagals, Ygorottes, and other queer human beings Uncle Sam
has annexed in the Philippine islands, says the Chronicle, is the
tarsier, an animal which is now declared to be the grandfather of man.

They say the tarsier is the ancestor of the common monkey, which is the
ancestor of the anthropoid ape, which some claim as the ancestor of man.

A real tarsier will soon make his appearance at the national zoological
park. His arrival is awaited with intense interest.

Monsieur Tarsier is a very gifted animal. He derives his name from the
enormous development of the tarsus, or ankle bones of his legs. His
eyes are enormous, so that he can see in the dark. They even cause him
to be called a ghost. His fingers and toes are provided with large
pads, which enable him to hold on to almost anything.

Professor Hubrecht of the University of Utrecht has lately announced
that Monsieur Tarsier is no less a personage than a "link" connecting
Grandfather Monkey with his ancestors. Thus the scale of the evolution
theorists would be changed by Professor Hubrecht to run: Man, ape,
monkey, tarsier, and so on, tarsier appearing as the great-grandfather
of mankind.

Tarsier may best be described as having a face like an owl and a body,
limbs, and tail like those of a monkey. His sitting height is about
that of a squirrel. As his enormous optics would lead one to suppose,
he cuts capers in the night and sleeps in the daytime, concealed
usually in abandoned clearings, where new growth has sprung up to a
height of twenty feet or more. Very often he sleeps in a standing
posture, grasping the lower stem of a small tree with his long and
slender fingers and toes. During his nightly wanderings he utters a
squeak like that of a monkey. During the day the pupils of his eyes
contract to fine lines, but after dark expand until they fill most
of the irises. From his habit of feeding only upon insects he has a
strong, bat-like odor.

John Whitehead, who has spent the last three years studying the animals
of the Philippines, foreshadows the probable behavior of the tarsier
when he arrives at the national "zoo." The Philippine natives call the
little creature "magou."

"In Samar," says Mr. Whitehead, in a report just received at the
Smithsonian, "where at different times I kept several tarsiers alive,
I found them very docile and easily managed during the day. They feed
freely off grasshoppers, sitting on their haunches on my hand. When
offered an insect the tarsier would stare for a short time with its
most wonderful eyes, then slowly bend forward, and, with a sudden
dash, would seize the insect with both hands and instantly carry it to
its mouth, shutting its eyes and screwing up its tiny face in a most
whimsical fashion. The grasshopper was then quickly passed through the
sharp little teeth, the kicking legs being held with both hands.

"When the insect was beyond further mischief the large eyes of the
tarsier would open and the legs and wings were then bitten off, while
the rest of the body was thoroughly masticated. My captive would also
drink fresh milk from a spoon. After the sun had set this little
animal became most difficult to manage, escaping when possible and
making tremendous jumps from chair to chair. When on the floor it
bounded about like a miniature kangaroo, traveling about the room on
its hind legs with the tail stretched out and curved upward, uttering
peculiar, shrill, monkeylike squeaks and biting quite viciously when
the opportunity offered."




THE TRAILING ARBUTUS.

WILLIAM K. HIGLEY.

    Thou dainty firstling of the spring,
    Homage due to thee, I bring.

    The faintest blushes of the morn
    Do tint thy petals and adorn,

    And thy fine perfume, sweetly faint,
    Is like the breathings of a saint.

    Oh my sweet! how fair thou art;
    How chaste and pure thy dewy heart!

    Thou poem of perfumed grace,
    Dear hope and truth beam from thy face.

    I drink deep draughts of joyfulness,
    And bow before thy loveliness.
                                     --_Albert C. Pearson._

The great heath family (_Ericineæ_) are scattered over many parts
of the world, and include a great variety of plants, many like the
American laurel (_Kalmia_) being large shrubs or small trees. Others
are much smaller, and among the smallest plants, there is none more
beautiful and universally loved than the charming trailing arbutus
(_Epigæa repens_).

Those who are fortunate enough to live in the localities where it is
found have the rare pleasure of searching for the early blossoms, which
prefer to nestle cosily at the foot of the evergreen trees, though they
are sometimes found in the open.

The late snows may even cover the blooms, but when their delicate heads
are peering through, we know that winter has fled, and that the snow
mantle is only a cast-off garment which, too, will slip away, dissolved
by the long rays of the early spring sunshine.

In New England the trailing arbutus is called May flower, and in other
places is known as the ground laurel. Its scientific name (_Epigæa
repens_) is from two Greek words, _epigæa_, meaning "upon the earth,"
and _repens_, "trailing, or creeping."

The word arbutus is from the Latin, meaning a tree, and is first
applied to another tribe of the same family, and is pronounced with the
accent on the first syllable--_ar_butus. This must not be confounded
with the trailing arbutus, where usage allows the accent on the second
syllable--ar_bu_tus (_Standard Dictionary_) and whose characteristics
are very different.

The trailing arbutus is a native of the eastern portion of North
America, but is found as far west as Wisconsin. It grows among the
rocks, or in a sandy soil, as in Michigan, and it blossoms from March
until May, though April is its chosen month.

The flowers are sometimes pure white though usually beautifully tinged
with various shades of pink and red, and though really forming terminal
clusters, they are apparently clustered in the axils of the evergreen
and leathery leaves.

The leaves may be oval or orbicular, and the stems which are tough and
hairy grow to the length of six to fifteen inches.

The fragrance of the flower is very strong and attractive, though its
strength varies with its locality and with the character of the soil in
which it grows, and it is especially fine when growing under evergreen
trees.

The stamens of the flower are interesting to the botanist as they vary
greatly, apparently to insure cross-fertilization.

A study of this species, as well as of plant-life in general, teaches
us that nature abhors self-fertilization and, as a rule, so develops
plants that two individuals of the same species are essential to the
production of seed.

This species especially enjoys nature, and is not easily cultivated.
A few florists have succeeded in producing mature plants with fair
results, but it may be stated that even transplanting, with much soil
attached to the roots, to a soil identical with the native, results in
a weakened development.

The trailing arbutus is greatly loved by the poet and writer, and has
received many tributes from gifted pens.

Donald G. Mitchell, in speaking of the desolation of earliest spring,
tells us that "the faint blush of the arbutus, in the midst of the
bleak March atmosphere will touch the heart like a hope of heaven, in a
field of graves."




THE HAIRY-TAILED MOLE.


In the March number of BIRDS AND ALL NATURE the common American mole,
which is the most common species in the eastern portion of the United
States, is described, and the habits of moles, which are identical,
were rather fully set forth. The hairy-tailed mole (_Scapanus breweri_)
is found principally in the western part of the United States.

This little animal has so many enemies besides man, as polecats,
owls, ravens, storks, and the like, who watch it as it throws up its
hillocks, that it is a wonder it has not been exterminated. It betrays
its home by its own handiwork, as it is obliged constantly to construct
new hillocks in order to earn its living. These hillocks always
indicate the direction and extent of its hunting-grounds. The little
weasels pursue it in its conduits, where it also frequently falls
a prey to the adder. Only foxes, weasels, hedgehogs, and the birds
already mentioned, eat it.

"Take the mole out of its proper sphere," says Wood, "and it is
awkward and clumsy, but replace it in the familiar earth, and it
becomes a different being--full of life and energy, and actuated by
a fiery activity which seems quite inconsistent with its dull aspect
and seemingly inert form. The absence of any external indication of
eyes communicates a peculiar dullness to the creature's look, and the
formation of the fore-limbs gives an indescribable awkwardness to its
gait. In the ground only is it happy, for there only can it develop
its various capabilities. No one can witness the eagerness with which
it flings itself upon its prey, and the evident enjoyment with which
it consumes its hapless victim without perceiving that the creature is
exultantly happy in its own peculiar way. His whole life is one of
fury, and he eats like a starving tiger, tearing and rending his prey
with claws and teeth. A mole has been seen to fling itself upon a small
bird, tear its body open, and devour it while still palpitating with
life. 'Nothing short of this fiery energy could sustain an animal in
the life-long task of forcing itself through the solid earth.'"

The hidden habitation of the mole is described as a nearly spherical
chamber, the roof of which is nearly on a level with the earth around
the hill, and therefore situated at a considerable depth from the apex
of the heap. Around this are driven two circular galleries--one just
level with the ceiling, and the other at some height above. The upper
circle is much smaller than the lower. Five short, descending passages
connect the galleries with each other, but the only entrance into the
inner apartment is from the upper gallery, out of which three passages
lead into the ceiling. It will be seen, therefore, that when a mole
enters the house from one of its tunnels, it has first to get into the
lower gallery, to ascend thence to the upper gallery, and so descend
into its chamber. There is another entrance from below, however, by a
passage which dips downward from the center of the chamber, and then,
taking a curve upward, opens into one of the larger tunnels.

The mole comes from the earth with unsoiled fur, which is due in part
to the peculiar character of the hair, and partly to strong membraneous
muscles beneath the skin, by means of which the animal gives itself a
frequent and powerful shake.

  [Illustration: FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
                 5-99
                 HAIRY-TAILED MOLE.
                 Life-size.
                 COPYRIGHT 1899,
                 NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]




TREES.

W. E. WATT.

    Woodman, spare that tree!
        Touch not a single bough!
    In youth it sheltered me,
        And I'll protect it now.
                                        --_Morris._

    The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
    Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees;
    Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
    Supreme in state; and in three more decays.
                                        --_Dryden._


Sunlight and moisture fall upon the earth and find it full of germs of
life. At once growths begin each after its own kind. There is such a
multitude of them that they have not yet been counted. Each locality
has forms peculiar to itself. The places most abundantly watered have
different forms from those less favored by rain and dew, and those
receiving more heat and sun allow more luxuriant growths than others if
the water supply is large.

The business of life and growth is mostly carried on by means of water
set in motion and sustained by heat. Those forms of life which reach
highest above the surface of the earth are called trees. They are
always striving to see what heights they can attain. But the different
forms of life have limits set them which they cannot pass. The
structure of one tree is limited to carrying its top twenty feet from
the ground, that of another is so favored that it can reach twice that
height, and others tower high above us and stand for centuries.

But the same tree does not flourish with the same vigor in different
places. The nourishment of the soil may favor it or poverty dwarf its
growth. Moisture and heat must be supplied or the growth will be slight.

I have stood upon the thick tops of cedar trees on high places in
the White mountains near the tree-line. Towards the summit the trees
diminish in size until they become veritable dwarfs. They are stunted
by the cold. They shrink aside or downward trying to find shelter from
the angry winds that are so cutting. Diminutive tree trunks are found
that have curled themselves into sheltering crannies of rock and grown
into such distorted shapes that they are gathered as curiosities.

The last trees to give up the fight on Mount Adams are the cedars
of which I speak. They hug the rock for the little warmth that may
be lurking there in remembrance of the sun's kindly rays; they mat
themselves together and interlock their branches so as to form a
springy covering to the whole ground. One may lie down upon their tops
as upon a piece of upholstery, and in the openings below are rabbits
and woodchucks and sometimes bears safely hidden from the view of the
hunter.

From these ground-hugging trees of the mountain-tops to the great
redwoods of our western slopes the mind passes the entire range of tree
life. No trees are so great as our redwoods, though in Australia the
eucalyptus reaches higher with a comparatively slender trunk. Where the
forests are thickest, and the growth of the trees consequently tallest,
the eucalyptus towers sometimes four or five hundred feet towards the
sky.

The shrinking of mountain trees where the rock affords some warmth and
shelter is shown on a larger scale in the forms of trees that stand at
the edge of a forest. Where a stream divides the forest we find the
trees upon the bank reaching out their branches and spreading luxuriant
foliage over the water, because the open air in that direction helps
the growth of leaves and twigs. Shade trees by the road-side reach
out towards the open space of the road and grow one-sided because the
conditions of light and air are better over the road than against the
buildings or other trees that are behind them.

The prevailing winds of any country bend the trees largely in one
direction. In the vicinity of Chicago, where the return trade winds
blow day after day from the southwest, we find the willows of the
prairie all bending their heads gracefully to the northeast.

The relations between trees and the fertility of the country around
them is a matter of deep interest to man. Portions of France have been
productive and afterwards barren because of the abundance of the trees
at first and their having afterwards been cut down to supply the wants
of man, who desired their material and the ground on which they stood.
The rivers of Michigan are not navigable now in some instances where
once they were deep with water. The destruction of the forests to
supply the lumber and furniture markets of the world has caused less
rain to fall, and the snows of winter which formerly lay late in spring
beneath the forests now melt at the return of the sun in the early
months and are swept with the rush of high water away to the great
lakes. Many of the barren wastes in Palestine and other countries,
which in olden times blossomed as the rose, have lost their glory with
the destruction of their trees.

Men have learned something of the value of the trees to a fertile
country and the science of forestry has arisen, not only to determine
the means of growing beautiful and useful trees, but also to court the
winds of heaven to drop their fatness upon the soil. In the state of
Nebraska 800,000,000 planted trees invite the rain and the state is
blessed by the response.

Man used to worship the forest. The stillness and the solemn sounds
of the deep woods are uplifting to the soul and healing to the mind.
The great gray trunks bearing heavenward their wealth of foliage, the
swaying of branches in the breeze, the golden shafts of sunlight that
shoot down through the noonday twilight, all tend to rest the mind from
the things of human life and lift the thoughts to things divine.

The highest form of architecture practiced on earth is the Gothic,
which holy men devised from contemplation of the lofty archings of
trees and perpetuated in the stone buildings erected to God in western
Europe through the centuries clustering around the thirteenth.

Trees afford hiding and nesting places for many birds and animals.
Their cooling shelter comforts the cattle; they furnish coursing-places
among their branches for the sportive climbing-animals, and their
tender twigs give restful delight to the little birds far out of reach
of any foe.

Man has always used the trees for house building; his warmth is largely
supplied from fires of wood and leaves; from the days when Adam and Eve
did their first tailoring with fig leaves, the trees have been levied
upon for articles of clothing till now the world is supplied with
hats of wood, millions of buttons of the same material are worn, and
the wooden shoes of the peasantry of Europe clump gratefully over the
ground in acknowledgment of the debt of mankind to the woods.

Weapons of all sorts, in all ages, have been largely of wood. Houses,
furniture, troughs, spoons, bowls, plows, and all sorts of implements
for making a living have been fashioned by man from timber. Every
sort of carriage man ever devised, whether for land or water travel,
depended in its origin upon the willing material the trees have
offered. Although we now have learned to plow the seas with prow of
steel and ride the horseless carriage that has little or no wood about
it, yet the very perfection of these has arisen from the employment of
wood in countless experiments before the metal thing was invented.

Our daily paper is printed from the successors of Gutenberg's wooden
type, upon what seems to be paper, but is in reality the ground-up and
whitened pulp of our forest trees. Our food is largely of nuts and
fruits presented us by the trees of all climes, which are yet brought
to our doors in many instances by wooden sailing-vessels, whose sails
are spread on spars from our northern forests.

The baskets of the white man and the red Indian are made from the
materials of the forest. Ash strips are pounded skillfully and
readily separate themselves in flat strips suitable for weaving
into receptacles for carrying the berries of the forest shades or
the products of the soil, whose richness came by reason of the
long-standing forests which stood above it and fell into it for
centuries.

Whoever has tried to stopper a bottle when no cork was at hand knows
something of the value of one sort of trees. He who has lain upon a bed
of fever without access to quinine knows more of the debt we owe the
generous forests that invite us with their cooling branches and their
carpeted, mossy floors. The uses of rubber to city people are almost
enough to induce one to remove his hat in reverence to the rubber
tree; the esteem we have for the products of the sugar maple and the
various products of the pine in their common forms of tar, pitch, and
turpentine, as well as in their subtler forms, which are so essential
to the arts and sciences, contributing to our ease, comfort, and
elegance, should cause us to cherish the lofty pine and the giant maple
with warmest gratitude.

Perhaps the most refined of the pleasures of man is found in the
playing of musical instruments. There is not one of the sweeter-toned
of all the vast family of musical instruments that is not dependent on
the sympathetic qualities of the various woods. The violin shows the
soul of this material in its highest refinement. No other instrument
has so effectually caught the tones of the glorious mountain and the
peaceful valley as has the choicely selected and deftly fashioned shell
of the fiddle. It awakens all the fancies of a lifetime in one short
hour, it brings gladness to the heart and enlivens the whole frame,
and when the master hand brings out from its delicate form the deeper
secrets of its nature the violin brings tears to our eyes and inspires
within us an earnestness of purpose which is a perpetual tribute of the
soul of man to the heart of the forest.

I took a spring journey once from the heart of old Kentucky through
some of the northern states around to the eastward to Virginia. The
dogwood was in blossom south of the Ohio. The forests and hillsides
were set forth here and there in bridal array by the glad whiteness
of myriads of these delicate flowers. Through Ohio and Indiana the
peach trees were putting forth their delicate pink blossoms that
sought us out in the cars and delighted us with their rare fragrance.
In Pennsylvania we passed out of the peach region, and I thought the
mountains could not give flowers to match the loveliness experienced
on the two preceding days, but when we were running adown the "blue
Juniata river" there burst upon me the purple radiance of the ironwood
that I had entirely forgotten as a flowering tree of beauty. Brighter
than the peach and softer than the dogwood it stood out against the
foliage of the stream and hillside. It followed the railway all down
the Susquehanna across the line into Maryland, and gave me joy until it
was lost again as the warmth of the southern sun poured itself again
before my eyes upon the purity and simplicity of the snowy dogwood.

And in the fall I once passed through the hills of New York and
Massachusetts. It was Thanksgiving Day. The matchless American forests
were then in their greatest glory. Every hill seemed to have brought
out its choicest holiday garment and was calling for admiration. So
richly blended are the reds, the yellows, and the greens that one
cannot see how people can do business with such delights for the eye
spread out before them. Why they do not come en masse and join in this
holiday of the trees is more than I can understand. It seems as if the
Creator of heaven and earth had reserved for the home of liberty the
most gorgeous colorings that prismatic light is susceptible of bearing,
and thrown them all down in luxurious profusion for the delectation of
the people who should shake off the man-serving spirit and come here to
breathe the air of freedom and rejoice with nature through the ten days
of her gorgeous Thanksgiving time.




THE CINERARIA.

PROF. WILLIAM K. HIGLEY,
Secretary Chicago Academy of Sciences.


In the early days of the Columbian Exposition, before people had ceased
to wonder at the unexpected and unusual sights, there were beautiful
displays of plants in flower, on a scale never before attempted, at
least in this part of the world.

Those wise enough to respond to the invitation to visit the long, low
green houses in Jackson Park, before the more pretentious Horticultural
Building was ready for use, will never forget the royal mass of
blossoms which greeted their eyes as they passed through long aisles of
bloom.

The announcement that the cineraria was on exhibition meant little to
many, but to those who found their way to the park during the chilly
spring days and patiently trudged over unfinished paths, and through
rubbish and incompleteness, the announcement opened the door to a sight
so wonderfully fine and complete, so astonishing, and so delightful,
that to look was to exclaim and admire, and to admire was to remember,
and, months after, to long for another sight of that billowy mass of
pinky-purplish bloom.

The Compositæ, the family of plants to which the cinerarias belong,
contains about seven hundred and sixty genera and over ten thousand
species, embracing approximately one-tenth of all the flowering forms.
This is the largest family of plants and includes the goldenrod, the
sunflower, the aster, the chrysanthemum, the thistle, the lettuce, the
dandelion, and many others. The species are widely distributed, though
more common in temperate or hot regions, the largest number being
found in the Americas.

Though a family of herbs, there are a few shrubs and in the tropics a
small number of trees. The cultivated forms are numerous, and some are
among our most beautiful fall plants.

The flowers are collected together in heads, and sometimes are of two
kinds (composite). Using the sunflower for an example we find a disk
of tubular flowers in the center and, growing around it, a row of
strap-shaped flowers, while in the dandelion they are all strap-shaped,
and in some other species all are tubular.

The cineraria is an excellent illustration of the composite form, which
bears both kinds of flowers.

The name cineraria (Latin, _cinerarius_, from _cinis_, ashes) was given
to these plants because of the grayish down that covers the surface of
the leaves.

The cinerarias form a large genus of practically herbaceous plants, and
are chiefly natives of southern Africa and southern and eastern Europe.
The varieties vary greatly from white to pinkish-purple and through
various shades to dark, bluish-purple.

They are quite easily cultivated, but are house plants in temperate
latitudes. They are peculiarly liable to attacks of insects, plant-lice
(_Aphides_) being especially an enemy.

The florist's varieties are chiefly produced from the species
_Cineraria cruenta_. Beautiful hybrids have been developed from this
and other species, and the flower certainly deserves the popularity it
has attained through sterling merit.

  [Illustration: FROM NATURE BY CHICAGO COLORTYPE CO.
                 5-99
                 CINERARIA.
                 Life-size.
                 COPYRIGHT 1899,
                 NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]




INDEX.

VOLUME V.--JANUARY, 1899, TO MAY, 1899, INCLUSIVE.


  Acorns, Two, 210

  Animals, Among, 185

  Animals, Hibernation of, 84

  Arbutus, The Trailing, 229

  Athena, The Birth of, 29

  Azalea, The, 143


  Baboon (_Cynocephalus babuin_), 217

  Bat, The Hoary (_Atalapha cinerea_), 166

  Bees, About, 17

  Birds, Defense of Some, 211

  Birds, Migratory, 37

  Birds that Do Not Sing, 188

  Bird Life, Destruction of, 109

  Birds as Shepherds, 20

  Bluebird, The, 181

  Boarder, A Transient, 101

  Bread Crumbs, The Charity of, 115

  Busybodies, Little, 113

  Butternut, The (_Juglans cinerea_), 96


  Cineraria, 236

  Cloves (_Eugenia caryophyllata Thunberg_), 121

  Cocoa-nut (_Cocos nucifera_), 95

  Coffee, 197

  Cony, The (_Hyrax_), 203

  Crusade, The Feather, 221


  Desert, The Ship of the, 37


  Eagle, The, 24 and 36

  Egg Collecting, 216


  Fashions, Spring, 186

  Feathers, 161

  February, 73

  Flowers, The Language of, 74

  Fox, The Kit (_Vulpes velox_), 182


  Ginger (_Zingiber Officinale Roscoe_), 49

  God's Silence and His Voices Also, 222

  Grape, The, 178

  Gull, Bonaparte's (_Larus philadelphia_), 215


  Hare, Epitaph of a, 98

  Hare, The Northern Prairie (_Lepus campestris_), 106

  Helpless, The, 72

  Holly Tree, The, 12

  Home, An Abandoned, 150 and 198

  Humor, A Vein of, 125

  Hyacinth, The (_Hyacinthus orientalis_), 191


  Ibis, The White (_Guara alba_), 71

  Iris, The (_Iris versicolor_), 74


  Kangaroo, The, 157


  Lemon, The, 13

  Little Billee, The Story of, 41


  Merganser, The Hooded (_Lophodytes cucullatus_), 118

  Mistletoe, The (_Phoradendron flavescens_), 22

  Mole, Common American (_Scalops aquaticus_), 133

  Mole, The Duck, 80

  Mole, The Hairy-tailed (_Scapanus breweri_), 230

  Mountain Lion (_Felis Concolor_), 10


  Nature at First Hand, 175

  Noses, 65

  Nutmeg, The (_Myristica fragrans Hantheyn_), 145

  Nuts, 26


  Oak, The, 134

  Opossum, The Crab-eating (_Philander philander_), 59

  Owl, The American Barn (_Strix pratincola_), 155

  Owls, 78

  Owls' Sanctuary, The, 223


  Peacock, The, 77

  Pine, The Edible, 96

  Pineapple, The (_Ananassa sativa_), 110

  Pool, The Summer, 218

  Pokagon, Chief Simon, 173

  Preacher Bird, The, 194

  Puma (_Felis concolor_), 10


  Quadrille, The Quails', 176

  Quarrel between Jenny Wren and the Flycatchers, 192


  Redbreast, Invitation to the, 158


  Sandhill crane, The (_Grus Mexicana_), 46

  Sap Action, 54

  Seeds, How Birds Carry, 37

  Skin, 137

  Snapping Turtle, The (_Chelydra serpentina_), 38

  Snowflakes, 89

  Spring, The Coming of, 168

  Springtime, A, 156

  Study, A Window, 90

  Squirrel's Use of His Tail, 103


  Tarsier, The, 228

  Tess (_Simia troglodytes_), 1

  Thrush, The Water (_Seiurus novebora censis_), 227

  Tongues, 5

  Trees, 233

  Trumpeters, The, 120

  Tufted Titmouse, The (_Parus bicolor_), 97

  Turgenief, Prose Poems of Ivan, 180

  Turtle, The Geographic (_Malacoclemmys geographicus_), 62


  Vultures, Vision and Scent of, 163


  Walnut, The Black (_Juglans Nigra_), 96

  Warning, A Timely, 89

  Washington and Lincoln, 60

  Warbler, The Nashville (_Helminthophila rubricapella_), 169

  Warbler, The Cape May (_Dendroica tigrina_), 86

  Wax Wing, Cedar (_Ampelis cedrorum_), 193

  Whip-poor-will, 2 and 34

  Wild Animals, Taming the Smaller, 127

  Woodchuck, The (_Arctomys monax_), 130

  Woodmen, Five Little, 91

  Woodpecker Story, Emerson and the, 56




INDEX "BIRDS AND ALL NATURE" VOLS. I., II., III., IV., V.

*Indicates Illustrations.


  Acorns, Two                                    Vol. v. 210

  Alaska, Birds of                               Vol. iv. 95

  *Almond, Flowering                            Vol. iv. 193

  All Nature                                     Vol. iv. 37

  *Anhinga, or Snake Bird                    Vol. ii. 26, 27

  Animals and Music                             Vol. iv. 159
    Hibernation of                                Vol. v. 84
    Some Propensities of                         Vol. iv. 81
    Rights                                      Vol. iv. 225

  *Antelope, The Pigmy                       Vol. iv. 94, 95

  *Apple Blossoms                                Vol. iv. 36
    Blossom Time                               Vol. iii. 153

  *Arbutus, The Trailing                         Vol. v. 229

  Armadillo                                Vol. iv. 146, 147

  Athena, The Birth of                            Vol. v. 29

  Audubon, John James                           Vol. ii. 161
    Society, One                               Vol. iii. 234

  Aviaries                                Vol. iii. 121, 122

  *Avocet, American                          Vol. ii. 14, 15

  *Azalea, The                                   Vol. v. 143

  Azamet, the Hermit, and His Dumb Friends       Vol. iv. 33


  *Baboon                                        Vol. v. 217

  *Bat, Black                              Vol. iv. 170, 171

  *Bat, The Hoary                                Vol. v. 166
    *Red                                   Vol. iv. 170, 171

  Bees, About                                     Vol. v. 17
    Lovers, Some                               Vol. iii. 100

  Bird Life, Destruction of                      Vol. v. 109
    Day                                         Vol. iii. 82
    Only a                                      Vol. iii. 73
    The Mound                                  Vol. iii. 114
    Superstitious                              Vol. iii. 172
    Song                                    Vol. i. 187, 188
    Song                              Vol. ii. 1, 17, 41, 57
    Study, The Fascinations of                 Vol. iii. 164
    *of Paradise, The King            Vol. iv. 124, 126, 127
    Day in the Schools                      Vol. i. 129, 138

  Birds in Captivity                            Vol. ii. 121
    Answer                                      Vol. iii. 83
    in the Iliad                                Vol. iv. 234
    of Prey, Useful                              Vol. iv. 88
    Hints on the Study of Winter               Vol. iii. 109
    and Farmers                                  Vol. i. 213
    of Passage                                  Vol. ii. 173
    Pairing in Spring                          Vol. iii. 189
    Interesting Facts About                    Vol. iii. 100
    The Return of the                            Vol. i. 101
    Foreign Song Birds in Oregon               Vol. iii. 123
    and Animals of the Philippines               Vol. iv. 48
    of Bethlehem                                Vol. ii. 223
    Migratory                                     Vol. v. 37
    that Do Not Sing                             Vol. v. 188
    Defense of Some                              Vol. v. 211

  *Bittern, Least                           Vol. iii. 46, 47

  *Black Bird, Red-winged                 Vol. i. 64, 68, 71

  *Blue Bird, Mountain                     Vol. ii. 203, 205
    The                                          Vol. v. 181
    *                                     Vol. i. 75, 76, 78

  Boarder, A Transient                           Vol. v. 101

  *Bobolink                               Vol. i. 92, 93, 94

  *Bob White                        Vol. iii. 16, 18, 19, 34

  Buddha, The Youth of                         Vol. iii. 237

  *Bunting, Indigo                               Vol. i. 172
    *Lazuli                           Vol. ii. 196, 198, 199

  *Butterflies               Vol. iv. 63, 103, 145, 183, 223

  Butterfly, The                                Vol. iv. 142

  *Butternut, The                                 Vol. v. 96


  *Cactus                                  Vol. iv. 210, 211
    Captives Escape                             Vol. ii. 116

  *Catbird                                   Vol. i. 18, 186

  *Chat, Yellow-breasted              Vol. ii. 236, 238, 239

  *Chickadee, Black-capped             Vol. i. 161, 165, 168

  *Chimney Swift                           Vol. ii. 131, 133

  Christmas Trees                               Vol. iv. 220

  Christmas, Where Missouri Birds Spend         Vol. iii. 84

  *Cineraria                                     Vol. v. 236

  *Cloves                                        Vol. v. 121

  *Cocoa-nut                                      Vol. v. 95

  *Cock of the Rock                           Vol. i. 19, 21

  *Cockatoo, Rose                       Vol. iii. 29, 30, 31

  *Coffee                                        Vol. v. 197

  Color Photographs and Conversation Lessons    Vol. iv. 194

  *Cony, The                                     Vol. v. 203

  *Coot, American                       Vol. iii. 96, 98, 99

  Count, Can Animals?                           Vol. iv. 180

  *Crane, Sandhill                                Vol. v. 46

  *Creeper, Brown                    Vol. iii. 212, 214, 215

  *Crossbill, American                      Vol. i. 126, 127

  *Crow, American                        Vol. i. 97, 98, 100

  Crusade, The Feather                           Vol. v. 221

  *Cuckoo, Yellow-billed                     Vol. ii. 94, 95


  *Dickcissel                        Vol. iii. 146, 147, 149

  *Duck, Golden-eye, American                   Vol. iv. 230

  *Duck, Bald Pate                      Vol. iii. 48, 50, 51
    American Golden-eye                         Vol. iv. 230
    *Black                                  Vol. iii. 86, 87
    *Canvas-back                             Vol. ii. 18, 20
    *Mallard                             Vol. ii. 10, 11, 13
    *Mandarin                               Vol. i. 8, 9, 11
    *Old Squaw                            Vol. iii. 223, 225
    *Pintail                         Vol. iii. 176, 178, 179
    *Red Head                              Vol. iv. 150, 151
    *Wood                                Vol. ii. 21, 23, 24

  *Dolphin, Bottlenose                     Vol. iv. 134, 135

  *Dove, Mourning                          Vol. ii. 111, 113


  Eagle, The                                  Vol. v. 24, 36
    *Bald-headed                            Vol. ii. 2, 3, 5

  Ears                                          Vol. iv. 121

  Egg Collecting                                 Vol. v. 216

  *Eggs                         Vol. iii. 154, 155, 195, 235

  Eyes                                          Vol. iv. 117


  Fashions, Spring                               Vol. v. 186

  Feathers                                       Vol. v. 161

  Feathers or Flowers?                         Vol. iii. 180

  *Finch, Purple                            Vol. iii. 54, 55

  *Flicker                                    Vol. i. 89, 90

  *Flamingo                                Vol. ii. 218, 221

  Flowers, The Language of                        Vol. v. 74

  *Fly-catcher, Arkansas                  Vol. iii. 230, 231
    *Scissor-tailed                         Vol. i. 161, 163
    *Vermillion                            Vol. ii. 192, 193

  *Fox, American Gray                 Vol. iv. 105, 106, 107
    *The Kit                                     Vol. v. 182
    *Red                                 Vol. iv. 66, 67, 69


  Gallinule, Purple                         Vol. i. 120, 121

  *Ginger                                         Vol. v. 49

  God's Silence and His Voices Also              Vol. v. 222

  *Gnatcatcher, Blue-gray                   Vol. iii. 94, 95

  *Goldenrod                               Vol. iv. 154, 155

  *Goldfinch, American                Vol. ii. 128, 129, 130

  *Goose, Canada                     Vol. iii. 208, 210, 211
    *White-fronted,                   Vol. ii. 166, 168, 169

  *Grackle, Bronzed                   Vol. ii. 228, 230, 231

  *Grape, The                                    Vol. v. 178

  *Grebe, Pied-billed                  Vol. i. 134, 135, 137

  *Grosbeak, Evening                     Vol. ii. 68, 70, 71
    *Rose-breasted                          Vol. i. 113, 115

  *Grouse, Black                           Vol. ii. 217, 220
    *Dusky                                Vol. iii. 150, 151
    *Prairie Sharp-tailed                  Vol. iv. 166, 167
    *Ruffed                                 Vol. i. 218, 220

  *Gull, Bonaparte's                             Vol. v. 215
    *Herring                                 Vol. iv. 86, 87
    *Ring-billed                            Vol. i. 198, 199


  Halo, The                                      Vol. i. 150

  Hare, Epitaph of a                              Vol. v. 98

  *Hare, The Northern Prairie                    Vol. v. 106

  *Hawk, Marsh                              Vol. i. 158, 159
    *Night                             Vol. i. 175, 176, 178
    *Red-shouldered                      Vol. iv. 96, 98, 99
    *Sparrow                         Vol. iii. 105, 106, 107

  *Hen, Prairie                                  Vol. iv. 18

  *Heron, Black-crowned                     Vol. i. 196, 197
    *Great Blue                      Vol. iii. 190, 191, 193
    *Snowy                                   Vol. ii. 38, 39

  Holly Tree, The                                 Vol. v. 12

  Home, An Abandoned                        Vol. v. 150, 198

  How the Birds Secured Their Rights            Vol. ii. 115

  Humming Birds                       Vol. iv. 216, 218, 219

  *Humming Bird, Allen's                   Vol. ii. 210, 211

  *Humming Bird, Ruby-throated         Vol. ii. 97, 100, 103

  Humor, A Vein of                               Vol. v. 125

  *Hyacinth                                      Vol. v. 191


  *Ibis, The White                                Vol. v. 71

  *Ibis, White-faced Glossy               Vol. iii. 226, 227

  Instinct and Reason                            Vol. iv. 73

  *Iris                                           Vol. v. 74


  *Jay, American Blue                         Vol. i. 39, 41

  *Jay, Arizona Green                       Vol. i. 146, 148

  *Jay, Canada                         Vol. i. 116, 117, 119

  *Junco, Slate Colored                    Vol. ii. 153, 155

  June                                    Vol. iii. 201, 202


  *Kangaroo                                      Vol. v. 157

  *Kingbird                           Vol. ii. 156, 158, 159

  *Kingbird, Arkansas                          Vol. iii. 230

  *Kingfisher, American                   Vol. i. 60, 61, 63
    *European                         Vol. ii. 188, 190, 191

  *Kinglet, Ruby-crowned                   Vol. ii. 108, 110


  *Lark, Horned                            Vol. ii. 134, 135
    *Meadow                            Vol. i. 105, 106, 108

  *Lemon, The                                     Vol. v. 13

  Little Billee, The Story of                     Vol. v. 41

  *Little Busy Bodies                            Vol. v. 113

  *Lion, African                           Vol. iv. 206, 207

  *Loon                                      Vol. iv. 58, 59

  *Long Spur, Smith's                       Vol. i. 123, 125

  *Lory, Blue Mountain                        Vol. i. 66, 67

  Lost Mate                                     Vol. ii. 126


  March                                         Vol. iii. 82

  Memory, Bird Songs of                        Vol. iii. 124

  *Merganser, The Hooded                         Vol. v. 118
    *Red Breasted                            Vol. ii. 54, 55

  *Mistletoe, The                                 Vol. v. 22

  *Mole, Common American                         Vol. v. 133
    *The Duck                                     Vol. v. 80
    *The Hairy-tailed                            Vol. v. 230

  *Mot Mot, Mexican                           Vol. i. 49, 57

  *Mocking Bird, American              Vol. i. 192, 193, 201

  *Mountain Lion                                  Vol. v. 10

  Music, Color in                         Vol. iii. 161, 162

  *Murre, Brunnichs                       Vol. iii. 206, 207


  Nature at First Hand                           Vol. v. 175

  Natures, Grotesque                            Vol. iv. 149

  Nature's Adjustments                           Vol. iv. 41

  Nests, Birds'                                Vol. iii. 204

  Nesting Time                              Vol. i. 149, 150

  *Nightingale                       Vol. iii. 136, 138, 139
    To a                                       Vol. iii. 141

  *Nonpareil                                Vol. i. 1, 3, 15

  Noses                                           Vol. v. 65

  *Nutmeg                                        Vol. v. 145

  *Nuthatch, White-breasted                Vol. ii. 118, 119

  *Nuts                                           Vol. v. 26


  Oak, The                                       Vol. v. 134

  *Ocelot                                    Vol. iv. 30, 31

  Old Abe                                        Vol. ii. 35

  *Opossum, The Crab-eating                       Vol. v. 59

  Ornithological Congress, 1897                 Vol. ii. 201

  *Oriole, Baltimore                   Vol. i. 205, 206, 207
    *Orchard                                Vol. i. 156, 157
    *Golden                                   Vol. i. 34, 36

  *Osprey, American                      Vol. ii. 42, 43, 45

  Otter, American                     Vol. iv. 172, 174, 175

  *Ovenbird                               Vol. iii. 126, 127

  Owls                                            Vol. v. 78

  *Owl,                   The American Barn      Vol. v. 155
    *Long-eared                        Vol. i. 109, 111, 112
    Sanctuary, The                               Vol. v. 223
    *Screech                           Vol. i. 151, 153, 154
    *Sawwhet                            Vol. iii. 61, 62, 63
    *Short-eared                        Vol. iii. 25, 26, 27
    *Snowy                             Vol. i. 209, 210, 211


  Paradise, Birds of                           Vol. iii. 140

  *Paradise, Red Bird of                  Vol. i. 22, 23, 25

  *Parrakeet, Australian                      Vol. i. 16, 18

  *Parrot, Double Yellow-headed      Vol. iii. 181, 182, 183

  *Parrot, King                               Vol. i. 50, 51

  *Partridge, Gambel's                       Vol. ii. 78, 79
    Mountain                                Vol. iii. 34, 35
    Scaled                                Vol. iii. 114, 115

  Peacock, The                                    Vol. v. 77

  *Peccary                                 Vol. iv. 128, 130

  *Petrel, Stormy                   Vol. iii. 88, 90, 91, 92

  *Pheasant, Golden                           Vol. i. 12, 13
    *Japan                                    Vol. i. 86, 88
    *Ringnecked                            Vol. ii. 232, 233
    *Silver                               Vol. iii. 110, 111

  *Phalarope, Wilson's                       Vol. ii. 66, 67

  *Phoebe                                  Vol. ii. 106, 107

  *Pigeon, Crowned                             Vol iii. 6, 7
    *Passenger                          Vol. iii. 21, 22, 23
                                                 Vol. iv. 25

  *Pine, The Edible                               Vol. v. 96

  *Pineapple                                     Vol. v. 110

  Plea for the Speechless                       Vol. iii. 33

  *Plover, Belted Piping                   Vol. ii. 174, 175
    *Golden                                Vol. iv. 178, 179
    *Semipalmated Ring                      Vol. ii. 6, 8, 9
    *Snowy                                  Vol. iii. 70, 71

  Pokagon, Chief Simon                           Vol. v. 173

  *Porcupine, Canadian                      Vol iv. 186, 187

  *Prairie Hen, Lesser                      Vol. iii. 74, 75

  *Puffin, Tufted                          Vol. iv. 138, 139

  *Puma                                           Vol. v. 10


  Quadrille, The Quails'                         Vol. v. 176

  Quarrel Between Jenny Wren and the Flycatchers Vol. v. 192


  *Rabbit, American                          Vol. iv. 26, 27

  *Raccoon, American                         Vol. iv. 90, 91

  Rail, Sora                             Vol. ii. 46, 48, 49

  *Red Bird, American                         Vol. i. 72, 74

  Redbreast, Invitation to                       Vol. v. 158

  *Rhea, South American              Vol. iii. 166, 167, 168

  *Robin, American                        Vol. i. 54, 55, 59

  *Roller, Swallow-tailed Indian              Vol. i. 42, 43


  *Sandpiper, Bartramian                  Vol. iii. 134, 135

  *Sandpiper, Least                          Vol. iv. 70, 71

  *Sandpiper, Pectoral                     Vol. iv. 114, 115

  *Sapsucker, Yellow-bellied          Vol. ii. 137, 140, 143

  Sap Action                                      Vol. v. 54

  *Scoter, American                          Vol. ii. 32, 33

  *Sheep, Mountain                               Vol. iv. 74

  *Shrike, Loggerhead                       Vol. i. 202, 203

  *Silk Worm                               Vol. iv. 222, 223

  Skin                                           Vol. v. 137

  *Skunk, American                         Vol. iv. 233, 235

  *Skylark                               Vol. ii. 61, 63, 64

  *Snake Bird (Anhinga)                      Vol. ii. 26, 27

  *Snipe, Wilson's                             Vol. iv. 6, 7

  *Snowflake                          Vol. ii. 150, 151, 152

  Snowflakes                                      Vol. v. 89

  *Sparrow, English                   Vol. ii. 206, 208, 209
    *Fox                                    Vol. iii. 14, 15
    *Song                                Vol. ii. 90, 91, 93

  *Spoonbill, Roseate                Vol. iii. 142, 143, 145

  Spring, The Coming of                          Vol. v. 168

  Springtime, A                                  Vol. v. 156

  *Squirrel, American Gray                 Vol. iv. 110, 111
    *Flying                                Vol. iv. 214, 215

  *Squirrel, Fox                         Vol. iv. 54, 55, 56
    *Red                                         Vol. iv. 14

  Squirrel's Use of His Tail, The                Vol. v. 103

  *Stilt, Black-necked                    Vol. iii. 174, 175

  Study, A Window                                 Vol. v. 90

  *Swallow, Barn                              Vol. i. 79, 80

  *Swan, Black                          Vol. iii. 65, 66, 67

  Symbol, A                                     Vol. iv. 208


  *Tanager, Summer                         Vol. ii. 163, 165
    *Tanager, Red-rumped                  Vol. i. 30, 31, 33

  *Tanager, Scarlet                    Vol. i. 214, 216, 217

  Tarsier, The                                   Vol. v. 228

  *Teal, Green-winged                 Vol. ii. 213, 214, 215

  Tenants, The New      Vol. iii. 37, 77, 117, 157, 197, 220

  *Tern, Common                              Vol. iv. 46, 47
    *Black                                  Vol. i. 103, 104
    *Caspian                               Vol. iv. 190, 191

  *Tess                                            Vol. v. 1

  *Thrush, The Water                             Vol. v. 227
    *Hermit                              Vol. ii. 86, 88, 89
    *Brown                                Vol. i. 82, 83, 84
    *Wood                              Vol. i. 179, 180, 181

  *Titmouse, Tufted                               Vol. v. 97

  To a Water Fowl                                Vol. ii. 76

  Tongues                                          Vol. v. 5

  *Toucan, Yellow-throated                Vol. i. 26, 27, 29

  Trees                                          Vol. v. 233

  *Trogon, Resplendent                          Vol. i. 4, 7

  *Tropic Bird, Yellow-billed         Vol. ii. 184, 186, 187

  Trumpeters, The                                Vol. v. 120

  Turgenief, Ivan, Prose Poems of                Vol. v. 180

  *Turkey, Wild                       Vol. ii. 177, 180, 183

  *Turnstone                               Vol. ii. 170, 171

  *Turtle, The Geographic                         Vol. v. 62
    *Snapping                                     Vol. v. 38


  *Verdin                                  Vol. ii. 226, 227

  *Vireo, Red-eyed                       Vol. iii. 8, 10, 11

  *Vireo, Warbling                         Vol. ii. 138, 141
    *Yellow-throated                        Vol. i. 189, 191

  Voices                                        Vol. iv. 201

  *Vulture, California                     Vol. iv. 226, 227
    *Turkey                              Vol. ii. 72, 73, 75

  Vultures, Vision and Scent of                  Vol. v. 163


  *Walnut, The Black                              Vol. v. 96

  *Warbler, Black-and-White
    Creeping                                Vol. i. 222, 224

  *Warbler, Blackburnian                   Vol. ii. 123, 125
    *Bay-breasted                         Vol. iii. 170, 171
    *The Cape May                                 Vol. v. 86
    *Cerulean                              Vol. ii. 178, 181
    *Kentucky                            Vol. ii. 50, 51, 53
    *Magnolia                             Vol. iii. 186, 187
    *The Nashville                               Vol. v. 169
    *Prothonotary                      Vol. i. 166, 169, 171
    *Yellow                                  Vol. ii. 83, 85

  Washington and Lincoln                          Vol. v. 60

  Water Fowl, To a                               Vol. ii. 76

  *Wax Wing, Bohemian                       Vol. i. 140, 141
    *Cedar                                       Vol. v. 193

  *Whip-poor-will                              Vol. v. 2, 34

  White, Gilbert, and Selbourne                 Vol. iii. 41

  Wild Animals, Taming the Smaller               Vol. v. 127

  *Woodchuck                                     Vol. v. 130

  *Woodcock, American                    Vol. ii. 28, 30, 31

  Woodmen, Five Little                            Vol. v. 91

  *Wolf, Black                                Vol. iv. 8, 10
    *Prairie                                 Vol. iv. 50, 51

  *Woodpecker, Arctic Three-toed     Vol. iii. 128, 130, 131

  *Woodpecker, California              Vol. i. 130, 131, 133
    *Downy                           Vol. iii. 216, 218, 219

  *Woodpecker, Ivory-billed          Vol. iii. 101, 102, 103

  *Woodpecker, Red-bellied              Vol. iii. 56, 58, 59
    *Red-headed                           Vol. i. 45, 46, 47

  Woodpecker Story, Emerson and the               Vol. v. 56

  *Wood Pewee                    Vol. ii. 144, 146, 147, 148

  *Wren, House                         Vol. ii. 99, 101, 104
    *Long-billed, Marsh                Vol. i. 142, 144, 145

  *Yellow legs                               Vol. ii. 58, 60




  +----------------------------------------------------------------- +
  | Transcriber's Note:                                              |
  |                                                                  |
  | Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.     |
  |                                                                  |
  | Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant |
  | form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.    |
  |                                                                  |
  | Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.            |
  |                                                                  |
  | Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs   |
  | and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that   |
  | references them.                                                 |
  |                                                                  |
  | Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters,         |
  | _like this_.                                                     |
  |                                                                  |
  | The Contents table was added by the transcriber.                 |
  |                                                                  |
  | The chapter on "An Abandoned Home" is continued from Vol. V.,    |
  | No. 4, page 150.                                                 |
  |                                                                  |
  | The index contains links to articles in other issues of _Birds   |
  | and Nature_ magazine: Volume V Number 1, January, 1899, Volume V |
  | Number 2, February, 1899, Volume V Number 3, March, 1899, Volume |
  | V Number 4, April, 1899.                                         |
  +------------------------------------------------------------------+





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 5,
May 1899, by Various

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 47952 ***