Chapter II: Part 2

If it is true, as has been asserted, that oology as a scientific study has been a disappointment, I am convinced that it is not on account of its limited possibilities, but simply because the average oologist devotes so much time to the collection and bartering of specimens that no time is left for the actual study of the accumulating shells. In other words, he frequently undertakes a journey without aim or object.

The oologist has done much toward clearing up the life-history of many of our birds, but as observations of this nature can often be accomplished without the breaking up of the home of the parent bird, it alone will not suffice as an excuse for indiscriminate collecting. After preparing the specimen for the cabinet his responsibility does not end but only begins. A failure to add something to the general knowledge is robbing the public as well as the birds. He who talks fluently of the enforcement of strict laws for the preservation of our wild birds, their nests and eggs, and fails to protect and encourage those about his premises, falls short of his duty; and if his cabinet contains bird skins or egg shells which might just as well have remained where Nature placed them, he is inconsistent, demanding that others abstain that he may indulge.

In conclusion I would say that when an oologist constantly keeps in mind and acts under the assumption that the birds are his best friends and not his deadly enemies, he cannot go far wrong, and the means he employs will be justified in the light of subsequent study and research of data and specimens. If any of us fall short in this we have only ourselves to blame. Let us then collect with moderation and fewer eggs and more notes be the order of the day.

THE BLUE-WINGED YELLOW WARBLER.

(_Helminthophila pinus._)

Not a great deal is known about many of the warblers, and comparatively little has been observed of this member of the very large family, comprising more than one hundred species. This specimen is also recognized by the name of the blue-winged swamp warbler. Its habitat is eastern United States, chiefly south of 40 degrees and west of the Alleghanies, north irregularly to Massachusetts and Michigan, and west to border of the great plains. In winter it lives in eastern Mexico and Guatemala.

It has been pointed out that the name of this bird is misleading, as the blue of the wing is dull and inconspicuous, and not blue at all in the sense in which this color distinction is applied to some other birds. When applied to the warblers, it simply means either a bluish-gray, or slate, which seems barely different from plain gray at a short distance.

In half-cleared fields which have grown up to sprouts, and in rich open woods in the bottom-lands, where the switch-cane forms a considerable proportion of the undergrowth, the blue-winged yellow warbler is one of the characteristic birds, says Ridgway. The male is a persistent singer during the breeding-season, and thus betrays his presence to the collector, who finds this, of all species, one of the easiest to procure. His song is very rude. The nest is built on the ground, among upright stalks, resting on a thick foundation of dry leaves. The eggs are four or five, white, with reddish dots. The food of the warbler consists almost wholly of spiders, larvæ, and beetles, such as are found in bark, bud, or flower. The birds are usually seen consorting in pairs. The movements of this warbler are rather slow and leisurely, and, like a chickadee, it may sometimes be seen hanging head downward while searching for food.

INDIRECTION.

"We hear, if we attend, a singing in the sky."

RICHARD REALF.

Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion
is fairer;
Rare is the rose-burst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is
rarer;
Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is
sweeter;
And never a poem was writ, but the meaning outmastered the meter.

Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing;
Never a river that flows, but a majesty scepters the flowing;
Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did enfold
him;
Never a prophet foretold, but a mightier seer hath foretold him.

Back of the canvas that throbs, the painter is hinted and hidden;
Into the statue that breathes, the soul of the sculptor is bidden;
Under the joy that is felt, lie the infinite issues of feeling;
Crowning the glory revealed, is the glory that crowns the revealing.

Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is
greater;
Vast the creation beheld, but vaster the inward Creator;
Back of the sound broods the silence; back of the gift stands the
giving;
Back of the hand that receives, thrills the sensitive nerve of
receiving.

Space is nothing to spirit; the deed is outdone by the doing;
The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing;
And up from the pits where these shiver and up from the heights
where those shine,
Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life
divine.

OUT-DOOR SCIENCE.

FREDERICK A. VOGT,

Principal Central High School, Buffalo.

The first step to take in teaching science to young people and in popularizing the study among older people is to throw away much of the traditional polysyllabic phraseology and use a little common sense and good old Anglo-Saxon now and then--to teach nature, instead of science.

There is not only great danger in being too technical, but in telling too much. We all like to talk on our pet subjects. We rattle along, airing our opinions and pouring out big volumes of knowledge, and expect the poor pupils, like great dry sponges, to absorb the gracious gift. But they don't absorb; it isn't their business; they belong to quite another sub-kingdom; and while we are just about to congratulate ourselves on our facility of expression and wise beneficence, we are rudely made aware that our eloquence was all lost; and, worse still, we have been guilty of repression, of stifling natural curiosity, and crushing what might become a priceless, inquiring, intellectual habit.

Is it any wonder that so few ever go on with this geology, mineralogy, botany, or zoölogy, after they leave school? What is our object as teachers? Is it to cram geology and botany down passive throats in one or two school terms, or is it to lead our students so gently and awaken so keen a desire that they shall study these sciences all their lives, to be a never-ending joy, a pure pleasure and a solace amid coming cares and darkening days? Oh, I, too, have been guilty, and may heaven forgive my exceeding foolishness! The remainder of my days are being spent in penance, in propitiating the office of the recording angel by a more humble and righteous way of life.

So much for the language of the teacher, and now for the means of giving reality to his teaching efforts. This can only be done by the laboratory method or investigation in the field. With the latter, out-door work only does this paper especially treat.

ACTUAL CONTACT WITH NATURE.

While I do not for a moment decry the use of books, either for collateral reading or for text-books--in fact, I plead for a wider reading and profounder study of the best scientific writers--still, I feel just as you must feel, that there is something radically wrong in much of our science teaching, and that we have come to regard books as more real than the earth, the sky, the rocks; the plants, and the animals, which are all about us.

Just why this is so, I am unable to understand. Nature is so lavish! On all sides, easy of access, are the phenomena and the realities, while the school-room is artificial, and the teacher, alas, in perfect keeping with the school-room.

Can it be that pupils are averse to actual contact with nature? Not at all. From the earliest childhood throughout life there is in most persons a remarkable turn toward curious investigation, and thorough understanding of the things of nature. That I know from my own experience while teaching in the grammar schools.

One day I asked the pupils to bring me in any specimens of stones they might find in the vacant lots and the fields; and then I promised to give them a talk about these stones. I expected perhaps twenty or thirty specimens. What was my amazement and secret horror when, the next day and the next came dozens and dozens of specimens until, in a few days, I had over a ton and a half, containing 3,000 specimens. There were granites, gneisses and schists and quartzes; there were sandstones, slates, shales, limestones, glacial scratchings, marbles and onyx; there were geodes, crystals, ores, stone hammers, arrow-heads, brickbats, furnace slag, and fossils. I took everything smilingly, and at night the janitor and I buried many duplicates and the useless stuff in a deep hole where they wouldn't be likely to get hold of it again.

We soon possessed an excellent cabinetful, and had fine times talking about the making of stones--the crust of the earth--former inhabitants, the great ice age, and such simple geology as they could understand; and they did understand; that did not end it. We studied plants in the same way; physics and chemistry, with home-made apparatus. Of course, it all took time, and a good deal of it; and there wasn't any extra pay for it, either; but there are labors whose recompense is far more precious than dollars and cents.

And so I find enthusiasm also for out-door science, among secondary pupils and among the great body of intelligent people of our cities; and if nature is so accessible, and pupils are so eager for its secrets, and we still worship books and ignore the visible objects and forces so freely at our disposal, there is no other conclusion to arrive at, except that the teacher himself is either too ignorant or too indolent to make proper use of them. It takes time; it needs enthusiasm; it needs a genuine love for the subject in hand, and a profound interest in and sympathy with the student.

The subjects in which field work may be made very useful are geography, geology, botany, and zoölogy, and the objects are, of course, apparent to all. First, it cultivates a familiarity with nature, which is wholesome and desirable. We are living in an artificial age. Children nowadays get too much pocket money; there is too much theater; too much smartness; too much flabbiness for the real business of life; too much blasé yawning; too many parties; too much attention to dress; the color of the necktie; the crease of the trowsers, or the make of a gown. The only meaning science has for many of the richer classes is the curved ball of the pitcher, the maneuvers of the quarterback, or the manly art of self-defense.

I know of nothing that will counter-act the indifference of parents and lead the young mind back to a simpler and more humanizing condition of life than to make it familiar with old mother earth, the stream, the valley, the tree, the flower, and the bird.

Another object of field work is to develop habits of correct observation. Pupils ordinarily take too much for granted. They will swallow anything that is printed in a book, or that the teacher may choose to tell, always providing the pupil is sufficiently awake to perform the function. It is hardly an exaggeration that they would believe the moon was made of green cheese, providing the statement came with august solemnity from the teacher's chair. There is too hasty generalization and a prevailing unwillingness to careful examination. Careful field work opens the eye and corrects much of this slovenly mode of thinking, creates honest doubt, and questions an unsupported statement. The pupil wants to see the pollen on the bee before he believes in cross-fertilization; he wants to see rocks actually in layers before he will believe they could have been deposited in water, and he pounds up a fragment of sandstone to get at the original sand; he wants to see the actual castings before he will believe all that Darwin says about his wonderful earthworms; and few things escape the eye of the pupils who go out with the understanding that it is business and their duty to observe and take notes.

Another object of field study is to see life in its environment. Stuffed birds and animals in cases are all very good; shells look pretty behind nice glass doors, and herbaria play a very important part; yet, after all, how much better to see a thrush's flight; to hear the pewee's song; how much more satisfactory to watch a snail creep and feed; how much more delightful to study the blossoming hepatica; to note its various leaves, its soil, its surroundings, and discover why it blooms at the very opening of springtime.

More can be learned from a handful of pebbles on the beach than a whole book written upon the same subject.

Yet another object is to acquire specific information not contained in books. The feel of a leaf, the odor of the honeysuckle, or the pine, the cry of the kingfisher, the locomotion of a horse, and the locomotion of a cow, the formation of miniature gorges in a rain storm, and the wearing of a shore under the action of the waves, these and countless other manifestations can never be described in mere words.--_The School Journal._

THE GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER.

(_Helminthophila chrysoptera._)

This member of the large family of warblers is considered rare, or only common in certain localities of its range, which is eastern United States in summer and Central America in winter. Its common names are blue golden-winged warbler, and golden-winged swamp warbler. It makes its appearance in May, when it may occasionally be seen about orchards. It soon retires into dense underbrush, however, and few persons who are not woodsmen ever get more than a glimpse of it. It breeds all through its range, but only casually north of Massachusetts. It builds its nest on or near the ground, in a plant tuft. It is made of grass, and is deep and bulky. The eggs are four or five, white, with reddish dots.

Ridgway says that June, 1885, he found these birds breeding along the southern edge of Calhoun Prairie, Richland county, Illinois, and Mr. H. K. Coale states that on May 11, 1884, in a wood on the Kankakee river, in Starke county, Indiana, he found the golden-winged warbler quite common. Eight were seen--all males, which were singing. Some were flushed from the ground and flew up to the nearest small tree, where they sat motionless next the trunk. The locality was a moist situation, overgrown with young trees and bushes.

PET ANIMALS AS CAUSES OF DISEASE.

Papers presented last summer at the French Congress for Tuberculosis at Paris demonstrate, says _The Medical News_, what has hitherto been very doubtful, that aviary and human tuberculosis are essentially the same pathologic process due to the same germ modified by a cultural environment, but convertible under favorable circumstances one into the other. An Englishman has found that more than ten per cent. of canaries and other song birds that die in captivity succumb to tuberculosis, and parrots have come in for a share of condemnation in this connection. By far the larger number of monkeys who die in captivity are carried off by tuberculosis, and while, fortunately, the keeping of monkeys as house pets is not very general, at the same time there is some danger of contagion. Nocard, the greatest living authority on tuberculosis in animals, and the man to whom we owe the best culture methods for the tubercle bacillus, found in a series of autopsies on dogs that out of two hundred successive autopsies on unselected dogs that died at the great veterinary school at Alfort, near Paris, in more than one-half the cases there were tubercular lesions, and in many of them the lesions were of such a character as to make them facile and plenteous disseminators of infective tuberculous materials.

Parrots are known to be susceptible to a disease peculiar to themselves, and a number of fatal cases in human beings of what was at first supposed to be malignant influenza, pneumonia was traced to the bacillus which is thought to be the cause of the parrot disease. Cats are sometimes known to have tuberculosis, and that they have in many cases been carriers of diphtheria and other ordinary infections is more than suspected. There is not at present any great need for a crusade on sanitary grounds against the keeping of pet animals, but they are multiplying more and more, and it does not seem unreasonable that greater care in the matter of determining the first signs of disease should be demanded of their owners, and then so guarding them as to prevent their being a source of contagion to human beings. Attention should be paid to this warning as regards children, as animals play more freely with them and the children are more apt to be infected.

A FLY-CATCHING PLANT.

WILLIAM KERR HIGLEY, Secretary of The Chicago Academy of Sciences.

Queen of the Marsh, imperial Drosera treads
Rush-fringed banks, and moss-embroidered beds.

--_Erasmus Darwin, in The Botanic Garden, 1789._

Some of the most interesting forms of nature are not the most showy and are not easily observed by the untrained eye. Many of their characteristics can only be known by carefully conducted investigations, both in the field and in the laboratory.

The advance of science has shown us that it is as natural for some plants to obtain much of their nourishment from the animal world, by a true process of feeding, as it is for animal forms to obtain their sustenance, either directly or indirectly, from the vegetable world.

There are many species among the lower orders of plants that are well known animal parasites, but there are also, among our more highly organized flowering species, forms that improvise a stomach and secrete an acid fluid for the digestion of nitrogenous food which is afterwards absorbed and used in tissue building. These are in no sense of the term parasites.

Such a plant is our common round-leaved sundew (_Drosera rotundifolia_, L.). The generic name Drosera is from the Greek, meaning dew.

This rather insignificant, but pretty little plant is distributed nearly throughout the world, and is usually found in bogs, or in wet sand near some body of water. The flower stalk is seldom more than six or eight inches in height and bears very small white or pinkish-white flowers.

The interesting feature of this species, however, lies in the rosette of about five or six leaves growing from the base of the stem. These leaves lie upon the ground and are usually about one-fourth to one-half of an inch in length, and are generally nearly orbicular in form. The upper side is covered with gland-bearing tentacles. The glands are covered by a transparent and viscid secretion which glitters in the sunlight, giving rise to the common name of the plant. There are usually over two hundred tentacles on each leaf and, when they are not irritated, they remain spread out. The viscid fluid of the glands serves as an organ of detention when an insect lights upon the leaf. The presence of an insect, or, in fact, any foreign matter, will cause the tentacles, to which it is adhering, to bend inward toward the center of the leaf and within a very short time all the tentacles will be closed over the captured insect, which is soon killed by the copious secretion filling its breathing apparatus.

Though these sensitive tentacles are not excited by either wind or rain they are by the repeated touchings of a needle, or any hard substance. It is said that a fragment of hair weighing but 1-78,740 of a grain will cause a perceptible movement.

By experiment it has been shown that a bit of hard-boiled egg, or a fragment of meat as well as an insect will cause not only an inflection of the tentacles but also of the edges of the leaves, thus forming an improvised stomach, the secretion of the glands then increasing and becoming acid. At this stage the secretion is not only capable of digesting but is also highly antiseptic.

This power of digesting and absorbing nitrogenous food is absolutely necessary to the existence of the sundew, for it usually grows in a poor soil and its few and not greatly elongated roots are of little service except to absorb water, of which it needs a large amount for the production of the copious secretion. Specimens may be developed by planting in moist cotton and furnishing with plenty of water.

The length of time that the tentacles will remain inflected depends on the vigor of the leaf and the solubility of the material causing the excitement. The time varies from one to seven or eight days.

Easily dissolved and readily absorbed food in too large an amount seems to cause overexcitement and overtaxation, and frequently results in the death of the leaf.

The large number of insects, especially flies, captured by these plants would lead one to believe that they are attracted by the odor of the plant, or the purplish color of the tentacles, rather than by the desire to use the leaves as a resting-place.

The sundew belongs to the natural order _Droseraceæ_. This contains about one hundred and twenty-five species, of which one hundred and ten belong to the genus Drosera, and are chiefly natives of Australia, though the round-leaved species is common throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Closely related to the sundew is the Venus fly-trap (_Dionæa muscipula_, Ellis). This is a native in the eastern part of North Carolina only.

The leaf of this plant is provided with two lobes, which close quickly when the sensitive hairs, which are situated on the upper surface of the leaf, are irritated by an insect. The acid secretion flows out and the leaves remain closed till digestion and absorption are completed.

Dr. Asa Gray has referred to this species as "that most expert of fly-catchers."

TREES AND ELOQUENCE.

W. E. WATT.

Forty years in the pulpit of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Henry Ward Beecher stood and poured forth a stream of eloquence which shook the world. During the stress of civil war he stemmed the current of English sentiment with his peculiar powers and brought about a change of feeling which was the salvation of our Union. This greatest of our pulpit orators was a lover of trees, and some of his finer passages were inspired by them.

Without doubt, better trees there might be than even the most noble and beautiful now. I suppose God has, in his thoughts, much better ones than he has ever planted on this globe. They are reserved for the glorious land. Beneath them may we walk!

To most people a grove is a grove, and all groves are alike. But no two groves are alike. There is as marked a difference between different forests as between different communities. A grove of pines without underbrush, carpeted with the fine-fingered russet leaves of the pine, and odorous of resinous gums, has scarcely a trace of likeness to a maple woods, either in the insects, the birds, the shrubs, the light and shade, or the sound of its leaves. If we lived in olden times, among young mythologies, we should say that pines held the imprisoned spirit of naiads and water-nymphs, and that their sounds were of the water for whose lucid depths they always sighed. At any rate, the first pines must have grown on the seashore, and learned their first accents from the surf and the waves; and all their posterity have inherited the sound, and borne it inland to the mountains.

I like best a forest of mingled trees, ash, maple, oak, beech, hickory, and evergreens, with birches growing along the edges of the brook that carries itself through the roots and stones, toward the willows that grow in yonder meadow. It should be deep and sombre in some directions, running off into shadowy recesses and coverts beyond all footsteps. In such a wood there is endless variety. It will breathe as many voices to your fancy as might be brought from any organ beneath the pressure of some Handel's hands. By the way, Handel and Beethoven always remind me of forests. So do some poets, whose numbers are as various as the infinity of vegetation, fine as the choicest cut leaves, strong and rugged in places as the unbarked trunk and gnarled roots at the ground's surface. Is there any other place, except the seaside, where hours are so short and moments so swift as in the forest? Where else except in the rare communion of those friends much loved, do we awake from pleasure, whose calm flow is without a ripple, into surprise that whole hours are gone which we thought but just begun--blossomed and dropped, which we thought but just budding?

Thus do you stand, noble elms! Lifted up so high are your topmost boughs that no indolent birds care to seek you, and only those of nimble wings, and they with unwonted beat, that love exertion and aspire to sing where none sing higher. Aspiration! so heaven gives it pure as flames to the noble bosom. But debased with passion and selfishness it comes to be only Ambition!

It was in the presence of this pasture-elm, which we name the Queen, that we first felt to our very marrow that we had indeed become owners of the soil! It was with a feeling of awe that we looked up into its face, and when I whispered to myself, "This is mine," there was a shrinking as if there were sacrilege in the very thought of _property_ in such a creature of God as this cathedral-topped tree! Does a man bare his head in some old church? So did I, standing in the shadow of this regal tree, and looking up into that completed glory, at which three hundred years have been at work with noiseless fingers! What was I in its presence but a grasshopper? My heart said, "I may not call thee property, and that property mine! Thou belongest to the air. Thou art the child of summer. Thou art the mighty temple where birds praise God. Thou belongest to no man's hand, but to all men's eyes that do love beauty, and that have learned through beauty to behold God! Stand, then, in thine own beauty and grandeur! I shall be a lover and a protector, to keep drought from thy roots, and the axe from thy trunk."

For, remorseless men there are crawling yet upon the face of the earth, smitten blind and inwardly dead, whose only thought of a tree of ages is, that it is food for the axe and the saw! These are the wretches of whom the scripture speaks: "A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees."

Thus famous, or rather infamous, was the last owner but one, before me, of this farm. Upon the crown of the hill, just where an artist would have planted them, had he wished to have them exactly in the right place, grew some two hundred stalwart and ancient maples, beeches, ashes and oaks, a narrow belt-like forest, forming a screen from the northern and western winds in winter, and a harp of endless music for the summer. The wretched owner of this farm, tempted of the devil, cut down the whole blessed band and brotherhood of trees, that he might fill his pocket with two pitiful dollars a cord for the wood! Well, his pocket was the best part of him. The iron furnaces have devoured my grove, and their huge stumps that stood like gravestones have been cleared away, that a grove may be planted in the same spot, for the next hundred years to nourish into the stature and glory of that which is gone.

In many other places I find the memorials of many noble trees slain; here a hemlock that carried up its eternal green a hundred feet into the winter air; there, a huge double-trunked chestnut, dear old grandfather of hundreds of children that have for generations clubbed its boughs, or shook its nut-laden top, and laughed and shouted as bushels of chestnuts rattled down. Now, the tree exists only in the form of loop-holed posts and weather-browned rails. I do hope the fellow got a sliver in his fingers every time he touched the hemlock plank, or let down the bars made of those chestnut rails!

BATS IN BURMESE CAVES.

Interesting caves exist at Hpagat, twenty-six miles up the Salween, from Moulmein. They are hollowed out in the base of an isolated limestone hill about 250 feet high, rising precipitously from the river. Capt. A. R. S. Anderson, the surgeon-naturalist, gives an interesting account of these caves in an Indian government report which is abstracted by "Natural Science." The entrance is about twelve feet high and is much ornamented by Buddhistic sculptures. As the sun was setting the party took their stand on the sand-spit facing the entrance of the caves and soon saw a pair of falcons leave their perch on the trees and fly to and fro over the river. They were speedily joined by other birds, including common kites and jungle crows, and the entire flock, to the number of sixty or a hundred, flew to the entrance of the caves, close to which they remained wheeling about in mid-air. A few minutes later the bats began to issue in ones and twos, and were soon pursued by the birds of prey, but appeared to have no great difficulty in eluding capture by their rapid and jerky flight, and their pursuers made no very determined or long-sustained efforts to capture them, but soon returned to their vigil over the cave. A minute or two passed and a sudden rush of wings was heard, and the bats were seen to emerge from the cave in a dense stream which slowly became more and more packed, and continued of about the same density for some ten minutes and then gradually thinned away, until, at the end of twenty minutes, the last had emerged. The stream of bats when at its maximum was ten feet square, and so dense as to closely resemble smoke pouring from a chimney in a gale of wind. This resemblance was increased by the slightly sinuous course pursued by the bats as they flew off into the afterglow. They were so densely crowded that they frequently upset each other and fell helplessly into the river below, where they succeeded in reaching the bank only to fall a prey to the expectant crow. When the great rush occurred the falcons, kites, and crows entered the stream of bats and, flying along with it and in it, seized as many bats as they required for food. Capt. Anderson, by throwing his walking-stick into the stream of bats, obtained six specimens. During the last twenty years the bats appear to have considerably diminished in numbers, owing to the depredations of their bird enemies and to their constant disturbance by collectors of bat manure.

A METAL BIRD'S NEST.

In the Museum of Natural History at Soleure, in Switzerland, there is said to be a bird's nest made entirely of steel. There are a number of clockmaking shops at Soleure, and in the yards of these shops there are often found lying disused or broken springs of clocks. One day a clock-maker noticed in a tree in his yard a bird's nest of peculiar appearance. Examining it he found that a pair of wag-tails had built a nest entirely of clock springs. It was more than four inches across and perfectly comfortable for the birds. After the feathered architects had reared their brood, the nest was taken to the museum, where it is preserved as a striking illustration of the skill of birds in turning their surroundings to advantage in building their nests.

THE MOURNING WARBLER.

(_Geothlypis philadelphia._)

Baskett, in his valuable "Story of the Birds," says that the warbler forms feed variously, but they use little vegetable matter. Some have ground-haunting, and even swamp-haunting habits; others have fringed tongues hinting of juices and nectars, while tree-trunk exploring, as in creepers, nuthatches, titmice, etc., also prevails. They have been described as at once the most fascinating and the most exasperating of birds. In the spring they come with a rush and although the woods may be full of them, only a faint lisp from the tree tops gives note of their presence, and unless you are a very good observer you will not know they are about at all. If you listen to other birds, instead of resolutely devoting yourself to warblers, you will lose the opportunity of the sight of a diminutive bird disappearing in a tree top. Some of the warblers dash about among the leaves on the ground hunting for gnats, others hunt over the branches of the trees, though some of them hop gaily on the ground, while others walk sedately, bobbing their heads or tilting their tails. The majority of the tribe fly northward to nest in pine forests. A few, however, remain and build in our parks, gardens and shrubbery. They are all insect-eaters, destroying ants, flies, caterpillars, larvæ, plant lice, canker-worms, and May flies. They are therefore of great value in the protection of vegetation.

The mourning warbler, whose common name is black-throated ground warbler, has its habitat in eastern North America, breeding from northern United States northward; more rare in the Atlantic states. It winters in south-eastern Mexico, and Costa Rica, and thence south to Colombia. During the spring migration this bird is very common. Early in May, 1881, they were found in abundance near wheat lands in Indiana, most of them being observed about brush piles in a clearing, and along fences in the immediate vicinity. In the early part of June, 1871, a pair were seen in a thicket along the border of Fox Prairie, in Richland Co., Illinois, and it was presumed at the time that they were breeding there, but they may have been merely late migrants. It is known to breed in mountainous portions of Pennsylvania, New England, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, and eastern Nebraska, northward. It has been found nesting in Illinois south of latitude 39. Its nest is built on or near the ground in woods. One discovered by Burroughs in the state of New York was built in ferns about a foot from the ground, on the edge of a hemlock wood. It contained three eggs. The nests are usually composed of fine strips of bark and other fibrous material, lined with fine hair. The eggs are white, with a sprinkling of reddish dots near the larger ends.

* * * * *

The feeling that all life is one life slumbers in the child's soul. Only very gradually, however, can this slumbering feeling be transfigured into a waking consciousness. Slowly, through a sympathetic study of nature and of human life, through a growing sense of the soul and meaning of all natural facts and of all human relationships, and through recreating in various forms that external world which is but the objective expression of his own inmost being, the individual attains to a consciousness and unity of life and to a vision of the Eternal Fountain of Life.--_The Nest._

THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE.

ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE.

"Yea, master," croaked the raven, "I understand," and spreading his sable wings over the waste of waters he flew, anxious, as was Noah, for a sight of dry land.

The day passed, evening fell, and the raven had not returned.

"An ill-omened bird," gloomily said Shem, "so black and uncanny looking. His croak, even, hath to mine ear an evil sound."

"What thou sayest is true, brother," returned Ham. "Verily the raven hath a wicked look. A bird of more cheerful aspect, it seemeth to me, might well have been chosen. The albatross, so majestic, with powers of flight excelling all other creatures of the air; the eagle, or better still the stormy petrel, so light of body, its webbed feet enabling it, with expanding wing, to rest at will upon the face of the waters."

"Coo-o-o," came a low, plaintive call from a far corner. "Coo-o-o."

"Ah, my turtle dove," responded Japheth, "so loving, so true! Had the choice of a messenger been left to me, my brothers, verily would I have chosen the dove. Naught but death would have kept it, believe me, from its mate and us."

Noah turned from the window and gazed sternly upon his three sons.

"What signifieth the complexion of bird, beast, or man," he demanded gravely, "when one standeth in need of courage, intelligence, strength? Among all the winged creatures of the air within the ark, canst thou name one with instinct more subtle than the raven's? Black and uncanny looking, forsooth! Witness his speech, I tell thee," decisively, "the bird hath understanding."

As Noah ceased speaking, there came a low, faint tapping at the window. With a glad countenance he hastened to open it, and in flew the raven, quite exhausted.

"Water, water, everywhere," croaked the bird, and after wearily eating the food Noah gave him, tucked his head beneath his wing and was soon fast asleep.

Upon the morning of the next day, Noah again sent the raven forth, also the next, and the next.

"Water, water, everywhere," croaked the raven, as before, upon his return, and after wearily eating of the food which Noah gave him, tucked his head beneath his wing and was soon fast asleep.

"Verily," sneered Ham, who with his brothers had grown very impatient, "the sable-plumaged bird which thou dost insist upon sending forth daily, knoweth naught, to my mind, but the words which he so glibly speaketh. Surely he hath heard them uttered an hundred times."

Noah reflected. "What thou sayest, my son, may be true," he responded, "for of a surety when gazing from the window these many, many months, those words of our speech have been the daily burden. To-morrow, then," his gaze fixed upon the stormy petrel, "we will send forth----"

"Coo-o-o" came a plaintive call from the corner. "Coo-o-o."

"The dove," finished Noah, thoughtfully, "for verily it doth seem to answer me. Though devoid of speech, its affectionate nature may yet prompt it to devise some way by which its message may be interpreted."

And so upon the morning of the next day Noah opened the window of the ark and, the dove, poising upon his finger, spread her beautiful wings and over the waste of waters took her joyful flight.

The day passed, evening fell, and the dove had not returned.

A dark frown was settling upon the brow of Ham, when a faint tapping was heard at the window.

"Water, water, everywhere," croaked the raven, maliciously, as Noah hastened to open it and draw the exhausted bird within. "Water, water, everywhere."

"Verily, oh, raven!" despondently said Noah, "it doth appear that the dove, not more than thou, didst find a place for the sole of her foot. I will wait yet another seven days," he added thoughtfully, "ere I send her forth again."

And Noah waited seven days, and on the morning of the eighth he sent the dove forth again in quest of dry land.

The day passed, but ere evening fell the bird returned, bearing in her bill, as a token that the waters had abated, a freshly-plucked olive leaf.

"Thou art God's own messenger," joyfully said Noah, tenderly caressing the dove. "Verily something more than instinct guided and prompted thee in thy flight this day."

And Noah waited yet another seven days ere he again sent forth the dove.

This time, to the ark, the dove returned no more.

"Coo-o-o," more plaintively than usual, called her mate the next morning. "Co-o-o-o."

"He mourns for his lost love," pityingly said Japheth, the youngest son. "Verily, something hath befallen the bird!"

"Nay," responded Noah, "liberty is sweet. After long captivity in a dark, close house-boat, freedom might well try the fidelity of e'en a turtle dove. She awaits his coming, perchance, in the nearest pine or willow tree. Open then the window and let him forth."

And Japheth did as his father commanded, but sorrowfully, for it chanced that in close companionship, lo, these many days, with these innocent children of nature, Japheth had come to acquire a tender love and care for both beast and bird.

"Go, thou mourning dove," he said, unconsciously bestowing a fitting name upon the gentle bird. "Go!" And, spreading his beautiful wings, off the dove joyfully flew, following with unerring instinct the path in the air yesterday taken by his mate.

And yet a few days and Noah removed the covering from the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.

THE MAYFLOWERS.

(The trailing arbutus, or Mayflower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter.)

Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars
And nursed by winter gales,
With petals of the sleeted spars
And leaves of frozen sails!

What had she in those dreary hours,
Within her ice-rimmed bay,
In common with the wild-wood flowers,
The first sweet smiles of May?

Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said,
Who saw the blossoms peer
Above the brown leaves, dry and dead,
"Behold our Mayflower here!"

"God wills it: here our rest shall be,
Our years of wandering o'er,
For us the Mayflower of the sea
Shall spread her sails no more."

O sacred flowers of faith and hope,
As sweetly now as then
Ye bloom on many a birchen slope,
In many a pine-dark glen.

Behind the sea-wall's rugged length,
Unchanged, your leaves unfold,
Like love behind the manly strength
Of the brave hearts of old.

So live the fathers in their sons,
Their sturdy faith be ours,
And ours the love that overruns
Its rocky strength with flowers.

The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day
Its shadows round us draws;
The Mayflower of his stormy bay,
Our Freedom's struggling cause.

But warmer suns ere long shall bring
To life the frozen sod;
And through dead leaves of hope shall spring
Afresh the flowers of God!

--_Whittier._

THE CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER.

(_Dendroica pennsylvanica._)

LYNDS JONES.

For one reason or another we come to think of this or that bird as an exquisite. This may be due to color pattern, form, carriage or song, but whatever it be, the bird's presence adds color and beauty to all our surroundings. It is not easy to tell why the chestnut-sided warbler impresses me as an exquisite. His colors are not so bright, nor their pattern in either the contrast or harmony that may be found with other warblers, but there seems to be something about the bird that makes the day brighter, the wearing field-work easier, and hours of fasting forgotten when he flits into view. I have sometimes half suspected that he was more than half conscious of my admiration from the manner in which he displayed his pretty colors and trim form. But no doubt this is base slander. The slightly opened wings, spread tail, and quick movements give an alertness to the little fellow which adds to his otherwise bright appearance. The females and fall birds lack the distinct contrasts of color found in the male in his spring dress, but they usually have some trace of the chestnut on the side of the body, which, with the small size, will serve to distinguish them from all others.

The tree-tops seem to possess few attractions for this warbler, but in village parks he may often be found well up among the branches gleaning from the buds and new leaves for insects and their eggs. In the woods he gleans much nearer the ground, but I have never seen him upon the ground searching among the fallen leaves. Many times he may be found among the low underbrush, preferably not at the edge of the woods, but usually a few rods in. He seems rather partial to damp woods, but may often be found among the uplands as well, where insect life is abundant.

The song is uttered while feeding, the bird seldom arresting his search for food, but turning his head this way and that scanning each leaf and stem. It is often a less spirited song than that of many other warblers, seeming to be a sort of soliloquizing accompaniment to the pressing duties of sustaining life, but it is none the less a pleasing song. There is a somewhat close resemblance to some phrases of the yellow warbler's song in the rendering of the chestnut-side, but a little attention and a discriminating ear will readily distinguish the difference both in quality and in quantity. The song is more often heard on the college campus here than in the woods, and there it sounds something like this: "_Wee-chee wee-chee wee-chee-e-e-e_," with the accent on the first syllable of each phrase. This, in common with other warbler songs, cannot be well represented by a whistle, but rather by hissing or whispering the syllables between the closed teeth. The pitch is too high for my whistle. In the woods a common form of the song is, "_te te te te wee chu_;" and occasionally, "_to wee to wee to wee tee e-e-e_." In the woods the song seems to be far more spirited than in the village, as well as being different. This difference may be rather due to the fact that the first migrants are those that visit the village, while the later ones are found in the woods. It is well known that with many of the warblers the first singers, or at least the first songs heard, are often different from the later ones.

In the vicinity of Oberlin, Ohio, this little warbler makes his appearance about the fifth of May and does not leave for the north until the last week of May. It can not be called common at any time, some years not being seen at all, but may usually be found in the shrubbery fringing woods, or in the shade trees in the village. None have been found during the summer months, and it is doubtful if any remain to nest. The winter is spent in the Bahamas and Mexico, and from there southward. The species ranges north to Manitoba, Ontario, and Newfoundland, and west to the plains, being a bird of eastern North America. It breeds from New Jersey and Illinois northward. I once found it breeding in central Iowa.

The nest resembles that of the yellow warbler, both in situation and composition. It is usually placed in the fork of a bush or shrub from two to eight or nine feet from the ground, made of the fibrous bark of the milk-weed, or some other hempen material, grass and sometimes leaves, lined with some sort of plant down and long hairs. The bark fibers are wound about the bush twigs, securely lashing the nest into the crotch. The four or five eggs are of a creamy-white color, with a wreath of reddish and dark brown spots and dots around the larger end, the spots becoming smaller and less numerous both ways from this wreath. They average about .66 × .50 of an inch.

In the fall they are among the first warblers to appear, often being seen early in August, and continuing in the region for several weeks. At this time of year their bright colors are wanting, but they are the same birds for all that, and may be readily recognized by their trim form and animated carriage.

NATURE STUDY--HOW A NATURALIST IS TRAINED.

SOME VIEWS OF JOHN BURROUGHS.

The knowledge of nature that comes easy, that comes through familiarity with her, as through fishing, hunting, nutting, walking, farming--that is the kind that reaches and affects the character and becomes a grown part of us. We absorb this as we absorb the air, and it gets into our blood. Fresh, vital knowledge is one thing; the desiccated fact is another. Do we know the wild flower when we have analyzed it and pressed it, or made a drawing of it? Of course this is one kind of knowledge and is suited to certain minds; but if we cannot supplement it with the other kind, the knowledge that comes through the heart and the emotions, we are poor indeed.

I recently had a letter from the principal of a New England high school putting some questions to me touching these very matters: Do children love nature? How shall we instil this love into them? How and when did I myself acquire my love for her? etc. In reply I said: The child, in my opinion, does not consciously love nature; it is curious about things; about everything; its instincts lead it forth into the fields and woods; it browses around; it gathers flowers; they are pretty; it stores up impressions. Boys go forth into nature more as savages; they are predaceous, seeking whom they may devour; they gather roots, nuts, wild fruit, berries, eggs, etc. At least this was my case. I hunted, I fished, I browsed, I wandered with a vague longing in the woods, I trapped, I went cooning at night, I made ponds in the little streams, I boiled sap in the maple-woods in spring, I went to sleep under the trees in summer, I caught birds on their nests, I watched for the little frogs in the marshes, etc. One keen pleasure which I remember was to take off my shoes and stockings when the roads got dry in late April or early May, and run up and down the road until I was tired, usually in the warm twilight. I was not conscious of any love for nature, as such, till my mind was brought in contact with literature. Then I discovered that I, too, loved nature, and had a whole world of impressions stored up in my subconscious self upon which to draw. I found I knew about the birds, the animals, the seasons, the trees, the flowers, and that these things have become almost a grown part of me. I have been drawing upon the reservoir of youthful impressions ever since.

If nature is to be a resource in a man's life, one's relation to her must not be too exact and formal, but more that of a lover and friend. I should not try directly to teach young people to love nature so much as I should aim to bring nature and them together, and let an understanding and intimacy spring up between them.--_The Outlook._

JOHN'S HAWK.

EMMA YARNALL ROSS.

John came home one evening from a ramble in the country with a peach-box under his arm. He set the box very carefully on the back porch and then sat down himself on the top of the box.

His mother was watering some geraniums in a bed near by and paused in her work to look at the lad.

"Where did you get those peaches, John?" she asked, coming toward him with a pleasant smile.

John gave a low laugh. "This is a peach _box_, mother," he said, "but if what is in it is a _peach_, it belongs to a new variety, I think. Look at him, he is a beauty!"

"John Bonham, I hope you have not brought another pet to this house! Where in the world are we to stow away all these creatures on one little town lot? There is your groundhog, your owl, the crow, the coot, the tub of fish, the big dog, the little dog, and three Christopher Columbus cats."

"Now, mother, please stop; poor Chuck stays most of the time in his hole under the corner of the house, and the owl keeps the mice out of the cellar, and Jim Crow has not stolen anything for a month except that half dollar and your piece of lace and sister's red ribbon. You said I might have the wash boiler to make a swimming-pool for the coot, and I am going to feed the fish to him, so they will soon be gone and you can have your tub again. I heard you tell Mrs. Bland that our dogs guarded the whole neighborhood from burglars, and my Christopher Columbus cats are cute enough for anyone to be glad to have them. Mrs. Goodall says she 'wants one of them real bad.' You see, mother," said John, persuasively, "this fellow was such a beauty I just had to bring him home. Jake Timmons shot him through the wing as he was carrying off a dove; he was going to wring the hawk's head off, but I told him I would give him ten cents for it, for I wanted to try an experiment with the bird. I know I can tame him and make a pet of him; see, he can move around even if his wing is broken."