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[Illustration: Frontispiece]

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Frontispiece byWalter King Stone

THE LOG OF THE SUNA Chronicle of Nature's Year

By WILLIAM BEEBE

Garden City Publishing Co. , Inc. Garden City, New York

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COPYRIGHT, 1906, BYHENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THEUNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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TO MYMother and FatherWHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND SYMPATHYGAVE IMPETUS AND PURPOSE TOA BOY'S LOVE OF NATURE

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PREFACE

In the fifty-two short essays of this volume I have presented familiarobjects from unusual points of view. Bird's-eye glances and insect's-eyeglances, at the nature of our woods and fields, will reveal beauties whichare wholly invisible from the usual human view-point, five feet or moreabove the ground. 

Who follows the lines must expect to find moods as varying as the seasons;to face storm and night and cold, and all other delights of what wildnessstill remains to us upon the earth. 

Emphasis has been laid upon the weak points in our knowledge of thingsabout us, and the principal desire of the author is to inspire enthusiasmin those whose eyes are just opening to the wild beauties of God'sout-of-doors, to gather up and follow to the end some of these frayed-outthreads of mystery. 

Portions of the text have been published at various times in the pages of"Outing, " "Recreation, " "The Golden Age, " "The New York Evening Post, " and"The New York Tribune. "

 C. W. B. 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 PAGEJANUARYBirds of the Snow 3Winter Marvels 10Cedar Birds and Berries 16The Dark Days of Insect Life 20Chameleons in Fur and Feather 25

FEBRUARYFebruary Feathers 31Fish Life 37Tenants of Winter Birds' Nests 44Winter Holes 48

MARCHFeathered Pioneers 55The Ways of Meadow Mice 61Problems of Bird Life 65Dwellers in the Dust 71

APRILSpring Songsters 75The Simple Art of Sapsucking 81Wild Wings 85The Birds in the Moon 88

MAYThe High Tide of Bird Life 91Animal Fashions 97Polliwog Problems 102Insect Pirates And Submarines 105The Victory Of The Nighthawk 109

JUNEThe Gala Days Of Birds 113Turtle Traits 118A Half-Hour In A Marsh 124Secrets Of The Ocean 129

JULYBirds In A City 153Night Music Of The Swamp 160The Coming Of Man 167The Silent Language Of Animals 170Insect Music 176

AUGUSTThe Gray Days Of Birds 181Lives Of The Lantern Bearers 188A Starfish And A Daisy 191The Dream Of The Yellow-Throat 195

SEPTEMBERThe Passing Of The Flocks 199Ghosts Of The Earth 204Muskrats 207Nature's Geometricians 210

OCTOBERAutumn Hunting With A Field Glass 217A Woodchuck And A Grebe 223The Voice of Animals 227The Names Of Animals, Frogs, and Fish 234The Dying Year 246

NOVEMBERNovember's Birds of the Heavens 249A Plea for the Skunk 255The Lesson Of The Wave 258We Go A-Sponging 262

DECEMBERNew Thoughts About Nests 269Lessons From An English Sparrow 275The Personality Of Trees 281An Owl Of The North 297

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 A fiery mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell; A jelly fish and a saurian, And the caves where the cave men dwell; Then a sense of law and beauty And a face turned from the clod, Some call it evolution, And others call it God. W. H. Carruth. 

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JANUARY

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BIRDS OF THE SNOW

No fact of natural history is more interesting, or more significant of thepoetry of evolution, than the distribution of birds over the entiresurface of the world. They have overcome countless obstacles, and adaptedthemselves to all conditions. The last faltering glance which the Arcticexplorer sends toward his coveted goal, ere he admits defeat, shows flocksof snow buntings active with warm life; the storm-tossed mariner in themidst of the sea, is followed, encircled, by the steady, tireless flightof the albatross; the fever-stricken wanderer in tropical jungles listensto the sweet notes of birds amid the stagnant pools; while the thirstytraveller in the desert is ever watched by the distant buzzards. Finallywhen the intrepid climber, at the risk of life and limb, has painfullymade his way to the summit of the most lofty peak, far, far above him, inthe blue expanse of thin air, he can distinguish the form of a majesticeagle or condor. 

At the approach of winter the flowers and insects about us die, but mostof the birds take wing and fly to a more temperate climate, while theirplace is filled with others which have spent the summer farther to thenorth. Thus without stirring from our doorway we may become acquaintedwith many species whose summer homes are hundreds of miles away. 

No time is more propitious or advisable for the amateur bird lover tobegin his studies than the first of the year. Bird life is now reduced toits simplest terms in numbers and species, and the absence of concealingfoliage, together with the usual tameness of winter birds, makesidentification an easy matter. 

In January and the succeeding month we have with us birds which are calledpermanent residents, which do not leave us throughout the entire year;and, in addition, the winter visitors which have come to us from the farnorth. 

In the uplands we may flush ruffed grouse from their snug retreats in thesnow; while in the weedy fields, many a fairy trail shows where bob-whitehas passed, and often he will announce his own name from the top of a railfence. The grouse at this season have a curious outgrowth of horny scalesalong each side of the toes, which, acting as a tiny snowshoe, enablesthem to walk on soft snow with little danger of sinking through. 

Few of our winter birds can boast of bright colours; their garbs arechiefly grays and browns, but all have some mark or habit or note by whichthey can be at once named. For example, if you see a mouse hitchingspirally up a tree-trunk, a closer look will show that it is a browncreeper, seeking tiny insects and their eggs in the crevices of the trunk. He looks like a small piece of the roughened bark which has suddenlybecome animated. His long tail props him up and his tiny feet never failto find a foothold. Our winter birds go in flocks, and where we see abrown creeper we are almost sure to find other birds. 

Nuthatches are those blue-backed, white or rufous breasted little climberswho spend their lives defying the law of gravity. They need no supportingtail, and have only the usual number of eight toes, but they traverse thebark, up or down, head often pointing toward the ground, as if their feetwere small vacuum cups. Their note is an odd nasal _nyêh!_ _nyêh!_

In winter some one species of bird usually predominates, most often, perhaps, it is the black-capped chickadee. They seem to fill every grove, and, if you take your stand in the woods, flock after flock will passin succession. What good luck must have come to the chickadee raceduring the preceding summer? Was some one of their enemies stricken with aplague, or did they show more than usual care in the selecting of theirnesting holes? Whatever it was, during such a year, it seems certain thatscores more of chickadee babies manage to live to grow up than isusually the case. These little fluffs are, in their way, as remarkableacrobats as are the nuthatches, and it is a marvel how the very thin legs, with their tiny sliver of bone and thread of tendon, can hold the bodyof the bird in almost any position, while the vainly hidden clusters ofinsect eggs are pried into. Without ceasing a moment in their busysearch for food, the fluffy feathered members of the flock call to eachother, "_Chick-a-chick-a-dee-dee!_" but now and then the heart of somelittle fellow bubbles over, and he rests an instant, sending out a sweet, tender, high call, a "_Phoe-be!_" love note, which warms our ears inthe frosty air and makes us feel a real affection for the brave littlemites. 

Our song sparrow is, like the poor, always with us, at least near thecoast, but we think none the less of him for that, and besides, that factis true in only one sense. A ripple in a stream may be seen day after day, and yet the water forming it is never the same, it is continually flowingonward. This is usually the case with song sparrows and with most otherbirds which are present summer and winter. The individual sparrows whichflit from bush to bush, or slip in and out of the brush piles in January, have doubtless come from some point north of us, while the song sparrowsof our summer walks are now miles to the southward. Few birds remain theentire year in the locality in which they breed, although the southwardmovement may be a very limited one. When birds migrate so short adistance, they are liable to be affected in colour and size by thetemperature and dampness of their respective areas; and so we find that inNorth America there are as many as twenty-two races of song sparrows, toeach of which has been given a scientific name. When you wish to speak ofour northeastern song sparrow in the latest scientific way, you must say_Melospiza cinerea melodia_, which tells us that it is a melodious songfinch, ashy or brown in colour. 

Our winter sparrows are easy to identify. The song sparrow may, of course, be known by the streaks of black and brown upon his breast and sides, andby the blotch which these form in the centre of the breast. The treesparrow, which comes to us from Hudson Bay and Labrador, lacks thestripes, but has the centre spot. This is one of our commonest field birdsin winter, notwithstanding his name. 

The most omnipresent and abundant of all our winter visitors from thenorth are the juncos, or snowbirds. Slate coloured above and white below, perfectly describes these birds, although their distinguishing mark, visible a long way off, is the white V in their tails, formed by severalwhite outer feathers on each side. The sharp chirps of juncos are heardbefore the ice begins to form, and they stay with us all winter. 

We have called the junco a snowbird, but this name should really beconfined to a black and white bunting which comes south only with amid-winter's rush of snowflakes. Their warm little bodies nestle close tothe white crystals, and they seek cheerfully for the seeds which naturehas provided for them. Then a thaw comes, and they disappear as silentlyand mysteriously as if they had melted with the flakes; but doubtless theyare far to the northward, hanging on the outskirts of the Arctic storms, and giving way only when every particle of food is frozen tight, theground covered deep with snow, and the panicled seed clusters locked incrystal frames of ice. 

The feathers of these Arctic wanderers are perfect non-conductors of heatand of cold, and never a chill reaches their little frames until hungerpresses. Then they must find food and quickly, or they die. When thesesnowflakes first come to us they are tinged with gray and brown, butgradually through the winter their colours become more clear-cut andbrilliant, until, when spring comes, they are garbed in contrasting blackand white. With all this change, however, they leave never a feather withus, but only the minute brown tips of the feather vanes, which, by wearingaway, leave exposed the clean new colours beneath. 

Thus we find that there are problems innumerable to verify and to solve, even when the tide of the year's life is at its lowest ebb. 

 From out the white and pulsing storm I hear the snowbirds calling; The sheeted winds stalk o'er the hills, And fast the snow is falling. 

 On twinkling wings they eddy past, At home amid the drifting, Or seek the hills and weedy fields Where fast the snow is sifting. 

 Their coats are dappled white and brown Like fields in winter weather, But on the azure sky they float Like snowflakes knit together. 

 I've heard them on the spotless hills Where fox and hound were playing, The while I stood with eager ear Bent on the distant baying. 

 The unmown fields are their preserves, Where weeds and grass are seeding; They know the lure of distant stacks Where houseless herds are feeding. 

 JOHN BURROUGHS. 

WINTER MARVELS

Let us suppose that a heavy snow has fallen and that we have beena-birding in vain. For once it seems as if all the birds had gone the wayof the butterflies. But we are not true bird-lovers unless we cansubstitute nature for bird whenever the occasion demands; specialisationis only for the ultra-scientist. 

There is more to be learned in a snowy field than volumes could tell. There is the tangle of footprints to unravel, the history of the pastimesand foragings and tragedies of the past night writ large and unmistakable. Though the sun now shines brightly, we can well imagine the cold darknessof six hours ago; we can reconstruct the whole scene from those tinytracks, showing frantic leaps, the indentation of two wing-tips, --a speckof blood. But let us take a bird's-eye view of things, from a bird's-headheight; that is, lie flat upon a board or upon the clean, dry crystals andsee what wonders we have passed by all our lives. 

Take twenty square feet of snow with a streamlet through the centre, andwe have an epitome of geological processes and conditions. With chin uponmittens and mittens upon the crust, the eye opens upon a new world. Thehalf-covered rivulet becomes a monster glacier-fed stream, rushing downthrough grand canyons and caves, hung with icy stalactites. Bit by bit thewalls are undermined and massive icebergs become detached and are whirledaway. As for moraines, we have them in plenty; only the windrows ofthousands upon thousands of tiny seeds of which they are composed, are notpermanent, but change their form and position with every strong gust ofwind. And with every gust too their numbers increase, the harvest of theweeds being garnered here, upon barren ground. No wonder the stream willbe hidden from view next summer, when the myriad seeds sprout and begin tofight upward for light and air. 

If we cannot hope for polar bears to complete our Arctic scene, we maythrill at the sight of a sinuous weasel, winding his way among the weeds;and if we look in vain for swans, we at least may rejoice in a whirling, white flock of snow buntings. 

A few flakes fall gently upon our sleeve and another world opens beforeus. A small hand-lens will be of service, although sharp eyes may dispensewith it. Gather a few recently fallen flakes upon a piece of black cloth, and the lens will reveal jewels more beautiful than any ever fashioned bythe hand of man. Six-pointed crystals, always hexagonal, of a myriadpatterns, leave us lost in wonderment when we look out over the whitelandscape and think of the hidden beauty of it all. The largest glacier ofGreenland or Alaska is composed wholly of just such crystals whose pointshave melted and which have become ice. 

We may draw or photograph scores of these beautiful crystals and neverduplicate a figure. Some are almost solid and tabular, others are simplestars or fern-branched. Then we may detect compound forms, crystals withincrystals, and, rarest of all, doubles, where two different forms appear asjoined together by a tiny pillar. In all of these we have an epitome ofthe crystals of the rocks beneath our feet, only in their case thepressure has moulded them into straight columns, while the snow, formingunhindered in midair, resolves itself into these exquisite forms andfloral designs. Flowers and rocks are not so very unlike after all. 

Few of us can observe these wonderful forms without feeling the poetry ofit all. Thoreau on the fifth day of January, 1856, writes as follows:. .. "The thin snow now driving from the north and lodging on my coat consistsof those beautiful star crystals, not cottony and chubby spokes as on the13th of December, but thin and partly transparent crystals. They are aboutone tenth of an inch in diameter, perfect little wheels with six spokes, without a tire, or rather with six perfect little leaflets, fern-like, with a distinct, straight, slender midrib raying from the centre. On eachside of each midrib there is a transparent, thin blade with a crenateedge. How full of the creative genius is the air in which these aregenerated! I should hardly admire more if real stars fell and lodged on mycoat. Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity, so that not asnowflake escapes its fashioning hand. Nothing is cheap and coarse, neither dewdrops nor snowflakes. Soon the storm increases (it was alreadyvery severe to face), and the snow becomes finer, more white and powdery. 

"Who knows but this is the original form of all snowflakes, but that, whenI observe these crystal stars falling around me, they are only justgenerated in the low mist next the earth. I am nearer to the source of thesnow, its primal auroral, and golden hour of infancy; commonly the flakesreach us travel-worn and agglomerated, comparatively, without order orbeauty, far down in their fall, like men in their advanced age. As for thecircumstances under which this occurs, it is quite cold, and the drivingstorm is bitter to face, though very little snow is falling. It comesalmost horizontally from the north. .. . A divinity must have stirred withinthem, before the crystals did thus shoot and set: wheels of the stormchariots. The same law that shapes the earth and the stars shapes thesnowflake. Call it rather snow star. As surely as the petals of a flowerare numbered, each of these countless snow stars comes whirling to earth, pronouncing thus with emphasis the number six, order, [Greek: cosmos]. This was the beginning of a storm which reached far and wide, andelsewhere was more severe than here. On the Saskatchewan, where no man ofscience is present to behold, still down they come, and not the lessfulfil their destiny, perchance melt at once on the Indian's face. What aworld we live in, where myriads of these little discs, so beautiful to themost prying eye, are whirled down on every traveller's coat, the observantand the unobservant, on the restless squirrel's fur, on the far-stretchingfields and forests, the wooded dells and the mountain tops. Far, far awayfrom the haunts of men, they roll down some little slope, fall over andcome to their bearings, and melt or lose their beauty in the mass, readyanon to swell some little rill with their contribution, and so, at last, the universal ocean from which they came. There they lie, like the wreckof chariot wheels after a battle in the skies. Meanwhile the meadow mouseshoves them aside in his gallery, the schoolboy casts them in his ball, orthe woodman's sled glides smoothly over them, these glorious spangles, thesweepings of heaven's floor. And they all sing, melting as they sing, ofthe mysteries of the number six; six, six, six. He takes up the waters ofthe sea in his hand, leaving the salt; he disperses it in mist through theskies; he re-collects and sprinkles it like grain in six-rayed snowy starsover the earth, there to lie till he dissolves its bonds again. "

But here is a bit of snow which seems less pure, with grayish patches hereand there. Down again to sparrow-level and bring the glass to bear. Yourfarmer friend will tell you that they are snow-fleas which are snowed downwith the flakes; the entomologist will call them _Achorutes nivicola_ andhe knows that they have prosaically wiggled their way from the crevices ofbark on the nearest tree-trunk. One's thrill of pleasure at thisunexpected discovery will lead one to adopt sparrow-views whenever largergame is lacking. 

 I walked erstwhile upon thy frozen waves, And heard the streams amid thy ice-locked caves; I peered down thy crevasses blue and dim, Standing in awe upon the dizzy rim. Beyond me lay the inlet still and blue, Behind, the mountains loomed upon the view Like storm-wraiths gathered from the low-hung sky. A gust of wind swept past with heavy sigh, And lo! I listened to the ice-stream's song Of winter when the nights grow dark and long, And bright stars flash above thy fields of snow, The cold waste sparkling in the pallid glow. 

 Charles Keeler. 

CEDAR BIRDS AND BERRIES

Keep sharp eyes upon the cedar groves in mid-winter, and sooner or lateryou will see the waxwings come, not singly or in pairs, but by dozens, andsometimes in great flocks. They will well repay all the watching one givesthem. The cedar waxwing is a strange bird, with a very pronouncedspecies-individuality, totally unlike any other bird of our country. Whenfeeding on their favourite winter berries, these birds show to greatadvantage; the warm rich brown of the upper parts and of the crestcontrasting with the black, scarlet, and yellow, and these, in turn, withthe dark green of the cedar and the white of the snow. 

The name waxwing is due to the scarlet ornaments at the tips of the lesserflight feathers and some of the tail feathers, which resemble bits of redsealing wax, but which are really the bare, flattened ends of the feathershafts. Cherry-bird is another name which is appropriately applied to thecedar waxwing. 

These birds are never regular in their movements, and they come and gowithout heed to weather or date. They should never be lightly passed by, but their flocks carefully examined, lest among their ranks may be hiddena Bohemian chatterer--a stately waxwing larger than common and even morebeautiful in hue, whose large size and splashes of white upon its wingswill always mark it out. 

This bird is one of our rarest of rare visitors, breeding in the farnorth; and even in its nest and eggs mystery enshrouds it. Up to fiftyyears ago, absolutely nothing was known of its nesting habits, althoughduring migration Bohemian chatterers are common all over Europe. At lastLapland was found to be their home, and a nest has been found in Alaskaand several others in Labrador. My only sight of these birds was of a pairperched in an elm tree in East Orange, New Jersey; but I will never forgetit, and will never cease to hope for another such red-letter day. 

The movements of the cedar waxwings are as uncertain in summer as they arein winter; they may be common in one locality for a year or two, and then, apparently without reason, desert it. At this season they feed on insectsinstead of berries, and may be looked for in small flocks in orchard orwood. The period of nesting is usually late, and, in company with thegoldfinches, they do not begin their housekeeping until July and August. Unlike other birds, waxwings will build their nests of almost anythingnear at hand, and apparently in any growth which takes theirfancy, --apple, oak, or cedar. The nests are well constructed, however, andoften, with their contents, add another background of a most pleasingharmony of colours. A nest composed entirely of pale green hanging moss, with eggs of bluish gray, spotted and splashed with brown and black, guarded by a pair of these exquisite birds, is a sight to delight theeye. 

When the young have left the nest, if alarmed by an intruder, theywill frequently, trusting to their protective dress of streaky brown, freeze into most unbird-like attitudes, drawing the feathers close tothe body and stretching the neck stiffly upward, --almost bittern-like. Undoubtedly other interesting habits which these strangely picturesquebirds may possess are still awaiting discovery by some enthusiasticobserver with a pair of opera-glasses and a stock of that ever importantcharacteristic--patience. 

Although, during the summer months, myriads of insects are killed andeaten by the cedar waxwings, yet these birds are preeminently berryeaters, --choke-cherries, cedar berries, blueberries, and raspberries beingpreferred. Watch a flock of these birds in a cherry tree, and you will seethe pits fairly rain down. We need not place our heads, _à la_ Newton, inthe path of these falling stones to deduce some interesting facts, --indeedto solve the very destiny of the fruit. Many whole cherries are carriedaway by the birds to be devoured elsewhere, or we may see parent waxwingfilling their gullets with ten or a dozen berries and carrying them to theeager nestlings. 

Thus is made plain the why and the wherefore of the coloured skin, theedible flesh, and the hidden stone of the fruit. The conspicuous racemesof the choke-cherries, or the shining scarlet globes of the cultivatedfruit, fairly shout aloud to the birds--"Come and eat us, we're as good aswe look!" But Mother Nature looks on and laughs to herself. Thistle seedsare blown to the land's end by the wind; the heavier ticks and burrs arecarried far and wide upon the furry coats of passing creatures; but thecherry could not spread its progeny beyond a branch's length, were it notfor the ministrations of birds. With birds, as with some other bipeds, theshortest way to the heart is through the stomach, and a choke-cherry treein full blaze of fruit is always a natural aviary. Where a cedar bird hasbuilt its nest, there look some day to see a group of cherry trees; whereconvenient fence-perches along the roadside lead past cedar groves, therehope before long to see a bird-planted avenue of cedars. And so themarvels of Nature go on evolving, --wheels within wheels. 

THE DARK DAYS OF INSECT LIFE

Sometimes by too close and confining study of things pertaining to thegenus _Homo_, we perchance find ourselves complacently wondering if wehave not solved almost all the problems of this little whirling sphere ofwater and earth. Our minds turn to the ultra questions of atoms and ionsand rays and our eyes strain restlessly upward toward our nearest planetneighbour, in half admission that we must soon take up the study of Marsfrom sheer lack of earthly conquest. 

If so minded, hie you to the nearest grove and, digging down through themid-winter's snow, bring home a spadeful of leaf-mould. Examine itcarefully with hand-lens and microscope, and then prophesy what warmth andlight will bring forth. "Watch the unfolding life of plant and animal, andthen come from your planet-yearning back to earth, with a humbleness bornof a realisation of our vast ignorance of the commonest things about us. "

Though the immediate mysteries of the seed and the egg baffle us, yet themost casual lover of God's out-of-doors may hopefully attempt to solve thequestion of some of the winter homes of insects. Think of the thousandsupon thousands of eggs and pupæ which are hidden in every grove; whatcatacombs of bug mummies yonder log conceals, --mummies whose resurrectionwill be brought about by the alchemy of thawing sunbeams. Follow out thesuggestion hinted at above and place a handkerchief full of frozen mouldor decayed wood in a white dish, and the tiny universe which willgradually unfold before you will provide many hours of interest. Butremember your responsibilities in so doing, and do not let the tiny plantgerms languish and die for want of water, or the feeble, newly-hatchedinsects perish from cold or lack a bit of scraped meat. 

Cocoons are another never-ending source of delight. If you think thatthere are no unsolved problems of the commonest insect life around us, saywhy it is that the moths and millers pass the winter wrapped in swaddlingclothes of densest textures, roll upon roll of silken coverlets; while ourdelicate butterflies hang uncovered, suspended only by a single loop ofsilk, exposed to the cold blast of every northern gale? Why do thecaterpillars of our giant moths--the mythologically named Cecropia, Polyphemus, Luna, and Prometheus--show such individuality in the positionwhich they choose for their temporary shrouds? Protection and concealmentare the watchwords held to in each case, but how differently they areachieved!

Cecropia--that beauty whose wings, fully six inches across, will flapgracefully through the summer twilight--weaves about himself a half ovalmound, along some stem or tree-trunk, and becomes a mere excrescence--theveriest unedible thing a bird may spy. Polyphemus wraps miles of finestsilk about his green worm-form (how, even though we watch him do it, wecan only guess); weaving in all the surrounding leaves he can reach. This, of course, before the frosts come, but when the leaves at last shrivel, loosen, and their petioles break, it is merely a larger brown nut thanusual that falls to the ground, the kernel of which will sprout next Juneand blossom into the big moth of delicate fawn tints, feathery horned, with those strange isinglass windows in his hind wings. 

Luna--the weird, beautiful moon-moth, whose pale green hues and longgraceful streamers make us realise how much beauty we miss if we neglectthe night life of summer--when clad in her temporary shroud of silk, sometimes falls to the ground, or again the cocoon remains in the tree orbush where it was spun. 

But Prometheus, the smallest of the quartet, has a way all his own. Theelongated cocoon, looking like a silken finger, is woven about a leaf ofsassafras. Even the long stem of the leaf is silk-girdled, and a strongband is looped about the twig to which the leaf is attached. Here, whenall the leaves fall, he hangs, the plaything of every breeze, attractingthe attention of all the hungry birds. But little does Prometheus care. Sparrows may hover about him and peck in vain; chickadees may clutch thedangling finger and pound with all their tiny might. Prometheus is"bound, " indeed, and merely swings the faster, up and down, from side toside. 

It is interesting to note that when two Prometheus cocoons, fastened upontheir twigs, were suspended in a large cageful of native birds, it took ahealthy chickadee just three days of hard pounding and unravelling toforce a way through the silken envelopes to the chrysalids within. Suchlong continued and persistent labour for so comparatively small a morselof food would not be profitable or even possible out-of-doors in winter. The bird would starve to death while forcing its way through theprotecting silk. 

These are only four of the many hundreds of cocoons, from the silkenshrouds on the topmost branches to the jugnecked chrysalis of a sphinxmoth--offering us the riddle of a winter's shelter buried in the cold, dark earth. 

Is everything frozen tight? Has Nature's frost mortar cemented every stonein its bed? Then cut off the solid cups of the pitcher plants, and seewhat insects formed the last meal of these strange growths, --ants, flies, bugs, encased in ice like the fossil insects caught in the amber sap whichflowed so many thousands of years ago. 

 When the fierce northwestern blast Cools sea and land so far and fast, Thou already slumberest deep; Woe and want thou canst outsleep. 

 Emerson. 

CHAMELEONS IN FUR AND FEATHER

The colour of things in nature has been the subject of many volumes andyet it may be truthfully said that no two naturalists are wholly agreed onthe interpretation of the countless hues of plants and animals. Someassert that all alleged instances of protective colouring and mimicry aremerely the result of accident; while at the opposite swing of the pendulumwe find theories, protective and mimetic, for the colours of even the tinyone-celled green plants which cover the bark of trees! Here is abundantopportunity for any observer of living nature to help toward the solutionof these problems. 

In a battle there are always two sides and at its finish one side alwaysruns away while the other pursues. Thus it is in the wars of nature, onlyhere the timid ones are always ready to flee, while the strong are equallyprepared to pursue. It is only by constant vigilance that the little micecan save themselves from disappearing down the throats of their enemies, as under cover of darkness they snatch nervous mouthfuls of grain in thefields, --and hence their gray colour and their large, watchful eyes; buton the other hand, the baby owls in their hollow tree would starve if theparents were never able to swoop down in the darkness and surprise a mousenow and then, --hence the gray plumage and great eyes of the parent owls. 

The most convincing proof of the reality of protective coloration is inthe change of plumage or fur of some of the wild creatures to suit theseason. In the far north, the grouse or ptarmigan, as they are called, donot keep feathers of the same colour the year round, as does our ruffedgrouse; but change their dress no fewer than three times. When rocks andmoss are buried deep beneath the snow, and a keen-eyed hawk appears, thewhite-feathered ptarmigan crouches and becomes an inanimate mound. Laterin the year, with the increasing warmth, patches of gray and brown earthappear, and simultaneously, as if its feathers were really snowflakes, splashes of brown replace the pure white of the bird's plumage, andequally baffle the eye. Seeing one of these birds by itself, we couldreadily tell, from the colour of its plumage, the time of year and generalaspect of the country from which it came. Its plumage is like a mirrorwhich reflects the snow, the moss, or the lichens in turn. It is, indeed, a feathered chameleon, but with changes of colour taking place more slowlythan is the case in the reptile. 

We may discover changes somewhat similar, but furry instead of feathery, in the woods about our home. The fiercest of all the animals of ourcontinent still evades the exterminating inroads of man; indeed it oftenputs his traps to shame, and wages destructive warfare in his very midst. I speak of the weasel, --the least of all his family, and yet, for hissize, the most bloodthirsty and widely dreaded little demon of all thecountryside. His is a name to conjure with among all the lesser wood-folk;the scent of his passing brings an almost helpless paralysis. And yet insome way he must be handicapped, for his slightly larger cousin, the mink, finds good hunting the year round, clad in a suit of rich brown; while theweasel, at the approach of winter, sheds his summer dress of chocolate hueand dons a pure white fur, a change which would seem to put the poor miceand rabbits at a hopeless disadvantage. Nevertheless the ermine, as he isnow called (although wrongly so), seems just able to hold his own, withall his evil slinking motions and bloodthirsty desires; for foxes, owls, and hawks take, in their turn, heavy toll. Nature is ever a repetition ofthe "House that Jack built";--this is the owl that ate the weasel thatkilled the mouse, and so on. 

The little tail-tips of milady's ermine coat are black; and herein lies aninteresting fact in the coloration of the weasel and one that, perhaps, gives a clue to some other hitherto inexplicable spots and markings on thefur, feathers, skin, and scales of wild creatures. Whatever the season, and whatever the colour of the weasel's coat, --brown or white, --the tip ofthe tail remains always black. This would seem, at first thought, a verybad thing for the little animal. Knowing so little of fear, he never tuckshis tail between his legs, and, when shooting across an open expanse ofsnow, the black tip ever trailing after him would seem to mark him out fordestruction by every observing hawk or fox. 

But the very opposite is the case as Mr. Witmer Stone so well relates. "Ifyou place a weasel in its winter white on new-fallen snow, in such aposition that it casts no shadow, you will find that the black tip of thetail catches your eye and holds it in spite of yourself, so that at alittle distance it is very difficult to follow the outline of the rest ofthe animal. Cover the tip of the tail with snow and you can see the restof the weasel itself much more clearly; but as long as the black point isin sight, you see that, and that only. 

"If a hawk or owl, or any other of the larger hunters of the woodland, were to give chase to a weasel and endeavour to pounce upon it, it wouldin all probability be the black tip of the tail it would see and strikeat, while the weasel, darting ahead, would escape. It may, morever, serveas a guide, enabling the young weasels to follow their parents morereadily through grass and brambles. 

"One would suppose that this beautiful white fur of winter, literally aswhite as the snow, might prove a disadvantage at times by making its ownerconspicuous when the ground is bare in winter, as it frequently is even inthe North; yet though weasels are about more or less by day, you willseldom catch so much as a glimpse of one at such times, though you mayhear their sharp chirrup close at hand. Though bold and fearless, theyhave the power of vanishing instantly, and the slightest alarm sends themto cover. I have seen one standing within reach of my hand in the sunshineon the exposed root of a tree, and while I was staring at it, it vanishedlike the flame of a candle blown out, without leaving me the slightestclue as to the direction it had taken. All the weasels I have ever seen, either in the woods or open meadows, disappeared in a similar manner. "

To add to the completeness of proof that the change from brown to white isfor protection, --in the case of the weasel, both to enable it to escapefrom the fox and to circumvent the rabbit, --the weasels in Florida, wheresnow is unknown, do not change colour, but remain brown throughout thewhole year. 

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FEBRUARY

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FEBRUARY FEATHERS

February holes are most interesting places and one never knows what willbe found in the next one investigated. It is a good plan, in one's walksin the early fall, to make a mental map of all the auspicious lookingtrees and holes, and then go the rounds of these in winter--as a hunterfollows his line of traps. An old, neglected orchard may seem perfectlybarren of life; insects dead, leaves fallen, and sap frozen; but the warmhearts of these venerable trees may shelter much beside the larvæ ofboring beetles, and we may reap a winter harvest of which the farmer knowsnothing. 

Poke a stick into a knothole and stir up the leaves at the bottom of thecavity, and then look in. Two great yellow eyes may greet you, glaringintermittently, and sharp clicks may assail your ears. Reach in with yourgloved hand and bring the screech owl out. He will blink in the sunshine, ruffling up his feathers until he is twice his real size. The light partlyblinds him, but toss him into the air and he will fly without difficultyand select with ease a secluded perch. The instant he alights a wonderfultransformation comes over him. He stiffens, draws himself as high aspossible, and compresses his feathers until he seems naught but theslender, broken stump of some bough, --ragged topped (thanks to his"horns"), gray and lichened. It is little short of a miracle how thisspluttering, saucer-eyed, feathered cat can melt away into woody fibrebefore our very eyes. 

We quickly understand why in the daytime the little owl is so anxious tohide his form from public view. Although he can see well enough to fly andto perch, yet the bright sunlight on the snow is too dazzling to permit ofswift and sure action. All the birds of the winter woods seem to know thisand instantly take advantage of it. Sparrows, chickadees, and woodpeckersgo nearly wild with excitement when they discover the little owl, hoveringabout him and occasionally making darts almost in his very face. We canwell believe that as the sun sets, after an afternoon of such excitement, they flee in terror, selecting for that night's perch the densest tangleof sweetbrier to be found. 

One hollow tree may yield a little gray owl, while from the next we maydraw a red one; and the odd thing about this is that this difference incolour does not depend upon age, sex, or season, and no ornithologist cansay why it occurs. What can these little fellows find to feed upon thesecold nights, when the birds seek the most hidden and sheltered retreats?We might murder the next owl we come across; but would any fact we mightdiscover in his poor stomach repay us for the thought of having needlesslycut short his life, with its pleasures and spring courtships, and thedelight he will take in the half a dozen pearls over which he will soonwatch?

A much better way is to examine the ground around his favourite roostingplace, where we will find many pellets of fur and bones, with now and thena tiny skull. These tell the tale, and if at dusk we watch closely, we maysee the screech owl look out of his door, stretch every limb, purr hisshivering song, and silently launch out over the fields, a feathery, shadowy death to all small mice who scamper too far from their snowtunnels. 

When you feel like making a new and charming acquaintance, take your wayto a dense clump of snow-laden cedars, and look carefully over theirtrunks. If you are lucky you will spy a tiny gray form huddled close tothe sheltered side of the bark, and if you are careful you may approachand catch in your hand the smallest of all our owls, for the saw-whet is adreadfully sleepy fellow in the daytime. I knew of eleven of these littlegray gnomes dozing in a clump of five small cedars. 

The cedars are treasure-houses in winter, and many birds find shelteramong the thick foliage, and feast upon the plentiful supply of berries, when elsewhere there seems little that could keep a bird's life in itsbody. When the tinkling of breaking icicles is taken up by the wind andre-echoed from the tops of the cedars, you may know that a flock of purplefinches is near, and so greedy and busy are they that you may approachwithin a few feet. These birds are unfortunately named, as there isnothing purple about their plumage. The males are a delicate rose-red, while the females look like commonplace sparrows, streaked all over withblack and brown. 

There are other winter birds, whose home is in the North, with a similartype of coloration. Among the pines you may see a flock of birds, as largeas a sparrow, with strange-looking beaks. The tips of the two mandiblesare long, curved, and pointed, crossing each other at their ends. Thislooks like a deformity, but is in reality a splendid cone-opener andseed-extracter. These birds are the crossbills. 

Even in the cold of a February day, we may, on very rare occasions, befortunate enough to hear unexpected sounds, such as the rattle of a beltedkingfisher, or the croak of a night heron; for these birds linger untilevery bit of pond or lake is sealed with ice; and when a thaw comes, alonely bat may surprise us with a short flight through the frosty air, before it returns to its winter's trance. 

Of course, in the vicinity of our towns and cities, the most noticeablebirds at this season of the year (as indeed at all seasons) are theEnglish sparrows and (at least near New York City) the starlings, thosetwo foreigners which have wrought such havoc among our native birds. Theirmingled flocks fly up, not only from garbage piles and gutters, but fromthe thickets and fields which should be filled with our sweet-voicedAmerican birds. It is no small matter for man heedlessly to interfere withNature. What may be a harmless, or even useful, bird in its native landmay prove a terrible scourge when introduced where there are no enemies tokeep it in check. Nature is doing her best to even matters by lettingalbinism run riot among the sparrows, and best of all by teaching sparrowhawks to nest under our eaves and thus be on equal terms with theirsparrow prey. The starlings are turning out to be worse than the sparrows. Already they are invading the haunts of our grackles and redwings. 

On some cold day, when the sun is shining, visit all the orchards of whichyou know, and see if in one or more you cannot find a good-sized, gray, black, and white bird, which keeps to the topmost branch of a certaintree. Look at him carefully through your glasses, and if his beak ishooked, like that of a hawk, you may know that you are watching a northernshrike, or butcher bird. His manner is that of a hawk, and his appearancecauses instant panic among small birds. If you watch long enough you maysee him pursue and kill a goldfinch, or sparrow, and devour it. Thesebirds are not even distantly related to the hawks, but have added a hawk'scharacteristics and appetite to the insect diet of their nearestrelations. If ever shrikes will learn to confine their attacks to Englishsparrows, we should offer them every encouragement. 

All winter long the ebony forms of crows vibrate back and forth across thecold sky. If we watch them when very high up, we sometimes see them sail ashort distance, and without fail, a second later, the clear "_Caw! caw!_"comes down to us, the sound-waves unable to keep pace with those of light, as the thunder of the storm lags behind the flash. These sturdy birds seemable to stand any severity of the weather, but, like Achilles, they haveone vulnerable point, the eyes, --which, during the long winter nights, must be kept deep buried among the warm feathers. 

FISH LIFE

We have all looked down through the clear water of brook or pond andwatched the gracefully poised trout or pickerel; but have we ever tried toimagine what the life of one of these aquatic beings is really like?"Water Babies" perhaps gives us the best idea of existence below thewater, but if we spend one day each month for a year in trying to imagineourselves in the place of the fish, we will see that a fish-eye view oflife holds much of interest. 

What a delightful sensation must it be to all but escape the eternaldownpull of gravity, to float and turn and rise and fall at will, and allby the least twitch of tail or limb, --for fish have limbs, four of them, as truly as has a dog or horse, only instead of fingers or toes there aremany delicate rays extending through the fin. These four limb-fins areuseful chiefly as balancers, while the tail-fin is what sends the fishdarting through the water, or turns it to right or left, with incredibleswiftness. 

If we were able to examine some inhabitant of the planet Mars our firstinterest would be to know with what senses they were endowed, and thesefinny creatures living in their denser medium, which after a few secondswould mean death to us, excite the same interest. They see, of course, having eyes, but do they feel, hear, and smell!

Probably the sense of taste is least developed. When a trout leaps at andcatches a fly he does not stop to taste, otherwise the pheasant featherconcealing the cruel hook would be of little use. When an animal catchesits food in the water and swallows it whole, taste plays but a small part. Thus the tongue of a pelican is a tiny flap all but lost to view in itsgreat bill. 

Water is an excellent medium for carrying minute particles of matter andso the sense of smell is well developed. A bit of meat dropped into thesea will draw the fish from far and wide, and a slice of liver willsometimes bring a score of sharks and throw them into the greatestexcitement. 

Fishes are probably very near-sighted, but that they can distinguishdetails is apparent in the choice which a trout exhibits in taking certaincoloured artificial flies. We may suppose from what we know of physicsthat when we lean over and look down into a pool, the fishy eyes whichpeer up at us discern only a dark, irregular mass. I have seen a pickereldodge as quickly at a sudden cloud-shadow as at the motion of a manwielding a fish pole. 

We can be less certain about the hearing of fishes. They have, however, very respectable inner ears, built on much the same plan as in higheranimals. Indeed many fish, such as the grunts, make various sounds whichare plainly audible even to our ears high above the water, and we cannotsuppose that this is a useless accomplishment. But the ears of fishes andthe line of tiny tubes which extends along the side may be more effectivein recording the tremors of the water transmitted by moving objects thanactual sound. 

Watch a lazy catfish winding its way along near the bottom, with itsbarbels extended, and you will at once realise that fishes can feel, thisfunction being very useful to those kinds which search for their food inthe mud at the bottom. 

 * * * * *

Not a breath of air stirs the surface of the woodland pond, and the treesabout the margin are reflected unbroken in its surface. The lilies andtheir pads lie motionless, and in and out through the shadowy depths, around the long stems, float a school of half a dozen little sunfish. Theymove slowly, turning from side to side all at once as if impelled by oneidea. Now and then one will dart aside and snap up a beetle or mosquitolarva, then swing back to its place among its fellows. Their beautifulscales flash scarlet, blue, and gold, and their little hand-and-foot finsare ever trembling and waving. They drift upward nearer the surface, thewide round eyes turning and twisting in their sockets, ever watchful forfood and danger. Without warning a terrific splash scatters them, and whenthe ripples and bubbles cease, five frightened sunfish cringe in terroramong the water plants of the bottom mud. Off to her nest goes thekingfisher, bearing to her brood the struggling sixth. 

Later in the day, when danger seemed far off, a double-pointed vise shottoward the little group of "pumpkin seeds" and a great blue heronswallowed one of their number. Another, venturing too far beyond theprotection of the lily stems and grass tangle of the shallows, fell victimto a voracious pickerel. But the most terrible fate befell when one day ablack sinuous body came swiftly through the water. The fish had never seenits like before and yet some instinct told them that here was death indeedand they fled as fast as their fins could send them. The young otter hadmarked the trio and after it he sped, turning, twisting, following everymovement with never a stop for breath until he had caught his prey. 

But the life of a fish is not all tragedy, and the two remaining sunfishmay live in peace. In spawning time they clear a little space close to thewater of the inlet, pulling up the young weeds and pushing up the sandybottom until a hollow, bowl-like nest is prepared. Thoreau tells us thathere the fish "may be seen early in summer assiduously brooding, anddriving away minnows and larger fishes, even its own species, which woulddisturb its ova, pursuing them a few feet, and circling round swiftly toits nest again; the minnows, like young sharks, instantly entering theempty nests, meanwhile, and swallowing the spawn, which is attached to theweeds and to the bottom, on the sunny side. The spawn is exposed to somany dangers that a very small proportion can ever become fishes, forbeside being the constant prey of birds and fishes, a great many nests aremade so near the shore, in shallow water, that they are left dry in a fewdays, as the river goes down. These and the lampreys are the only fishes'nests that I have observed, though the ova of some species may be seenfloating on the surface. The sunfish are so careful of their charge thatyou may stand close by in the water and examine them at your leisure. Ihave thus stood over them half an hour at a time, and stroked themfamiliarly without frightening them, suffering them to nibble my fingersharmlessly, and seen them erect their dorsal fins in anger when my handapproached their ova, and have even taken them gently out of the waterwith my hand; though this cannot be accomplished by a sudden movement, however dexterous, for instant warning is conveyed to them through theirdenser element, but only by letting the fingers gradually close about themas they are poised over the palm, and with the utmost gentleness raisingthem slowly to the surface. Though stationary, they kept up a constantsculling or waving motion with their fins, which is exceedingly graceful, and expressive of their humble happiness; for unlike ours, the element inwhich they live is a stream which must be constantly resisted. From timeto time they nibble the weeds at the bottom or overhanging their nests, ordart after a fly or worm. The dorsal fin, besides answering the purpose ofa keel, with the anal, serves to keep the fish upright, for in shallowwater, where this is not covered, they fall on their sides. As you standthus stooping over the sunfish in its nest, the edges of the dorsal andcaudal fins have a singular dusty golden reflection, and its eyes, whichstand out from the head, are transparent and colourless. Seen in itsnative element, it is a very beautiful and compact fish, perfect in allits parts, and looks like a brilliant coin fresh from the mint. It is aperfect jewel of the river, the green, red, coppery, and goldenreflections of its mottled sides being the concentration of such rays asstruggle through the floating pads and flowers to the sandy bottom, and inharmony with the sunlit brown and yellow pebbles. "

When the cold days of winter come and the ice begins to close over thepond, the sunfish become sluggish and keep near the bottom, half-hibernating but not unwilling to snap at any bit of food which maydrift near them. Lying prone on the ice we may see them poising withslowly undulating fins, waiting, in their strange wide-eyed sleep, for thewarmth which will bring food and active life again. 

 3rd. Fish. Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. 1st. Fish. Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones. Shakespeare. 

TENANTS OF WINTER BIRDS' NESTS

When we realise how our lives are hedged about by butchers, bakers, andluxury-makers, we often envy the wild creatures their independence. Andyet, although each animal is capable of finding its own food and shelterand of avoiding all ordinary danger, there is much dependence, one uponanother, among the little creatures of fur and feathers. 

The first instinct of a gray squirrel, at the approach of winter, is toseek out a deep, warm, hollow limb, or trunk. Nowadays, however, these arenot to be found in every grove. The precepts of modern forestry decreethat all such unsightly places must be filled with cement and creosote andwell sealed against the entrance of rain and snow. When hollows are notavailable, these hardy squirrels prepare their winter home in another way. Before the leaves have begun to loosen on their stalks, the littlecreatures set to work. The crows have long since deserted their rough nestof sticks in the top of some tall tree, and now the squirrels come, investigate, and adopt the forsaken bird's-nest as the foundation of theirhome. The sticks are pressed more tightly together, all interstices filledup, and then a superstructure of leafy twigs is woven overhead and allaround. The leaves on these twigs, killed before their time, do not fall;and when the branches of the tree become bare, there remains in one of theuppermost crotches a big ball of leaves, --rain and snow proof, with a tinyentrance at one side. 

On a stormy mid-winter afternoon we stand beneath the tree and, throughthe snowflakes driven past by the howling gale, we catch glimpses of thenest swaying high in air. Far over it leans, as the branches are whippedand bent by the wind, and yet so cunningly is it wrought that never a twigor leaf loosens. We can imagine the pair of little shadow-tails within, sleeping fearlessly throughout all the coming night. 

But the sleep of the gray squirrel is a healthy and a natural one, not thehalf-dead trance of hibernation; and early next morning their sharp eyesappear at the entrance of their home and they are out and off through thetree-top path which only their feet can traverse. Down the snowy trunksthey come with a rush, and with strong, clean bounds they head unerringlyfor their little _caches_ of nuts. Their provender is hidden away amongthe dried leaves, and when they want a nibble of nut or acorn they maketheir way, by some mysterious sense, even through three feet of snow, downto the bit of food which, months before, they patted out of sight amongthe moss and leaves. 

It would seem that some exact sub-conscious sense of locality would be amore probable solution of this feat than the sense of smell, howeverkeenly developed, when we consider that dozens of nuts may be hidden orburied in close proximity to the one sought by the squirrel. 

Even though the birds seem to have vanished from the earth, and everymammal be deeply buried in its long sleep, no winter's walk need be barrenof interest. A suggestion worth trying would be to choose a certain areaof saplings and underbrush and proceed systematically to fathom everycause which has prevented the few stray leaves still upon their stalksfrom falling with their many brethren now buried beneath the snow. 

The encircling silken bonds of Promethea and Cynthia cocoons will accountfor some; others will puzzle us until we have found the traces of someinsect foe, whose girdling has killed the twig and thus prevented the leaffrom falling at the usual time; some may be simply mechanical causes, where a broken twig crotch has fallen athwart another stem in the courseof its downward fall. Then there is the pitiful remnant of a last summer'sbird's-nest, with a mere skeleton of a floor all but disintegrated. 

But occasionally a substantial ball of dead leaves will be noticed, swungamid a tangle of brier. No accident lodged these, nor did any insect haveaught to do with their position. Examine carefully the mass of leaves andyou will find a replica of the gray squirrel's nest, only, of course, muchsmaller. This handiwork of the white-footed or deer mouse can be found inalmost every field or tangle of undergrowth; the nest of a field sparrowor catbird being used as a foundation and thickly covered over and tightlythatched with leaves. Now and then, even in mid-winter, we may find theowner at home, and as the weasel is the most bloodthirsty, so the deermouse is the most beautiful and gentle of all the fur-coated folk of ourwoods. With his coat of white and pale golden brown and his great black, lustrous eyes, and his timid, trusting ways, he is altogether lovable. 

He spends the late summer and early autumn in his tangle-hung home, but inwinter he generally selects a snug hollow log, or some cavity in theearth. Here he makes a round nest of fine grass and upon a couch ofthistledown he sleeps in peace, now and then waking to partake of thelittle hoard of nuts which he has gathered, or he may even dare to frolicabout upon the snow in the cold winter moonlight, leaving behind him notrace, save the fairy tracery of his tiny footprints. 

 Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' murd'ring prattle! ROBERT BURNS. 

WINTER HOLES

The decayed hollows which we have mentioned as so often productive oflittle owls have their possibilities by no means exhausted by one visit. The disturbed owl may take himself elsewhere, after being sounceremoniously disturbed; but there are roving, tramp-like characters, with dispositions taking them here and there through the winter nights, towhom, at break of day, a hole is ever a sought-for haven. 

So do not put your hand too recklessly into an owl hole, for a hiss and asudden nip may show that an opossum has taken up his quarters there. Ifyou must, pull him out by his squirming, naked tail, but do not carry himhome, as he makes a poor pet, and between hen-house traps and iratefarmers, he has good reason, in this part of the country at least, to beshort tempered. 

Of course the birds'-nests are all deserted now, but do not be too sure ofthe woodpeckers' holes. The little downy and his larger cousin, the hairywoodpecker, often spend the winter nights snug within deep cavities whichthey have hollowed out, each bird for itself. I have never known a pair toshare one of these shelters. 

Sometimes, in pulling off the loose bark from a decayed stump, severaldry, flattened scales will fall out upon the snow among the debris of woodand dead leaves. Hold them close in the warm palm of your hand for a timeand the dried bits will quiver, the sides partly separate, and behold! youhave brought back to life a beautiful _Euvanessa_, or mourning-cloakbutterfly. Lay it upon the snow and soon the awakened life will ebb awayand it will again be stiff, as in death. If you wish, take it home, andyou may warm it into activity, feed it upon a drop of syrup and freeze itagain at will. Sometimes six or eight of these insects may be foundsheltered under the bark of a single stump, or in a hollow beneath astone. Several species share this habit of hibernating throughout thewinter. 

Look carefully in old, deserted sheds, in half-sheltered hollows of trees, or in deep crevice-caverns in rocks, and you may some day spy one of thestrangest of our wood-folk. A poor little shrivelled bundle of fur, tight-clasped in its own skinny fingers, with no more appearance of lifein its frozen body than if it were a mummy from an Egyptian tomb; such isthe figure that will meet your eye when you chance upon a bat in the deeptrance of its winter's hibernation. Often you will find six or a dozen ofthese stiffened forms clinging close together, head downward. 

As in the case of the sleeping butterfly, carry one of the bats to yourwarm room and place him in a bird-cage, hanging him up on the top wires byhis toes, with his head downward. The inverted position of these strangelittle beings always brings to mind some of the experiences of Gulliver, and indeed the life of a bat is more wonderful than any fairy tale. 

Probably the knowledge of bats which most of us possess is chiefly derivedfrom the imaginations of artists and poets, who, unlike the Chinese, donot look upon these creatures with much favour, generally symbolising themin connection with passages and pictures which relate to the infernalregions. All of which is entirely unjust. Their nocturnal habits and ourconsequent ignorance of their characteristics are the only causes whichcan account for their being associated with the realm of Satan. In someplaces bats are called flittermice, but they are more nearly related tomoles, shrews, and other insect-eaters than they are to mice. If we lookat the skeleton of an animal which walks or hops we will notice that itshind limbs are much the stronger, and that the girdle which connects thesewith the backbone is composed of strong and heavy bones. In bats a reversecondition is found; the breast girdle, or bones corresponding to ourcollar bones and shoulder blades, are greatly developed. This, as inbirds, is, of course, an adaptation to give surface for the attachment ofthe great propelling muscles of the wings. 

Although the hand of a bat is so strangely altered, yet, as we shall seeif we look at our captive specimen, it has five fingers, as we have, fourof which are very long and thin, and the webs, of which we have a verynoticeable trace in our own hands, stretch from finger-tip to finger-tip, and to the body and even down each leg, ending squarely near the ankle, thus giving the creature the absurd appearance of having on a very broad, baggy pair of trousers. 

When thoroughly warmed up, our bat will soon start on a tour of inspectionof his cage. He steps rapidly from one wire to another, sometimes hookingon with all five toes, but generally with four or three. There seems to belittle power in these toes, except of remaining bent in a hooked position;for when our bat stops and draws up one foot to scratch the head, theclaws are merely jerked through the fur by motions of the whole leg, notby individual movements of the separate toes. In this motion we notice, for the first time, that the legs and feet grow in a kind of "spreadeagle" position, making the knees point backward, in the same direction asthe elbows. 

We must stop a moment to admire the beautiful soft fur, a golden brown incolour, with part of the back nearly black. The tiny inverted face is fullof expression, the bead-like eyes gleaming brightly from out of theirfurry bed. The small moist nostrils are constantly wrinkling andsniffling, and the large size of the alert ears shows how much their ownerdepends upon them for information. If we suddenly move up closer to thewires, the bat opens both wings owl-like, in a most threatening manner;but if we make still more hostile motions the creature retreats as hastilyas it can, changing its method of progress to an all-fours, sloth-likegait, the long free thumb of each hand grasping wire after wire and doingmost of the leverage, the hind legs following passively. 

When at what he judges a safe distance he again hangs pendent, bending hishead back to look earnestly at us. Soon the half-opened wings are closedand brought close to the shoulders, and in this, the usual restingposition, the large claws of the thumbs rest on the breast in littlefurrows which they have worn in the fur. 

Soon drowsiness comes on and a long elaborate yawn is given, showing themany small needle-like teeth and the broad red tongue, which curls outwardto a surprising length. Then comes the most curious process of all. Drawing up one leg, the little creature deliberately wraps one hand withits clinging web around the leg and under the arms, and then draws theother wing straight across the body, holds it there a moment, while ittakes a last look in all directions. Then lifting its fingers slightly, itbends its head and wraps all in the full-spread web. It is mostludicrously like a tragedian, acting the death scene in "Julius Cæsar, "and it loses nothing in repetition; for each time the little animal thusdraws its winding sheet about its body, one is forced to smile as hethinks of the absurd resemblance. 

But all this and much more you will see for yourself, if you are sofortunate as to discover the hiding-place of the hibernating bat. 

Our little brown bat is a most excellent mother, and when in summer shestarts out on her nocturnal hunts she takes her tiny baby bat with her. The weird little creature wraps his long fingers about his mother's neckand off they go. When two young are born, the father bat is said sometimesto assume entire control of one. 

After we come to know more of the admirable family traits of the_fledermaus_--its musical German name--we shall willingly defend it fromthe calumny which for thousands of years has been heaped upon it. 

Hibernation is a strange phenomenon, and one which is but littleunderstood. If we break into the death-like trance for too long a time, orif we do not supply the right kind of food, our captive butterflies andbats will perish. So let us soon freeze them up again and place them backin the care of old Nature. Thus the pleasure is ours of having made themyield up their secrets, without any harm to them. Let us fancy that in thespring they may remember us only as a strange dream which has come to themduring their long sleep. 

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MARCH

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FEATHERED PIONEERS

In the annual war of the seasons, March is the time of the most bitterlycontested battles. But we--and very likely the birds--can look ahead andrealise what the final outcome will invariably be, and, our sympathiesbeing on the winning side, every advance of spring's outposts gladdens ourhearts. But winter is a stubborn foe, and sometimes his snow and iciclebattalions will not give way a foot. Though by day the sun's fierce attackmay drench the earth with the watery blood of the ice legions, yet atnight, silently and grimly, new reserves of cold repair the damage. 

Our winter visitors are still in force. Amid the stinging cold the weebrown form of a winter wren will dodge round a brush pile--a tiny bundleof energy which defies all chill winds and which resolves bug chrysalidesand frozen insects into a marvellous activity. Other little birds, assmall as the wren, call to us from the pines and cedars--golden-crownedkinglets, olive-green of body, while on their heads burns a crest oforange and gold. 

When a good-sized brown bird flies up before you, showing a flash of whiteon his rump, you may know him for the flicker, the most unwoodpecker-likeof his family. He is more or less deserting the tree-climbing method forground feeding, and if you watch him you will see many habits which hisnew mode of life is teaching him. 

Even in the most wintry of Marches some warm, thawing days are sure to bethrown in between storms, and nothing, not even pussy willows and theskunk cabbage, yield more quickly to the mellowing influence than do thebirds--sympathetic brethren of ours that they are. Hardly has the sunniesticicle begun to drop tears, when a song sparrow flits to the top of abush, clears his throat with sharp chirps and shouts as loud as he can:"Hip! Hip! Hip! Hurrah--!" Even more boreal visitors feel the newinfluence, and tree and fox sparrows warble sweetly. But the bluebird'snote will always be spring's dearest herald. When this soft, mellow soundfloats from the nearest fence post, it seems to thaw something out of ourears; from this instant winter seems on the defensive; the crisis has comeand gone in an instant, in a single vibration of the air. 

Bright colours are still scarce among our birds, but another blue form mayoccasionally pass us, for blue jays are more noticeable now than at anyother time of the year. Although not by any means a rare bird, with usjays are shy and wary. In Florida their southern cousins are as familiaras robins, without a trace of fear of mankind. What curious notes our bluejays have--a creaking, wheedling, rasping medley of sounds coming throughthe leafless branches. At this time of year they love acorns and nuts, butin the spring "their fancy turns to thoughts of" eggs and young nestlings, and they are accordingly hated by the small birds. Nevertheless no bird isquicker to shout and scream "Thief! Robber!" at some harmless little owlthan are these blue and white rascals. 

You may seek in vain to discover the first sign of nesting among thebirds. Scarcely has winter set in in earnest, you will think, when thetiger-eyed one of the woods--the great horned owl--will have drifted up tosome old hawk's nest, and laid her white spheres fairly in the snow. Whenyou discover her "horns" above the nest lining of dried leaves, you mayfind that her fuzzy young owls are already hatched. But these owls are anexception, and no other bird in our latitude cares to risk the dangers oflate February or early March. 

March is sometimes a woodpecker month, and almost any day one is verylikely to see, besides the flicker, the hairy or downy woodpecker. Thelatter two are almost counterparts of each other, although the downy isthe more common. They hammer cheerfully upon the sounding boards whichNature has provided for them, striking slow or fast, soft or loud, astheir humour dictates. 

Near New York, a day in March--I have found it varying from March 8 toMarch 12--is "crow day. " Now the winter roosts apparently break up, andall day flocks of crows, sometimes thousands upon thousands of them, passto the northward. If the day is quiet and spring-like, they fly very high, black motes silhouetted against the blue, --but if the day is a "Marchday, " with whistling, howling winds, then the black fellows fly close toearth, rising just enough to clear bushes and trees, and taking leewardadvantage of every protection. For days after, many crows pass, but neverso many as on the first day, when crow law, or crow instinct, passes theword, we know not how, which is obeyed by all. 

For miles around not a drop of water may be found; it seems as if everypool and lake were solid to the bottom, and yet, when we see a large bird, with goose-like body, long neck and long, pointed beak, flying like abullet of steel through the sky, we may be sure that there is open waterto the northward, for a loon never makes a mistake. When the first pioneerof these hardy birds passes, he knows that somewhere beyond us fish can becaught. If we wonder where he has spent the long winter months, we shouldtake a steamer to Florida. Out on the ocean, sometimes a hundred miles ormore from land, many of these birds make their winter home. When the bowof the steamer bears down upon one, the bird half spreads its wings, thencloses them quickly, and sinks out of sight in the green depths, not toreappear until the steamer has passed, when he looks after us and uttershis mocking laugh. Here he will float until the time comes for him to gonorth. We love the brave fellow, remembering him in his home among thelakes of Canada; but we tremble for him when we think of the terriblestorm waves which he must outride, and the sneering sharks which mustsometimes spy him. What a story he could tell of his life among thephalaropes and jelly-fishes!

Meadow larks are in flocks in March, and as their yellow breasts, with thecentral crescent of black, rise from the snow-bent grass, their long, clear, vocal "arrow" comes to us, piercing the air like a veritable icicleof sound. When on the ground they are walkers like the crow. 

As the kingfisher and loon appear to know long ahead when the first bit ofclear water will appear, so the first insect on the wing seems to beanticipated by a feathered flycatcher. Early some morning, when thewondrous Northern Lights are still playing across the heavens, a smallvoice may make all the surroundings seem incongruous. Frosty air, rimmedtree-trunks, naked branches, aurora--all seem as unreal as stageproperties, when _phoe-be!_ comes to our ears. Yes, there is the littledark-feathered, tail-wagging fellow, hungry no doubt, but sure that whenthe sun warms up, Mother Nature will strew his aerial breakfast-table withtiny gnats, --precocious, but none the less toothsome for all that. 

 Hark 'tis the bluebird's venturous strain High on the old fringed elm at the gate-- Sweet-voiced, valiant on the swaying bough, Alert, elate, Dodging the fitful spits of snow, New England's poet-laureate Telling us Spring has come again! Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 

THE WAYS OF MEADOW MICE

Day after day we may walk through the woods and fields, using our eyes asbest we can, searching out every moving thing, following up everysound, --and yet we touch only the coarsest, perceive only the grossest ofthe life about us. Tramp the same way after a fall of snow and we areastonished at the evidences of life of which we knew nothing. Everywhere, in and out among the reed stems, around the tree-trunks, and in wavy linesand spirals all about, runs the delicate tracery of the meadow micetrails. No leapers these, as are the white-footed and jumping mice, butshort-legged and stout of body. Yet with all their lack of size andswiftness, they are untiring little folk, and probably make long journeysfrom their individual nests. 

As far north as Canada and west to the Plains the meadow or field mice arefound, and everywhere they seem to be happy and content. Most of all, however, they enjoy the vicinity of water, and a damp, half-marshy meadowis a paradise for them. No wonder their worst enemies are known as marshhawks and marsh owls; these hunters of the daylight and the night wellknow where the meadow mice love to play. 

These mice are resourceful little beings and when danger threatens theywill take to the water without hesitation; and when the muskrat has gonethe way of the beaver, our ditches and ponds will not be completelydeserted, for the little meadow mice will swim and dive for many yearsthereafter. 

Not only in the meadows about our inland streams, but within sound of thebreakers on the seashore, these vigorous bits of fur find bountifulliving, and it is said that the mice folk inhabiting these low saltmarshes always know in some mysterious way when a disastrous high tide isdue, and flee in time, so that when the remorseless ripples lap higher andhigher over the wide stretches of salt grass, not a mouse will be drowned. By some delicate means of perception all have been notified in time, andthese, among the least of Nature's children, have run and scurried alongtheir grassy paths to find safety on the higher ground. 

These paths seem an invention of the meadow mice, and, affording them aunique escape from danger, they doubtless, in a great measure, account forthe extreme abundance of the little creatures. When a deer mouse or achipmunk emerges from its hollow log or underground tunnel, it must takeits chances in open air. It may dart along close to the ground or amid animpenetrable tangle of briers, but still it is always visible from above. On the other hand, a mole, pushing blindly along beneath the sod, fears nodanger from the hawk soaring high overhead. 

The method of the meadow mice is between these two: its stratum of activelife is above the mole and beneath the chipmunk. Scores of sharp littleincisor teeth are forever busy gnawing and cutting away the tender grassand sprouting weeds in long meandering paths or trails through themeadows. As these paths are only a mouse-breadth in width, the grasses ateach side lean inward, forming a perfect shelter of interlocking stemsoverhead. Two purposes are thus fulfilled: a delicious succulent food isobtained and a way of escape is kept ever open. These lines intersect andcross at every conceivable angle, and as the meadow mice clan are everfriendly toward one another, any particular mouse seems at liberty totraverse these miles of mouse alleys. 

In winter, when the snow lies deep upon the ground, these same mice drivetunnels beneath it, leading to all their favourite feeding grounds, to allthe heavy-seeded weed heads, with which the bounty of Nature suppliesthem. But at night these tunnels are deserted and boldly out upon the snowcome the meadow mice, chasing each other over its gleaming surface, nibbling the toothsome seeds, dodging, or trying to dodge, theowl-shadows; living the keen, strenuous, short, but happy, life which isthat of all the wild meadow folk. 

 That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, An' weary winter comin' fast, An' cosey here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell. Robert Burns. 

PROBLEMS OF BIRD LIFE

The principal problems which birds, and indeed all other creatures, haveto solve, have been well stated to be--Food, Safety, and Reproduction. Inregard to safety, or the art of escaping danger, we are all familiar withthe ravages which hawks, owls, foxes, and even red squirrels commit amongthe lesser feathered creatures, but there are other dangers which few ofus suspect. 

Of all creatures birds are perhaps the most exempt from liability toaccident, yet they not infrequently lose their lives in most unexpectedways. Once above trees and buildings, they have the whole upper air freeof every obstacle, and though their flight sometimes equals the speed of arailroad train, they have little to fear when well above the ground. Collision with other birds seems scarcely possible, although it sometimesdoes occur. When a covey of quail is flushed, occasionally two birds willcollide, at times meeting with such force that both are stunned. Flycatchers darting at the same insect will now and then come together, but not hard enough to injure either bird. 

Even the smallest and most wonderful of all flyers, the hummingbird, maycome to grief in accidental ways. I have seen one entangled in a burdockburr, its tiny feathers fast locked into the countless hooks, and again Ihave found the body of one of these little birds with its bill fastened ina spiral tendril of a grapevine, trapped in some unknown way. 

Young phoebes sometimes become entangled in the horsehairs which are usedin the lining of their nest. When they are old enough to fly and attemptto leave, they are held prisoners or left dangling from the nest. Whenmink traps are set in the snow in winter, owls frequently fall victims, mice being scarce and the bait tempting. 

Lighthouses are perhaps the cause of more accidents to birds than are anyof the other obstacles which they encounter on their nocturnal migrationsnorth and south. Many hundreds of birds are sometimes found dead at thebase of these structures. The sudden bright glare is so confusing andblinding, as they shoot from the intense darkness into its circle ofradiance, that they are completely bewildered and dash headlong againstthe thick panes of glass. Telegraph wires are another menace to low-flyingbirds, especially those which, like quail and woodcock, enjoy a whirlwindflight, and attain great speed within a few yards. Such birds have beenfound almost cut in two by the force with which they struck the wire. 

The elements frequently catch birds unaware and overpower them. A suddenwind or storm will drive coast-flying birds hundreds of miles out to sea, and oceanic birds may be blown as far inland. Hurricanes in the WestIndies are said to cause the death of innumerable birds, as well as ofother creatures. From such a cause small islands are known to have becomecompletely depopulated of their feathered inhabitants. Violent hailstorms, coming in warm weather without warning, are quite common agents in thedestruction of birds, and in a city thousands of English sparrows havebeen stricken during such a storm. After a violent storm of wet snow inthe middle West, myriads of Lapland longspurs were once found dead in thestreets and suburbs of several villages. On the surface of two smalllakes, a conservative estimate of the dead birds was a million and ahalf!

The routes which birds follow in migrating north and south sometimesextend over considerable stretches of water, as across the Caribbean Sea, but the only birds which voluntarily brave the dangers of the open oceanare those which, from ability to swim, or great power of flight, can trustthemselves far away from land. Not infrequently a storm will drive birdsaway from the land and carry them over immense distances, and thisaccounts for the occasional appearance of land birds near vessels far outat sea. Overcome with fatigue, they perch for hours in the rigging beforetaking flight in the direction of the nearest land, or, desperate fromhunger, they fly fearlessly down to the deck, where food and water areseldom refused them. 

Small events like these are welcome breaks in the monotony of a long oceanvoyage, but are soon forgotten at the end of the trip. 

Two of these ocean waifs were once brought to me. One was a young Europeanheron which flew on board a vessel when it was about two hundred and fivemiles southeast of the southern extremity of India. A storm must havedriven the bird seaward, as there is no migration route near thislocality. 

The second bird was a European turtle dove which was captured not lessthan seven hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land--Ireland. Whencaught it was in an exhausted condition, but it quickly recovered and soonlost all signs of the buffeting of the storm. The turtle dove migratesnorthward to the British Islands about the first of May, but as this birdwas captured on May 17th, it was not migrating, but, caught by a gust ofwind, was probably blown away from the land. The force of the storm wouldthen drive it mile after mile, allowing it no chance of controlling thedirection of its flight, but, from the very velocity, making it easy forthe bird to maintain its equilibrium. 

Hundreds of birds must perish when left by storms far out at sea, and theinfinitely small chance of encountering a vessel or other resting-placemakes a bird which has passed through such an experience and survived, interesting indeed. 

In winter ruffed grouse have a habit of burrowing deep beneath the snowand letting the storm shut them in. In this warm, cosey retreat they spendthe night, their breath making its way out through the loosely packedcrystals. But when a cold rain sets in during the night, this becomes afatal trap, an impenetrable crust cutting off their means of escape. 

Ducks, when collected about a small open place in an ice-covered pond, diving for the tender roots on which they feed, sometimes become confusedand drown before they find their way out. They have been seen frozen intothe ice by hundreds, sitting there helplessly, and fortunate if the sun, with its thawing power, releases them before they are discovered bymarauding hawks or foxes. 

In connection with their food supply the greatest enemy of birds is ice, and when a winter rain ends with a cold snap, and every twig and seed isencased in a transparent armour of ice, then starvation stalks close toall the feathered kindred. Then is the time to scatter crumbs and grainbroadcast, to nail bones and suet to the tree-trunks and so awaken hopeand life in the shivering little forms. If a bird has food in abundance, it little fears the cold. I have kept parrakeets out through the blizzardsand storms of a severe winter, seeing them play and frolic in the snow asif their natural home were an arctic tundra, instead of a tropicalforest. 

A friend of birds once planted many sprouts of wild honeysuckle about hisporch, and the following summer two pairs of hummingbirds built theirnests in near-by apple trees; he transplanted quantities of livingwoodbine to the garden fences, and when the robins returned in the spring, after having remained late the previous autumn feeding on the succulentbunches of berries, no fewer than ten pairs nested on and about the porchand yard. 

So my text of this, as of many other weeks is, --study the food habits ofthe birds and stock your waste places with their favourite berry or vine. Your labour will be repaid a hundredfold in song and in the society of thelittle winged comrades. 

 Worn is the winter rug of white, And in the snow-bare spots once more, Glimpses of faint green grass in sight, -- Spring's footprints on the floor. Spring here--by what magician's touch? 'Twas winter scarce an hour ago. And yet I should have guessed as much, -- Those footprints in the snow! Frank Dempster Sherman. 

DWELLERS IN THE DUST

To many of us the differences between a reptile and a batrachian areunknown. Even if we have learned that these interesting creatures are wellworth studying and that they possess few or none of the unpleasantcharacteristics usually attributed to them, still we are apt to speak ofhaving seen a lizard in the water at the pond's edge, or of having heard areptile croaking near the marsh. To avoid such mistakes, one need onlyremember that reptiles are covered with scales and that batrachians havesmooth skins. 

Our walks will become more and more interesting as we spread our interestover a wider field, not confining our observations to birds and mammalsalone, but including members of the two equally distinctive classes ofanimals mentioned above. The batrachians, in the northeastern part of ourcountry, include the salamanders and newts, the frogs and toads, while asreptiles we number lizards, turtles, and snakes. 

Lizards are creatures of the tropics and only two small species are foundin our vicinity, and these occur but rarely. Snakes, however, are moreabundant, and, besides the rare poisonous copperhead and rattlesnake, careful search will reveal a dozen harmless species, the commonest, ofcourse, being the garter snake and its near relative the ribbon snake. 

About this time of the year snakes begin to feel the thawing effect of thesun's rays and to stir in their long winter hibernation. Sometimes we willcome upon a ball of six or eight intertwined snakes, which, if they arestill frozen up, will lie motionless upon the ground. But when springfinally unclasps the seal which has been put upon tree and ground, thesereptiles stretch themselves full length upon some exposed stone, wherethey lie basking in the sun. 

The process of shedding the skin soon begins; getting clear of the headpart, eye-scales and all, the serpent slowly wriggles its way forward, escaping from the old skin as a finger is drawn from a glove. At last itcrawls away, bright and shining in its new scaly coat, leaving behind it aspectral likeness of itself, which slowly sinks and disintegrates amid thedead leaves and moss, or, later in the year, it may perhaps be discoveredby some crested flycatcher and carried off to be added to its nestingmaterial. 

When the broods of twenty to thirty young garter snakes start out in lifeto hunt for themselves, then woe to the earthworms, for it is upon themthat the little serpents chiefly feed. 

Six or seven of our native species of snakes lay eggs, usually depositingthem under the bark of rotten logs, or in similar places, where they areleft to hatch by the heat of the sun or by that of the decayingvegetation. It is interesting to gather these leathery shelled eggs andwatch them hatch, and it is surprising how similar to each other some ofthe various species are when they emerge from the shell. 

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APRIL

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SPRING SONGSTERS

Early April sees the last contest which winter wages for supremacy, andoften it is a half-hearted attempt; but after the army of the North hasretreated, with its icicles and snowdrifts, spring seems dazed for awhile. Victory has been dearly bought, and April is the season when, for atime, the trees and insects hang fire--paralysed--while the chill isthawing from their marrow. Our northern visitors of the bird world slipquietly away. There is no great gathering of clans like that of the treeswallows in the fall, but silently, one by one, they depart, following thelast moan of the north wind, covering winter's disordered retreat withwarbles and songs. 

One evening we notice the juncos and tree sparrows in the tangled, frost-burned stubble, and the next day, although our eye catches glints ofwhite from sparrow tails, it is from vesper finches, not from juncos, andthe weed spray which a few hours before bent beneath a white-throat'sweight, now vibrates with the energy which a field sparrow puts into hissong. Field and chipping sparrows, which now come in numbers, are somewhatalike, but by their beaks and songs you may know them. The mandibles ofthe former are flesh-coloured, those of the latter black. The sharp_chip!_ _chip!_ is characteristic of the "chippy, " but the sweet, drippingsong of the field sparrow is charming. No elaborate performance this, buta succession of sweet, high notes, accelerating toward the end, like acoin of silver settling to rest on a marble table--a simple, chastevespers which rises to the setting sun and endears the little brown singerto us. 

We may learn much by studying these homely little frequenters of ourorchards and pastures; each has a hundred secrets which await patient andcareful watching by their human lovers. In the chipping sparrow we maynotice a hint of the spring change of dress which warblers and tanagerscarry to such an extreme. When he left us in the fall he wore adull-streaked cap, but now he comes from the South attired in a smarthead-covering of bright chestnut. Poor little fellow, this is the verybest he can do in the way of especial ornament to bewitch his lady love, but it suffices. Can the peacock's train do more?

This is the time to watch for the lines of ducks crossing the sky, and beready to find black ducks in the oddest places--even in insignificant rainpools deep in the woods. In the early spring the great flocks of gracklesand redwings return, among the first to arrive as they were the last toleave for the South. 

Before the last fox sparrow goes, the hermit thrush comes, and thesebirds, alike in certain superficialities, but so actually unrelated, for atime seek their food in the same grove. 

The hardier of the warblers pass us in April, stopping a few days beforecontinuing to the northward. We should make haste to identify them and tolearn all we can of their notes and habits, not only because of the shortstay which most of them make, but on account of the vast assemblage ofwarbler species already on the move in the Southern States, which soon, inpanoply of rainbow hues, will crowd our groves and wear thin the warblerpages of our bird books. 

These April days we are sure to see flocks of myrtle, or yellow-rumpedwarblers, and yellow palm warblers in their olive-green coats and chestnutcaps. The black-and-white creeper will always show himself true to hisname--a creeping bundle of black and white streaks. When we hear of theparula warbler or of the Cape May warbler we get no idea of the appearanceof the bird, but when we know that the black-throated green warblers beginto appear in April, the first good view of one of this species willproclaim him as such. 

We have marked the fox sparrow as being a great scratcher among deadleaves. His habit is continued in the spring by the towhee, or chewink, who uses the same methods, throwing both feet backward simultaneously. Theordinary call note of this bird is a good example of how difficult it isto translate bird songs into human words. Listen to the quick, double notecoming from the underbrush. Now he says "_towhee'!_" the next time"_chewink'!_" You may change about at will, and the notes will alwayscorrespond. Whatever is in our mind at the instant, that will seem to bewhat the bird says. This should warn us of the danger of reading ourthoughts and theories too much into the minds and actions of birds. Theirmental processes, in many ways, correspond to ours. When a bird expressesfear, hate, bravery, pain or pleasure, we can sympathise thoroughly withit, but in studying their more complex actions we should endeavour toexclude the thousand and one human attributes with which we are prone tocolour the bird's mental environment. 

John Burroughs has rendered the song of the black-throated green warblerin an inimitable way, as follows: "---- ----V----!" When we have onceheard the bird we will instantly recognise the aptness of these symboliclines. The least flycatcher, called _minimus_ by the scientists, welldeserves his name, for of all those members of his family which make theirhome with us, he is the smallest. These miniature flycatchers have a wayof hunting which is all their own. They sit perched on some exposed twigor branch, motionless until some small insect flies in sight. Then theywill launch out into the air, and, catching the insect with a snap oftheir beaks, fly back to the same perch. They are garbed in subdued grays, olives, and yellows. The least flycatcher has another name which at oncedistinguishes him--chebec'. As he sits on a limb, his whole body trembleswhen he jerks out these syllables, and his tail snaps as if it played someimportant part in the mechanism of his vocal effort. 

When you are picking cowslips and hepaticas early in the month, keep alookout for the first barn swallow. Nothing gives us such an impression ofthe independence and individuality of birds as when a solitary member ofsome species arrives days before others of his kind. One fork-tailedbeauty of last year's nest above the haymow may hawk about for insects dayafter day alone, before he is joined by other swallows. Did he spend thewinter by himself, or did the _heimweh_ smite his heart more sorely andbring him irresistibly to the loved nest in the rafters? This love ofhome, which is so striking an attribute of birds, is a wonderfullybeautiful thing. It brings the oriole back to the branch where stillswings her exquisite purse-shaped home of last summer; it leads each pairof fishhawks to their particular cartload of sticks, to which a few moremust be added each year; it hastens the wing beats of the sea-swallowsnorthward to the beach which, ten months ago, was flecked with theireggs--the shifting grains of sand their only nest. 

This love of home, of birthplace, bridges over a thousand physicaldifferences between these feathered creatures and ourselves. We forgettheir expressionless masks of horn, their feathered fingers, their scalytoes, and looking deep into their clear, bright eyes, we know and feel akinship, a sympathy of spirit, which binds us all together, and we areglad. 

 Yet these sweet sounds of the early season, And these fair sights of its sunny days, Are only sweet when we fondly listen, And only fair when we fondly gaze. 

 There is no glory in star or blossom Till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes Till breathed with joy as they wander by. William Cullen Bryant. 

THE SIMPLE ART OF SAPSUCKING

The yellow-bellied sapsucker is, at this time of year, one of our mostabundant woodpeckers, and in its life we have an excellent example of thatindividuality which is ever cropping out in Nature--the trial andacceptance of life under new conditions. 

In the spring we tap the sugar maples, and gather great pailfuls of thesap as it rises from its winter resting-place in the roots, and thesapsucker likes to steal from our pails or to tap the trees for himself. But throughout part of the year he is satisfied with an insect diet andchooses the time when the sap begins to flow downward in the autumn forcommitting his most serious depredations upon the tree. It was formerlythought that this bird, like its near relatives, the downy and hairywoodpeckers, was forever boring for insects; but when we examine theregularity and symmetry of the arrangement of its holes, we realise thatthey are for a very different purpose than the exposing of an occasionalgrub. 

Besides drinking the sap from the holes, this bird extracts a quantity ofthe tender inner bark of the tree, and when a tree has been encircled forseveral feet up and down its trunk by these numerous little sap wells, theeffect becomes apparent in the lessened circulation of the liquid blood ofthe tree; and before long, death is certain to ensue. So the work of thesapsucker is injurious, while the grub-seeking woodpeckers confer onlygood upon the trees they frequent. 

And how pitiful is the downfall of a doomed tree! Hardly has its vitalitybeen lessened an appreciable amount, when somehow the word is passed tothe insect hordes who hover about in waiting, as wolves hang upon theoutskirts of a herd of buffalo. In the spring, when the topmost brancheshave received a little less than their wonted amount of wholesome sap andthe leaves are less vigorous, the caterpillars and twig-girdlers attack atonce. Ichneumen flies and boring beetles seem to know by signs invisibleto us that here is opportunity. Then in the fall come again the sapsuckersto the tree, remorselessly driving hole after hole through the stilluntouched segments of its circle of life. When the last sap-channel ispierced and no more can pass to the roots, the tree stands helpless, waiting for the end. Swiftly come frost and rain, and when the April sunsagain quicken all the surrounding vegetation into vigorous life, thevictim of the sapsuckers stands lifeless, its branches reaching hopelesslyupward, a naked mockery amid the warm green foliage around. Insects andfungi and lightning now set to work unhindered, and the tree falls atlast, --dust to dust--ashes to ashes. 

A sapsucker has been seen in early morning to sink forty or fifty wellsinto the bark of a mountain ash tree, and then to spend the rest of theday in sidling from one to another, taking a sip here and a drink there, gradually becoming more and more lethargic and drowsy, as if the sapactually produced some narcotic or intoxicating effect. Strong indeed isthe contrast between such a picture and the same bird in the earlyspring, --then full of life and vigour, drawing musical reverberations fromsome resonant hollow limb. 

Like other idlers, the sapsucker in its deeds of gluttony and harm brings, if anything, more injury to others than to itself. The farmers well knowits depredations and detest it accordingly, but unfortunately they are notornithologists, and a peckerwood is a peckerwood to them; and so while thepoor downy, the red-head, and the hairy woodpeckers are seen busily atwork cutting the life threads of the injurious borer larvæ, the farmer, thinking of his dying trees, slays them all without mercy or distinction. The sapsucker is never as confiding as the downy, and from a safe distancesees others murdered for sins which are his alone. 

But we must give sapsucker his due and admit that he devours many hundredsof insects throughout the year, and though we mourn the death of anoccasional tree, we cannot but admire his new venture in life, --hiscunning in choosing only the dessert served at the woodpeckers'feasts, --the sweets which flow at the tap of a beak, leaving to hisfellows the labour of searching and drilling deep for more substantialcourses. 

WILD WINGS

The ides of March see the woodcock back in its northern home, and in earlyApril it prepares for nesting. The question of the nest itself is a verysimple matter, being only a cavity, formed by the pressure of the mother'sbody, among the moss and dead leaves. The formalities of courtship are, however, quite another thing, and the execution of interesting aerialdances entails much effort and time. 

It is in the dusk of evening that the male woodcock begins hissong, --plaintive notes uttered at regular intervals, and sounding like_peent!_ _peent!_ Then without warning he launches himself on a sharplyascending spiral, his wings whistling through the gloom. Higher and higherhe goes, balances a moment, and finally descends abruptly, with zigzagrushes, wings and voice both aiding each other in producing the sounds, towhich, let us suppose, his prospective mate listens with ecstasy. It is aweird performance, repeated again and again during the same evening. 

So pronounced and loud is the whistling of the wings that we wonder how itcan be produced by ordinary feathers. The three outer primaries of thewing, which in most birds are usually like the others, in the woodcock arevery stiff, and the vanes are so narrow that when the wing is spread thereis a wide space between each one. When the wing beats the air rapidly, thewind rushes through these feather slits, --and we have the accompaniment ofthe love-song explained. 

The feather-covered arms and hands of birds are full of interest; andafter studying the wing of a chicken which has been plucked for the table, we shall realise how wonderful a transformation has taken place throughthe millions of years past. Only three stubby fingers are left and theseare stiff and almost immovable, but the rest of the forearm is very likethat of our own arm. 

See how many facts we can accumulate about wings, by giving specialattention to them, when watching birds fly across the sky. How easy it isto identify the steady beats of a crow, or the more rapid strokes of aduck; how distinctive is the frequent looping flight of a goldfinch, orthe longer, more direct swings of a woodpecker!

Hardly any two birds have wings exactly similar in shape, every wing beingexquisitely adapted to its owner's needs. The gull soars or flaps slowlyon his long, narrow, tireless pinions, while the quail rises suddenlybefore us on short, rounded wings, which carry it like a rocket for ashort distance, when it settles quickly to earth again. The gull wouldfare ill were it compelled to traverse the ocean with such brief spurts ofspeed, while, on the other hand, the last bob-white would shortly vanish, could it escape from fox or weasel only with the slow flight of a gull. How splendidly the sickle wings of a swift enable it to turn and twist, bat-like, in its pursuit of insects!

You may be able to identify any bird near your home, you may know its nestand eggs, its song and its young; but begin at the beginning again andwatch their wings and their feet and their bills and you will find thatthere are new and wonderful truths at your very doorstep. Try bringinghome from your walk a list of bill-uses or feet-functions. Remember that afamiliar object, looked at from a new point of view, will take to itselfunthought-of significance. 

 Whither midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? William Cullen Bryant. 

THE BIRDS IN THE MOON

The lover of birds who has spent the day in the field puts away hisglasses at nightfall, looking forward to a walk after dark only as achance to hear the call of nocturnal birds or to catch the whirr of apassing wing. But some bright moonlight night in early May, or again inmid September, unsheath your glasses and tie them, telescope-fashion, to awindow-ledge or railing. Seat yourself in an easy position and focus onthe moon. Shut out all earthly scenes from your mind and imagine yourselfwandering amid those arid wastes. What a scene of cosmic desolation! Whatvast deserts, and gaping craters of barren rock! The cold, steel-whiteplanet seems of all things most typical of death. 

But those specks passing across its surface? At first you imagine they aremotes clogging the delicate blood-vessels of the retina; then you wonderif a distant host of falling meteors could have passed. Soon a larger, nearer mote appears; the moon and its craters are forgotten and with athrill of delight you realise that they are birds--living, flyingbirds--of all earthly things typical of the most vital life! Migration isat its height, the chirps and twitters which come from the surroundingdarkness are tantalising hints telling of the passing legions. Thousandsand thousands of birds are every night pouring northward in a swift, invisible, aerial stream. 

As a projecting pebble in mid-stream blurs the transparent water with amyriad bubbles, so the narrow path of moon-rays, which our glass reveals, cute a swath of visibility straight through the host of birds to our eagereyes. How we hate to lose an instant's opportunity! Even a wink may allowa familiar form to pass unseen. If we can use a small telescope, the fieldof view is much enlarged. Now and then we recognise the flight of someparticular species, --the swinging loop of a woodpecker or goldfinch, orthe flutter of a sandpiper. 

It has been computed that these birds sometimes fly as much as a mile ormore above the surface of the earth, and when we think of the tiny, fluttering things at this terrible height, it takes our breath away. Whata panorama of dark earth and glistening river and ocean must be spread outbeneath them! How the big moon must glow in that rarefied air! Howdiminutive and puerile must seem the houses and cities of humanfashioning!

The instinct of migration is one of the most wonderful in the world. Ayoung bob-white and a bobolink are hatched in the same New England field. The former grows up and during the fall and winter forms one of the coveywhich is content to wander a mile or two, here and there, in search ofgood feeding grounds. Hardly has the bobolink donned his first full dressbefore an irresistible impulse seizes him. One night he rises up and up, ever higher on fluttering wings, sets his course southward, gives you aglimpse of him across the moon, and keeps on through Virginia to Florida, across seas, over tropical islands, far into South America, never contentuntil he has put the great Amazon between him and his far distantbirthplace. 

 He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright. William Cullen Bryant. 

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MAY

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THE HIGH TIDE OF BIRD LIFE

For abundance and for perfection of song and plumage, of the whole year, May is the month of birds. Insects appear slowly in the spring and arenumerous all summer; squirrels and mice are more or less in evidenceduring all the twelve months; reptiles unearth themselves at the approachof the warm weather, and may be found living their slow, sluggish lifeuntil late in the fall. In eggs, cocoons, discarded bird's-nests, inearthen burrows, or in the mud at the bottom of pond or stream, all thesecreatures have spent the winter near where we find them in the spring. Butbirds are like creatures of another world; and, although in every summer'swalk we may see turtles, birds, butterflies, and chipmunks, allinterweaving their life paths across one another's haunts, yet the powerof extended flight and the wonderful habit of continental migration setbirds apart from all other living creatures. A bird during its lifetimehas almost twice the conscious existence of, say, a snake or anyhibernating mammal. And now in early May, when the creatures of the woodsand fields have only recently opened their sleepy eyes and stretched theirthin forms, there comes the great worldwide army of the birds, whosebright eyes peer at us from tree, thicket, and field, whose brilliantfeathers and sweet songs bring summer with a leap--the height of the grandsymphony, of which the vernal peeping of the frogs and the squirrels'chatter were only the first notes of the prelude. 

Tantalus-like is the condition of the amateur bird-lover, who, book inhand, vainly endeavours to identify the countless beautiful forms whichappear in such vast numbers, linger a few days and then disappear, passingon to the northward, but leaving behind a goodly assemblage which spendsthe summer and gives abundant opportunity for study during the succeedingmonths. In May it is the migrants which we should watch, and listen to, and "ogle" with our opera glasses. Like many other evanescent things, those birds which have made their winter home in Central America--land yetbeyond our travels--and which use our groves merely as half-way houses ontheir journey to the land of their birth, the balsams of Quebec, or theunknown wastes of Labrador, seem most precious, most worthy at this timeof our closest observation. 

More confusing--albeit the more delightful--is a season when continuedcold weather and chilly rains hold back all but the hardiest birds, until--like the dammed-up piles of logs trembling with the springfreshets--the tropic winds carry all before them, and all at once winterbirds which have sojourned only a few miles south of us, summer residentswhich should have appeared weeks ago, together with the great host ofCanadian and other nesters of the north, appear within a few days' time. 

A backward season brings strangers into close company for a while. Awhite-throat sings his clear song of the North, and a moment later isanswered by an oriole's melody, or the sweet tones of a rose-breastedgrosbeak--the latter one of those rarely favoured birds, exquisite in bothplumage and song. 

The glories of our May bird life are the wood warblers, and innumerablethey must seem to one who is just beginning his studies; indeed, there areover seventy species that find their way into the United States. Many arenamed from the distribution of colour upon their plumage--the blue-wingedyellow, the black-throated blue, chestnut-sided, bay-breasted, and blackpoll. Perhaps the two most beautiful--most reflective of bright tropicalskies and flowers--are the magnolia and the blackburnian. The first fairlydazzles us with its bluish crown, white and black face, black andolive-green back, white marked wings and tail, yellow throat and rump, andstrongly streaked breast. The blackburnian is an exquisite little fellow, marked with white and black, but with the crown, several patches on theface, the throat and breast of a rich warm orange that glows amid thegreen foliage like a living coal of fire. The black poll warbler is aneasy bird to identify; but do not expect to recognise it when it returnsfrom the North in the fall. Its black crown has disappeared, and ingeneral it looks like a different bird. 

At the present time when the dogwood blossoms are in their fullperfection, and the branches and twigs of the trees are not yet hidden, but their outlines only softened by the light, feathery foliage, thetanagers and orioles have their day. Nesting cares have not yet made themfearful of showing their bright plumage, and scores of the scarlet andorange forms play among the branches. 

The flycatchers and vireos now appear in force--little hunters of insectsclad in leafy greens and browns, with now and then a touch ofbrightness--as in the yellow-throated vireo or in the crest of thekingbird. 

The lesser sandpipers, both the spotted and the solitary, teeter along thebrooks and ponds, and probe the shallows for tiny worms. Near the woodystreams the so-called water thrushes spring up before us. Strange birdsthese, in appearance like thrushes, in their haunts and in their teeteringmotion like sandpipers, but in reality belonging to the same family as thetree-loving wood warblers. A problem not yet solved by ornithologists is:what was the mode of life of the ancestor of the many warblers? Did hecling to and creep along the bark, as the black-and-white warbler, or feedfrom the ground or the thicket as does the worm-eating? Did he snatchflies on the wing as the necklaced Canadian warbler, or glean from thebrook's edge as our water thrush? The struggle for existence has not beenabsent from the lives of these light-hearted little fellows, and they havehad to be jack-of-all-trades in their search for food. 

The gnats and other flying insects have indeed to take many chances whenthey slip from their cocoons and dance up and down in the warm sunlight!Lucky for their race that there are millions instead of thousands of them;for now the swifts and great numbers of tree and barn swallows spend thelivelong day in swooping after the unfortunate gauzy-winged motes, whichhave risen above the toad's maw upon land, and beyond the reach of thetrout's leap over the water. 

It would take an article as long as this simply to mention hardly morethan the names of the birds that we may observe during a walk in May; andwith bird book and glasses we must see for ourselves the bobolinks in thebroad meadows, the cowbirds and rusty blackbirds, and, pushing through thelady-slipper marshes, we may surprise the solitary great blue and thelittle green herons at their silent fishing. 

No matter how late the spring may be, the great migration host will reachits height from the tenth to the fifteenth of the month. From this untilJune first, migrants will be passing, but in fewer and fewer numbers, until the balance comes to rest again, and we may cease from the strenuouslabours of the last few weeks, confident that those birds that remain willbe the builders of the nests near our homes--nests that they know so wellhow to hide. Even before the last day of May passes, we see many youngbirds on their first weak-winged flights, such as bluebirds and robins;but June is the great month of bird homes, as to May belong the migrants. 

 Robins and mocking birds that all day long Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song. Sidney Lanier. 

ANIMAL FASHIONS

Warm spring days bring other changes than thawing snowbanks and theswelling buds and leaves, which seem to grow almost visibly. It issurprising how many of the wild folk meet the spring with changedappearance--beautiful, fantastic or ugly to us; all, perhaps, beautiful tothem and to their mates. 

As a rule we find the conditions which exist among ourselves reversedamong the animals; the male "blossoms forth like the rose, " while thefemale's sombre winter fur or feathers are reduplicated only by a thinnercoat for summer. The "spring opening" of the great classes of birds andanimals is none the less interesting because its styles are not set byParisian modistes. 

The most gorgeous display of all is to be found among the birds, thepeacock leading in conspicuousness and self-consciousness. What a contrastto the dull earthy-hued little hen, for whose slightest favour he neglectsfood to raise his Argus-eyed fan, clattering his quill castanets andscreaming challenges to his rivals! He will even fight bloody battles withinvading suitors; and, after all, failure may be the result. Imagine thefeelings of two superb birds fighting over a winsome browny, to seeher--as I have done--walk off with a spurless, half-plumaged young cock!

The males of many birds, such as the scarlet tanager and the indigobunting, assume during the winter the sombre green or brown hue of thefemale, changing in spring to a glorious scarlet and black, or to anexquisite indigo colour respectively. Not only do most of the females ofthe feathered world retain their dull coats throughout the year, but somedeface even this to form feather beds for the precious eggs and nestlings, to protect which bright colours must be entirely foregone. 

The spring is the time when decorations are seen at their best. The snowyegret trails his filmy cloud of plumes, putting to shame the stiffmillinery bunches of similar feathers torn from his murdered brethren. Even the awkward and querulous night heron exhibits a long curling plumeor two. And what a strange criterion of beauty a female white pelican musthave! To be sure, the graceful crest which Sir Pelican erects isbeautiful, but that huge, horny "keel" or "sight" on his bill! What usecan it subserve, æsthetic or otherwise? One would think that such astructure growing so near his eyes, and day by day becoming taller, mustoccupy much of his attention. 

The sheldrake ducks also have a fleshy growth on the bill. A turkeygobbler, when his vernal wedding dress is complete, is indeed a remarkablesight. The mass of wattles, usually so gray and shrunken, is now of mostvivid hues--scarlet, blue, vermilion, green, --the fleshy tassels andswollen knobs making him a most extraordinary creature. 

Birds are noted for taking exquisite care of their plumage, and if thefeathers become at all dingy or unkempt, we know the bird is in badhealth. 

What a time the deer and the bears, the squirrels and the mice, have whenchanging their dress! Rags and tatters; tatters and rags! One can grasp ahandful of hair on the flank of a caribou or elk in a zoological park, andthe whole will come out like thistledown; while underneath is seen thesleek, short summer coat. A bear will sometimes carry a few locks of thelong, brown winter fur for months after the clean black hairs of thesummer's coat are grown. What a boon to human tailors such an opportunitywould be--to ordain that Mr. X. Must wear the faded collar or vest of hisold suit until bills are paid!

It is a poor substance, indeed, which, when cast aside, is not availablefor some secondary use in Nature's realm; and the hairs that fall fromanimals are not all left to return unused to their original elements. Thesharp eyes of birds spy them out, and thus the lining to many a nest isfurnished. I knew of one feathered seeker of cast-off clothing which metdisaster through trying to get a supply at first hand--a sparrow was founddead, tangled in the hairs of a pony's tail. The chickadee often lights onthe backs of domestic cattle and plucks out hair with which to line somesnug cavity near by for his nest. Before the cattle came his ancestorswere undoubtedly in the habit of helping themselves from the deer's stockof "ole clo's, " as they have been observed getting their building materialfrom the deer in zoological parks. 

Of course the hair of deer and similar animals falls out with the motionsof the creatures, or is brushed out by bushes and twigs; but we must hopethat the shedding place of a porcupine is at a distance from his customaryhaunts; it would be so uncomfortable to run across a shred of one's oldclothes--if one were a porcupine!

The skin of birds and animals wears away in small flakes, but when areptile changes to a new suit of clothes, the old is shed almost entire. Afrog after shedding its skin will very often turn round and swallow it, establishing the frog maxim "every frog his own old clothes bag!"

Birds, which exhibit so many idiosyncrasies, appear again as utilizers ofold clothes; although when a crested flycatcher weaves a longsnake-skin into the fabric of its nest, it seems more from the standpointof a curio collector--as some people delight in old worn brass and bluechina! There is another if less artistic theory for this peculiarity ofthe crested flycatcher. The skin of a snake--a perfect ghost in itscompleteness--would make a splendid "bogie. " We can see that it might, indeed, be useful in such a way, as in frightening marauding crows, who approach with cannibalistic intentions upon eggs or young. Thusthe skin would correspond in function to the rows of dummy woodenguns, which make a weak fort appear all but invincible. 

POLLIWOG PROBLEMS

The ancient Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hindus, Japanese, and Greeks allshared the belief that the whole world was hatched from an egg made by theCreator. This idea of development is at least true in the case of everyliving thing upon the earth to-day; every plant springs from its seed, every animal from its egg. And still another sweeping, all-inclusivestatement may be made, --every seed or egg at first consists of but onecell, and by the division of this into many cells, the lichen, violet, tree, worm, crab, butterfly, fish, frog, or other higher creature isformed. A little embryology will give a new impetus to our studies, whether we watch the unfolding leaves of a sunflower, a caterpillaremerging from its egg, or a chick breaking through its shell. 

The very simplest and best way to begin this study is to go to the nearestpond, where the frogs have been croaking in the evenings. A search amongthe dead leaves and water-soaked sticks will reveal a long string of blackbeads. These are the eggs of the toad; if, however, the beads are not instrings, but in irregular masses, then they are frogs' eggs. In any casetake home a tumblerful, place a few, together with the thick, transparentgelatine, in which they are encased, in a saucer, and examine themcarefully under a good magnifying glass, or, better still, through alow-power microscope lens. 

You will notice that the tiny spheres are not uniformly coloured but thathalf is whitish. If the eggs have been recently laid the surface will besmooth and unmarked, but have patience and watch them for as long a timeas you can spare. Whenever I can get a batch of such eggs, I never grudgea whole day spent in observing them, for it is seldom that the mysteriousprocesses of life are so readily watched and followed. 

Keep your eye fixed on the little black and white ball of jelly and beforelong, gradually and yet with never a halt, a tiny furrow makes its wayacross the surface, dividing the egg into equal halves. When it completelyencircles the sphere you may know that you have seen one of the greatestwonders of the world. The egg which consisted of but one cell is nowdivided into two exactly equal parts, of the deepest significance. Of thelatter truth we may judge from the fact that if one of those cells shouldbe injured, only one-half a polliwog would result, --either a head or atail half. 

Before long the unseen hand of life ploughs another furrow across the egg, and we have now four cells. These divide into eight, sixteen, and so onfar beyond human powers of numeration, until the beginnings of all theorgans of the tadpole are formed. While we cannot, of course, follow thisdevelopment, we can look at our egg every day and at last see the little_wiggle heads_ or polliwogs (from _pol_ and _wiggle_) emerge. 

In a few days they develop a fin around the tail, and from now on it is aneasy matter to watch the daily growth. There is no greater miracle in theworld than to see one of these aquatic, water-breathing, limblesscreatures transform before your eyes into a terrestrial, four-legged frogor toad, breathing air like ourselves. The humble polliwog in itsdevelopment is significant of far more marvellous facts than thecaterpillar changing into the butterfly, embodying as it does the deepestpoetry and romance of evolution. 

 Blue dusk, that brings the dewy hours, Brings thee, of graceless form in sooth. Edgar Fawcett. 

INSECT PIRATES AND SUBMARINES

Far out on the ocean, when the vessel is laboriously making her waythrough the troughs and over the crests of the great waves, little birds, black save for a patch of white on the lower back, are a common sight, flying with quick irregular wing-beats, close to the surface of thetroubled waters. When they spy some edible bit floating beneath them, downthey drop until their tiny webbed feet just rest upon the water. Then, snatching up the titbit, half-flying, they patter along the surface of thewater, just missing being engulfed by each oncoming wave. Thus they havecome to be named petrels--little Peters--because they seem to walk uponthe water. Without aid from the wings, however, they would soon beimmersed, so the walking is only an illusion. 

But in our smallest ponds and brooks we may see this miracle taking placealmost daily, the feat being accomplished by a very interesting littleassemblage of insects, commonly called water skaters or striders. Let usplace our eyes as near as possible to the surface of the water and watchthe little creatures darting here and there. 

We see that they progress securely on the top of the water, resting uponit as if it were a sheet of ice. Their feet are so adapted that the wateronly dimples beneath their slight weight, the extent of the depression notbeing visible to the eye, but clearly outlined in the shadows upon thebottom. In an eddy of air a tiny fly is caught and whirled upon the water, where it struggles vigorously, striving to lift its wings clear of thesurface. In an instant the water strider--pirate of the pond that heis--reaches forward his crooked fore legs, and here endeth the career ofthe unfortunate fly. 

In the air, in the earth, and below the surface of the water are hundredsof living creatures, but the water striders and their near relatives areunique. No other group shares their power of actually walking, or ratherpushing themselves, upon the surface of the water. They have a littlepiece of the world all to themselves. Yet, although three fifths of theearth's surface consists of water, this group of insects is a small one. Avery few, however, are found out upon the ocean, where the tiny creaturesrow themselves cheerfully along. It is thought that they attach their eggsto the floating saragassum seaweed. If only we knew the whole life of oneof these ocean water striders and all the strange sights it must see, afairy story indeed would be unfolded to us. 

However, all the Lilliputian craft of our brooks are not galleys; thereare submarines, which, in excellence of action and control, put to shameall human efforts along the same line. These are the water boatmen, stoutboat-shaped insects whose hind legs are long, projecting outward like theoars of a rowboat. They feather their oars, too, or rather the oars arefeathered for them, a fringe of long hairs growing out on each side of theblade. Some of the boatmen swim upside down, and these have the backkeeled instead of the breast. Like real submarine boats, these insectshave to come up for air occasionally; and, again like similar craft ofhuman handiwork, their principal mission in life seems to be warfare uponthe weaker creatures about them. 

Upon their bodies are many short hairs that have the power of enclosingand retaining a good-sized bubble of air. Thus the little boatman is wellsupplied for each submarine trip, and he does not have to return to thesurface until all this storage air has been exhausted. In perfectly purewater, however, these boatmen can remain almost indefinitely below thesurface, although it is not known how they obtain from the water theoxygen which they usually take from the air. 

All of these skaters and boatmen thrive in small aquariums, and if givenpieces of scraped meat will live in perfect health. Here is an alluringopportunity for anyone to add to our knowledge of insect life; for themost recent scientific books admit that we do not yet know the completelife history of even one of these little brothers of the pond. 

 Clear and cool, clear and cool, By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool; Cool and clear, cool and clear, By shining shingle, and foaming weir, Charles Kingsley. 

THE VICTORY OF THE NIGHTHAWK

The time is not far distant when the bottom of the sea will be the onlyplace where primeval wildness will not have been defiled or destroyed byman. He may sail his ships above, he may peer downward, even dare todescend a few feet in a suit of rubber or a submarine boat, or he mayscratch a tiny furrow for a few yards with a dredge: but that is all. 

When that time comes, the animals and birds which survive will be onlythose which have found a way to adapt themselves to man's encroaching, all-pervading civilisation. The time was when our far-distant ancestorshad, year in and year out, to fight for very existence against the wildcreatures about them. They then gained the upper hand, and from that timeto the present the only question has been, how long the wild creatures ofthe earth could hold out. 

The wolf, the bison, the beaver fought the battle out at once to all butthe bitter end. The crow, the muskrat, the fox have more than held theirown, by reason of cunning, hiding or quickness of sight; but they cannothope for this to last. The English sparrow has won by sheer audacity; butmost to be admired are those creatures which have so changed their habitsthat some product of man's invention serves them as well as did theirformer wilderness home. The eave swallow and barn swallow and the chimneyswift all belie their names in the few wild haunts still uninvaded by man. The first two were originally cliff and bank haunters, and the latter'shome was a lightning-hollowed tree. 

But the nighthawks which soar and boom above our city streets, whence comethey? Do they make daily pilgrimages from distant woods? The cityfurnishes no forest floor on which they may lay their eggs. Let us seek awide expanse of flat roof, high above the noisy, crowded streets. Let itbe one of those tar and pebble affairs, so unpleasant to walk upon, but soefficient in shedding water. If we are fortunate, as we walk slowly acrossthe roof, a something, like a brownish bit of wind-blown rubbish, willroll and tumble ahead of us. It is a bird with a broken wing, we say. Howdid it ever get up here? We hasten forward to pick it up, when, with alast desperate flutter, it topples off the edge of the roof; but insteadof falling helplessly to the street, the bird swings out above thehouse-tops, on the white-barred pinions of a nighthawk. Now mark the placewhere first we observed the bird, and approach it carefully, crawling onhands and knees. Otherwise we will very probably crush the two mottledbits of shell, so exactly like pebbles in external appearance, butsheltering two little warm, beating hearts. Soon the shells will crack, and the young nighthawks will emerge, --tiny fluffs, --in colour the veryessence of the scattered pebbles. 

In the autumn they will all pass southward to the far distant tropics, andwhen spring again awakens, the instinct of migration will lead them, notto some mottled carpet of moss and rocks deep in the woods, but to thetarred roof of a house in the very heart of a great city. 

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JUNE

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THE GALA DAYS OF BIRDS

Migration is over, and the great influx of birds which last month filledevery tree and bush is now distributed over field and wood, from ourdooryard and lintel vine to the furthermost limits of northernexploration; birds, perhaps, having discovered the pole long years ago. Now every feather and plume is at its brightest and full development; formust not the fastidious females be sought and won?

And now the great struggle of the year is at hand, the supreme moment forwhich thousands of throats have been vibrating with whispered rehearsalsof trills and songs, and for which the dangers that threaten theacquisition of bright colours and long, inconvenient plumes and ornamentshave been patiently undergone. Now, if all goes well and his song isclear, if his crest and gorgeous splashes of tints and shades are freshand shining with the gloss of health, then the feathered lover may hope, indeed, that the little brown mate may look with favour upon dance, song, or antic--and the home is become a reality. In some instances this home isfor only one short season, when the two part, probably forever; but inother cases the choice is for life. 

But if his rival is stronger, handsomer, and--victorious, what then? Alas, the song dies in his throat, plumes hang crestfallen, and the disconsolatecreature must creep about through tangles and brush, watching from adistance the nest-building, the delights of home life which fate hasforbidden. But the poor bachelor need not by any means lose hope; for onall sides dangers threaten his happy rival--cats, snakes, jays, hawks, owls, and boys. Hundreds of birds must pay for their victory with theirlives, and then the once discarded suitors are quickly summoned by thewidows; and these step-fathers, no whit chagrined at playing secondfiddle, fill up the ranks, and work for the young birds as if they weretheir own offspring. 

There is an unsolved mystery about the tragedies and comedies that go onevery spring. Usually every female bird has several suitors, of which oneis accepted. When the death of this mate occurs, within a day or twoanother is found; and this may be repeated a dozen times in succession. Not only this, but when a female bird is killed, her mate is generallyable at once somewhere, somehow, to find another to take her place. Whythese unmated males and females remain single until they are needed issomething that has never been explained. 

The theme of the courtship of birds is marvellously varied andcomparatively little understood. Who would think that when our bald eagle, of national fame, seeks to win his mate, his ardour takes the form of anundignified galloping dance, round and round her from branch to branch!Hardly less ridiculous--to our eyes--is the elaborate performance of ourmost common woodpecker, the flicker, or high-hole. Two or three male birdsscrape and bow and pose and chatter about the demure female, outrageouslyundignified as compared with their usual behaviour. They do everythingsave twirl their black moustaches!

In the mating season some birds have beauties which are ordinarilyconcealed. Such is the male ruby-crowned kinglet, garbed in gray andgreen, the two sexes identical, except for the scarlet touch on the crownof the male, which, at courting time, he raises and expands. Even the irisof some birds changes and brightens in colour at the breeding season;while in others there appear about the base of the bill horny parts, whichin a month or two fall off. The scarlet coat of the tanager is perhapssolely for attracting and holding the attention of the female, as beforewinter every feather is shed, the new plumage being of a dull green, likethat of its mate and its young. 

As mystery confronts us everywhere in nature, so we confess ourselvesbaffled when we attempt to explain the most wonderful of all theattributes of bird courtship--song. Birds have notes to call to oneanother, to warn of danger, to express anger and fear; but the highestdevelopment of their vocal efforts seems to be devoted to charming thefemales. If birds have a love of music, then there must be a marvellousdiversity of taste among them, ranging all the way from the shrieking, strident screams of the parrots and macaws to the tender pathos of thewood pewee and the hermit thrush. 

If birds have not some appreciation of sweet sounds, then we must considerthe many different songs as mere by-products, excess of vitality whichexpresses itself in results, in many cases, strangely æsthetic andharmonious. A view midway is indefinable as regards the boundaries coveredby each theory. How much of the peacock's train or of the thrush's song isappreciated by the female? How much is by-product merely?

In these directions a great field lies open to the student and lover ofbirds; but however we decide for ourselves in regard to the exact meaningand evolution of song, and what use it subserves among the birds, we alladmit the effect and pleasure it produces in ourselves. A world withoutthe song of birds is greatly lacking--such is a desert, where even theharsh croak of a raven is melody. 

Perhaps the reason why the songs of birds give more lasting pleasure thanmany other things is that sound is so wonderfully potent to recall daysand scenes of our past life. Like a sunset, the vision that a certain songbrings is different to each one of us. 

To me, the lament of the wood pewee brings to mind deep, moist places inthe Pennsylvania backwoods; the crescendo of the oven bird awakensmemories of the oaks of the Orange mountains; when a loon or anolive-sided flycatcher or a white-throat calls, the lakes and forests ofNova Scotia come vividly to mind; the cry of a sea-swallow makes realagain the white beaches of Virginia; to me a cardinal has in its song thefeathery lagoons of Florida's Indian River, while the shriek of a macawand its antithesis, the silvery, interlacing melodies of the solitaire, spell the farthest _barrancas_ of Mexico, with the vultures ever circlingoverhead, and the smoke clouds of the volcano in the distance. 

 So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes, The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere; So sweet the water's song through reeds and rushes, The plover's piping note, now here, now there. Nora Perry. 

TURTLE TRAITS

A turtle, waddling his solitary way along some watercourse, attractslittle attention apart from that aroused by his clumsy, grotesque shape;yet few who look upon him are able to give offhand even a bare half-dozenfacts about the humble creature. Could they give any information at all, it would probably be limited to two or three usages to which his body isput--such as soup, mandolin picks, and combs. 

In the northeastern part of our own country we may look for no fewer thaneight species of turtles which are semi-aquatic, living in or near pondsand streams, while another, the well-known box tortoise, confines itstravels to the uplands and woods. 

There are altogether about two hundred different kinds of turtles, andthey live in all except the very cold countries of the world. Australiahas the fewest and North and Central America the greatest number ofspecies. Evolutionists can tell us little or nothing of the origin ofthese creatures, for as far back in geological ages as they are foundfossil (a matter of a little over ten million years), all are trueturtles, not half turtles and half something else. Crocodiles andalligators, with their hard leathery coats, come as near to them as do anyliving creatures, and when we see a huge snapping turtle come out of thewater and walk about on land, we cannot fail to be reminded of the fellowwith the armoured back. 

Turtles are found on the sea and on land, the marine forms more properlydeserving the name of turtles; tortoises being those living on land or infresh water. We shall use the name turtle as significant of the wholegroup. The most natural method of classifying these creatures is by theway the head and neck are drawn back under the shell; whether the head isturned to one side, or drawn straight back, bending the neck into theletter S shape. 

The skull of a turtle is massive, and some have thick, false roofs on topof the usual brain box. 

The "house" or shell of a turtle is made up of separate pieces of bone, acentral row along the back and others arranged around on both sides. Theseare really pieces of the skin of the back changed to bone. Our ribs aredirectly under the skin of the back, and if this skin should harden into abone-like substance, the ribs would lie flat against it, and this is thecase with the ribs of turtles. So when we marvel that the ribs of a turtleare on the outside of its body, a second thought will show us that this isjust as true of us as it is of these reptiles. 

This hardening of the skin has brought about some interesting changes inthe body of the turtle. In all the higher animals, from fishes up to man, a backbone is of the greatest importance not only in carrying the nervesand blood-vessels, but in supporting the entire body. In turtles alone, the string of vertebræ is unnecessary, the shell giving all the supportneeded. So, as Nature seldom allows unused tissues or organs to remain, these bones along the back become, in many species, reduced to a merethread. 

The pieces of bone or horn which go to make up the shell, although sodifferent in appearance from the skin, yet have the same life-processes. Occasionally the shell moults or peels, the outer part coming off in greatflakes. Each piece grows by the addition of rings of horn at the joints, and (like the rings of a tree) the age of turtles, except of very oldones, can be estimated by the number of circles of horn on each piece. Therings are very distinct in species which live in temperate climates. Herethey are compelled to hibernate during the winter, and this cessation ofgrowth marks the intervals between each ring. In tropical turtles therings are either absent or indistinct. It is to this mode of growth thatthe spreading of the initials which are cut into the shell is due, just asletters carved on the trunks of trees in time broaden and bulge outward. 

The shell has the power of regeneration, and when a portion is crushed ortorn away the injured parts are gradually cast off, and from thesurrounding edges a new covering of horn grows out. One third of theentire shell has been known to be thus replaced. 

Although so slow in their locomotion and actions, turtles havewell-developed senses. They can see very distinctly, and the power ofsmell is especially acute, certain turtles being very discriminating inthe matter of food. They are also very sensitive to touch, and will reactto the least tap on their shells. Their hearing, however, is moreimperfect, but as during the mating season they have tiny, piping voices, this sense must be of some use. 

Water tortoises can remain beneath the surface for hours and even days ata time. In addition to the lungs there are two small sacs near the tailwhich allow the animal to use the oxygen in the water as an aid tobreathing. 

All turtles lay eggs, the shells of which are white and generally of aparchment-like character. They are deposited in the ground or in the sand, and hatch either by the warmth of the decaying vegetation or by the heatof the sun. In temperate countries the eggs remain through the winter, andthe little turtles do not emerge until the spring. The eggs of turtles arevery good to eat, and the oil contained in them is put to many uses. Inall the countries which they inhabit, young turtles have a hard time ofit; for thousands of them are devoured by storks, alligators, and fishes. Even old turtles have many enemies, not the least strange being jaguars, which watch for them, turn them on their backs with a flip of the paw, andeat them at leisure--on the half shell, as it were!

Leathery turtles--which live in the sea--have been reported weighing overa thousand pounds! This species is very rare, and a curious circumstanceis that only very large adults and very small baby individuals have beenseen, the turtles of all intermediate growths keeping in the deep oceanout of view. 

Snapping turtles are among the fiercest creatures in the world. On leavingthe egg their first instinct is to open their mouths and bite atsomething. They feed on almost anything, but when, in captivity theysometimes refuse to eat, and have been known to go a year without food, showing no apparent ill effects. One method which they employ in capturingtheir food is interesting. A snapping turtle will lie quietly at thebottom of a pond or lake, looking like an old water-soaked log with abranch--its head and neck--at one end. From the tip of the tongue thecreature extrudes two small filaments of a pinkish colour which wriggleabout, bearing a perfect resemblance to the small round worms of whichfishes are so fond. Attracted by these, fishes swim up to grasp thesquirming objects and are engulfed by the cruel mouth of the angler. Certain marine turtles have long-fringed appendages on the head and neck, which, waving about, serve a similar purpose. 

The edible terrapin has, in many places, become very rare; so thatthousands of them are kept and bred in enclosed areas, or "crawls, " asthey are called. This species is noted for its curious disposition, and itis often captured by being attracted by some unusual sound. 

The tortoise-shell of commerce is obtained from the shell of the hawksbillturtle, the plates of which, being very thin, are heated and weldedtogether until of the required thickness. The age to which turtles livehas often been exaggerated, but they are certainly the longest lived ofall living creatures. Individuals from the Galapagos Island are estimatedto be over four hundred years old. When, in a zoological garden, we seeone of these creatures and study his aged, aged look, as he slowly anddeliberately munches the cabbage which composes his food, we can wellbelieve that such a being saw the light of day before Columbus made hismemorable voyage. 

 He's his own landlord, his own tenant; stay Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day. Himself he boards and lodges; both invites And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o'nights. He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure Chattels; himself is his own furniture, Knock when you will, --he's sure to be at home. Charles Lamb. 

A HALF-HOUR IN A MARSH

There are little realms all around of which many of us know nothing. Take, for example, some marsh within a half-hour's trolley ride of any of ourcities or towns. Select one where cat-tails and reeds abound. Mosquitoesand fear of malaria keep these places free from invasion by humankind; butif we select some windy day we may laugh them both to scorn, and we shallbe well repaid for our trip. The birds frequenting these places are soseldom disturbed that they make only slight effort to conceal their nests, and we shall find plenty of the beautiful bird cradles rocking with everypassing breeze. 

A windy day will also reveal an interesting feature of the marsh. Thesoft, velvety grass, which abounds in such places, is so pliant andyielding that it responds to every breath, and each approaching wave ofair is heralded by an advancing curl of the grass. At our feet thesegrass-waves intersect and recede, giving a weird sensation, as if theground were moving, or as if we were walking on the water itself. Wherethe grass is longer, the record of some furious gale is permanentlyfixed--swaths and ripples seeming to roll onward, or to break into greenfoam. The simile of a "painted ocean" is perfectly carried out. There isno other substance, not even sand, which simulates more exactly themotions of water than this grass. 

In the nearest clump of reeds we notice several red-winged blackbirds, chattering nervously. A magnificent male bird, black as night, and withscarlet epaulets burning on his shoulders, swoops at us, while hisinconspicuous brownish consorts vibrate above the reeds, some with grubs, some empty mouthed. They are invariable indexes of what is below them. Wemay say with perfect assurance that in that patch of rushes are two nests, one with young; beyond are three others, all with eggs. 

We find beautiful structures, firm and round, woven of coarse grassesinside and dried reeds without, hung between two or three supportingstalks, or, if it is a fresh-water marsh, sheltered by long, green fernfronds. The eggs are worthy of their cradles--pearly white in colour, withscrawls and blotches of dark purple at the larger end--hieroglyphics whichonly the blackbirds can translate. 

In another nest we find newly hatched young, looking like largestrawberries, their little naked bodies of a vivid orange colour, withscanty gray tufts of down here and there. Not far away is a nest, overflowing with five young birds ready to fly, which scramble out at ourapproach and start boldly off; but as their weak wings give out, they sooncome to grief. We catch one and find that it has most delicate colours, resembling its mother in being striped brown and black, although itsbreast and under parts are of an unusually beautiful tint--a kind ofsalmon pink. I never saw this shade elsewhere in Nature. 

Blackbirds are social creatures, and where we find one nest, four or fiveothers may be looked for near by. The red-winged blackbird is a mormon invery fact, and often a solitary male bird may be seen guarding a colony ofthree or four nests, each with an attending female. A sentiment ofaltruism seems indeed not unknown, as I have seen a female give a grub toone of a hungry nestful, before passing on to brood her own eggs, yetunhatched. 

While looking for the blackbirds' nests we shall come across numerousround, or oval, masses of dried weeds and grass--mice homes we may thinkthem; and the small, winding entrance concealed on one side tends toconfirm this opinion. Several will be empty, but when in one our fingerstouch six or eight tiny eggs, our mistake will be apparent. Long-billedmarsh wrens are the architects, and so fond are they of building thatfrequently three or four unused nests are constructed before the littlechocolate jewels are deposited. 

If we sit quietly for a few moments, one of the owners, overcome by wrencuriosity, will appear, clinging to a reed stalk and twitching his pert, upturned tail, the badge of his family. Soon he springs up into the airand, bubbling a jumble of liquid notes, sinks back into the recesses ofthe cat-tails. Another and another repeat this until the marsh rings withtheir little melodies. 

If we seat ourselves and watch quietly we may possibly behold an episodethat is not unusual. The joyous songs of the little wrens suddenly giveplace to cries of fear and anger; and this hubbub increases until at lastwe see a sinister ripple flowing through the reeds, marking the advancinghead of a water snake. 

The evil eyes of the serpent are bent upon the nearest nest, and toward ithe makes his way, followed and beset by all the wrens in the vicinity. Slowly the scaly creature pushes himself up on the reeds; and as they bendunder his weight he makes his way the more easily along them to the nest. His head is pushed in at the entrance, but an instant later the snaketwines downward to the water. The nest was empty. Again he seeks anadjoining nest, and again is disappointed; and now, a small fishattracting his attention, he goes off in swift pursuit, leaving untouchedthe third nest in sight, that containing the precious eggs. Thus theapparently useless industry of the tiny wrens has served an invaluableend, and the tremulous chorus is again timidly taken up--little hymns ofthanksgiving we may imagine them now. 

These and many others are sights which a half-hour's tramp, without evenwetting our shoes, may show us. Before we leave, hints of more deeplyhidden secrets of the marsh may perhaps come to us. A swamp sparrow mayshow by its actions that its nest is not far away; from the depths of aditch jungle the clatter of some rail comes faintly to our ears, and thedistant croak of a night heron reaches us from its feeding-grounds, guarded by the deeper waters. 

 And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky! A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade. 

 Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and terminal sea? Somehow my soul seems suddenly free From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin. Sidney Lanier. 

SECRETS OF THE OCEAN

We are often held spellbound by the majesty of mountains, and indeed alofty peak forever capped with snow, or pouring forth smoke and ashes, isimpressive beyond all terrestrial things. But the ocean yields to nothingin its grandeur, in its age, in its ceaseless movement, and the questionremains forever unanswered, "Who shall sound the mysteries of the sea?"Before the most ancient of mountains rose from the heart of the earth, thewaves of the sea rolled as now, and though the edges of the continentsshrink and expand, bend into bays or stretch out into capes, alwaysthrough all the ages the sea follows and laps with ripples or booms withbreakers unceasingly upon the shore. 

Whether considered from the standpoint of the scientist, the merecuriosity of the tourist, or the keen delight of the enthusiastic lover ofNature, the shore of the sea--its sands and waters, its ever-changingskies and moods--is one of the most interesting spots in the world. Thevery bottom of the deep bays near shore--dark and eternally silent, prisoned under the restless waste of waters--is thickly carpeted withstrange and many-coloured forms of animal and vegetable life. But thebeaches and tide-pools over which the moon-urged tides hold sway in theirceaseless rise and fall, teem with marvels of Nature's handiwork, andevery day are restocked and replanted with new living objects, both arcticand tropical offerings of each heaving tidal pulse. 

Here on the northeastern shores of our continent one may spend days ofleisure or delightful study among the abundant and ever changing varietyof wonderful living creatures. It is not unlikely that the enjoyment andabsolute novelty of this new world may enable one to look on these as someof the most pleasant days of life. I write from the edge of the restlesswaters of Fundy, but any rock-strewn shore will duplicate the marvels. 

At high tide the surface of the Bay is unbroken by rock or shoal, andstretches glittering in the sunlight from the beach at one's feet to wherethe New Brunswick shore is just visible, appearing like a low bluish cloudon the horizon. At times the opposite shore is apparently brought nearerand made more distinct by a mirage, which inverts it, together with anyships which are in sight. A brig may be seen sailing along keel upward, inthe most matter-of-fact way. The surface may anon be torn by those fearfulsqualls for which Fundy is noted, or, calm as a mirror, reflect the bluesky with an added greenish tinge, troubled only by the gentle alighting ofa gull, the splash of a kingfisher or occasional osprey, as these dive fortheir prey, or the ruffling which shows where a school of mackerel ispassing. This latter sign always sends the little sailing dories hurryingout, where they beat back and forth, like shuttles travelling across aloom, and at each turn a silvery struggling form is dragged into theboat. 

A little distance along the shore the sandy beach ends and is replaced byhuge bare boulders, scattered and piled in the utmost confusion. Back ofthese are scraggly spruces, with branches which have been so long blownlandwards that they have bent and grown altogether on thatside, --permanent weather-vanes of Fundy's storms. The very soil in whichthey began life was blown away, and their gnarled weather-worn roots hugthe rocks, clutching every crevice as a drowning man would grasp an oar. On the side away from the bay two or three long, thick roots stretch farfrom each tree to the nearest earth-filled gully, sucking what scantynourishment they can, for strength to withstand the winter's gales yetanother year or decade. Beach-pea and sweet marsh lavender tint the sand, and stunted fringed orchids gleam in the coarse grass farther inland. Highup among the rocks, where there is scarcely a handful of soil, delicateharebells sway and defy the blasts, enduring because of their very pliancyand weakness. 

If we watch awhile we will see a line of blackish seaweed and wet sandappearing along the edge of the water, showing that the tide has turnedand begun to recede. In an hour it has ebbed a considerable distance, andif we clamber down over the great weather-worn rocks the hardy advanceguard of that wonderful world of life under the water is seen. Barnacleswhiten the top of every rock which is reached by the tide, although thewater may cover them only a short time each day. But they flourish here inmyriads, and the shorter the chance they have at the salt water the morefrantically their little feathery feet clutch at the tiny food particleswhich float around them. These thousands of tiny turreted castles arebuilt so closely together that many are pressed out of shape, parallelingin shape as in substance the inorganic crystals of the mineral kingdom. The valved doors are continually opening and partly closing, and if welisten quietly we can hear a perpetual shuss! shuss! Is it the creaking ofthe tiny hinges? As the last receding wave splashes them, they shut theirfolding doors over a drop or two and remain tightly closed, while perhapsten hours of sunlight bake them, or they glisten in the moonlight for thesame length of time, ready at the first touch of the returning water toopen wide and welcome it. 

The thought of their life history brings to mind how sadly they retrogressas they grow, hatching as minute free-swimming creatures like tinylobsters, and gradually changing to this plant-like life, _sans_ eyes, _sans_ head, _sans_ most everything except a stomach and a few pairs offeathery feet to kick food into it. A few pitiful traces of nerves areleft them. What if there were enough ganglia to enable them to dream oftheir past higher life, in the long intervals of patient waiting!

A little lower down we come to the zone of mussels, --hanging in clusterslike some strange sea-fruit. Each is attached by strands of thin silkycables, so tough that they often defy our utmost efforts to tear aspecimen away. How secure these creatures seem, how safe from all harm, and yet they have enemies which make havoc among them. At high tide fishescome and crunch them, shells and all, and multitudes of carnivorous snailsare waiting to set their file-like tongues at work, which mercilesslydrill through the lime shells, bringing death in a more subtle but no lesscertain form. Storms may tear away the support of these poor mollusks, andthe waves dash them far out of the reach of the tides, while at low water, crows and gulls use all their ingenuity to get at their toothsome flesh. 

There are no ant-hills in the sea, but when we turn over a large stone andsee scores upon scores of small black shrimps scurrying around, theresemblance to those insects is striking. These little creatures quicklyhitch away on their sides, getting out of sight in a remarkably shorttime. 

The tide is going down rapidly, and following it step by step novel sightsmeet the eye at every turn, and we begin to realise that in this narrowstrip, claimed alternately by sea and land, which would be represented ona map by the finest of hair-lines, there exists a complete world ofanimated life, comparing in variety and numbers with the life in thatthinner medium, air. We climb over enormous boulders, so different inappearance that they would never be thought to consist of the samematerial as those higher up on the shore. These are masses of wave-wornrock, twenty or thirty feet across, piled in every imaginable position, and completely covered with a thick padding of seaweed. Their drapery ofalgæ hangs in festoons, and if we draw aside these submarine curtains, scenes from a veritable fairyland are disclosed. Deep pools of water, clear as crystal and icy cold, contain creatures both hideous andbeautiful, sombre and iridescent, formless and of exquisite shape. 

The sea-anemones first attract attention, showing as splashes of scarletand salmon among the olive-green seaweed, or in hundreds covering theentire bottom of a pool with a delicately hued mist of waving tentacles. As the water leaves these exposed on the walls of the caves, they losetheir plump appearance and, drawing in their wreath of tentacles, hanglimp and shrivelled, resembling pieces of water-soaked meat as much asanything. Submerged in the icy water they are veritable animal-flowers. Their beauty is indeed well guarded, hidden by the overhanging seaweed inthese caves twenty-five feet or more below high-water mark. 

Here in these beautiful caverns we may make aquariums, and transplant asmany animal-flowers as we wish. Wherever we place them their fleshy, snail-like foot spreads out, takes tight hold, and the creature livescontent, patiently waiting for the Providence of the sea to send food toits many wide-spread fingers. 

Carpeted with pink algæ and dainty sponges, draped with sea-lettuce likegreen tissue paper, decorated with strange corallines, these naturalaquariums far surpass any of artificial make. Although the tide drives usfrom them sooner or later, we may return with the sure prospect of findingthem refreshed and perhaps replenished with many new forms. For often someof the deep-water creatures are held prisoners in the lower tide-pools, asthe water settles, somewhat as when the glaciers receded northward afterthe Ice Age there were left on isolated mountain peaks traces of theboreal fauna and flora. 

If we are interested enough to watch our anemones we will find muchentertainment. Let us return to our shrimp colonies and bring a handful toour pool. Drop one in the centre of an anemone and see how quickly itcontracts. The tentacles bend over it exactly as the sticky hairs of thesun-dew plant close over a fly. The shrimp struggles for a moment and isthen drawn downward out of sight. The birth of an anemone is well worthpatient watching, and this may take place in several different ways. Wemay see a large individual with a number of tiny bunches on the sides ofthe body, and if we keep this one in a tumbler, before long theseprotuberances will be seen to develop a few tentacles and at last breakoff as perfect miniature anemones. Or again, an anemone may draw in itstentacles without apparent cause, and after a few minutes expand morewidely than ever. Suddenly a movement of the mouth is seen, and it opens, and one, two, or even a half-dozen tiny anemones shoot forth. They turnand roll in the little spurt of water and gradually settle to the rockalongside of the mother. In a short time they turn right side up, expandtheir absurd little heads, and begin life for themselves. These animal"buds" may be of all sizes; some minute ones will be much less developedand look very unlike the parent. These are able to swim about for a while, and myriads of them may be born in an hour. Others, as we have seen, havetentacles and settle down at once. 

Fishes, little and big, are abundant in the pools, darting here and thereamong the leathery fronds of "devils' aprons, " cavernous-mouthed anglerfish, roly-poly young lump-suckers, lithe butterfish, and many others. 

Moving slowly through the pools are many beautiful creatures, some soevanescent that they are only discoverable by the faint shadows which theycast on the bottom, others suggest animated spheres of prismatic sunlight. These latter are tiny jelly-fish, circular hyaline masses of jelly witheight longitudinal bands, composed of many comb-like plates, along whichiridescent waves of light continually play. The graceful appearance ofthese exquisite creatures is increased by two long, fringed tentaclesstreaming behind, drifting at full length or contracting into numerouscoils. The fringe on these streamers is a series of living hairs--anaquatic cobweb, each active with life, and doing its share in ensnaringminute atoms of food for its owner. When dozens of these _ctenophores_ (orcomb-bearers) as they are called, glide slowly to and fro through a pool, the sight is not soon forgotten. To try to photograph them is likeattempting to portray the substance of a sunbeam, but patience workswonders, and even a slightly magnified image of a living jelly is secured, which shows very distinctly all the details of its wonderfully simplestructure; the pouch, suspended in the centre of the sphere, which doesduty as a stomach; the sheaths into which the long tentacles may be somagically packed, and the tiny organ at the top of this living ball ofspun glass, serving, with its minute weights and springs, as compass, rudder, and pilot to this little creature, which does not fear to pit itsmuscles of jelly against the rush and might of breaking waves. 

Even the individual comb-plates or rows of oars are plainly seen, although, owing to their rapid motion, they appear to the naked eye as asingle band of scintillating light. This and other magnified photographswere obtained by fastening the lens of a discarded bicycle lantern in acone of paper blackened on the inside with shoe-blacking. With this crudeapparatus placed in front of the lens of the camera, the evanescentbeauties of these most delicate creatures were preserved. 

Other equally beautiful forms of jelly-fish are balloon-shaped. These are_Beröe_, fitly named after the daughter of the old god Oceanus. They, likeothers of their family, pulsate through the water, sweeping gracefullyalong, borne on currents of their own making. 

Passing to other inhabitants of the pools, we find starfish andsea-urchins everywhere abundant. Hunched-up groups of the former showwhere they are dining in their unique way on unfortunate sea-snails oranemones, protruding their whole stomach and thus engulfing their victim. The urchins strain and stretch with their innumerable sucker-feet, feelingfor something to grasp, and in this laborious way pull themselves along. The mouth, with the five so-called teeth, is a conspicuous feature, visible at the centre of the urchin and surrounded by the greenish spines. Some of the starfish are covered with long spines, others are nearlysmooth. The colours are wonderfully varied, --red, purple, orange, yellow, etc. 

The stages through which these prickly skinned animals pass, before theyreach the adult state, are wonderfully curious, and only when they areseen under the microscope can they be fully appreciated. A bolting-clothnet drawn through some of the pools will yield thousands in many stages, and we can take eggs of the common starfish and watch their growth intumblers of water. At first the egg seems nothing but a tiny round globuleof jelly, but soon a dent or depression appears on one side, which becomesdeeper and deeper until it extends to the centre of the egg-mass. It is asif we should take a round ball of putty and gradually press our fingerinto it. This pressed-in sac is a kind of primitive stomach and theentrance is used as a mouth. After this follows a marvellous succession ofchanges, form giving place to form, differing more in appearance andstructure from the five-armed starfish than a caterpillar differs from abutterfly. 

For example, when about eight days old, another mouth has formed and twoseries of delicate cilia or swimming hairs wind around the creature, bymeans of which it glides slowly through the water. The photographs of astarfish of this age show the stomach with its contents, a dark roundedmass near the lower portion of the organism. The vibrating bands whichoutline the tiny animal are also visible. The delicacy of structure anddifficulty of preserving these young starfish alive make these pictures ofparticular value, especially as they were taken of the living formsswimming in their natural element. Each day and almost each hour adds tothe complexity of the little animal, lung tentacles grow out and manyother larval stages are passed through before the starfish shape isdiscernible within this curious "nurse" or living, changing egg. Then theentire mass, so elaborately evolved through so long a time, is absorbedand the little baby star sinks to the bottom to start on its new life, crawling around and over whatever happens in its path and feeding torepletion on succulent oysters. It can laugh at the rage of the oysterman, who angrily tears it in pieces, for "time heals all wounds" literally inthe case of these creatures, and even if the five arms are torn apart, five starfish, small of arm but with healthy stomachs, will soon beforaging on the oyster bed. 

But to return to our tide-pools. In the skimming net with the youngstarfish many other creatures are found, some so delicate and fragile thatthey disintegrate before microscope and camera can be placed in position. I lie at full length on a soft couch of seaweed with my face close to atiny pool no larger than my hand. A few armadillo shells and limpets crawlon the bottom, but a frequent troubling of the water baffles me. I makesure my breath has nothing to do with it, but still it continues. At lasta beam of sunshine lights up the pool, and as if a film had rolled from myeyes I see the cause of the disturbance. A sea-worm--or a ghost of one--isswimming about. Its large, brilliant eyes, long tentacles, and innumerablewaving appendages are now as distinct as before they had been invisible. Atrifling change in my position and all vanishes as if by magic. Thereseems not an organ, not a single part of the creature, which is not astransparent as the water itself. The fine streamers into which the paddlesand gills are divided are too delicate to have existence in any but awater creature, and the least attempt to lift the animal from its elementwould only tear and dismember it, so I leave it in the pool to await thereturn of the tide. 

Shrimps and prawns of many shapes and colours inhabit every pool. Onesmall species, abundant on the algæ, combines the colour changes of achameleon with the form and manner of travel of a measuring-worm, loopingalong the fronds of seaweed or swimming with the same motion. Anothervariety of shrimp resembles the common wood-louse found under pieces ofbark, but is most beautifully iridescent, glowing like an opal at thebottom of the pool. The curious little sea-spiders keep me guessing for along time where their internal organs can be, as they consist of legs withmerely enough body to connect these firmly together. The fact that thethread-like stomach and other organs send a branch into each of the eightlegs explains the mystery and shows how far economy of space may go. Theirskeleton-forms, having the appearance of eight straggling filaments ofseaweed, are thus, doubtless, a great protection to these creatures fromtheir many enemies. Other hobgoblin forms with huge probosces crawl slowlyover the floors of the anemone caves, or crouch as the shadow of my handor net falls upon them. 

The larger gorgeously coloured and graceful sea-worms contribute not asmall share to the beauty of Fundy tide-pools, swimming in iridescentwaves through the water or waving their Medusa-head of crimson tentaclesat the bottom among the sea-lettuce. These worms form tubes of mud forthemselves, and the rows of hooks on each side of the body enable them toclimb up and down in their dismal homes. 

Much of the seaweed from deeper bottoms seems to be covered with a densefur, which under a hand lens resolves into beautiful hydroids, --nearrelatives of the anemones and corals. Scientists have happily given thesemost euphonious names--_Campanularia_, _Obelia_, and _Plumularia_. Amongthe branches of certain of these, numbers of round discs or spheres arevisible. These are young medusæ or jelly-fish, which grow like bunches ofcurrants, and later will break off and swim around at pleasure in thewater. Occasionally one is fortunate enough to discover these smalljellies in a pool where they can be photographed as they pulsate back andforth. When these attain their full size they lay eggs which sink to thebottom and grow up into the plant-like hydroids. So each generation ofthese interesting creatures is entirely unlike that which immediatelyprecedes or follows it. In other words, a hydroid is exactly like itsgrandmother and granddaughter, but as different from its parents andchildren in appearance as a plant is from an animal. Even in a fairy-storybook this would be wonderful, but here it is taking place under our veryeyes, as are scores of other transformations and "miracles in miniature"in this marvellous underworld. 

Now let us deliberately pass by all the attractions of the middle zone oftide-pools and on as far as the lowest level of the water will admit. Weare far out from the shore and many feet below the level of thebarnacle-covered boulders over which we first clambered. Now we may indeedbe prepared for strange sights, for we are on the very borderland of thevast unknown. The abyss in front of us is like planetary space, unknown tothe feet of man. While we know the latter by scant glimpses through ourtelescopes, the former has only been scratched by the hauls of the dredge, the mark of whose iron shoe is like the tiny track of a snail on the leafmould of a vast forest. 

The first plunge beneath the icy waters of Fundy is likely to remain longin one's memory, and one's first dive of short duration, but the glimpsewhich is had and the hastily snatched handfuls of specimens of thebeauties which no tide ever uncovers is potent to make one forget hisshivering and again and again seek to penetrate as far as a good-sizedstone and a lungful of air will carry him. Strange sensations areexperienced in these aquatic scrambles. It takes a long time to get usedto pulling oneself _downward_, or propping your knees against the _under_crevices of rocks. To all intents and purposes, the law of gravitation ispartly suspended, and when stone and wooden wedge accidentally slip fromone's hand and disappear in _opposite_ directions, it is confusing, to saythe least. 

When working in one spot for some time the fishes seem to become used toone, and approach quite closely. Slick-looking pollock, bloated lump-fish, and occasionally a sombre dog-fish rolls by, giving one a start, as thememory of pictures of battles between divers and sharks of tropical waterscomes to mind. One's mental impressions made thus are somewhatdisconnected. With the blood buzzing in the ears, it is only possible tosnatch general glimpses and superficial details. Then at the surface, notes can be made, and specimens which have been overlooked, felt forduring the next trip beneath the surface. Fronds of laminaria yards inlength, like sheets of rubber, offer convenient holds, and at their rootsmany curious creatures make their home. Serpent starfish, agile as insectsand very brittle, are abundant, and new forms of worms, like greatslugs, --their backs covered with gills in the form of tufted branches. 

In these outer, eternally submerged regions are starfish of still othershapes, some with a dozen or more arms. I took one with thirteen rays andplaced it temporarily in a pool aquarium with some large anemones. Onreturning in an hour or two I found the starfish trying to make a meal ofthe largest anemone. Hundreds of dart-covered strings had been pushed outby the latter in defence, but they seemed to cause the starfish noinconvenience whatever. 

In my submarine glimpses I saw spaces free from seaweed on which hundredsof tall polyps were growing, some singly, others in small tufts. Thesolitary individuals rise three or four inches by a nearly straight stalk, surmounted by a many-tentacled head. This droops gracefully to one sideand the general effect is that of a bed of rose-coloured flowers. From theheads hang grape-like masses, which on examination in a tumbler are seento be immature medusæ. Each of these develop to the point where the fourradiating canals are discernible and then their growth comes to astandstill, and they never attain the freedom for which their structurefits them. 

When the wind blew inshore, I would often find the water fairly alive withlarge sun-jellies or _Aurelia_, --their Latin name. Their great milky-whitebodies would come heaving along and bump against me, giving a very"crawly" sensation. The circle of short tentacles and the fourhorse-shoe-shaped ovaries distinguish this jelly-fish from all others. When I had gone down as far as I dared, I would sometimes catch glimpsesof these strange beings far below me, passing and repassing in the silenceand icy coldness of the watery depths. These large medusæ are often veryabundant after a favourable wind has blown for a few days, and I haverowed through masses of them so thick that it seemed like rowing throughthick jelly, two or three feet deep. In an area the length of the boat andabout a yard wide, I have counted over one hundred and fifty _Aurelias_ onthe surface alone. 

When one of these "sunfish, " as the fishermen call them, is lifted fromthe water, the clay-coloured eggs may be seen to stream from it inmyriads. In many jellies, small bodies the size of a pea are visible inthe interior of the mass, and when extracted they prove to be a species ofsmall shrimp. These are well adapted for their quasi-parasitic life, incolour being throughout of the same milky semi-opaqueness as their host, but one very curious thing about them is, that when taken out and placedin some water in a vial or tumbler they begin to turn darker almostimmediately, and in five minutes all will be of various shades, from redto a dark brown. 

I had no fear of _Aurelia_, but when another free-swimming species ofjelly-fish, _Cyanea_, or the blue-jelly, appeared, I swam ashore with allspeed. This great jelly is usually more of a reddish liver-colour than apurple, and is much to be dreaded. Its tentacles are of enormous length. Ihave seen specimens which measured two feet across the disc, withstreamers fully forty feet long, and one has been recorded seven feetacross and no less than one hundred and twelve feet to the tip of thecruel tentacles! These trail behind in eight bunches and form a living, tangled labyrinth as deadly as the hair of the fabled Medusa--whose nameindeed has been so appropriately applied to this division of animals. Thetouch of each tentacle to the skin is like a lash of nettle, and therewould be little hope for a diver whose path crossed such a fiery tangle. The untold myriads of little darts which are shot out secrete a poisonwhich is terribly irritating. 

On the crevice bottoms a sight now and then meets my eyes which brings the"devil-fish" of Victor Hugo's romance vividly to mind, --a misshapen squidmaking its way snakily over the shells and seaweed. Its large eyes gazefixedly around and the arms reach alternately forward, the sucking cupslined with their cruel teeth closing over the inequalities of the bottom. The creature may suddenly change its mode of progression and shoot like anarrow, backward and upward. If we watch one in its passage over areas ofseaweed and sand, a wonderful adaptation becomes apparent. Its colourchanges continually; when near sand it is of a sombre brown hue, thenblushes of colour pass over it and the tint changes, corresponding to theseaweed or patches of pink sponge over which it swims. The way in whichthis is accomplished is very ingenious and loses nothing by examination. Beneath the skin are numerous cells filled with liquid pigment. When atrest these contract until they are almost invisible, appearing as verysmall specks or dots on the surface of the body. When the animal wishes tochange its hue, certain muscles which radiate from these colour cells areshortened, drawing the cells out in all directions until they seemconfluent. It is as if the freckles on a person's face should be alljoined together, when an ordinary tan would result. 

From bottoms ten to twenty fathoms below the surface, deeper than mortaleye can probably ever hope to reach, the dredge brings up all manner ofcurious things; basket starfish, with arms divided and subdivided intomany tendrils, on the tips of which it walks, the remaining partconverging upward like the trellis of a vine-covered summer house. Spongesof many hues must fairly carpet large areas of the deep water, as thedredge is often loaded with them. The small shore-loving ones which Iphotographed are in perfect health, but the camera cannot show the manytiny currents of water pouring in food and oxygen at the smaller openings, and returning in larger streams from the tall funnels on the surface ofthe sponge, which a pinch of carmine dust reveals so beautifully. From thedeeper aquatic gardens come up great orange and yellow sponges, two andthree feet in length, and around the bases of these the weird serpentstars are clinging, while crabs scurry away as the mass reaches thesurface of the water. 

Treasures from depths of forty and even fifty fathoms can be obtained whena trip is taken with the trawl-men. One can sit fascinated for hours, watching the hundreds of yards of line reel in, with some interestingcreature on each of the thirty-seven hundred odd hooks. At times a glancedown into the clear water will show a score of fish in sight at once, hake, haddock, cod, halibut, dog-fish, and perhaps an immense "barndoor"skate, a yard or more square. This latter hold back with frantic flaps ofits great "wings, " and tax all the strength of the sturdy Acadianfishermen to pull it to the gunwale. 

Now and then a huge "meat-rock, " the fishermen's apt name for an anemone, comes up, impaled on a hook, and still clinging to a stone of five to tenpounds weight. These gigantic scarlet ones from full fifty fathoms farsurpass any near shore. Occasionally the head alone of a large fish willappear, with the entire body bitten clean off, a hint of the monsterswhich must haunt the lower depths. The pressure of the air must beexcessive, for many of the fishes have their swimming bladders fairlyforced out of their mouths by the lessening of atmospheric pressure asthey are drawn to the surface. When a basket starfish finds one of thebaits in that sunless void far beneath our boat, he hugs it so tenaciouslythat the upward jerks of the reel only make him hold the more tightly. 

Once in a great while the fishermen find what they call a "knob-fish" onone of their hooks, and I never knew what they meant until one day a smallcolony of five was brought ashore. _Boltenia_, the scientists call them, tall, queer-shaped things; a stalk six to eight inches in length, with aknob or oblong bulb-like body at the summit, looking exactly like theflower of a lady-slipper orchid and as delicately coloured. This is amember of that curious family of Ascidians, which forever trembles in thebalance between the higher backboned animals and the lower division, whereare classified the humbler insects, crabs, and snails. The young of_Boltenia_ promises everything in its tiny backbone or notochord, but itall ends in promise, for that shadow of a great ambition withers away, andthe creature is doomed to a lowly and vegetative life. If we soften thehard scientific facts which tell us of these dumb, blind creatures, withthe humane mellowing thought of the oneness of all life, we will find muchthat is pathetic and affecting in their humble biographies from our pointof view. And yet these cases of degeneration are far from anything likeactual misfortunes, or mishaps of nature, as Buffon was so fond ofthinking. These creatures have found their adult mode of life more freefrom competition than any other, and hence their adoption of it. It isonly another instance of exquisite adaptation to an unfilled niche in thelife of the world. 

Yet another phase of enjoying the life of these northern waters; the onewhich comes after all the work and play of collecting is over for the day, after the last specimen is given a fresh supply of water for the night, and the final note in our journal is written. Then, as dusk falls, we makeour way to the beach, ship our rudder and oars and push slowly alongshore, or drift quietly with the tide. The stars may come out in clearsplendour and the visual symphony of the northern lights play over thedark vault above us, or all may be obscured in lowering, leaden clouds. But the lights of the sea are never obscured--they always shine with asplendour which keeps one entranced for hours. 

At night the ripples and foam of the Fundy shores seem transformed tomolten silver and gold, and after each receding wave the emerald seaweedis left dripping with millions of sparkling lights, shining with a livinglustre which would pale the brightest gem. Each of these countless sparksis a tiny animal, as perfect in its substance and as well adapted to itscycle of life as the highest created being. The wonderful way in whichthis phosphorescence permeates everything--the jelly-fish seeming elfishfireworks as they throb through the water with rhythmic beats--the fishbrilliantly lighted up and plainly visible as they dart about far beneaththe surface--makes such a night on the Bay of Fundy an experience to bealways remembered. 

 Like the tints on a crescent sea beach When the moon is new and thin, Into our hearts high yearnings Come welling and surging in-- Come, from the mystic ocean, Whose rim no foot has trod-- Some of us call it longing, And others call it God. W. H. Carruth. 

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JULY

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BIRDS IN A CITY

We frequently hear people say that if only they lived in the country theywould take up the study of birds with great interest, but that a city lifeprevented any nature study. To show how untrue this is, I once made acensus of wild birds which were nesting in the New York Zoological Park, which is situated within the limits of New York City. Part of the Park iswooded, while much space is given up to the collections of birds andanimals. Throughout the year thousands of people crowd the walks andpenetrate to every portion of the grounds; yet in spite of this lack ofseclusion no fewer than sixty-one species build their nests here andsuccessfully rear their young. The list was made without shooting a singlebird and in each instance the identification was absolute. This shows whata little protection will accomplish, while many places of equal area inthe country which are harried by boys and cats are tenanted by a baredozen species. 

Let us see what a walk in late June, or especially in July, will show ofthese bold invaders of our very city. Wild wood ducks frequently decoy tothe flocks of pinioned birds and sometimes mate with some of them. Oneyear a wild bird chose as its mate a little brown female, a pinioned bird, and refused to desert her even when the brood of summer ducklings wasbeing caught and pinioned. Such devotion is rare indeed. 

In the top of one of the most inaccessible trees in the Park a great roughnest of sticks shows where a pair of black-crowned night herons have madetheir home for years, and from the pale green eggs hatch the most awkwardof nestling herons, which squawk and grow to their prime, on a diet ofsmall fish. When they are able to fly they pay frequent visits to theirrelations in the great flying cage, perching on the top and gazing withlonging eyes at the abundant feasts of fish which are daily brought by thekeepers to their charges. This duck and heron are the only ones of theirorders thus to honour the Park by nesting, although a number of otherspecies are not uncommon during the season of migration. 

Of the waders which in the spring and fall teeter along the bank of theBronx River, only a pair or two of spotted sandpipers remain throughoutthe nesting period, content to lay their eggs in some retired spot in thecorner of a field, where there is the least danger to them and to thefluffy balls of long-legged down which later appear and scurry about. Thegreat horned owl and the red-tailed hawk formerly nested in the park, butthe frequent noise of blasting and the building operations have driventhem to more isolated places, and of their relatives there remain only thelittle screech owls and the sparrow hawks. The latter feed chiefly uponEnglish sparrows and hence are worthy of the most careful protection. 

These birds should be encouraged to build near our homes, and if notkilled or driven away sometimes choose the eaves of our houses as theirdomiciles and thus, by invading the very haunts of the sparrows, theywould speedily lessen their numbers. A brood of five young hawks wasrecently taken from a nest under the eaves of a school-house in this city. I immediately took this as a text addressed to the pupils, and theprincipal was surprised to learn that these birds were so valuable. In thePark the sparrow hawks nest in a hollow tree, as do the screech owls. 

Other most valuable birds which nest in the Park are the black-billed andyellow-billed cuckoos, whose depredations among the hairy and spinycaterpillars should arouse our gratitude. For these insects are refused byalmost all other birds, and were it not for these slim, graceful creaturesthey would increase to prodigious numbers. Their two or three light blueeggs are always laid on the frailest of frail platforms made of a fewsticks. The belted kingfisher bores into the bank of the river and rearshis family of six or eight in the dark, ill-odoured chamber at the end. Young cuckoos and kingfishers are the quaintest of young birds. Theirplumage does not come out a little at a time, as in other nestlings, butthe sheaths which surround the growing feathers remain until they are aninch or more in length; then one day, in the space of only an hour or so, the overlapping armour of bluish tiles bursts and the plumage assumes anormal appearance. 

The little black-and-white downy and the flicker are the two woodpeckerswhich make the Park their home. Both nest in hollows bored out by theirstrong beaks, but although full of splinters and sawdust, such ahabitation is far superior to the sooty chimneys in which the youngchimney swifts break from their snow-white eggs and twitter for food. Howimpatiently they must look up at the blue sky, and one would think thatthey must long for the time when they can spread their sickle-shaped wingsand dash about from dawn to dark! Is it not wonderful that one of themshould live to grow up when we think of the fragile little cup which istheir home?--a mosaic of delicate twigs held together only by the stickysaliva of the parent birds. 

A relation of theirs--though we should never guess it--is sitting upon hertiny air castle high up in an apple tree not far away, --a ruby-throatedhummingbird. If we take a peep into the nest when the young hummingbirdsare only partly grown, we shall see that their bills are broad and stubby, like those of the swifts. Their home, however, is indeed a differentaffair, --a pinch of plant-down tied together with cobwebs and stuccoedwith lichens, like those which are growing all about upon the tree. If wedo not watch the female when she settles to her young or eggs we maysearch in vain for this tiniest of homes, so closely does it resemble anordinary knot on a branch. 

The flycatchers are well represented in the Park, there being no fewerthan five species; the least flycatcher, wood pewee, phoebe, crestedflycatcher, and kingbird. The first two prefer the woods, the phoebegenerally selects a mossy rock or a bridge beam, the fourth nests in ahollow tree and often decorates its home with a snake-skin. The kingbirdbuilds an untidy nest in an apple tree. Our American crow is, of course, amember of this little community of birds, and that in spite ofpersecution, for in the spring one or two are apt to contract a taste foryoung ducklings and hence have to be put out of the way. The fish crow, asmaller cousin of the big black fellow, also nests here, easily known byhis shriller, higher caw. A single pair of blue jays nest in the Park, butthe English starling occupies every box which is put up and bids fair tobe as great or a greater nuisance than the sparrow. It is a handsome birdand a fine whistler, but when we remember how this foreigner is slowly butsurely elbowing our native birds out of their rightful haunts, we findourselves losing sight of its beauties. The cowbird, of course, imposesher eggs upon many of the smaller species of birds, while our beautifulpurple grackle, meadow lark, red-winged blackbird, and the Baltimore andorchard orioles rear their young in safety. The cardinal, scarlet tanager, indigo bunting, and rose-breasted grosbeak form a quartet of which even atropical land might well be proud, and the two latter species have, inaddition to brilliant plumage, very pleasing songs. Such wealth ofæsthetic characteristics are unusual in any one species, the wide-spreadlaw of compensation decreeing otherwise. More sombre hued seed-eaterswhich live their lives in the Park are towhees, swamp, song, field, andchipping sparrows. The bank and barn swallows skim over field and pond allthrough the summer, gleaning their insect harvest from the air, andbuilding their nests in the places from which they have taken their names. The rare rough-winged swallow deigns to linger and nest in the Park aswell as do his more common brethren. 

The dainty pensile nests which become visible when the leaves fall in theautumn are swung by four species of vireos, the white-eyed, red-eyed, warbling, and yellow-throated. Of the interesting and typically NorthAmerican family of wood warblers I have numbered no fewer than eight whichnest in the Park; these are the redstart, the yellow-breasted chat, northern yellow-throat, oven-bird, the yellow warbler, blue-winged, black-and-white creeping warblers, and one other to be mentioned later. 

Injurious insects find their doom when the young house and Carolina wrensare on the wing. Catbirds and robins are among the most abundant breeders, while chickadees and white-breasted nuthatches are less often seen. Thebluebird haunts the hollow apple trees, and of the thrushes proper theveery or Wilson's and the splendid wood thrush sing to their mates on thenests among the saplings. 

The rarest of all the birds which I have found nesting in the Park is alittle yellow and green warbler, with a black throat and sides of theface, known as the Lawrence warbler. Only a few of his kind have ever beenseen, and strange to say his mate was none other than a demure blue-wingedwarbler. His nest was on the ground and from it six young birds flew tosafety and not to museum drawers. 

NIGHT MUSIC OF THE SWAMP

To many, a swamp or marsh brings only the very practical thought ofwhether it can be readily drained. Let us rejoice, however, that manymarshes cannot be thus easily wiped out of existence, and hence theyremain as isolated bits of primeval wilderness, hedged about by farms andfurrows. The water is the life-blood of the marsh, --drain it, and reed andrush, bird and batrachian, perish or disappear. The marsh, to him whoenters it in a receptive mood, holds, besides mosquitoes andstagnation, --melody, the mystery of unknown waters, and the sweetness ofNature undisturbed by man. 

The ideal marsh is as far as one can go from civilisation. The depths of awood holds its undiscovered secrets; the mysterious call of the veerylends a wildness that even to-day has not ceased to pervade the old wood. There are spots overgrown with fern and carpeted with velvety wet moss;here also the skunk cabbage and cowslip grow rank among the alders. Surelyman cannot live near this place--but the tinkle of a cowbell comes faintlyon the gentle stirring breeze--and our illusion is dispelled, the charm isbroken. 

But even to-day, when we push the punt through the reeds from the clearriver into the narrow, tortuous channel of the marsh, we have leftcivilisation behind us. The great ranks of the cat-tails shut out all viewof the outside world; the distant sounds of civilisation serve only toaccentuate the isolation. It is the land of the Indian, as it was beforethe strange white man, brought from afar in great white-sailed ships, cameto usurp the land of the wondering natives. At any moment we fancy that wemay see an Indian canoe silently round a bend in the channel. 

The marsh has remained unchanged since the days when the Mohican Indiansspeared fish there. We are living in a bygone time. A little green heronflies across the water. How wild he is; nothing has tamed him. He also isthe same now as always. He does not nest in orchard or meadow, but holdshimself aloof, making no concessions to man and the ever increasing spreadof his civilisation. He does not come to his doors for food. He can findfood for himself and in abundance; he asks only to be let alone. Nor doeshe intrude himself. Occasionally we meet him along our little meadowstream, but he makes no advances. As we come suddenly upon him, howindignant he seems at being disturbed in his hunting. Like the Indian, heis jealous of his ancient domain and resents intrusion. He retires, however, throwing back to us a cry of disdain. Here in the marsh is thelast stand of primitive nature in the settled country; here is the laststronghold of the untamed. The bulrushes rise in ranks, like the spears ofa great army, surrounding and guarding the colony of the marsh. 

There seems to be a kinship between the voices of the marsh dwellers. Mostof them seem to have a muddy, aquatic note. The boom of the frog soundslike some great stone dropped into the water; the little marsh wren's songis the "babble and tinkle of water running out of a silver flask. "

The blackbird seems to be the one connecting link between the highlandsand the lowlands. Seldom does one see other citizens of the marsh in theupland. How glorious is the flight of a great blue heron from onefeeding-ground to another! He does not tarry over the foreign territory, nor does he hurry. With neck and head furled close and legs straight outbehind, he pursues his course, swerving neither to the right nor theleft. 

 "Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As darkly painted on the crimson sky Thy figure floats along. "

The blackbirds, however, are more neighbourly. They even forage in theforeign territory, returning at night to sleep. 

In nesting time the red-wing is indeed a citizen of the lowland. His voiceis as distinctive of the marsh as is the croak of the frog, and from adistance it is one of the first sounds to greet the ear. How beautiful ishis clear whistle with its liquid break! Indeed one may say that he is themost conspicuous singer of the marshlands. His is not a sustained song, but the exuberant expression of a happy heart. 

According to many writers the little marsh wren is without song. No song!As well say that the farmer boy's whistling as he follows the plough, orthe sailor's song as he hoists the sail, is not music! All are the songsof the lowly, the melody of those glad to be alive and out in the freeair. 

When man goes into the marsh, the marsh retires within itself, as a turtleretreats within his shell. With the exception of a few blackbirds andmarsh wrens, babbling away the nest secret, and an occasional frog'scroak, all the inhabitants have stealthily retired. The spotted turtle hasslid from the decayed log as the boat pushed through the reeds. At ourapproach the heron has flown and the little Virginia rail has scuttledaway among the reeds. 

Remain perfectly quiet, however, and give the marsh time to regain itscomposure. One by one the tenants of the swamp will take up the trend oftheir business where it was interrupted. 

All about, the frogs rest on the green carpet of the lily pads, basking inthe sun. The little rail again runs among the reeds, searching for food inthe form of small snails. The blackbirds and wrens, most domestic incharacter, go busily about their home business; the turtles again come upto their positions, and a muskrat swims across the channel. One hopes thatthe little colony of marsh wren homes on stilts above the water, like theancient lake dwellers of Tenochtitlan, may have no enemies. But the habitof building dummy nests is suggestive that the wee birds are pitting theirwits against the cunning of some enemy, --and suspicion rests upon theserpent. 

As evening approaches and the shadows from the bordering wood point longfingers across the marsh, the blackbirds straggle back from theirfeeding-grounds and settle, clattering, among the reeds. Their clamourdies gradually away and night settles down upon the marsh. 

 * * * * *

All sounds have ceased save the booming of the frogs, which but emphasisesthe loneliness of it all. A distant whistle of a locomotive dispels theidea that all the world is wilderness. The firefly lamps glow along themargin of the rushes. The frogs are now in full chorus, the great bullsbeating their tom-toms and the small fry filling in the chinks withshriller cries. How remote the scene and how melancholy the chorus!

To one mind there is a quality in the frogs' serenade that strikes thechord of sadness, to another the chord of contentment, to still another itis the chant of the savage, just as the hoot of an owl or the bark of afox brings vividly to mind the wilderness. 

Out of the night comes softly the croon of a little screech owl--that cryalmost as ancient as the hills. It belongs with the soil beneath ourtowns. It is the spirit of the past crying to us. So the dirge of the frogis the cry of the spirit of river and marshland. 

Our robins and bluebirds are of the orchard and the home of man, but whocan claim neighbourship to the bittern or the bullfrog? There is nothingof civilisation in the hoarse croak of the great blue heron. These are allbarbarians and their songs are of the untamed wilderness. 

The moon rises over the hills. The mosquitoes have become savage. Themarsh has tolerated us as long as it cares to, and we beat our retreat. The night hawks swoop down and boom as they pass overhead. One feelsthankful that the mosquitoes are of some good in furnishing food to sograceful a bird. 

A water snake glides across the channel, leaving a silver wake in themoonlight. The frogs plunk into the water as we push past. A night heronrises from the margin of the river and slowly flops away. The bitternbooms again as we row down the peaceful river, and we leave the marshlandto its ancient and rightful owners. 

 And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow In the rose and silver evening glow. Farewell, my lord Sun! The creeks overflow; a thousand rivulets run 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh grass stir; Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr. Sidney Lanier. 

THE COMING OF MAN

If we betake ourselves to the heart of the deepest forests which are stillleft upon our northern hills, and compare the bird life which we findthere with that in the woods and fields near our homes, we shall at oncenotice a great difference. Although the coming of mankind with his axe andplough has driven many birds and animals far away or actually exterminatedthem, there are many others which have so thrived under the new conditionsthat they are far more numerous than when the tepees of the red men alonebroke the monotony of the forest. 

We might walk all day in the primitive woods and never see or hear arobin, while in an hour's stroll about a village we can count scores. Letus observe how some of these quick-witted feathered beings have takenadvantage of the way in which man is altering the whole face of the land. 

A pioneer comes to a spot in the virgin forest which pleases him andproceeds at once to cut down the trees in order to make a clearing. Thehermit thrush soothes his labour with its wonderful song; the pileatedwoodpecker pounds its disapproval upon a near-by hollow tree; the deer andwolf take a last look out through the trees and flee from the spotforever. A house and barn arise; fields become covered with waving grassand grain; a neglected patch of burnt forest becomes a tangle ofblackberry and raspberry; an orchard is set out. 

When the migrating birds return, they are attracted to this new scene. Thedecaying wood of fallen trees is a paradise for ants, flies, and beetles;offering to swallows, creepers, and flycatchers feasts of abundance neverdreamed of in the primitive forests. Straightway, what must have been acave swallow becomes a barn swallow; the haunter of rock ledges changes toan eave swallow; the nest in the niche of the cliff is deserted and phoebebecomes a bridgebird; cedarbirds are renamed cherrybirds, and catbirds andother low-nesting species find the blackberry patch safer than thesweetbrier vine in the deep woods. The swift leaves the lightning-struckhollow tree where owl may harry or snake intrude, for the chimneyflue--sooty but impregnable. 

When the great herds of ruminants disappear from the western prairies, thebuffalo birds without hesitation become cowbirds, and when the ploughturns up the never-ending store of grubs and worms the birds lose all fearand follow at the very heels of the plough-boy: grackles, vesper sparrows, and larks in the east, and flocks of gulls farther to the westward. 

The crow surpasses all in the keen wit which it pits against humaninvasion and enmity. The farmer declares war (all unjustly) against thesesable natives, but they jeer at his gun and traps and scarecrows, andthrive on, killing the noxious insects, devouring the diseasedcorn-sprouts, --doing great good to the farmer in spite of himself. 

The story of these sudden adaptations to conditions which the birds couldnever have foreseen is a story of great interest and it has been but halftold. Climb the nearest hill or mountain or even a tall tree and look outupon the face of the country. Keep in mind you are a bird and not ahuman, --you neither know nor understand anything of the reason for thesestrange sights, --these bipeds who cover the earth with great squarestructures, who scratch the ground for miles, who later gnaw thevegetation with great shining teeth, and who are only too often on thelook out to bring sudden death if one but show a feather. What would youdo?

THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS

What a great difference there is in brilliancy of colouring between birdsand the furry creatures. How the plumage of a cardinal, or indigo bunting, or hummingbird glows in the sunlight, and reflects to our eyes the mostintense vermilion or indigo or an iridescence of the whole gamut ofcolour. On the other hand, how sombrely clad are the deer, the rabbits, and the mice; gray and brown and white being the usual hue of their fur. 

This difference is by no means accidental, but has for its cause a deepsignificance, --all-important to the life of the bird or mammal. Scientistshave long known of it, and if we unlock it from its hard sheathing oftechnical terms, we shall find it as simple and as easy to understand asit is interesting. When we once hold the key, it will seem as if scaleshad fallen from our eyes, and when we take our walks abroad through thefields and woods, when we visit a zoological park, or even see the animalsin a circus, we shall feel as though a new world were opened to us. 

No post offices, or even addresses, exist for birds and mammals; when thechildren of the desert or the jungle are lost, no detective or policemanhastens to find them, no telephone or telegraph aids in the search. Yet, without any of these accessories, the wild creatures have marvelloussystems of communication. The five senses (and perhaps a mysterious sixth, at which we can only guess) are the telephones and the police, theautomatic sentinels and alarms of our wild kindred. Most inferior are ourown abilities in using eyes, nose, and ears, when compared with the samefunctions in birds and animals. 

Eyes and noses are important keys to the bright colours of birds andcomparative sombreness of hairy-coated creatures. Take a dog and an orioleas good examples of the two extremes. When a dog has lost his master, hefirst looks about; then he strains his eyes with the intense look of anear-sighted person, and after a few moments of this he usually yelps withdisappointment, drops his nose to the ground, and with unfailing accuracyfollows the track of his master. When the freshness of the trail tells himthat he is near its end he again resorts to his eyes, and is soon nearenough to recognise the face he seeks. A fox when running before a houndmay double back, and make a close reconnaissance near his trail, sometimespassing in full view without the hound's seeing him or stopping infollowing out the full curve of the trail, so completely does thewonderful power of smell absorb the entire attention of the dog. 

Let us now turn to the oriole. As we might infer, the nostrils incased inhorn render the sense of smell of but slight account. It is hard to tellhow much a bird can distinguish in this way--probably only the odour offood near at hand. However, when we examine the eye of our bird, we see asense organ of a very high order. Bright, intelligent, full-circled, ofgreat size compared to the bulk of the skull, protected by three completeeyelids; we realise that this must play an important part in the life ofthe bird. There are, of course, many exceptions to such a generalisationas this. For instance, many species of sparrows are dull-coloured. We mustremember that the voice--the calls and songs of birds--is developed to ahigh degree, and in many instances renders bright colouring needless inattracting a mate or in locating a young bird. 

As we have seen, the sense of smell is very highly developed amongfour-footed animals, but to make this efficient there must be somethingfor it to act upon; and in this connection we find some interesting factsof which, outside of scientific books, little has been written. On theentire body, birds have only one gland--the oil gland above the base ofthe tail, which supplies an unctuous dressing for the feathers. Birds, therefore, have not the power of perspiring, but compensate for this byvery rapid breathing. On the contrary, four-footed animals have glands onmany portions of the body. Nature is seldom contented with the one primaryfunction which an organ or tissue performs, but adjusts and adapts it toothers in many ingenious ways. Hence, when an animal perspires, the poresof the skin allow the contained moisture to escape and moisten the surfaceof the body; but in addition to this, in many animals, collections ofthese pores in the shape of large glands secrete various odours whichserve important uses. In the skunk such a gland is a practically perfectprotection against attacks from his enemies. He never hurries and seemsnot to know what fear is--a single wave of his conspicuous danger signalis sufficient to clear his path. 

In certain species of the rhinoceros there are large glands in the foot. These animals live among grass and herbage which they brush against asthey walk, and thus "blaze" a plain trail for the mate or young to follow. There are few if any animals which care to face a rhinoceros, so the scentis incidentally useful to other creatures as a warning. 

It is believed that the hard callosities on the legs of horses are theremains of glands which were once upon a time useful to their owners; andit is said that if a paring from one of these hard, horny structures beheld to the nose of a horse, he will follow it about, hinting, perhaps, that in former days the scent from the gland was an instinctive guidewhich kept members of the herd together. 

"Civet, " which is obtained from the civet cat, and "musk, " from the queerlittle hornless musk deer, are secretions of glands. It has been suggestedthat the defenceless musk deer escapes many of its enemies by thesimilarity of its secretion to the musky odour of crocodiles. In manyanimals which live together in herds, such as the antelope and deer, andwhich have neither bright colours nor far-reaching calls to aid strayingmembers to regain the flock, there are large and active scent glands. Thenext time you see a live antelope in a zoological park, or even a stuffedspecimen, look closely at the head, and between the eye and the nostril alarge opening will be seen on each, side, which, in the living animal, closes now and then, a flap of skin shutting it tight. 

Among pigs the fierce peccary is a very social animal, going in largepacks; and on the back of each of these creatures is found a large glandfrom which a clear watery fluid is secreted. Dogs and wolves also havetheir odour-secreting glands on the back, and the "wolf-pack" isproverbial. 

The gland of the elephant is on the temple, and secretes only when theanimal is in a dangerous mood, a hint, therefore, of opposite significanceto that of the herding animals, as this says, "Let me alone! stay away!"Certain low species of monkeys, the lemurs, have a remarkable bare patchon the forearm, which covers a gland serving some use. 

If we marvel at the keenness of scent among animals, how incredible seemsthe similar sense in insects--similar in function, however different themedium of structure may be. Think of the scent from a female moth, sodelicate that we cannot distinguish it, attracting a male of the samespecies from a distance of a mile or more. Entomologists sometimes confinea live female moth or other insect in a small wire cage and hang itoutdoors in the evening, and in a short time reap a harvest of gay-wingedsuitors which often come in scores, instinctively following up the trailof the delicate, diffused odour. It is surely true that the greatestwonders are not always associated with mere bulk. 

INSECT MUSIC

Among insects, sounds are produced in many ways, and for various reasons. A species of ant which makes its nest on the under side of leaves producesa noise by striking the leaf with its head in a series of spasmodic taps, and another ant is also very interesting as regards its sound-producinghabit. "Individuals of this species are sometimes spread over a surface oftwo square yards, many out of sight of the others; yet the tapping is setup at the same moment, continued exactly the same space of time, andstopped at the same instant. After the lapse of a few seconds, allrecommence simultaneously. The interval is always approximately of thesame duration, and each ant does not beat synchronously with every otherant, but only like those in the same group, so the independent tappingsplay a sort of tune, each group alike in time, but the tapping of thewhole mass beginning and ending at the same instant. This is doubtless ameans of communication. "

The organ of hearing in insects is still to be discovered in many forms, but in katydids it is situated on the middle of the fore-legs; inbutterflies on the sides of the thorax, while the tip of the horns orantennæ of many insects is considered to be the seat of this function. Inall it is little more than a cavity, over which a skin is stretched like adrum-head, which thus reacts to the vibration. This seems to be very often"tuned, " as it were, to the sounds made by the particular species in whichit is found. A cricket will at times be unaffected by any sound, howeverloud, while at the slightest "screek" or chirp of its own species, nomatter how faint, it will start its own little tune in all excitement. 

The songs of the cicadas are noted all over the world. Darwin heard themwhile anchored half a mile off the South American coast, and a giantspecies of that country is said to produce a noise as loud as the whistleof a locomotive. Only the males sing, the females being dumb, thus givingrise to the well-known Grecian couplet:

 "Happy the cicadas' lives, For they all have voiceless wives. "

Anyone who has entered a wood where thousands of the seventeen-yearcicadas were hatching has never forgotten it. A threshing machine, or agigantic frog chorus, is a fair comparison, and when a branch loaded withthese insects is shaken, the sound rises to a shrill screech or scream. This noise is supposed--in fact is definitely known--to attract the femaleinsect, and although there may be in it some tender notes which we fail todistinguish, yet let us hope that the absence of any highly organisedauditory organ may result in reducing the effect of a steam-engine whistleto an agreeable whisper! It is thought that the vibrations are felt ratherthan heard, in the sense that we use the word "hear"; if one has ever hada cicada _zizz_ in one's hand, the electrical shocks which seem to go upthe arm help the belief in this idea. To many of us the song of thecicada--softened by distance--will ever be pleasant on account of itsassociations. When one attempts to picture a hot August day in a hay-fieldor along a dusty road, the drowsy _zee-ing_ of this insect, growing louderand more accelerated and then as gradually dying away, is a focus for themind's eye, around which the other details instantly group themselves. 

The apparatus for producing this sound is one of the most complex in allthe animal kingdom. In brief, it consists of two external doors, capableof being partly opened, and three internal membranes, to one of which isattached a vibrating muscle, which, put in motion, sets all the othersvibrating in unison. 

We attach a great deal of importance to the fact of being educated to theappreciation of the highest class of music. We applaud our Paderewski, andyear after year are awed and delighted with wonderful operatic music, yetseldom is the _limitation_ of human perception of musical soundsconsidered. 

If we wish to appreciate the limits within which the human ear is capableof distinguishing sounds, we should sit down in a meadow, some hotmidsummer day, and listen to the subdued running murmur of the myriads ofinsects. Many are very distinct to our ears and we have little trouble intracing them to their source. Such are crickets and grasshoppers, whichfiddle and rasp their roughened hind legs against their wings. Somebutterflies have the power of making a sharp crackling sound by means ofhooks on the wings. The katydid, so annoying to some in its persistentditty, so full of reminiscences to others of us, is a large, green, fiddling grasshopper. 

Another sound which is typical of summer is the hum of insects' wings, sometimes, as near a beehive, rising to a subdued roar. The higher, thinner song of the mosquito's wings is unfortunately familiar to us, andwe must remember that the varying tone of the hum of each species may beof the greatest importance to it as a means of recognition. Many beetleshave a projecting horn on the under side of the body which they can snapagainst another projection, and by this means call their lady-loves, literally "playing the bones" in their minstrel serenade. 

Although we can readily distinguish the sounds which these insectsproduce, yet there are hundreds of small creatures, and even large ones, which are provided with organs of hearing, but whose language is too finefor our coarse perceptions. The vibrations--chirps, hums, and clicks--canbe recorded on delicate instruments, but, just as there are shades andcolours at both ends of the spectrum which our eyes cannot perceive, sothere are tones running we know not how far beyond the scale limits whichaffect our ears. Some creatures utter noises so shrill, so sharp, that itpains our ears to listen to them, and these are probably on the borderlandof our sound-world. 

 Pipe, little minstrels of the waning year, In gentle concert pipe! Pipe the warm noons; the mellow harvest near; The apples dropping ripe;

 The sweet sad hush on Nature's gladness laid; The sounds through silence heard! Pipe tenderly the passing of the year. Harriet Mcewen Kimball. 

 I love to hear thine earnest voice, Wherever thou art hid, Thou testy little dogmatist, Thou pretty Katydid! Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, -- Old gentlefolks are they, -- Thou say'st an undisputed thing In such a solemn way. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

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AUGUST

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THE GRAY DAYS OF BIRDS

The temptation is great, if we love flowers, to pass over the seed time, when stalks are dried and leaves are shrivelled, no matter how beautifulmay be the adaptation for scattering or preserving the seed or howwonderful the protective coats guarding against cold or wet. Or if insectsattract us by their many varied interests, we are more enthusiastic overthe glories of the full-winged image than the less conspicuous, though noless interesting, eggs and chrysalides hidden away in crevices throughoutthe long winter. 

Thus there seems always a time when we hesitate to talk or write of ourfavourite theme, especially if this be some class of life on the earth, because, perchance, it is not at its best. 

Even birds have their gray days, when in the autumn the glory of theirplumage and song has diminished. At this time few of their human admirersintrude upon them and the birds themselves are only too glad to escapeobservation. Collectors of skins disdain to ply their trade, as theragged, pin-feathery coats of the birds now make sorry-looking specimens. But we can find something of interest in birddom, even in this interim. 

Nesting is over, say you, when you start out on your tramps in late summeror early autumn; but do not be too sure. The gray purse of the oriole hasbegun to ravel at the edges and the haircloth cup of the chipping sparrowis already wind-distorted, but we shall find some housekeeping justbegun. 

The goldfinch is one of these late nesters. Long after his northerncousins, the pine siskins and snowflakes, have laid their eggs and rearedtheir young, the goldfinch begins to focus the aerial loops of his flightabout some selected spot and to collect beakfuls of thistledown. And here, perhaps, we have his fastidious reason for delaying. Thistles seed withthe goldenrod, and not until this fleecy substance is gray and floatingdoes he consider that a suitable nesting material is available. 

When the young birds are fully fledged one would think the goldfinch apolygamist, as we see him in shining yellow and black, leading his familyquintet, all sombre hued, his patient wife being to our eyesindistinguishable from the youngsters. 

But in the case of most of the birds the cares of nesting are past, andthe woods abound with full-sized but awkward young birds, blunderingthrough their first month of insect-hunting and fly-catching, tumblinginto the pools from which they try to drink, and shrieking with the veryjoy of life, when it would be far safer for that very life if theyremained quiet. 

It is a delightful period this, a transition as interesting as evanescent. This is the time when instinct begins to be aided by intelligence, whenevery hour accumulates fact upon fact, all helping to co-ordinate actionand desire on the part of the young birds. 

No hint of migration has yet passed over the land, and the quiet of summerstill reigns; but even as we say this a confused chuckling is heard; thisrises into a clatter of harsh voices, and a small flock of blackbirds--twoor three families--pass overhead. The die is cast! No matter how hot maybe the sunshine during succeeding days, or how contented and thoughtlessof the future the birds may appear, there is a something which has gone, and which can never return until another cycle of seasons has passed. 

During this transition time some of our friends are hardly recognisable;we may surprise the scarlet tanager in a plumage which seems morebefitting a nonpareil bunting, --a regular "Joseph's coat. " The red of hishead is half replaced with a ring of green, and perhaps a splash of thelatter decorates the middle of his back. When he flies the light showsthrough his wings in two long narrow slits, where a pair of primaries arelacking. It is a wise provision of Nature which regulates the moultingsequence of his flight feathers, so that only a pair shall fall out at onetime, and the adjoining pair not before the new feathers are large andstrong. A sparrow or oriole hopping along the ground with angular, half-naked wings would be indeed a pitiful sight, except to maraudingweasels and cats, who would find meals in abundance on every hand. 

Let us take our way to some pond or lake, thick with duckweed and belovedof wild fowl, and we shall find a different state of affairs. We surprisea group of mallard ducks, which rush out from the overhanging bank anddive for safety among the sheltering green arrowheads. But their outspreadwings are a mockery, the flight feathers showing as a mere fringe of quillsticks, which beat the water helplessly. 

Another thing we notice. Where are the resplendent drakes? Have they flownelsewhere and left their mates to endure the dangers of moulting alone?Let us come here a week later and see what a transformation is takingplace. When most birds moult it is for a period of several months, butthese ducks have a partial fall moult which is of the greatest importanceto them. When the wing feathers begin to loosen in their sockets anunfailing instinct leads these birds to seek out some secluded pond, wherethey patiently await the moult. The sprouting, blood-filled quills forceout the old feathers, and the bird becomes a thing of the water, to swimand to dive, with no more power of flight than its pond companions, theturtles. 

If, however, the drake should retain his iridescent head and snowy collar, some sharp-eyed danger would spy out his helplessness and death wouldswoop upon him. So for a time his bright feathers fall out and a quickmakeshift disguise closes over him--the reed-hued browns and grays of hismate--and for a time the pair are hardly distinguishable. With the returnof his power of flight comes renewed brightness, and the wild drakeemerges from his seclusion on strong-feathered, whistling wings. All thiswe should miss, did we not seek him out at this season; otherwise the fewweeks would pass and we should notice no change from summer to winterplumage, and attribute his temporary absence to a whim of wandering ondistant feeding grounds. 

Another glance at our goldfinch shows a curious sight. Mottled with spotsand streaks, yellow alternating with greenish, he is an anomaly indeed, and in fact all of our birds which undergo a radical colour change willshow remarkable combinations during the actual process. 

It is during the gray days that the secret to a great problem may belooked for--the why of migration. 

A young duck of the year, whose wings are at last strong and fit, wavesthem in ecstasy, vibrating from side to side and end to end of his natalpond. Then one day we follow his upward glances to where a thin, blackarrow is throbbing southward, so high in the blue sky that the individualducks are merged into a single long thread. The young bird, calling againand again, spurns the water with feet and wings, finally rising in aslowly ascending arc. Somewhere, miles to the southward, another segmentapproaches--touches--merges. 

But what of our smaller birds? When the gray days begin to chill we maywatch them hopping among the branches all day in their search forinsects--a keener search now that so many of the more delicate flies andbugs have fallen chilled to the earth. Toward night the birds become morerestless, feed less, wander aimlessly about, but, as we can tell by theirchirps, remain near us until night has settled down. Then the irresistiblemaelstrom of migration instinct draws them upward, --upward, --climbing onfluttering wings, a mile or even higher into the thin air, and in companywith thousands and tens of thousands they drift southward, sending vaguenotes down, but themselves invisible to us, save when now and then a tinyblack mote floats across the face of the moon--an army of feathered mites, passing from tundra and spruce to bayou and palm. 

In the morning, instead of the half-hearted warble of an insect eater, there sounds in our ears, like the ring of skates on ice, the metallic, whip-like chirp of a snowbird, confident of his winter's seed feast. 

LIVES OF THE LANTERN BEARERS

To all wild creatures fire is an unknown and hated thing, although it isoften so fascinating to them that they will stand transfixed gazing at itsmysterious light, while a hunter, unnoticed, creeps up behind and shootsthem. 

In the depth of the sea, where the sun is powerless to send a single rayof light and warmth, there live many strange beings, fish and worms, which, by means of phosphorescent spots and patches, may light their ownway. Of these strange sea folk we know nothing except from the fragmentswhich are brought to the surface by the dredge; but over our fields andhedges, throughout the summer nights, we may see and study mostinteresting examples of creatures which produce their own light. Heedlessof whether the moon shines brightly, or whether an overcast sky cloaks theblackest of nights, the fireflies blaze their sinuous path through life. These little yellow and black beetles, which illumine our way like a cloudof tiny meteors, have indeed a wonderful power, for the light which theyproduce within their own bodies is a cold glow, totally different from anyfire of human agency. 

In some species there seems to be a most romantic reason for theirbrilliance. Down among the grass blades are lowly, wingless creatures--thefemale fireflies, which, as twilight falls, leave their earthen burrows inthe turf and, crawling slowly to the summit of some plant, they displaythe tiny lanterns which Nature has kindled within their bodies. 

Far overhead shoot the strong-winged males, searching for their minuteinsect food, weaving glowing lines over all the shadowy landscape, andapparently heedless of all beneath them. Yet when the dim little beacon, hung out with the hopefulness of instinct upon the grass blade, is seen, all else is forgotten and the beetle descends to pay court to the poor, worm-like creature, so unlike him in appearance, but whose littleillumination is her badge of nobility. The gallant suitor is as devoted asif the object of his affection were clad in all the gay colours of abutterfly; and he is fortunate if, when he has reached the signal amongthe grasses, he does not find a half-dozen firefly rivals before him. 

When insects seek their mates by day, their characteristic colours orforms may be confused with surrounding objects; or those which by nightare able in that marvellous way to follow the faintest scent up wind mayhave difficulties when cross currents of air are encountered; but thefemale firefly, waiting patiently upon her lowly leaf, has unequalledopportunity for winning her mate, for there is nothing to compare with oreclipse her flame. Except--I wonder if ever a firefly has hasteneddownward toward the strange glow which we sometimes see in the heart ofdecayed wood, --mistaking a patch of fox-fire for the love-light of whichhe was in search!

In other species, including the common one about our homes, the ladylightning-bug is more fortunate in possessing wings and is able to flyabroad like her mate. 

Although this phosphorescence has been microscopically examined, it is butslightly understood. We know, however, that it is a wonderful process ofcombustion, --by which a bright light is produced without heat, smoke, orindeed fuel, except that provided by the life processes in the tiny bodyof the insect. 

 So shines a good deed in a naughty world. Shakespeare. 

A STARFISH AND A DAISY

Day after day the forms of horses, dogs, birds, and other creatures passbefore our eyes. We look at them and call them by the names which we havegiven them, and yet--we see them not. That is to say, we say that theyhave a head, a tail; they run or fly; they are of one colour beneath, another above, but beyond these bare meaningless facts most of us nevergo. 

Let us think of the meaning of form. Take, for example, a flower--a daisy. Now, if we could imagine such an impossible thing as that a daisy blossomshould leave its place of growth, creep down the stem and go wandering offthrough the grass, soon something would probably happen to its shape. Itwould perhaps get in the habit of creeping with some one ray always infront, and the friction of the grass stems on either side would soon wearand fray the ends of the side rays, while those behind might grow longerand longer. If we further suppose that this strange daisy flower did notlike the water, the rays in front might be of service in warning it toturn aside. When their tips touched the surface and were wet by the waterof some pool, the ambulatory blossom would draw back and start out in anew direction. Thus a theoretical head (with the beginnings of the organsof sense), and a long-drawn-out tail, would have their origin. 

Such a remarkable simile is not as fanciful as it might at first appear;for although we know of no blossom which so sets at naught the sedentarylife of the vegetable kingdom, yet among certain of the animals which livetheir lives beneath the waves of the sea a very similar thing occurs. 

Many miles inland, even on high mountains, we may sometimes see thousandsof little joints, or bead-like forms, imbedded in great rocky cliffs. Theyhave been given the name of St. Cuthbert's beads. Occasionally in thevicinity of these fossils--for such they are--are found impressions of agraceful, flower-like head, with many delicately divided petals, fixedforever in the hard relief of stone. The name of stone lilies has beenapplied to them. The beads were once strung together in the form of a longstem, and at the top the strangely beautiful animal-lily nodded its headin the currents of some deep sea, which in the long ago of the earth's agecovered the land--millions of years before the first man or beast or birddrew breath. 

It was for a long time supposed that these wonderful creatures wereextinct, but dredges have brought up from the dark depths of the seaactual living stone lilies, or _crinoids_, this being their real name. Fewof us will probably ever have an opportunity of studying a crinoid alive, although in our museums we may see them preserved in glass jars. That, however, detracts nothing from the marvel of their history andrelationship. They send root-like organs deep into the mud, where theycoil about some shell and there cling fast. Then the stem grows tall andslender, and upon the summit blooms or is developed the animal-flower. Itsnourishment is not drawn from the roots and the air, as is that of thedaisy, but is provided by the tiny creatures which swim to its tentacles, or are borne thither by the ocean currents. Some of these crinoids, as ifimpatient of their plant-like life and asserting their animal kinship, atlast tear themselves free from their stem and float off, turn over, andthereafter live happily upon the bottom of the sea, roaming where theywill, creeping slowly along and fulfilling the destiny of our imaginarydaisy. 

And here a comparison comes suddenly to mind. How like to a many-rayedstarfish is our creeping crinoid! Few of us, unless we had studies aboutthese creatures, could distinguish between a crinoid and one of the friskylittle dancing stars, or serpent stars, which are so common in the rockycaves along our coast. This relationship is no less real than apparent. The hard-skinned "five finger, " or common starfish, which we may pick upon any beach, while it never grew upon a stem, yet still preserves theradial symmetry of its stalked ancestors. Pick up your starfish, carry itto the nearest field, and pluck a daisy close to the head. How interestingthe comparison becomes, now that the knowledge of its meaning is plain. Anything which grows fast upon a single immovable stem tends to growequally in all directions. We need not stop here, for we may include seaanemones and corals, those most marvellously coloured flowers of the sea, which grow upon a short, thick stalk and send out their tentacles equallyin all directions. And many of the jelly-fish which throb along closebeneath the surface swells were in their youth each a section of a pile ofsaucer-like individuals, which were fastened by a single stalk to someshell or piece of coral. 

We will remember that it was suggested that the theoretical daisy wouldsoon alter its shape after it entered upon active life. This is plainlyseen in the starfish, although at first glance the creature seems asradially symmetrical as a wheel. But at one side of the body, between twoof the arms, is a tiny perforated plate, serving to strain the water whichenters the body, and thus the circular tendency is broken, and a beginningmade toward right and left handedness. In certain sea-urchins, which arereally starfishes with the gaps between the arms filled up, the body iselongated, and thus the head and tail conditions of all animals higher inthe scale of life are represented. 

THE DREAM OF THE YELLOW-THROAT

Many of us look with longing to the days of Columbus; we chafe at thethought of no more continents to discover; no unknown seas to encompass. But at our very doors is an "undiscovered bourne, " from which, while thetraveller invariably returns, yet he will have penetrated but slightlyinto its mysteries. This unexplored region is night. 

When the dusk settles down and the creatures of sunlight seek their rest, a new realm of life awakens into being. The flaring colours and loudbustle of the day fade and are lost, and in their place come soft, graytones and silence. The scarlet tanager seeks some hidden perch and soonfrom the same tree slips a silent, ghostly owl; the ruby of thehummingbird dies out as the gaudy flowers of day close their petals, andthe gray wraiths of sphinx moths appear and sip nectar from the spectralmoonflowers. 

 * * * * *

With feet shod with silence, let us creep near a dense tangle ofsweetbrier and woodbine late some summer evening and listen to the soundsof the night-folk. How few there are that our ears can analyse! We huddleclose to the ground and shut our eyes. Then little by little we open themand set our senses of sight and hearing at keenest pitch. Even so, howhandicapped are we compared to the wild creatures. A tiny voice becomesaudible, then dies away, --entering for a moment the narrow range of ourcoarse hearing, --and finishing its message of invitation or challenge invibrations too fine for our ears. 

 * * * * *

Were we crouched by a dense yew hedge, bordering an English country lane, a nightingale might delight us, --a melody of day, softened, adapted, tothe night. If the air about us was heavy with the scent of orange blossomsof some covert in our own southland, the glorious harmony of a mockingbirdmight surge through the gloom, --assuaging the ear as do the blossomsanother sense. 

But sitting still in our own home tangle let us listen, --listen. Our eyeshave slipped the scales of our listless civilised life and pierce thedarkness with the acuteness of our primeval forefathers; our ears tingleand strain. 

A slender tongue of sound arises from the bush before us. Again and againit comes, muffled but increasing in volume. A tiny ball of feathers isperched in the centre of the tangle, with beak hidden in the deep, softplumage, but ever and anon the little body throbs and the song fallsgently on the silence of the night: "I beseech you! I beseech you! Ibeseech you!" A Maryland yellow-throat is asleep and singing in itsdreams. 

As we look and listen, a shadowless something hovers overhead, and, looking upward, we see a gray screech owl silently hanging on beatingwings. His sharp ears have caught the muffled sound; his eyes search outthe tangle, but the yellow-throat is out of reach. The little hunterdrifts away into the blackness, the song ends and the sharp squeak of amouse startles us. We rise slowly from our cramped position and quietlyleave the mysteries of the night. 

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SEPTEMBER

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THE PASSING OF THE FLOCKS

It is September. August--the month of gray days for birds--has passed. Thelast pin-feather of the new winter plumage has burst its sheath, and issleek and glistening from its thorough oiling with waterproof dressing, which the birds squeeze out with their bills from a special gland, andwhich they rub into every part of their plumage. The youngsters, now grownas large as their parents, have become proficient in fly-catching orberry-picking, as the case may be. Henceforth they forage for themselves, although if we watch carefully we may still see a parent's love promptingit to give a berry to its big offspring (indistinguishable save for thisattention), who greedily devours it without so much as a wing flutter ofthanks. 

Two courses are open to the young birds who have been so fortunate as toescape the dangers of nestlinghood. They may unite in neighbourly flockswith others of their kind, as do the blackbirds of the marshes; or theymay wander off by themselves, never going very far from their summer home, but perching alone each night in the thick foliage of some shelteringbush. 

How wonderfully the little fellow adapts himself to the radical and suddenchange in his life! Before this, his world has been a warm, soft-linednest, with ever anxious parents to shelter him from rain and cold, or tostand with half-spread wings between him and the burning rays of the sun. He has only to open his mouth and call for food and a supply of thechoicest morsels appears and is shoved far down his throat. If dangerthreatens, both parents are ready to fight to the last, or even willing togive their lives to protect him. Little wonder is it that the young birdsare loth to leave; we can sympathise heartily with the last weakerbrother, whose feet cling convulsively to the nest, who begs piteously for"just one more caterpillar!" But the mother bird is inexorable and standsa little way out of reach with the juiciest morsel she can find. Once out, the young bird never returns. Even if we catch the little chap before hefinishes his first flight and replace him, the magic spell of home isbroken, and he is out again the instant our hand frees him. 

What a change the first night brings! Yet with unfailing instinct hesquats on some twig, fluffs up his feathers, tucks his wee head behind hiswing, and sleeps the sleep of his first adult birdhood as soundly as ifthis position of rest had been familiar to him since he broke through theshell. 

We admire his aptitude for learning; how quickly his wings gain strengthand skill; how soon he manages to catch his own dinner. But how all thispales before the accomplishment of a young brush turkey or moundbuilder ofthe antipodes. Hatched six or eight feet under ground, merely by the heatof decaying vegetation, no fond parents minister to his wants. Not onlymust he escape from the shell in the pressure and darkness of hisunderground prison (how we cannot tell), but he is then compelled to digthrough six feet of leaves and mould before he reaches the sunlight. Hefinds himself well feathered, and at once spreads his small but perfectwings and goes humming off to seek his living alone and unattended. 

It is September--the month of restlessness for the birds. Weeks ago thefirst migrants started on their southward journey, the more delicateinsect-eaters going first, before the goldfinches and other late nestershad half finished housekeeping. The northern warblers drift past ussouthward--the magnolia, blackburnian, Canadian fly-catching, and others, bringing memories of spruce and balsam to those of us who have lived withthem in the forests of the north. 

"It's getting too cold for the little fellows, " says the wiseacre, whosees you watching the smaller birds as they pass southward. Is it, though?What of the tiny winter wren which spends the zero weather with us? Hiscoat is no warmer than those birds which have gone to the far tropics. Andwhat of the flocks of birds which we occasionally come across inmid-winter, of species which generally migrate to Brazil? It is not thecold which deprives us of our summer friends, or at least the greatmajority of them; it is the decrease in food supply. Insects disappear, and only those birds which feed on seeds and buds, or are able to glean aninsect diet from the crevices of fence and tree-trunk, can abide. 

This is the month to climb out on the roof of your house, lie on your backand listen. He is a stolid person indeed who is not moved by the chirpsand twitters which come down through the darkness. There is no better wayto show what a wonderful power sound has upon our memories. There sounds arobin's note, and spring seems here again; through the night comes awhite-throat's chirp, and we see again the fog-dimmed fields of a NovaScotian upland; a sandpiper "peets" and the scene in our mind's eye asinstantly changes, and so on. What a revelation if we could see as indaylight for a few moments! The sky would be pitted with thousands andthousands of birds flying from a few hundred yards to as high as one ortwo miles above the earth. 

It only adds to the interest of this phenomenon when we turn to ourlearned books on birds for an explanation of the origin of migration, thewhence and whither of the long journeys by day and night, and find--nocertain answer! This is one of the greatest of the many mysteries of thenatural world, of which little is known, although much is guessed, and thebright September nights may reveal to us--we know not what undiscoveredfacts. 

 I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive; what time, what circuit first, I ask not; but unless God sends his hail Of blinding fire-balls, sleet or driving snow, In sometime, his good time, I shall arrive; He guides me and the bird. In his good time. Robert Browning. 

GHOSTS OF THE EARTH

We may know the name of every tree near our home; we may recognise eachblossom in the field, every weed by the wayside; yet we should beastonished to be told that there are hundreds of plants--many of them ofexquisite beauty--which we have overlooked in very sight of our doorstep. What of the green film which is drawn over every moist tree-trunk orshaded wall, or of the emerald film which coats the water of the pond'sedge? Or the gray lichens painting the rocks and logs, toning down theshingles; the toadstools which, like pale vegetable ghosts, spring up in anight from the turf; or the sombre puff balls which seem dead from theirbirth?

The moulds which cover bread and cheese with a delicate tracery offilaments and raise on high their tiny balls of spores are as worthy to becalled a plant growth as are the great oaks which shade our houses. Therusts and mildews and blights which destroy our fruit all have theirbeauty of growth and fruition when we examine them through a lens, and theyeast by which flour and water is made to rise into the porous, spongydough is just as truly a plant as is the geranium blossoming at thekitchen window. 

If we wonder at the fierce struggle for existence which allows only a fewout of the many seeds of a maple or thistle to germinate and grow up, howcan we realise the obstacles with which these lowly plants have tocontend? A weed in the garden may produce from one to ten thousand seeds, and one of our rarest ferns scatters in a single season over fiftymillions spores; while from the larger puff-balls come clouds ofunnumbered millions of spores, blowing to the ends of the earth; yet wemay search for days without finding one full-grown individual. 

All the assemblage of mushrooms and toadstools, --although the most deadlymay flaunt bright hues of scarlet and yellow, --yet lack the healthy greenof ordinary plants. This is due to the fact that they have become brownparasites or scavengers, and instead of transmuting heat and moisture andthe salts of the earth into tissue by means of the pleasant-huedchlorophyll, these sylvan ghosts subsist upon the sap of roots or thetissues of decaying wood. Emancipated from the normal life of the higherplants, even flowers have been denied them and their fruit is but a cloudof brown dust, --each mote a simple cell. 

But what of the delicate Indian pipe which gleams out from the darkestaisles of the forest? If we lift up its hanging head we will find aperfect flower, and its secret is discovered. Traitor to its kind, it hasdropped from the ranks of the laurels, the heather, and the jolly littlewintergreens to the colourless life of a parasite, --hobnobbing withclammy toadstools and slimy lichens. Its common names are allappropriate, --ice-plant, ghost-flower, corpse-plant. 

Nevertheless it is a delicately beautiful creation, and we have no rightto apply our human standards of ethics to these children of the wild, whose only chance of life is to seize every opportunity, --to make use ofeach hint of easier existence. 

We have excellent descriptions and classifications of mushrooms andtoadstools, but of the actual life of these organisms, of the conditionsof their growth, little is known. Some of the most hideous are deliciousto our palate, some of the most beautiful are certain death. The splendidred and yellow amanita, which lights up a dark spot in the woods like someflowering orchid, is a veritable trap of death. Though human beings havelearned the fatal lesson and leave it alone, the poor flies in the woodsare ever deceived by its brightness, or odour, and a circle of theirbodies upon the ground shows the result of their ignorance. 

MUSKRATS

Long before man began to inherit the earth, giant beavers built their damsand swam in the streams of long ago. For ages these creatures have beenextinct. Our forefathers, during historical times, found smaller beaversabundant, and with such zeal did they trap them that this modern race isnow well-nigh vanished. Nothing is left to us but the humblemuskrat, --which in name and in facile adaptation to the encroachments ofcivilization has little in common with his more noble predecessor. Yet inmany ways his habits of life bring to mind the beaver. 

Let us make the most of our heritage and watch at the edge of a streamsome evening in late fall. If the muskrats have half finished their moundof sticks and mud, which is to serve them for a winter home, we will besure to see some of them at work. Two lines of ripples furrow the surfaceoutward from the farther bank, and a small dark form clambers upon thepile of rubbish. Suddenly a _spat!_ sounds at our very feet, and a muskratdives headlong into the water, followed by the one on the ground. Another_spat!_ and splash comes from farther down the stream, and so the dangersignal of the muskrat clan is passed along, --a single flap upon the waterwith the flat of the tail. 

 * * * * *

If we wait silent and patient, the work will be taken up anew, and in thepale moonlight the little labourers will fashion their house, lining theupper chamber with soft grasses, and shaping the steep passageway whichwill lead to the ever-unfrozen stream-bed. Either here or in the snugtunnel nest deep in the bank the young muskrats are born, and here theyare weaned upon toothsome mussels and succulent lily roots. 

Safe from all save mink and owl and trap, these sturdy muskrats spend thesummer in and about the streams; and when winter shuts down hard and fast, they live lives more interesting than any of our other animals. The groundfreezes their tunnels into tubes of iron, --the ice seals the surface, pastall gnawing out; and yet, amid the quietly flowing water, where snow andwind never penetrate, these warm-blooded, air-breathing muskrats live thewinter through, with only the trout and eels for company. Their food isthe bark and pith of certain plants; their air is what leaks through thehouse of sticks, or what may collect at the melting-place of ice andshore. 

Stretched full length on the smooth ice, let us look through into thatstrange nether world, where the stress of storm is unknown. Far beneath ussinuous black forms undulate through the water, --from tunnel to house andback again. As we gaze down through the crystalline mass, occasionalfractures play pranks with the objects below. The animate shapes seem totake unto themselves greater bulk; their tails broaden, their bodiesbecome many times longer. For a moment the illusion is perfect; thousandsof centuries have slipped back, and we are looking at the giant beavers ofold. 

Let us give thanks that even the humble muskrat still holds his own. Acentury or two hence and posterity may look with wonder at his stuffedskin in a museum!

NATURE'S GEOMETRICIANS

Spiders form good subjects for a rainy-day study, and two hours spent in aneglected garret watching these clever little beings will often arousesuch interest that we shall be glad to devote many days of sunshine toobserving those species which hunt and build, and live their lives in theopen fields. There is no insect in the world with more than six legs, andas a spider has eight he is therefore thrown out of the company ofbutterflies, beetles, and wasps and finds himself in a strange assemblage. Even to his nearest relatives he bears little resemblance, for when werealise that scorpions and horseshoe crabs must call him cousin, weperceive that his is indeed an aberrant bough on the tree of creation. 

Leaving behind the old-fashioned horseshoe crabs to feel their way slowlyover the bottom of the sea, the spiders have won for themselves on land aplace high above the mites, ticks, and daddy-long-legs, and in their highdevelopment and intricate powers of resource they yield not even to theants and bees. 

Nature has provided spiders with an organ filled always with liquid which, on being exposed to the air, hardens, and can be drawn out into theslender threads we know as cobweb. The silkworm encases its body with amile or more of gleaming silk, but there its usefulness is ended as far asthe silkworm is concerned. But spiders have found a hundred uses for theircordage, some of which are startlingly similar to human inventions. 

Those spiders which burrow in the earth hang their tunnels with silkentapestries impervious to wet, which at the same time act as lining to thetube. Then the entrance may be a trap-door of soil and silk, hinged withstrong silken threads; or in the turret spiders which are found in ourfields there is reared a tiny tower of leaves or twigs bound together withsilk. Who of us has not teased the inmate by pushing a bent straw into hisstronghold and awaiting his furious onslaught upon the innocent stalk!

A list of all the uses of cobwebs would take more space than we can spare;but of these the most familiar is the snare set for unwary flies, --thewonderfully ingenious webs which sparkle with dew among the grasses orstretch from bush to bush. The framework is of strong webbing and uponthis is closely woven the sticky spiral which is so elastic, so ethereal, and yet strong enough to entangle a good-sized insect. How knowing seemsthe little worker, as when, the web and his den of concealment beingcompleted, he spins a strong cable from the centre of the web to theentrance of his watch-tower. Then, when a trembling of his aerial spanswarns him of a capture, how eagerly he seizes his master cable and jerksaway on it, thus vibrating the whole structure and making more certain theconfusion of his victim. 

What is more interesting than to see a great yellow garden-spider hanginghead downward in the centre of his web, when we approach too closely, instead of deserting his snare, set it vibrating back and forth so rapidlythat he becomes a mere blur; a more certain method of escaping theonslaught of a bird than if he ran to the shelter of a leaf. 

Those spiders which leap upon their prey instead of setting snares for ithave still a use for their threads of life, throwing out a cable as theyleap, to break their fall if they miss their foothold. What a strange useof the cobweb is that of the little flying spiders! Up they run to the topof a post, elevate their abdomens and run out several threads whichlengthen and lengthen until the breeze catches them and away go thewingless aeronauts for yards or for miles as fortune and wind and weathermay dictate! We wonder if they can cut loose or pull in their ballooncables at will. 

Many species of spiders spin a case for holding their eggs, and some carrythis about with them until the young are hatched. 

A most fascinating tale would unfold could we discover all the uses ofcobweb when the spiders themselves are through with it. Certain it is thatour ruby-throated hummingbird robs many webs to fasten together the plantdown, wood pulp, and lichens which compose her dainty nest. 

Search the pond and you will find another member of the spider familyswimming about at ease beneath the surface, thoroughly aquatic in habits, but breathing a bubble of air which he carries about with him. When hissupply is low he swims to a submarine castle of silk, so air-tight that hecan keep it filled with a large bubble of air, upon which he draws fromtime to time. 

And so we might go on enumerating almost endless uses for the web which isNature's gift to these little waifs, who ages ago left the sea and havewon a place for themselves in the sunshine among the butterflies andflowers. 

 * * * * *

In the balsam-perfumed shade of our northern forests we may sometimes findgrowing in abundance the tiny white dwarf cornel, or bunch-berry, as itslater cluster of scarlet fruit makes the more appropriate name. Theseminiature dogwood blossoms (or imitation blossoms, as the white divisionsare not real petals) are very conspicuous against the dark moss, and manyinsects seem to seek them out and to find it worth while to visit them. Ifwe look very carefully we may find that this discovery is not originalwith us, for a little creature has long ago found out the fondness of beesand other insects for these flowers and has put his knowledge to gooduse. 

One day I saw what I thought was a swelling on one part of the flower, buta closer look showed it was a living spider. Here was protective colouringcarried to a wonderful degree. The body of the spider was white andglistening, like the texture of the white flower on which he rested. Onhis abdomen were two pink, oblong spots of the same tint and shape as thepinkened tips of the false petals. Only by an accident could he bediscovered by a bird, and when I focussed my camera, I feared that thetotal lack of contrast would make the little creature all but invisible. 

Confident with the instinct handed down through many generations, thespider trusted implicitly to his colour for safety and never moved, thoughI placed the lens so close that it threw a life-sized image on theground-glass. When all was ready, and before I had pressed the bulb, thethought came to me whether this wonderful resemblance should be attributedto the need of escaping from insectivorous birds, or to the increasedfacility with which the spider would be able to catch its prey. At thevery instant of making the exposure, before I could will the stopping ofthe movement of my fingers, if I had so wished, my question was answered. A small, iridescent, green bee flew down, like a spark of living light, upon the flower, and, quick as thought, was caught in the jaws of thespider. Six of his eight legs were not brought into use, but were held farback out of the way. 

Here, on my lens, I had a little tragedy of the forest preserved for alltime. 

 There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers; The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night; The thistledown, the only ghost of flowers, Sailed slowly by--passed noiseless out of sight. Thomas Buchanan Read. 

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OCTOBER

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AUTUMN HUNTING WITH A FIELD GLASS

One of the most uncertain of months is October, and most difficult for thebeginner in bird study. If we are just learning to enjoy the life of woodand field, we will find hard tangles to unravel among the birds of thismonth. Many of the smaller species which passed us on their northwardjourney last spring are now returning and will, perhaps, tarry a week ormore before starting on the next nocturnal stage of their passagetropicward. Many are almost unrecognisable in their new winter plumage. Male scarlet tanagers are now green tanagers, goldfinches are olivefinches, while instead of the beautiful black, white, and cream dresswhich made so easy the identification of the meadow bobolinks in thespring, search will now be rewarded only by some plump, overgrownsparrows--reedbirds--which are really bobolinks in disguise. 

Orchard orioles and rose-breasted grosbeaks come and are welcomed, but themultitude of female birds of these species which appear may astonish one, until he discovers that the young birds, both male and female, are verysimilar to their mother in colour. We have no difficulty in distinguishingbetween adult bay-breasted and black poll warblers, but he is indeed akeen observer who can point out which is which when the young birds of theyear pass. 

October is apt to be a month of extremes. One day the woods are filledwith scores of birds, and on the next hardly one will be seen. Often asingle species or family will predominate, and one will remember "thrushdays" or "woodpecker days. " Yellow-bellied sapsuckers cross the path, flickers call and hammer in every grove, while in the orchards, and alongthe old worm-eaten fences, glimpses of red, white, and black show whereredheaded woodpeckers are looping from trunk to post. When we listen tothe warble of bluebirds, watch the mock courtship of the high-holders, anddiscover the fall violets under leaves and burrs, for an instant a feelingof spring rushes over us; but the yellow leaves blow against our face, thewind sighs through the cedars, and we realise that the black hand of thefrost will soon end the brave efforts of the wild pansies. 

The thrushes, ranking in some ways at the head of all our birds, driftthrough the woods, brown and silent as the leaves around them. Splendidopportunities they give us to test our powers of woodcraft. A thrushpasses like a streak of brown light and perches on a tree some distanceaway. We creep from tree to tree, darting nearer when his head is turned. At last we think we are within range, and raise our weapon. No, a leaf isin the way, and the dancing spots of sunlight make our aim uncertain. Wemove a little closer and again take aim, and this time he cannot escapeus. Carefully our double-barrelled binoculars cover him, and we get whatpowder and lead could never give us--the quick glance of the hazel eye, the trembling, half-raised feathers on his head, and a long look at thebeautifully rounded form perched on the twig, which a wanton shot woulddestroy forever. The rich rufous colouring of the tail proclaims him asinger of singers--a hermit thrush. We must be on the watch these days forthe beautiful wood thrush, the lesser spotted veery, the well namedolive-back and the rarer gray-cheeked thrush. We may look in vain amongthe thrushes in our bird books for the golden-crowned and water thrush, for these walkers of the woods are thrushes only in appearance, and belongto the family of warblers. The long-tailed brown thrashers, lovers of theundergrowth, are still more thrush-like in look, but in ourclassifications they hold the position of giant cousins to the wrens. Eventhe finches contribute a mock thrush to our list, the big, spotted-breasted fox sparrow, but he rarely comes in number before midOctober or November. Of course we all know that our robin is a truethrush, young robins having their breasts thickly spotted with black, while even the old birds retain a few spots and streaks on the throat. 

If we search behind the screen of leaves and grass around us we maydiscover many tragedies. One fall I picked up a dead olive-backed thrushin the Zoological Park. There were no external signs of violence, but Ifound that the food canal was pretty well filled with blood. The next daystill another bird was found in the same condition, and the day after twomore. Within a week I noted in my journal eight of these thrushes, allyoung birds of the year, and all with the same symptoms of disorder. Icould only surmise that some poisonous substance, some kind of berry, perhaps some attractive but deadly exotic from the Botanical Gardens, hadtempted the inexperienced birds and caused their deaths. 

As we walk through the October woods a covey of ruffed grouse springs upbefore us, overhead a flock of robins dashes by, and the birds scatter tofeed among the wild grapes. The short round wings of the grouse whirrnoisily, while the quick wing beats of the robins make little sound. Bothare suited to their uses. The robin may travel league upon league to thesouth, while the grouse will not go far except to find new bud or berrypastures. His wings, as we have noticed before, are fitted rather forsudden emergencies, to bound up before the teeth of the fox close uponhim, to dodge into close cover when the nose of the hound almost toucheshis trembling body. When he scrambled out of his shell last May he at oncebegan to run about and to try his tiny wings, and little by little hetaught himself to fly. But in the efforts he got many a tumble and brokeor lost many a feather. Nature, however, has foreseen this, and to hergrouse children she gives several changes of wing feathers to practisewith, before the last strong winter quills come in. 

How different it is with the robin. Naked and helpless he comes from hisblue shell, and only one set of wing quills falls to his share, so itbehooves him to be careful indeed of these. He remains in the nest untilthey are strong enough to bear him up, and his first attempts arecarefully supervised by his anxious parents. And so the glimpse we had inthe October woods of the two pair of wings held more of interest than weat first thought. 

In many parts of the country, about October fifteenth the crows begin toflock back and forth to and from their winter roosts. In some years it isthe twelfth, or again the seventeenth, but the constancy of the mean dateis remarkable. Many of our winter visitants have already slipped into ourfields and woods and taken the places of some of the earlier southernmigrants; but the daily passing of the birds which delay their journeyuntil fairly pinched by the lack of food at the first frosts extends wellinto November. It is not until the foliage on the trees and bushes becomesthreadbare and the last migrants have flown, that our northern visitorsbegin to take a prominent place in our avifauna. 

 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;

 Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -- While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river-sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 

 JOHN KEATS. 

A WOODCHUCK AND A GREBE

No fact comes to mind which is not more impressed upon us by the valuableaid of comparisons, and Nature is ever offering antitheses. At this seasonwe are generally given a brief glimpse--the last for the year--of twocreatures, one a mammal, the other a bird, which are as unlike in theiractivities as any two living creatures could well be. 

What a type of lazy contentment is the woodchuck, as throughout the hotsummer days he lies on his warm earthen hillock at the entrance of hisburrow. His fat body seems almost to flow down the slope, and when hewaddles around for a nibble of clover it is with such an effort that wefeel sure he would prefer a comfortable slow starvation, were it not forthe unpleasant feelings involved in such a proceeding. 

As far as I know there are but two things which, can rouse a woodchuck tostrenuous activity; when a dog is in pursuit he can make his stumpy feetfairly twinkle as he flies for his burrow, and when a fox or a man isdigging him out, he can literally worm his way through the ground, frequently escaping by means of his wonderful digging power. But whenSeptember or October days bring the first chill, he gives one last yawnupon the world and stows himself away at the farthest end of his tunnel, there to sleep away the winter. Little more does he know of the snows andblizzards than the bird which has flown to the tropics. Even storing upfruits or roots is too great an effort for the indolent woodchuck, and inhis hibernation stupor he draws only upon the fat which his lethargicsummer life has accumulated within his skin. 

As we might expect from a liver of such a slothful life, the family traitsof the woodchuck are far from admirable and there is said to be littleaffection shown by the mother woodchuck toward her young. The poor littlefellows are pushed out of the burrow and driven away to shift forthemselves as soon as possible. Many of them must come to grief from hawksand foxes. Closely related to the squirrels, these large marmots (for theyare first cousins to the prairie dogs) are as unlike them in activity asthey are in choice of a haunt. 

What a contrast to all this is the trim feathered form which we may see onthe mill pond some clear morning. Alert and wary, the grebe paddles slowlyalong, watchful of every movement. If we approach too closely, it maysettle little by little, like a submarine opening its water compartments, until nothing is visible except the head with its sharp beak. Another stepand the bird has vanished, swallowed up by the lake, and the chances are ahundred to one against our discovering the motionless neck and the tinyeye which rises again among the water weeds. 

This little grebe comes of a splendid line of ancestors, some of whichwere even more specialised for an aquatic life. These paid the price ofexistence along lines too narrow and vanished from the earth. The grebe, however, has so far stuck to a life which bids fair to allow his racesafety for many generations, but he is perilously near the limit. Everyfall he migrates far southward, leaving his northern lakes, but if thewater upon which he floats should suddenly dry up, he would be almost ashelpless as the gasping fish; for his wings are too weak to lift him fromthe ground. He must needs have a long take-off, a flying start, aided byvigorous paddling along the surface of the water, before he can rise intothe air. 

Millions of years ago there lived birds built on the general grebe planand who doubtless were derived from the same original stock, but whichlived in the great seas of that time. Far from being able to migrate, every external trace of wing was gone and these great creatures, almost aslarge as a man and with sharp teeth in their beaks, must have hitchedthemselves like seals along the edge of the beach, and perhaps laid theireggs on the pebbles as do the terns to-day. 

The grebe, denied the power to rise easily and even, to ran about on landwithout considerable effort, is, however, splendidly adapted to its waterlife, and the rapidity of its motions places it near the head of thehigher active creatures, --with the woodchuck near the opposite extreme. 

THE VOICE OF THE ANIMALS

Throughout the depths of the sea, silence, as well as absolute darkness, prevails. The sun penetrates only a short distance below the surface, atmost a few hundred feet, and all disturbance from storms ceases far abovethat depth, Where the pressure is a ton or more to the square inch, it isvery evident that no sound vibration can exist. Near the surface it isotherwise. The majority of fishes have no lungs and of course no vocalchords, but certain species, such as the drumfish, are able to distendspecial sacs with gas or air, or in other ways to produce sounds. Onevariety succeeds in producing a number of sounds by gritting the teeth, and when the male fish is attempting to charm the female by dashing roundher, spreading his fins to display his brilliant colours, this gritting ofthe teeth holds a prominent place in the performance, although whether thefair finny one makes her choice because she prefers a high-toned gritinstead of a lower one can only be imagined! But vibrations, whether ofsound or of water pressure, are easily carried near the surface, andfishes are provided with organs to receive and record them. One class ofsuch organs has little in common with ears, as we speak of them; they aremerely points on the head and body which are susceptible to the wateryvibrations. These points are minute cavities, surrounded with tiny _cilia_or hairs, which connect with the ends of the nerves. 

The ears of the frogs and all higher animals are, like the tongue-bone andthe lower jaw, derived originally from portions of gills, which theaquatic ancestors of living animals used to draw the oxygen from thewater. This is one of the most wonderful and interesting changes which thestudy of evolution has unfolded to our knowledge. 

The disproportionate voices are produced by means of an extra amount ofskin on the throat, which is distensible and acts as a drum to increasethe volume of sound. In certain bullfrogs which grow to be as large as thehead of a man, the bellowing power is deafening and is audible for miles. In Chile a small species of frog, measuring only about an inch in length, has two internal vocal sacs which are put to a unique use. Where thesefrogs live, water is very scarce and the polliwogs have no chance to liveand develop in pools, as is ordinarily the case. So when the eggs arelaid, they are immediately taken by the male frog and placed in thesecapacious sacs, which serve as nurseries for them all through theirhatching and growing period of life. Although there is no water in thesechambers, yet their gills grow out and are reabsorbed, just as is the casein ordinary tadpoles. When their legs are fully developed, they clamber upto their father's broad mouth and get their first glimpse of the greatworld from his lower lip. When fifteen partly developed polliwogs arefound in the pouches of one little frog, he looks as if he had gorgedhimself to bursting with tadpoles. To such curious uses may vocal organsbe put. 

Turtles are voiceless, except at the period of laying eggs, when theyacquire a voice, which even in the largest is very tiny and piping, likesome very small insect rather than a two-hundred-pound tortoise. Some ofthe lizards utter shrill, insect-like squeaks. 

A species of gecko, a small, brilliantly coloured lizard, has the back ofits tail armed with plates. These it has a habit of rubbing together, andby this means it produces a shrill, chirruping sound, which actuallyattracts crickets and grasshoppers toward the noise, so that they falleasy prey to this reptilian trapper. So in colour, sound, motion, and manyother ways, animals act and react upon each other, a useful and necessaryhabit being perverted by an enemy, so that the death of the creatureresults. Yet it would never be claimed that the lizard thought out thismimicking. It probably found that certain actions resulted in the approachof good dinners, and in its offspring this action might be partlyinstinctive, and each generation would perpetuate it. If it had been anintentional act, other nearly related species of lizards would imitate it, as soon as they perceived the success which attended it. 

That many animals have a kind of language is nowadays admitted to be atruism, but this is more evident among mammals and birds, and, reviewingthe classes of the former, we find a more or less defined ascendingcomplexity and increased number of varying sounds as we pass from thelower forms--kangaroos and moles--to the higher herb-and-flesh-eaters, andparticularly monkeys. 

Squeaks and grunts constitute the vocabulary, if we dignify it by thatname, of the mammals. The sloths, those curious animals whose entire lifeis spent clinging to the underside of branches, on whose leaves they feed, may be said almost to be voiceless, so seldom do they give utterance tothe nameless wail which constitutes their only utterance. Even when beingtorn to pieces by an enemy, they offer no resistance and emit no sound, but fold their claws around their body and submit to the inevitable assilently and as stoically as did ever an ancient Spartan. 

Great fear of death will often cause an animal to utter sounds which aredifferent from those produced under any other conditions. When an elephantis angry or excited, his trumpeting is terribly loud and shrill; but whena mother elephant is "talking" to her child, while the same sonorous, metallic quality is present, yet it is wonderfully softened and modulated. A horse is a good example of what the fear of death will do. The ordinaryneigh of a horse is very familiar, but in battle when mortally wounded, orhaving lost its master and being terribly frightened, a horse will scream, and those who have heard it, say it is more awful than the cries of painof a human being. 

Deer and elk often astonish one by the peculiar sounds which they produce. An elk can bellow loudly, especially when fighting; but when members of aherd call to each other, or when surprised by some unusual appearance, they whistle--a sudden, sharp whistle, like the tin mouthpieces withrevolving discs, which were at one time so much in evidence. 

The growl of a bear differs greatly under varying circumstances. There isthe playful growl, uttered when two individuals are wrestling, and theterrible "sound"--no word expresses it--to which a bear, cornered anddriven to the last extremity, gives utterance--fear, hate, dread, andawful passion mingled and expressed in sound. One can realise the fearfulterror which this inspires only when one has, as I have, stood up to a madbear, repelling charge after charge, with only an iron pike between one'sself and those powerful fangs and claws. The long-drawn moan of a polarbear on a frosty night is another phase; this, too, is expressive, butonly of those wonderful Arctic scenes where night and day are as one tothis great seal-hunter. 

The dog has made man his god, --giving up his life for his master would bebut part of his way of showing his love if he had it in his power to domore. So, too, the dog has attempted to adapt his speech to his master's, and the result is a bark. No wild coyotes or wolves bark, but when bandsof dogs descended from domesticated animals run wild, their howls aremodulated and a certain unmistakable barking quality imparted. Thedrawn-out howl of a great gray wolf is an impressive sound and one neverto be forgotten. Only the fox seems to possess the ability to bark in itsnative tongue. The sounds which the cats, great and small, reproduce aremost varied. Nothing can be much more intimidating than the roar of alion, or more demoniacal than the arguments which our house-pets carry onat night on garden fences. 

What use the sounds peculiar to sea-lions subserve in their life on thegreat ocean, or their haunts along the shore, can only be imagined, butsurely such laudable perseverance, day after day, to out-utter each other, must be for some good reason!

Volumes have been written concerning the voices of the two remaininggroups of animals--monkeys and birds. In the great family of thefour-handed folk, more varieties of sound are produced than would bethought possible. Some of the large baboons are awful in theirvocalisations. Terrible agony or remorse is all that their moans suggestto us, no matter what frame of mind on the part of the baboon inducesthem. Of all vertebrates the tiny marmosets reproduce most exactly thechirps of crickets and similar insects, and to watch one of these littlehuman faces, see its mouth open, and instead of, as seems natural, wordsissuing forth, to hear these shrill squeaks is most surprising. Youngorang-utans, in their "talk, " as well as in their actions, arecounterparts of human infants. The scream of frantic rage when a banana isoffered and jerked away, the wheedling tone when the animal wishes to becomforted by the keeper on account of pain or bruise, and the sound ofperfect contentment and happiness when petted by the keeper whom it learnsto love, --all are almost indistinguishable from like utterances of a humanchild. 

But how pitiless is the inevitable change of the next few years! Slowlythe bones of the cranium thicken, partly filling up the brain cavity, andslowly but surely the ape loses all affection for those who take care ofit. More and more morose and sullen it becomes until it reaches a stage ofunchangeable ferocity and must be doomed to close confinement, never againto be handled or caressed. 

THE NAMES OF ANIMALS, FROGS, AND FISH

When, during the lazy autumn days, the living creatures seem for a time tohave taken themselves completely beyond our ken, it may be interesting todelve among old records and descriptions of animals and see how the namesby which we know them first came to be given. Many of our English nameshave an unsuspected ancestry, which, through past centuries, has beenhanded down to us through many changes of spelling and meaning, ofromantic as well as historical interest. 

How many people regard the scientific Latin and Greek names of animalswith horror, as being absolutely beyond their comprehension, and yet howinteresting these names become when we look them squarely in the face, analyse them and find the appropriateness of their application. 

When you say "wolf" to a person, the image of that wild creature comesinstantly to his mind, but if you ask him _why_ it is called a wolf, ahundred chances to one he will look blankly at you. It is the old fault, so common among us human beings, of ignoring the things which lie nearestus. Or perhaps your friend shares the state of mind of the puzzled oldlady, who, after looking over a collection of fossil bones, said that shecould understand how these bones had been preserved, and millions of yearslater had been discovered, but it was a mystery to her how anyone couldknow the names of these ancient animals after such a lapse of time!

Some of the names of the commonest animals are lost in the dimness ofantiquity, such as fox, weasel, sheep, dog, and baboon. Of the origin ofthese we have forever lost the clew. With camel we can go no farther backthan the Latin word _camelus_, and elephant balks us with the old Hindooword _eleph_, which means an ox. The old root of the word wolf meant onewho tears or rends, and the application to this animal is obvious. Inseveral English and German names of persons, we have handed down to us arelic of the old fashion of applying wolf as a compliment to a warrior orsoldier. For example, Adolph means noble-wolf, and Rudolph glory-wolf. 

Lynx is from the same Latin word as the word _lux_ (light) and probablywas given to these wildcats on account of the brightness of their eyes. Lion is, of course, from the Latin _leo_, which word, in turn, is lost farback in the Egyptian tongue, where the word for the king of beasts was_labu_. The compound word leopard is first found in the Persian language, where _pars_ stands for panther. Seal, very appropriately, was once a wordmeaning "of the sea"; close to the Latin _sal_, the sea. 

Many names of animals are adapted from words in the ancient language ofthe natives in whose country the creatures were first discovered. Puma, jaguar, tapir, and peccary (from _paquires_) are all names from SouthAmerican Indian languages. The coyote and ocelot were called _coyotl_ and_ocelotl_ by the Mexicans long before Cortes landed on their shores. Zebra, gorilla, and chimpanzee are native African words, and orang-utan isMalay, meaning Man of the Woods. Cheetah is from some East Indian tongue, as is tahr, the name of the wild goat of the Himalayas. Gnu is from theHottentots, and giraffe from the Arabic _zaraf_. Aoudad, the Barbary wildsheep, is the French form of the Moorish name _audad_. 

The native Indians of our own country are passing rapidly, and before manyyears their race may be extinct, but their musical, euphonious names ofthe animals they knew so well, often pleased the ear of the earlysettlers, and in many instances will be a lasting memorial as long asthese forest creatures of our United States survive. 

Thus, moose is from the Indian word _mouswah_, meaning wood-eater; skunkfrom _seganku_, an Algonquin term; _wapiti_, in the Cree language, meantwhite deer, and was originally applied to the Rocky Mountain goat, but thename is now restricted to the American elk. Caribou is also an Indianword; opossum is from _possowne_, and raccoon is from the Indian_arrathkune_ (by further apheresis, coon). 

Rhinoceros is pure Greek, meaning nose-horned, but beaver has indeed had arough time of it in its travels through various languages. It is hardlyrecognisable as _bebrus_, _babbru_, and _bbru_. The latter is the ultimateroot of our word brown. The original application was, doubtless, onaccount of the colour of the creature's fur. Otter takes us back toSanskrit, where we find it _udra_. The significance of this word is in itsclose kinship to _udan_, meaning water. 

The little mouse hands his name down through the years from the old, oldSanskrit, the root meaning to steal. Many people who never heard ofSanskrit have called him and his descendants by terms of homologoussignificance! The word muscle is from the same root, and was applied froma fancied resemblance of the movement of the muscle beneath the skin to amouse in motion--not a particularly quieting thought to certain members ofthe fair sex! The origin of the word rat is less certain, but it may havebeen derived from the root of the Latin word _radere_, to scratch, or_rodere_, to gnaw. Rodent is derived from the latter term. Cat is also indoubt, but is first recognised in _catalus_, a diminutive of _canis_, adog. It was applied to the young of almost any animal, as we use the wordspup, kitten, cub, and so forth. Bear is the result of tongue-twisting fromthe Latin _fera_, a wild beast. 

Ape is from the Sanskrit _kapi_; _kap_ in the same language means tremble;but the connection is not clear. Lemur, the name given to that low familyof monkeys, is from the plural Latin word _lemures_, meaning ghost orspectre. This has reference to the nocturnal habits, stealthy gait, andweird expression of these large-eyed creatures. Antelope is probably ofGrecian origin, and was originally applied to a half-mythical animal, located on the banks of the Euphrates, and described as "very savage andfleet, and having long, saw-like horns with which it could cut down trees. It figures largely in the peculiar fauna of heraldry. "

Deer is of obscure origin, but may have been an adjective meaning wild. Elk is derived from the same root as eland, and the history of the latterword is an interesting one. It meant a sufferer, and was applied by theTeutons to the elk of the Old World on account of the awkward gait andstiff movements of this ungainly animal. But in later years the Dutchcarried the same word, eland, to South Africa, and there gave it to thelargest of the tribe of antelopes, in which sense it is used by zoologiststo-day. 

Porcupine has arisen from two Latin words, _porcus_, a hog, and _spina_, aspine; hence, appropriately, a spiny-hog. Buffalo may once have been somenative African name. In the vista of time, our earliest glimpse of it isas _bubalus_, which was applied both to the wild ox and to a species ofAfrican antelope. Fallow deer is from fallow, meaning pale, or yellowish, while axis, as applied to the deer so common in zoological gardens, wasfirst mentioned by Pliny and is doubtless of East Indian origin. The wordbison is from the Anglo-Saxon _wesend_, but beyond Pliny its ultimateorigin eludes all research. 

Marmot, through various distortions, looms up from Latin times as _musmontanus_, literally a mountain mouse. Badger is from badge, in allusionto the bands of white fur on its forehead. The verb meaning to badger isderived from the old cruel sport of baiting badgers with dogs. 

Monkey is from the same root as _monna_, a woman; more especially an oldcrone, in reference to the fancied resemblance of the weazened face of amonkey to that of a withered old woman. Madam and madonna are other formsof words from the same root, so wide and sweeping are the changes inmeaning which usage and time can give to words. 

Squirrel has a poetic origin in the Greek language; its original meaningbeing shadow-tail. Tiger is far more intricate. The old Persian word _tir_meant arrow, while _tighra_ signified sharp. The application to this greatanimal was in allusion to the swiftness with which the tiger leaps uponhis prey. The river Tigris, meaning literally the river Arrow, is namedthus from the swiftness of its current. 

As to the names of reptiles it is, of course, to the Romans that we arechiefly indebted, as in the case of reptile from _reptilus_, meaningcreeping; and crocodile from _dilus_, a lizard. Serpent is also from theLatin _serpens_, creeping, and this from the old Sanskrit root, _sarp_, with the same meaning. This application of the idea of creeping is againfound in the word snake, which originally came from the Sanskrit _naga_. 

Tortoise harks back to the Latin _tortus_, meaning twisted (hence our wordtortuous) and came to be applied to these slow creatures because of theirtwisted legs. In its evolution through many tongues it has sufferednumbers of variations; one of these being turtle, which we use to-day todesignate the smaller land tortoises. Terrapin and its old forms_terrapene_ and _turpin_, on the contrary, originated in the New World, inthe language of the American Redskin. 

_Cobra-de-capello_ is Portuguese for hooded snake, while python is farolder, the same word being used by the Greeks to denote a spirit, demon, or evil-soothsayer. This name was really given to designate any species oflarge serpent. _Boa_ is Latin and was also applied to a large snake, whilethe importance of the character of size is seen, perhaps, in our words_bos_ and _bovine_. 

The word viper is interesting; coming directly from the Romans, who wroteit _vipera_. This in turn is a contraction of the feminine form of theadjective _vivipera_, in reference to the habit of these snakes ofbringing forth their young alive. 

Lizard, through such forms as _lesarde_, _lezard_, _lagarto_, _lacerto_, is from the Latin _lacertus_, a lizard; while closely related is the wordalligator by way of _lagarto_, _aligarto_, to alligator. The prefix mayhave arisen as a corruption of an article and a noun, as in the modernSpanish _el lagarto_, --a lizard. 

Monitor is Latin for one who reminds, these lizards being so calledbecause they are supposed to give warning of the approach of crocodiles. Asp can be carried back to the _aspis_ of the Romans, no trace being foundin the dim vistas of preceding tongues. 

Gecko, the name of certain wall-hunting lizards, is derived from theircroaking cry; while iguana is a Spanish name taken from the old nativeHaytian appellation _biuana_. 

Of the word frog we know nothing, although through the medium of manylanguages it has had as thorough an evolution as in its physical life. Wemust also admit our ignorance in regard to toad, backward search revealingonly _tade_, _tode_, _ted_, _toode_, and _tadie_, the root baffling allstudy. Polliwog and tadpole are delightfully easy. Old forms of polliwogare _pollywig_, _polewiggle_, and _pollwiggle_. This last gives us theclew to our spelling--_pollwiggle_, which, reversed and interpreted in amodern way, is wigglehead, a most appropriate name for these lively littleblack fellows. Tadpole is somewhat similar; toad-pole, or toad's-head, also very apt when we think of these small-bodied larval forms. 

Salamander, which is a Greek word of Eastern origin, was applied in theearliest times to a lizard considered to have the power of extinguishingfire. Newt has a strange history; originating in a wrong division of twowords, "_an ewte_, " the latter being derived from _eft_, which is far morecorrect than newt, though in use now in only a few places. Few fishermenhave ever thought of the interesting derivation of the names which theyknow so well. Of course there are a host of fishes named from a fanciedresemblance to familiar terrestrial animals or other things; such as thecatfish, and those named after the dog, hog, horse, cow, trunk, devil, angel, sun, and moon. 

The word fish has passed through many varied forms since it was _piscis_in the old Latin tongue, and the same is true of shark and skate, which inthe same language were _carcharus_ and _squatus_. Trout was originally_tructa_, which in turn is lost in a very old Greek word, meaning eat orgnaw. Perch harks back to the Latin _perca_, and the Romans had it fromthe Greeks, among whom it meant spotted. The Romans said _minutus_ whenthey meant small, and nowadays when we speak of any very small fish we sayminnow. Alewife in old English was applied to the women, usually verystout dames, who kept alehouses. The corpulency of the fish to which thesame term is given explains its derivation. 

The pike is so named from the sharp, pointed snout and long, slim body, bringing to mind the old-time weapon of that name; while pickerel meansdoubly a little pike, the _er_ and _el_ (as in cock and cockerel) bothbeing diminutives. Smelt was formerly applied to any small fish and comes, perhaps, from the Anglo-Saxon _smeolt_, which meant smooth--the smoothnessand slipperiness of the fish suggesting the name. 

Salmon comes directly from the Latin _salmo_, a salmon, which literallymeant the leaper, from _salire_--to leap. Sturgeon, from the Saxon was_stiriga_, literally a stirrer, from the habit of the fish of stirring upthe mud at the bottom of the water. Dace, through its mediæval forms_darce_ and _dars_, is from the same root as our word dart, given onaccount of the swiftness of the fish. 

Anchovy is interesting as perhaps from the Basque word _antzua_, meaningdry; hence the dried fish; and mullet is from the Latin _mullus_. Herringis well worth following back to its origin. We know that the most markedhabit of fishes of this type is their herding together in great schools ormasses or armies. In the very high German _heri_ meant an army or host;hence our word harry and, with a suffix, herring. 

_Hake_ in Norwegian means hook, and the term hake or hook-fish was givenbecause of the hooked character of the under-jaw. Mackerel comes from_macarellus_ and originally the Latin _macula_--spotted, from the darkspots on the body. Roach and ray both come from the Latin _raria_, appliedthen as in the latter case now to bottom-living sharks. 

Flounder comes from the verb, which in turn is derived from flounce, aword which is lost in antiquity. Tarpon (and the form _tarpum_) may be anIndian word; while there is no doubt as to grouper coming from _garrupa_, a native Mexican name. Chubb (a form of cub) meant a chunky mass or lump, referring to the body of the fish. Shad is lost in _sceadda_, Anglo-Saxonfor the same fish. 

Lamprey and halibut both have histories, which, at first glance, we wouldnever suspect, although the forms have changed but little. The former havea habit of fastening themselves for hours to stones and rocks, by means oftheir strong, sucking mouths. So the Latin form of the word _lampetra_, orliterally lick-rock, is very appropriate. Halibut is equally so. _But_ or_bot_ in several languages means a certain flounder-like fish, and inolden times this fish was eaten only on holidays (_i. E. _, holy days). Hence the combination halibut means really holy-flounder. 

The meaning of these words and many others are worth knowing, and it iswell to be able to answer with other than ignorance the question "What'sin a name?"

THE DYING YEAR

When a radical change of habits occurs, as in the sapsucker, deviating sosharply from the ancient principles of its family, many other forms oflife about it are influenced, indirectly, but in a most interesting way. In its tippling operations it wastes quantities of sap which exudes fromthe numerous holes and trickles down the bark of the wounded tree. Thisproves a veritable feast for the forlorn remnant of wasps andbutterflies, --the year's end stragglers whose flower calyces have fallenand given place to swelling seeds. 

Swiftly up wind they come on the scent, eager as hounds on the trail, andthey drink and drink of the sweets until they become almost incapable offlying. But, after all, the new lease of life is a vain semblance ofbetter things. Their eggs have long since been laid and their mission inlife ended, and at the best their existence is but a matter of days. 

It is a sad thing this, and sometimes our heart hardens against Nature forthe seeming cruelty of it all. Forever and always, year after year, century upon century, the same tale unfolds itself, --the sacrifice of theindividual for the good of the race. A hundred drones are tended andreared, all but one to die in vain; a thousand seeds are sown to rot or tosprout and wither; a million little codfish hatch and begin lifehopefully, perhaps all to succumb save one; a million million shrimp andpteropods paddle themselves here and there in the ocean, and every one isdevoured by fish or swept into the whalebone tangle from which none everreturn. And if a lucky one which survives does so because it has somelittle advantage over its fellows, --some added quality which gives justthe opportunity to escape at the critical moment, --then the race willadvance to the extent of that trifle and so carry out the precept ofevolution. But even though we may owe every character of body and mind tothe fulfilment of some such inexorable law in the past, yet the witnessingof the operation brings ever a feeling of cruelty, of injusticesomewhere. 

How pitiful the weak flight of the last yellow butterfly of the year, aswith tattered and battered wings it vainly seeks for a final sip ofsweets! The fallen petals and the hard seeds are black and odourless, thedrops of sap are hardened. Little by little the wings weaken, the tinyfeet clutch convulsively at a dried weed stalk, and the four golden wingsdrift quietly down among the yellow leaves, soon to merge into the darkmould beneath. As the butterfly dies, a stiffened Katydid scratches a lastrequiem on his wing covers--"_katy-didn't--katy-did--kate--y_"--and thesucceeding moment of silence is broken by the sharp rattle of awoodpecker. We shake off every dream of the summer and brace ourselves tomeet and enjoy the keen, invigorating pleasures of winter. 

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NOVEMBER

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NOVEMBER'S BIRDS OF THE HEAVENS

As the whirling winds of winter's edge strip the trees bare of their lastleaves, the leaden sky of the eleventh month seems to push its cold facecloser to earth. Who can tell when the northern sparrows first arrive? Awhirl of brown leaves scatters in front of us; some fall back to earth;others rise and perch in the thick briers, --sombre little white-throatedand tree sparrows! These brown-coated, low-voiced birds easily attract ourattention, the more now that the great host of brilliant warblers haspassed, just as our hearts warm toward the humble poly-pody fronds(passing them by unnoticed when flowers are abundant) which now hold uptheir bright greenness amid all the cold. 

But all the migrants have not left us yet by any means, and we had betterleave our boreal visitors until mid-winter's blasts show us these hardiestof the hardy at their best. 

We know little of the ways of the gaunt herons on their southward journey, but day after day, in the marshes and along the streams, we may see thegreat blues as they stop in their flight to rest for a time. 

The cold draws all the birds of a species together. Dark hordes ofclacking grackles pass by, scores of red-winged blackbirds and cowbirdsmingle amicably together, both of dark hue but of such unlike matrimonialhabits. A single male red-wing, as we have seen, may assume the cares of aharem of three, four, or five females, each of which rears herbrown-streaked offspring in her own particular nest, while the valiantguardian keeps faithful watch over his small colony among the reeds andcat-tails. But little thought or care does mother cowbird waste upon heroffspring. No home life is hers--merely a stealthy approach to the nest ofsome unsuspecting yellow warbler, or other small bird, a hastily depositedegg, and the unnatural parent goes on her way, having shouldered all herhousehold cares on another. Her young may be hatched and carefully rearedby the patient little warbler mother, or the egg may spoil in the desertednest, or be left in the cold beneath another nest bottom built over it;little cares the cowbird. 

The ospreys or fish hawks seem to circle southward in pairs or trios, butsome clear, cold day the sky will be alive with hawks of other kinds. Itis a strange fact that these birds which have the power to rise so highthat they fairly disappear from our sight choose the trend of terrestrialvalleys whenever possible, in directing their aerial routes. Even theseries of New Jersey hills, flattered by the name of the Orange Mountains, seem to balk many hawks which elect to change their direction and fly tothe right or left toward certain gaps or passes. Through these a raptorialstream pours in such numbers during the period of migration that a personwith a foreknowledge of their path in former years may lie in wait andwatch scores upon scores of these birds pass close overhead within a fewhours, while a short distance to the right or left one may watch all daywithout seeing a single raptor. The whims of migrating birds are beyondour ken. 

Sometimes, out in the broad fields, one's eyes will be drawn accidentallyupward, and a great flight of hawks will be seen--a compact flock ofintercircling forms, perhaps two or three hundred in all, the whole numbergradually passing from view in a southerly direction, now and then sendingdown a shrill cry. It is a beautiful sight, not very often to be seen neara city--unless watched for. 

To a dweller in a city or its suburbs I heartily commend at this seasonthe forming of this habit, --to look upward as often as possible on yourwalks. An instant suffices to sweep the whole heavens with your eye, andif the distant circling forms, moving in so stately a manner, yet soswiftly, and in their every movement personifying the essence of wild andglorious freedom, --if this sight does not send a thrill through theonlooker, then he may at once pull his hat lower over his eyes and concernhimself only with his immediate business. The joys of Nature are not forsuch as he; the love of the wild which exists in every one of us is, inhim, too thickly "sicklied o'er" with the veneer of convention andcivilisation. 

Even as late as November, when the water begins to freeze in the tiny cupsof the pitcher plants, and the frost brings into being a new kind offoliage on glass and stone, a few insect-eaters of the summer woods stilllinger on. A belated red-eyed vireo may be chased by a snowbird, and whenwe approach a flock of birds, mistaking them at a distance for purplefinches, we may discover they are myrtle warblers, clad in the fadedyellow of their winter plumage. In favoured localities these brave littlebirds may even spend the entire winter with us. 

One of the best of November's surprises may come when all hope of latemigrants has been given up. Walking near the river, our glance falls onwhat might be a painter's palate with blended colours of all shadesresting on the smooth surface of the water. We look again and again, hardly believing our eyes, until at last the gorgeous creature takes towing, and goes humming down the stream, a bit of colour tropical in itsextravagance--and we know that we have seen a male wood, or summer, duckin the full grandeur of his white, purple, chestnut, black, blue, andbrown. Many other ducks have departed, but this one still swims among thefloating leaves on secluded waterways. 

Now is the time when the woodcock rises from his swampy summer home andzigzags his way to a land where earthworms are still active. Sometimes inour walks we may find the fresh body of one of these birds, and an upwardglance at the roadside will show the cause--the cruel telegraph wiresagainst which the flight of the bird has carried it with fatal velocity. 

One of the greatest pleasures which November has to give us is the joy ofwatching for the long lines of wild geese from the Canada lakes. Who canhelp being thrilled at the sight of these strong-winged birds, as theV-shaped flock throbs into view high in air, beating over land and water, forest and city, as surely and steadily as the passing of the day behindthem. One of the finest of November sounds is the "Honk! honk!" whichcomes to our ears from such a company of geese, --musical tones "like aclanking chain drawn through the heavy air. "

At the stroke of midnight I have been halted in my hurried walk by thesenotes. They are a bit of the wild north which may even enter within acity, and three years ago I trapped a fine gander and a half a dozen ofhis flock in the New York Zoological Park, where they have lived eversince and reared their golden-hued goslings, which otherwise would havebroken their shells on some Arctic waste, with only the snowbirds toadmire, and to be watched with greedy eyes by the Arctic owls. 

 A haze on the far horizon, The infinite tender sky, The ripe, rich tints of the cornfields, And the wild geese sailing high; And ever on upland and lowland, The charm of the goldenrod-- Some of us call it Autumn, And others call it God. W. H. Carruth. 

A PLEA FOR THE SKUNK

In spite of constant persecution the skunk is without doubt the tamest ofall of our wild animals, and shares with the weasel and mink the honour ofbeing one of the most abundant of the carnivores, or flesh-eaters, nearour homes. This is a great achievement for the skunk, --to have thus heldits own in the face of ever advancing and destroying civilisation. But thesame characteristics which enable it to hold its ground are also thosewhich emancipate it from its wild kindred and give it a unique positionamong animals. Its first cousins, the minks and weasels, all secretepungent odours, which are unpleasant enough at close range, but in theskunk the great development of these glands has caused a radical change inits habits of life and even in its physical make-up. 

Watch a mink creeping on its sinuous way, --every action and glance full offierce wildness, each step telling of insatiable seeking after living, active prey. The boldest rat flees in frantic terror at the hint of thisanimal's presence; but let man show himself, and with a demoniacal grin ofhatred the mink slinks into covert. 

Now follow a skunk in its wanderings as it comes out of its hole in earlyevening, slowly stretches and yawns, and with hesitating, rolling gaitambles along, now and then sniffing in the grass and seizing some sluggishgrasshopper or cricket. Fearlessness and confidence are what its gait andmanner spell. The world is its debtor, and all creatures in its path areleft unmolested, only on evidence of good behaviour. Far from need ofconcealment, its furry coat is striped with a broad band of white, signalling in the dusk or the moonlight, "Give me room to pass and go inpeace! Trouble me and beware!"

Degenerate in muscles and vitality, the skunk must forego all strenuoushunts and trust to craft and sudden springs, or else content himself withthe humble fare of insects, helpless young birds, and poor, easilyconfused mice. The flesh of the skunk is said to be sweet and toothsome, but few creatures there are who dare attempt to add it to their bill offare! A great horned owl or a puma in the extremity of starvation, or avulture in dire stress of hunger, --probably no others. 

Far from wilfully provoking an attack, the skunk is usually content to goon his way peacefully, and when one of these creatures becomes accustomedto the sight of an observer, no more interesting and, indeed, safer objectof study can be found. 

Depart once from the conventional mode of greeting a skunk, --and insteadof hurling a stone in its direction and fleeing, place, if the opportunitypresent itself, bits of meat in its way evening after evening, and youwill soon learn that there is nothing vicious in the heart of the skunk. The evening that the gentle animal appears leading in her train a file oftiny infant skunks, you will feel well repaid for the trouble you havetaken. Baby skunks, like their elders, soon learn to know their friends, and are far from being at hair-trigger poise, as is generally supposed. 

THE LESSON OF THE WAVE

The sea and the sky and the shore were at perfect peace on the day whenthe young gull first launched into the air, and flew outward over thegreen, smooth ocean. Day after day his parents had brought him fish andsquid, until his baby plumage fell from him and his beautifulwing-feathers shot forth, --clean-webbed and elastic. His strong feet hadcarried him for days over the expanse of sand dunes and pebbles, and nowand then he had paddled into deep pools and bathed in the cold salt water. Most creatures of the earth are limited to one or the other of these twoelements, but now the gull was proving his mastery over a third. The land, the sea, were left below, and up into the air drifted the beautiful bird, every motion confident with the instinct of ages. 

The usefulness of his mother's immaculate breast now becomes apparent. Aschool of small fish basking near the surface rise and fall with thegentle undulating swell, seeing dimly overhead the blue sky, flecked withhosts of fleecy white clouds. A nearer, swifter cloud approaches, hesitates, splashes into their midst, --and the parent gull has caught herfirst fish of the day. Instinctively the young bird dives; in his joy ofvery life he cries aloud, --the gull-cry which his ancestors of long agohave handed down to him. At night he seeks the shore and tucks his billinto his plumage; and all because of something within him, compelling himto do these things. 

But far from being an automaton, his bright eye and full-rounded headpresage higher things. Occasionally his mind breaks through the mist ofinstinct and reaches upward to higher activity. 

As with the other wild kindred of the ocean, food was the chief object ofthe day's search. Fish were delicious, but were not always to be had;crabs were a treat indeed, when caught unawares, but for mile after milealong the coast were hosts of mussels and clams, --sweet and lucious, butincased in an armour of shell, through which there was no penetrating. However swift a dash was made upon one of these, --always the clam closed alittle quicker, sending a derisive shower of drops over the head of thegull. 

Once, after a week of rough weather, the storm gods brought their battlingto a climax. Great green walls of foaming water crashed upon the rocks, rending huge boulders and sucking them down into the black depths. Overand through the spray dashed the gull, answering the wind's howl--shriekfor shriek, poising over the fearful battlefield of sea and shore. 

A wave mightier than all hung and curved, and a myriad shell-fish weretorn from their sheltered nooks and hurled high, in air, to fall brokenand helpless among the boulders. The quick eye of the gull saw it all, andat that instant of intensest chaos of the elements, the brain of the birdfound itself. 

Shortly afterward came night and sleep, but the new-found flash ofknowledge was not lost. 

The next day the bird walked at low tide into the stronghold of theshell-fish, roughly tore one from the silky strands of its moorings, andcarrying it far upward let it fall at random among the rocks. Thetoothsome morsel was snatched from its crushed shell and a triumphantscream told of success, --a scream which, could it have been interpreted, should have made a myriad, myriad mussels shrink within their shells!

From gull to gull, and from flock to flock, the new habit spread, imitation taking instant advantage of this new source of food. When to-daywe walk along the shore and see flocks of gulls playing ducks and drakeswith the unfortunate shell-fish, give them not too much credit, but thinkof some bird which in the long ago first learned the lesson, whether bychance or, as I have suggested, by observing the victims of the waves. 

 * * * * *

No scientific facts are these, but merely a logical reasoning deduced fromthe habits and traits of the birds as we know them to-day; a theory tohold in mind while we watch for its confirmation in the beginning of othernew and analogous habits. 

 The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. William Wordsworth. 

WE GO A-SPONGING

When a good compound microscope becomes as common an object in our homesas is a clock or a piano, we may be certain that the succeeding generationwill grow up with a much broader view of life and a far greaterrealisation of the beauties of the natural world. To most of us a glancethrough a microscope is almost as unusual a sight as the panorama from aballoon. While many of the implements of a scientist arouse enthusiasmonly in himself, in the case of the revelations of this instrument, theaverage person, whatever his profession, cannot fail to be interested. 

Many volumes have been written on the microscopic life of ponds andfields, and in a short essay only a hint of the delights of thisfascinating study can be given. 

Any primer of Natural History will tell us that our bath sponges are thefibrous skeletons of aquatic animals which inhabit tropical seas, but fewpeople know that in the nearest pond there are real sponges, growingsometimes as large as one's head and which are not very dissimilar tothose taken from among the corals of the Bahamas. We may bring home a twigcovered with a thick growth of this sponge; and by dropping a few grainsof carmine into the water, the currents which the little sponge animalsset up are plainly visible. In winter these all die, and leave withintheir meshes numbers of tiny winter buds, which survive the cold weatherand in the spring begin to found new colonies. If we examine the spongesin the late fall we may find innumerable of these statoblasts, as they arecalled. 

Scattered among them will sometimes be crowds of little wheels, surroundedwith double-ended hooks. These have no motion and we shall probably passthem by as minute burrs or seeds of some water plant. But they, too, arewinter buds of a strange group of tiny animals. These are known asPolyzoans or Bryozoans; and though to the eye a large colony of themappears only as a mass of thick jelly, yet when placed in water and leftquiet, a wonderful transformation comes over the bit of gelatine. .. . "Perhaps while you gaze at the reddish jelly a pink little projectionappears within the field of your lens, and slowly lengthens and broadens, retreating and reappearing, it may be, many times, but finally, after muchhesitation, it suddenly seems to burst into bloom. A narrow body, sodeeply red that it is often almost crimson, lifts above the jelly acrescentic disc ornamented with two rows of long tentacles that seem asfine as hairs, and they glisten and sparkle like lines of crystal as theywave and float and twist the delicate threads beneath your wondering gaze. Then, while you scarcely breathe, for fear the lovely vision will fade, another and another spreads its disc and waves its silvery tentacles, until the whole surface of that ugly jelly mass blooms like a garden inParadise--blooms not with motionless perianths, but with living animals, the most exquisite that God has allowed to develop in our sweet waters. "At the slightest jar every animal-flower vanishes instantly. 

A wonderful history is behind these little creatures and very differentfrom that of most members of the animal kingdom. While crabs, butterflies, and birds have evolved through many and varied ancestral forms, the tinyBryozoans, or, being interpreted, moss-animals, seem throughout all pastages to have found a niche for themselves where strenuous and activecompetition is absent. Year after year, century upon century, age uponage, they have lived and died, almost unchanged down to the present day. When you look at the tiny animal, troubling the water and drawing itsinconceivably small bits of food toward it upon the current made by itstentacles, think of the earth changes which it has survived. 

To the best of our knowledge the Age of Man is but a paltry fifty thousandyears. Behind this the Age of Mammals may have numbered three millions;then back of these came the Age of Reptiles with more than seven millionsof years, during all of which time the tentacles of unnumbered generationsof Bryozoans waved in the sea. Back, back farther still we add anotherseven million years, or thereabouts, of the Age of the Amphibians, whenthe coal plants grew, and the Age of the Fishes. And finally, beyond allexact human calculation, but estimated at some five million, we reach theAge of Invertebrates in the Silurian, and in the lowest of these rocks wefind beautifully preserved fossils of Bryozoans, to all appearances asperfect in detail of structure as these which we have before us to-day inthis twentieth century of man's brief reckoning. 

These tiny bits of jelly are transfigured as well by the grandeur of theirunchanged lineage as by the appearance of the little animals from within. What heraldry can commemorate the beginning of their race over twentymillions of years in the past!

The student of mythology will feel at home when identifying some of thecommonest objects of the pond. And most are well named, too, as forinstance the Hydra, a small tube-shaped creature with a row of activetentacles at one end. Death seems far from this organism, which is closelyrelated to the sea-anemones and corals, for though a very brief dryingwill serve to kill it, yet it can be sliced and cut as finely as possibleand each bit, true to its name, will at once proceed to grow a new headand tentacles complete, becoming a perfect animal. 

Then we shall often come across a queer creature with two oar-like feelersnear the head and a double tail tipped with long hairs, while in thecentre of the head is a large, shining eye, --Cyclops he is rightly called. Although so small that we can make out little of his structure without theaid of the lens, yet Cyclops is far from being related to the other stillsmaller beings which swim about him, many of which consist of but one celland are popularly known as animalculæ, more correctly as Protozoans. Cyclops has a jointed body and in many other ways shows his relationshipto crabs and lobsters, even though they are many times larger and live insalt water. 

Another member of this group is Daphnia, although the appropriateness ofthis name yet remains to be discovered; Daphnia being a chunky-bodiedlittle being, with a double-branched pair of oar-like appendages, withwhich he darts swiftly through the water. Although covered with a hardcrust like a crab, this is so transparent that we can see right throughhis body. The dark mass of food in the stomach and the beating heart areperfectly distinct. Often, near the upper part of the body, several largeeggs are seen in a sort of pouch, where they are kept until hatched. 

So if the sea is far away and time hangs heavy, invite your friends to gosponging and crabbing in the nearest pond, and you may be certain ofquieting their fears as to your sanity as well as drawing exclamations ofdelight from them when they see these beautiful creatures for the firsttime. 

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DECEMBER

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NEW THOUGHTS ABOUT NESTS

Our sense of smell is not so keen as that of a dog, who can detect thetiny quail while they are still invisible; nor have we the piercing sightof the eagle who spies the grouse crouching hundreds of feet beneath hiscircling flight; but when we walk through the bare December woods there isunfolded at last to our eyes evidence of the late presence of our summer'sfeathered friends--air castles and tree castles of varied patterns anddelicate workmanship. 

Did it ever occur to you to think what the first nest was like--what homethe first reptile-like scale flutterers chose? Far back before Jurassictimes, millions of years ago, before the coming of bony fishes, when theonly mammals were tiny nameless creatures, hardly larger than mice; whenthe great Altantosaurus dinosaurs browsed on the quaint herbage, andPterodactyls--those ravenous bat-winged dragons of the air--hovered abovethe surface of the earth, --in this epoch we can imagine a pair oflong-tailed, half-winged creatures which skimmed from tree to tree, perhaps giving an occasional flop--the beginning of the marvellous flightmotions. Is it not likely that the Teleosaurs who watched hungrily fromthe swamps saw them disappear at last in a hollowed cavity beneath arotten knothole? Here, perhaps, the soft-shelled, lizard-like eggs werelaid, and when they gave forth the ugly creaturelings did not FatherCreature flop to the topmost branch and utter a gurgling cough, a mostunpleasant grating sound, but grand in its significance, as the openingchord in the symphony of the ages to follow?--until now the mockingbirdand the nightingale hold us spellbound by the wonder of their minstrelsy. 

Turning from our imaginary picture of the ancient days, we find that someof the birds of the present time have found a primitive way of nestingstill the best. If we push over this rotten stump we shall find that thecavity near the top, where the wood is still sound, has been used the pastsummer by the downy woodpecker--a front door like an auger hole, ceilingof rough-hewn wood, a bed of chips!

The chickadee goes a step further, and shows his cleverness in sometimeschoosing a cavity already made, and instead of rough, bare chips, the sixor eight chickadee youngsters are happy on a hair mattress of a closelywoven felt-like substance. 

Perhaps we should consider the kingfisher the most barbarous of all thebirds which form a shelter for their home. With bill for pick and shovel, she bores straight into a sheer clay bank, and at the end of a six-foottunnel her young are reared, their nest a mass of fish bones--the residueof their dinners. Then there are the aerial masons and brickmakers--theeave swallows, who carry earth up into the air, bit by bit, and attach itto the eaves, forming it into a globular, long-necked flask. The barnswallows mix the clay with straw and feathers and so form very firmstructures on the rafters above the haymows. 

But what of the many nests of grasses and twigs which we find in thewoods? How closely they were concealed while the leaves were on the trees, and how firm and strong they were while in use, the strongest wind andrain of summer only rocking them to and fro! But now we must waste no timeor they will disappear. In a month or more almost all will have dissolvedinto fragments and fallen to earth--their mission accomplished. 

Some look as if disintegration had already begun, but if we had discoveredthem earlier in the year, we should have seen that they were never lessfragile or loosely constructed than we find them now. Such is a cuckoo'snest, such a mourning dove's or a heron's; merely a flat platform of a fewinterlaced twigs, through which the eggs are visible from below. Why, weask, are some birds so careless or so unskilful? The European cuckoo, likeour cowbird, is a parasite, laying her eggs in the nests of other birds;so, perhaps, neglect of household duties is in the blood. But this styleof architecture seems to answer all the requirements of doves and herons, and, although with one sweep of the hand we can demolish one of theseflimsy platforms, yet such a nest seems somehow to resist wind and rainjust as long as the bird needs it. 

Did you ever try to make a nest yourself? If not, sometime take apart adiscarded nest--even the simplest in structure--and try to put it togetheragain. Use no string or cord, but fasten it to a crotch, put some marblesin it and visit it after the first storm. After you have picked up all themarbles from the ground you will appreciate more highly the skill which abird shows in the construction of its home. Whether a bird excavates itsnest in earth or wood, or weaves or plasters it, the work is all done bymeans of two straight pieces of horn--the bill. 

There is, however, one useful substance which aids the bird--the salivawhich is formed in the mucous glands of the mouth. Of course the first andnatural function of this fluid is to soften the food before it passes intothe crop; but in those birds which make their nests by weaving togetherpieces of twig, it must be of great assistance in softening the wood andthus enabling the bird readily to bend the twigs into any requiredposition. Thus the catbird and rose-breasted grosbeak weave. 

Given a hundred or more pieces of twigs, each an inch in length, even abird would make but little progress in forming a cup-shaped nest, were itnot that the sticky saliva provided cement strong and ready at hand. Sothe chimney swift finds no difficulty in forming and attaching her mosaicof twigs to a chimney, using only very short twigs which she breaks offwith her feet while she is on the wing. 

How wonderfully varied are the ways which birds adopt to conceal theirnests. Some avoid suspicion by their audacity, building near a frequentedpath, in a spot which they would never be suspected of choosing. Thehummingbird studs the outside of its nest with lichens, and the vireodrapes a cobweb curtain around her fairy cup. Few nests are more beautifuland at the same time more durable than a vireo's. I have seen the nests ofthree successive years in the same tree, all built, no doubt, by the samepair of birds, the nest of the past summer perfect in shape and quality, that of the preceding year threadbare, while the home which sheltered thebrood of three summers ago is a mere flattened skeleton, reminding one ofthe ribs and stern post of a wrecked boat long pounded by the waves. 

The subject of nests has been sadly neglected by naturalists, most of whomhave been chiefly interested in the owners or the contents; but when thewhys and wherefores of the homes of birds are made plain we shall know farmore concerning the little carpenters, weavers, masons, and basket-makerswho hang our groves and decorate our shrubbery with their skill. When onour winter's walk we see a distorted, wind-torn, grass cup, think of thequartet of beautiful little creatures, now flying beneath some tropicalsun, which owe their lives to the nest, and which, if they are spared, will surely return to the vicinity next summer. 

 That time of year thou may'st in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, -- Bare, ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. SHAKESPEARE. 

LESSONS FROM AN ENGLISH SPARROW

Many people say they love Nature, but as they have little time to go intothe country they have to depend on books for most of their informationconcerning birds, flowers, and other forms of life. There is, however, noreason why one should not, even in the heart of a great city, begin tocultivate his powers of observation. Let us take, for example, theomnipresent English sparrow. Most of us probably know the differencebetween the male and female English sparrows, but I venture to say thatnot one in ten persons could give a satisfactory description of thecolours of either. How much we look and how little we really see!

Little can be said in favour of the English sparrows' disposition, but letus not blame them for their unfortunate increase in numbers. Man broughtthem from England, where they are kept in check by Nature's wise laws. These birds were deliberately introduced where Nature was not prepared forthem. 

When we put aside prejudice we can see that the male bird, especially whenin his bright spring colours, is really very attractive, with his ashygray head, his back streaked with black and bay, the white bar on hiswings and the jet black chin and throat contrasting strongly with theuniformly light-coloured under parts. If this were a rare bird the"black-throated sparrow" would enjoy his share of admiration. 

It is wonderful how he can adapt himself to new conditions, nestinganywhere and everywhere, and this very adaptation is a sign of a very highorder of intelligence. He has, however, many characteristics which tell usof his former life. A few of the habits of this bird may be misleading. His thick, conical bill is made for crushing seeds, but he now feeds on somany different substances that its original use, as shown by its shape, isobscured. If there were such a thing as vaudeville among birds, the commonsparrow would be a star imitator. He clings to the bark of trees and picksout grubs, supporting himself with his tail like a woodpecker; he launchesout into the air, taking insects on the wing like a flycatcher; he clingslike a chickadee to the under side of twigs, or hovers in front of a heapof insect eggs, presenting a feeble imitation of a hummingbird. Thesemodes of feeding represent many different families of birds. 

Although his straw and feather nests are shapeless affairs, and he oftenfeeds on garbage, all æsthetic feeling is not lost, as we see when heswells out his black throat and white cravat, spreads tail and wing andbeseeches his lady-love to admire him. Thus he woos her as long as he isalone, but when several other eager suitors arrive, his patience givesout, and the courting turns into a football game. Rough and tumble is theword, but somehow in the midst of it all, her highness manages to make hermind known and off she flies with the lucky one. Thus we have represented, in the English sparrows, the two extremes of courtship among birds. 

It is worth noting that the male alone is ornamented, the colours of thefemale being much plainer. This dates from a time when it was necessaryfor the female to be concealed while sitting on the eggs. The young ofboth sexes are coloured like their mother, the young males not acquiringthe black gorget until perfectly able to take care of themselves. Aboutthe plumage there are some interesting facts. The young bird moults twicebefore the first winter. The second moult brings out the mark on thethroat, but it is rusty now, not black in colour; his cravat is grayishand the wing bar ashy. In the spring, however, a noticeable change takesplace, but neither by the moulting nor the coming in of plumage. Theshaded edges of the feathers become brittle and break off, bringing outthe true colours and making them clear and brilliant. The waistcoat isbrushed until it is black and glossy, the cravat becomes immaculate, andthe wristband or wing bar clears up until it is pure white. 

The homes of these sparrows are generally composed of a great mass ofstraw and feathers, with the nest in the centre; but the spotted eggs, perhaps, show that these birds once built open nests, the dots and markson the eggs being of use in concealing their conspicuous white ground. Something seems already to have hinted to Nature that this protection isno longer necessary, and we often find eggs almost white, like those ofwoodpeckers and owls, which nest in dark places. 

We have all heard of birds flocking together for some mutual benefit--thecrows, for instance, which travel every winter day across country tofavourite "roosts. " In the heart of a city we can often study this samephenomenon of birds gathering together in great flocks. In New York City, on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, there stands a tree--a solitaryreminder of the forest which once covered all this paved land. To this, all winter long, the sparrows begin to flock about four or five o'clock inthe afternoon. They come singly and in twos and threes until the barelimbs are black with them and there seems not room for another bird; butstill they come, each new arrival diving into the mass of birds andcausing a local commotion. By seven o'clock there are hundreds of Englishsparrows perching in this one tree. At daylight they are off again, whirring away by scores, and in a few minutes the tree is silent andempty. The same habit is to be seen in many other cities and towns, forthus the birds gain mutual warmth. 

Nature will do her best to diminish the number of sparrows and to regainthe balance, but to do this the sparrow must be brought face to face withas many dangers as our wild birds, and although, owing to the sparrows'fearlessness of man, this may never happen, yet at least the colourprotections and other former safeguards are slowly being eliminated. Onalmost every street we may see albino or partly albino birds, such asthose with white tails or wings. White birds exist in a wild state onlyfrom some adaptation to their surroundings. A bird which is white simplybecause its need of protection has temporarily ceased, would become theprey of the first stray hawk which crossed its path. We cannot hope toexterminate the English sparrow even by the most wholesale slaughter, butif some species of small hawk or butcher bird could ever become asfearless an inhabitant of our cities as these birds, their reduction toreasonable numbers would be a matter of only a few months. 

 So dainty in plumage and hue, A study in gray and brown, How little, how little we knew The pest he would prove to the town!

 From dawn until daylight grows dim, Perpetual chatter and scold. No winter migration for him, Not even afraid of the cold!

 Scarce a song-bird he fails to molest, Belligerent, meddlesome thing! Wherever he goes as a guest He is sure to remain as a King. Mary Isabella Forsyth. 

THE PERSONALITY OF TREES

How many of us think of trees almost as we do of the rocks and stonesabout us, --as all but inanimate objects, standing in the same relation toour earth as does the furry covering of an animal to its owner. The similemight be carried out more in detail, the forests protecting the continentsfrom drought and flood, even as the coat of fur protects its owner fromextremes of heat and cold. 

When we come to consider the tree as a living individual, a form of lifecontemporaneous with our own, and to realise that it has its birth anddeath, its struggles for life and its periods of peace and abundance, wewill soon feel for it a keener sympathy and interest and withal aveneration greater than it has ever aroused in us before. 

Of all living things on earth, a tree binds us most closely to the past. Some of the giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands are thought to befour hundred years old and are probably the oldest animals on the earth. There is, however, nothing to compare with the majesty and grandeur of theSequoias--the giant redwoods of California--the largest of which, stillliving, reach upward more than one hundred yards above the ground, andshow, by the number of their rings, that their life began from three tofive thousand years ago. Our deepest feelings of reverence are arousedwhen we look at a tree which was "one thousand years old when Homer wrotethe Iliad; fifteen hundred years of age when Aristotle was foreshadowinghis evolution theory and writing his history of animals; two thousandyears of age when Christ walked upon earth; nearly four thousand years ofage when the 'Origin of Species' was written. Thus the life of one ofthese trees spanned the whole period before the birth of Aristotle (384B. C. ) and after the death of Darwin (A. D. 1882), the two greatest naturalphilosophers who have lived. "

Considered not only individually, but taken as a group, the Sequoias areamong the oldest of the old. Geologically speaking, most of the forms oflife now in existence are of recent origin, but a full ten million ofyears ago these giant trees were developed almost as highly as they areto-day. At the end of the coal period, when the birds and mammals ofto-day were as yet unevolved, existing only potentially in the scaly, reptile-like creatures of those days, the Sequoias waved their needleshigh in air. 

In those days these great trees were found over the whole of Canada, Greenland, and Siberia, but the relentless onslaught of the Ice Agewrought terrible destruction and, like the giant tortoises among reptiles, the apteryx among birds, and the bison among mammals, the forlorn hope ofthe great redwoods, making a last stand in a few small groves ofCalifornia, awaits total extinction at the hands of the most terrible ofNature's enemies--man. When the last venerable giant trunk has fallen, thelast axe-stroke which severs the circle of vital sap will cut the onlythread of individual life which joins in time the beating of our pulsesto-day with the beginning of human history and philosophy, --thousands ofyears in the past. 

Through all the millions of years during which the evolution of modernforms of life has been going on, then as now, trees must have enteredprominently into the environment and lives of the terrestrial animals. Ages ago, long before snakes and four-toed horses were even foreshadowed, and before the first bird-like creatures had appeared, wingedreptile-dragons flew about, doubtless roosting or perching on the Triassicand Jurassic trees. Perhaps the very pieces of coal which are burned inour furnaces once bent and swayed under the weight of these bulky animals. Something like six millions of years ago, long-tailed, fluttering birdsappeared, with lizard-like claws at the bend of their wings and with jawsfilled with teeth. These creatures were certainly arboreal, spending mostof their time among the branches of trees. So large were certain greatsloth-like creatures that they uprooted the trees bodily, in order to feedon their succulent leaves, sometimes bending their trunks down until theirbranches were within reach. 

On a walk through the woods and fields to-day, how seldom do we find adead insect! When sick and dying, nine out of ten are snapped up by frog, lizard, or bird; the few which die a natural death seeming to disintegrateinto mould within a very short space of time. There is, however, one wayin which, through the long, long thousands of centuries, insects have beenpreserved. The spicy resin which flowed from the ancient pines attractedhosts of insects, which, tempted by their hope of food, met theirdeath--caught and slowly but surely enclosed by the viscid sap, eachantenna and hair as perfect as when the insect was alive. Thus, in thisstrangely fortunate way, we may know and study the insects which, millionsof years ago, fed on the flowers or bored into the bark of trees. We havefound no way to improve on Nature in this respect, for to-day when wedesire to mount a specimen permanently for microscopical work, we imbed itin Canada balsam. 

If suddenly the earth should be bereft of all trees, there would indeed beconsternation and despair among many classes of animals. Although in thesea there are thousands of creatures, which, by their manner of life, areprohibited from ever passing the boundary line between land and water, yetmany sea-worms, as for example the teredo, or ship-worm, are especiallyfashioned for living in and perhaps feeding on wood, in the shape of strayfloating trees and branches, the bottoms of ships, and piles of wharves. Of course the two latter are supplied by man, but even before his time, floating trees at sea must have been plentiful enough to supply homes forthe whole tribe of these creatures, unless they made their burrows incoral or shells. 

The insects whose very existence, in some cases, depends upon trees, areinnumerable. What, for example, would become of the larvæ of the cicada, or locust, which, in the cold and darkness of their subterranean life, forseventeen years suck the juicy roots of trees; or the caterpillars of themoths, spinning high their webs among the leaves; or the countless beetleswhose grubs bore through and through the trunk their sinuous, sawdustytunnels; or the ichneumon fly, which with an instrument--surgical needle, file, augur, and scroll saw all in one--deposits, deep below the bark, itseggs in safety? If forced to compete with terrestrial species, the treespiders and scorpions would quickly become exterminated; while especiallyadapted arboreal ants would instantly disappear. 

We cannot entirely exclude even fishes from our list; as the absence ofmangroves would incidentally affect the climbing perch and catfishes! Thenewts and common toads would be in no wise dismayed by the passing of thetrees, but not so certain tadpoles. Those of our ditches, it is true, would live and flourish, but there are, in the world, many curious kindswhich hatch and grow up into frogs in curled-up leaves or in damp placesin the forks of branches, and which would find themselves homeless withouttrees. Think, too, of the poor green and brown tree frogs with theirsucker feet, compelled always to hop along the ground!

Lizards, from tiny swifts to sixty-inch iguanas, would sorely miss thetrees, while the lithe green tree snakes and the tree boas would have tochange all their life habits in order to be able to exist. But as for thecold, uncanny turtles and alligators, --what are trees to them!

In the evolution of the birds and other animals, the cry of "excelsior"has been followed literally as well as theoretically and, with a fewexceptions, the highest in each class have not only risen above theirfellows in intelligence and structure, but have left the earth and climbedor flown to the tree-tops, making these their chief place of abode. 

Many of the birds which find their food at sea, or in the waters of streamand lake, repair to the trees for the purpose of building their nestsamong the branches. Such birds are the pelicans, herons, ibises, andospreys; while the wood ducks lay their eggs high above the ground in thehollows of trees. Parrots, kingfishers, swifts, and hummingbirds arealmost helpless on the ground, their feet being adapted for climbing aboutthe branches, perching on twigs, or clinging to the hollows of trees. Taken as a whole, birds would suffer more than any other class ofcreatures in a deforested world. The woodpeckers would be without home, food, and resting-place; except, possibly, the flicker, or high-hole, whois either a retrograde or a genius, whichever we may choose to considerhim, and could live well enough upon ground ants. But as to his nest--hewould have to sharpen his wits still more to solve successfully thequestion of the woodpecker motto, "What is home without a hollow tree?"

Great gaps would be made in the ranks of the furry creatures--the mammals. Opossums and raccoons would find themselves in an embarrassing position, and as for the sloths, which never descend to earth, depending forprotection on their resemblance to leaves and mossy bark, they would bewiped out with one fell swoop. The arboreal squirrels might learn toburrow, as so many of their near relations have done, but their muscleswould become cramped from inactivity and their eyes would often strainupward for a glimpse of the beloved branches. The bats might take to cavesand the vampires to outhouses and dark crevices in the rocks, but most ofthe monkeys and apes would soon become extinct, while a chimpanzee ororang-utan would become a cripple, swinging ever painfully along betweenthe knuckles of crutch-like forearms, searching, searching forever for thetrees which gave him his form and structure, and without which his lifeand that of his race must abruptly end. 

Leaving the relations which trees hold to the animals about them and thepart which they have played in the evolution of life on the earth in pastepochs, let us consider some of the more humble trees about us. Not, however, from the standpoint of the technical botanist or the scientificforester, but from the sympathetic point of view of a living fellow form, sharing the same planet, both owing their lives to the same great sourceof all light and heat, and subject to the same extremes of heat and cold, storm and drought. How wonderful, when we come to think of it, is a tree, to be able to withstand its enemies, elemental and animate, year afteryear, decade after decade, although fast-rooted to one patch of earth. Ananimal flees to shelter at the approach of gale or cyclone, or travels farin search of abundant food. Like the giant algæ, ever waving upward fromthe bed of the sea, which depend on the nourishment of the surroundingwaters, so the tree blindly trusts to Nature to minister to its needs, filling its leaves with the light-given greenness, and feeling fornutritious salts with the sensitive tips of its innumerable rootlets. 

Darwin has taught us, and truly, that a relentless struggle for existenceis ever going on around us, and although this is most evident to our eyesin a terrible death battle between two great beasts of prey, yet it is noless real and intense in the case of the bird pouring forth a beautifulsong, or the delicate violet shedding abroad its perfume. To realise thehost of enemies ever shadowing the feathered songster and its kind, wehave only to remember that though four young birds may be hatched in eachof fifty nests, yet of the two hundred nestlings an average often of butone lives to grow to maturity, --to migrate and to return to the region ofits birth. 

And the violet, living, apparently, such a quiet life of humble sweetness?Fortunate indeed is it if its tiny treasure of seeds is fertilized, andthen the chances are a thousand to one that they will grow and ripen onlyto fall by the wayside, or on barren ground, or among the tares. 

At first thought, a tree seems far removed from all such struggles. Howsolemn and grand its trunk stands, column-like against the sky! How punyand weak we seem beside it! Its sturdy roots, sound wood, and pliantbranches all spell power. Nevertheless, the old, old struggle is asfierce, as unending, here as everywhere. A monarch of the forest hasgained its supremacy only by a lifelong battle with its own kind and witha horde of alien enemies. 

From the heart of the tropics to the limit of tree-growth in the northlandwe find the battle of life waged fiercely, root contending with root forearth-food, branch with branch for the light which means life. 

In a severe wrestling match, the moments of supremest strain are thosewhen the opponents are fast-locked, motionless, when the advantage comes, not with quickness, but with staying power; and likewise in the struggleof tree with tree the fact that one or two years, or even whole decades, watch the efforts of the branches to lift their leaves one above theother, detracts nothing from the bitterness of the strife. 

Far to the north we will sometimes find groves of young balsam firs orspruce, --hundreds of the same species of sapling growing so close togetherthat a rabbit may not pass between. The slender trunks, almost touchingeach other, are bare of branches. Only at the top is there light and air, and the race is ever upward. One year some slight advantage may come toone young tree, --some delicate unbalancing of the scales of life, and thatfortunate individual instantly responds, reaching several slender sidebranches over the heads of his brethren. They as quickly show the effectsof the lessened light and forthwith the race is at an end. The victorshoots up tall and straight, stamping and choking out the lives at hisside, as surely as if his weapons were teeth and claws instead of delicateroot-fibres and soughing foliage. 

The contest with its fellows is only the first of many. The same elementswhich help to give it being and life are ever ready to catch it unawares, to rend it limb from limb, or by patient, long-continued attack bring itcrashing to the very dust from which sprang the seed. 

We see a mighty spruce whose black leafage has waved above its fellows fora century or more, paying for its supremacy by the distortion of everybranch. Such are to be seen clinging to the rocky shores of Fundy, everybranch and twig curved toward the land; showing the years of battling withconstant gales and blizzards. Like giant weather-vanes they stand, and, though there is no elasticity in their limbs and they are gnarled andscarred, yet our hearts warm in admiration of their decades of patientwatching beside the troubled waters. For years to come they will defyevery blast the storm god can send against them, until, one wild day, whenthe soil has grown scanty around the roots of one of the weakest, it willshiver and tremble at some terrific onslaught of wind and sleet; it willfold its branches closer about it and, like the Indian chieftains, whoperhaps in years past occasionally watched the waters by the side of theyoung sapling, the conquered tree will bow its head for the last time tothe storm. 

Farther inland, sheltered in a narrow valley, stands a sister tree, seededfrom the same cone as the storm-distorted spruce. The wind shrieks andhowls above the little valley and cannot enter; but the law ofcompensation brings to bear another element, silent, gentle, but as deadlyas the howling blast of the gale. All through the long winter the snowsifts softly down, finding easy lodgment on the dense-foliaged branches. From the surrounding heights the white crystals pour down until the treegroans with the massive weight. Her sister above is battling with thestorm, but hardly a feather's weight of snow clings to her waving limbs. 

The compressed, down-bent branches of the valley spruce soon becomepermanently bent and the strain on the trunk fibres is great. At last, with a despairing crash, one great limb gives way and is torn bodily fromits place of growth. The very vitals of the tree are exposed and instantlyevery splintered cell is filled with the sifting snow. Helpless the treestands, and early in the spring, at the first quickening of summer'sgrowth, a salve of curative resin is poured upon the wound. But it is toolate. The invading water has done its work and the elements have begun torot the very heart of the tree. How much more to be desired is the mannerof life and death of the first spruce, battling to the very last!

A beech seedling which takes root close to the bank of a stream has a goodchance of surviving, since there will be no competitors on the water sideand moisture and air will never fail. But look at some ancient beechgrowing thus, whose smooth, whitened hole encloses a century of growthrings. Offsetting its advantages, the stream, little by little, hasundermined the maze of roots and the force of annual freshets has trainedthem all in a down-stream direction. It is an inverted reminder of thewind-moulded spruce. Although the stout beech props itself by great rootsthrown landward, yet, sooner or later, the ripples will filter in beyondthe centre of gravity and the mighty tree will topple and mingle with itsshadow-double which for so many years the stream has reflected. 

Thus we find that while without moisture no tree could exist, yet the sameelement often brings death. The amphibious mangroves which fringe thecoral islands of the southern seas hardly attain to the dignity of trees, but in the mysterious depths of our southern swamps we find the strangelypicturesque cypresses, which defy the waters about them. One cannot saywhere trunk ends and root begins, but up from the stagnant slime risegreat arched buttresses, so that the tree seems to be supported on giantsix- or eight-legged stools, between the arches of which the water flowsand finds no chance to use its power. Here, in these lonelysolitudes, --heron-haunted, snake-infested, --the hanging moss and orchidssearch out every dead limb and cover it with an unnatural greenness. Here, great lichens grow and a myriad tropical insects bore and tunnel their wayfrom bark to heart of tree and back again. Here, in the blackness ofnight, when the air is heavy with hot, swampy odours, and only theoccasional squawk of a heron or cry of some animal is heard, a rending, grinding, crashing, breaks suddenly upon the stillness, a distant boom andsplash, awakening every creature. Then the silence again closes down andwe know that a cypress, perhaps linking a trio of centuries, has yieldedup its life. 

Leaving the hundred other mysteries which the trees of the tropics mightunfold, let us consider for a moment the danger which the tall, successfultree invites, --the penalty which it pays for having surpassed all itsother brethren. It preeminently attracts the bolts of Jove and the lessertrees see a blinding flash, hear a rending of heart wood, and when thestorm has passed, the tree, before perfect in trunk, limbs, and foliage, is now but a heap of charred splinters. 

Many a great willow overhanging the banks of a wide river could tellinteresting tales of the scars on its trunk. That lower wound was a deepgash cut by some Indian, perhaps to direct a war-party making their waythrough the untrodden wilderness; this bare, unsightly patch was burnt outby the signal fire of one of our forefather pioneers. And so on and on thestory would unfold, until the topmost, freshly sawed-off limb had for itspurpose only the desire of the present owner for a clearer view of thewater beyond. 

Finally we come to the tree best beloved of us in the north, --thecarefully grafted descendant of some sour little wild crab-apple. Afaithful servant indeed has the monarch of the old orchard proved. It hasfed us and our fathers before us, and its gnarled trunk and low-hangingbranches tell the story of the rosy fruit which has weighed down its limbsyear after year. Old age has laid a heavy hand upon it, but not until theoutermost twig has ceased to blossom, and its death, unlike that of itswild kindred, has come silently and peacefully, do we give the order tohave the tree felled. Even in its death it serves us, giving back from theopen hearth the light and heat which it has stored up throughout thesummers of many years. 

Let us give more thought to the trees about us, and when possible succourthem in distress, straighten the bent sapling, remove the parasiticlichen, and give them the best chance for a long, patient, strong life. 

 In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone, Upon a wintry height; It sleeps; around it snows have thrown A covering of white. 

 It dreams forever of a Palm That, far i' the morning-land, Stands silent in a most sad calm Midst of the burning sand. 

 (_From the German of Heine. _) SIDNEY LANIER. 

AN OWL OF THE NORTH

It is mid-winter, and from the northland a blizzard of icy winds andswirling snow crystals is sweeping with fury southward over woods andfields. We sit in our warm room before the crackling log fire and listento the shriek of the gale and wonder how it fares with the little bundlesof feathers huddled among the cedar branches. 

We picture to ourselves all the wild kindred sheltered from the ragingstorm; the gray squirrels rocking in their lofty nests of leaves; thechipmunks snug underground; the screech owls deep in the hollow appletrees, all warm and dry. 

But there are those for whom the blizzard has no terrors. Far to the northon the barren wastes of Labrador, where the gale first comes in from thesea and gathers strength as it comes, a great owl flaps upward and onbroad pinions, white as the driving snowflakes, sweeps southward with thestorm. Now over ice-bound river or lake, or rushing past a myriad darkspires of spruce, then hovering wonderingly over a multitude of lightsfrom the streets of some town, the strong Arctic bird forges southward, until one night, if we only knew, we might open our window and, lookingupward, see two great yellow eyes apparently hanging in space, the bodyand wings of the bird in snow-white plumage lost amidst the flakes. Wethrill in admiration at the grand bird, so fearless of the ragingelements. 

Only the coldest and fiercest storms will tempt him from the north, andthen not because he fears snow or cold, but in order to keep within reachof the snowbirds which form his food. He seeks for places where a lesssevere cold encourages small birds to be abroad, or where the snow's crustis less icy, through which the field mice may bore their tunnels, and runhither and thither in the moonlight, pulling down the weeds and crackingtheir frames of ice. Heedless of passing clouds, these little rodentsscamper about, until a darker, swifter shadow passes, and the featheredtalons of the snowy owl close over the tiny, shivering bundle of fur. 

Occasionally after such a storm, one may come across this white owl insome snowy field, hunting in broad daylight; and that must go down as ared-letter day, to be remembered for years. 

What would one not give to know of his adventures since he left the farnorth. What stories he could tell of hunts for the ptarmigan, --thoseArctic fowl, clad in plumage as white as his own; or the little kit foxes, or the seals and polar bears playing the great game of life and deathamong the grinding icebergs!

His visit to us is a short one. Comes the first hint of a thaw and he hasvanished like a melting snowflake, back to his home and his mate. There ina hollow in the half-frozen Iceland moss, in February, as many as tenfuzzy little snowy owlets may grow up in one nest, --all as hardy andbeautiful and brave as their great fierce-eyed parents. 

THE END