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BIRDS AND ALL NATURE.

ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY.

Vol. VI.

No. 4

NOVEMBER, 1899.

CONTENTS

A RARE HUMMING BIRD.

HOW ONE OF THESE LITTLE FAIRY CREATURES WAS TAMED.

P. W. H.

INSTANCES are very rare where birds are familiar with human beings, and the humming birds especially are considered unapproachable, yet a naturalist tells how he succeeded in catching one in his hand. Several cases are on record of attempts to tame humming birds, but when placed in a cage they do not thrive, and soon die. The orange groves of southern California abound in these attractive creatures, and several can often be seen about the flowering bushes, seeking food or chasing each other in play. "Once, when living on the slopes of the Sierra Madre mountains, where they were very plentiful, I accomplished the feat of taking one in my hand," says the naturalist.

"I first noticed it in the garden, resting on a mustard stalk, and, thinking to see how near I could approach, I gradually moved toward it by pretending to be otherwise engaged, until I was within five feet of it. The bird looked at me calmly and I moved slowly nearer, whistling gently to attract its attention, as I began to think something was the matter with it. It bent its head upon one side, eyed me sharply, then flew to another stalk a few feet away, contemplating me as before. Again I approached, taking care not to alarm it, and this time I was almost within reaching distance before it flew away. The bird seemed to have a growing confidence in me, and I became more and more deliberate in my movements until I finally stood beside it, the little creature gazing at me with its head tipped upon one side as if questioning what I was about. I then withdrew and approached again, repeating this several times before I stretched out my hand to take it, at which it flew to another bush. But the next time it allowed me to grasp it, and I had caught a wild bird open-handed without even the use of salt!"

One of the curious features of humming birds is that they are never found in Europe, being exclusively American, ranging in this country from the extreme north to the tropics, adding to the beauty of field and grove, being veritable living gems. Nothing can approach the humming bird in its gorgeousness of decoration. It is especially rich in the metallic tints, seemingly splashed with red, blue, green, and other bronzes. Some appear to be decked in a coat of mail, others blazing in the sunlight with head-dresses and breast-plates that are dazzling to behold and defy description. The smallest of birds, they are one of the most beautiful of the many ornaments of our fields and gardens.

In some islands of the south Pacific birds have been found that had never seen a man before, and allowed themselves to be picked up, and even had to be pushed out of peoples' way, it is said, yet they must have been very unlike the birds that are generally known, or they would have been more timid, even if they had not learned the fear of man.

THE LADY'S SLIPPER.

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

THIS interesting plant belongs to that remarkable family of orchids (Orchidaceæ) which includes over four hundred genera and five thousand species. They are especially noted for the great variety of shapes and colors of their flowers, many of them resembling beetles and other insects, monkey, snake, and lizard heads, as well as helmets and slippers, the latter giving rise to the name of the plant in our illustration. The variety, singular beauty, and delicate odor, as well as the peculiar arrangement of the parts of the flower, make many of the species of great financial value. This is also enhanced by the extreme care required in their cultivation, which must be accomplished in hothouses, for the majority of the more valuable forms are native only in the tropical forests. Many, too, are rarely found except as single individuals widely separated.

There are many parasitic species, and in the tropics a larger number attach themselves by their long roots to trees, but do not obtain their nourishment from them, while those belonging to temperate regions usually grow on the ground.

In the last sixty years the cultivation of orchids has become a passion in Europe and, to a great extent, in America.

It is said that "Linnæus, in the middle of the last century, knew but a dozen exotic orchids." To-day over three thousand are known to English and American horticulturists.

Though admired by all, the orchids are especially interesting to the scientist, for in their peculiar flowers is found an unusual arrangement to bring about cross-fertilization, so necessary to the best development of plant life. It is evident also, as shown by Dr. Charles Darwin, that this was not so in the earlier life of the family, but has been a gradual change, through centuries, by which the species have been better prepared to survive.

No other family of plants presents as much evidence of the provision in nature for the protection of species and their continuance by propagation.

Few of the orchids are of economic value to man. The most important ones, outside of a few used in medicine, are the vanillas, natives of tropical America and Africa.

The lady's slipper belongs to the genus Cypripedium (from two Greek words meaning Venus and a buskin, that is, Venus' slipper).

There are about forty species found in both temperate and tropical countries. The one used for our illustration is the "showy lady's slipper" (Cypripedium reginæ or spectabile) and is a native of eastern North America from Canada nearly to the Gulf of Mexico. It grows to a height of from one to three feet, and is leafy to the top. It grows in swamps and wet woods, and in many localities where it is extensively gathered for ornamental purposes it is being rapidly exterminated.

Those living before the era of modern investigation knew little of the functions of the various parts of flowers. We find an excellent illustration of this ignorance in the following peculiar account of a South American lady's slipper, written by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, father of Dr. Charles Darwin, in the latter part of the last century.

In his notes on his poem, "The Economy of Vegetation," he says: "It has a large globular nectary * * * of a fleshy color, and an incision or depression much resembling the body of the large American spider * * * attached to divergent slender petals not unlike the legs of the same spider." He says that Linnæus claims this spider catches small birds as well as insects, and adds: "The similitude of this flower to this great spider seems to be a vegetable contrivance to prevent the humming-bird from plundering its honey."

JIM AND I.

BY ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE.

WOULDN'T the little readers of Birds and All Nature enjoy a talk with a mother-bird? The father-bird, it seems to me, has done all the talking hitherto. Because he is handsome and can sing is no reason why Jim, my mate, should write up the history of his family. It would have been a sorry attempt had he tried, I promise you, for though he is a Hartz Mountain Canary—pure yellow and white like the lower bird in the picture—he is not at all clever. My mistress says I have more sense in one of my little toes than Jim has in his whole body.

"You cute little thing," she exclaims when I kiss her, or take a hemp seed from off her finger, "you are the dearest and wisest little bird in the world."

Jim sometimes taunts me because I wear such sober colors—black and brown with green and yellow mixed—like the upper bird in the picture—but I retort that I am a Hartz Mountain bird, also, and have just as good German blood in my veins as he has. Neither of us ever saw the Hartz Mountains, of course, for we were born in Chicago, but our great grandmothers did, I am sure.

A good husband? No, I can't say that Jim is. He is too quarrelsome. My mistress says he is a bully, whatever that may mean. He has a fashion of standing by the seed cup and daring me to come and pick up a seed; the same with the drinking-water and the bathing-dish. Then again he is very gracious, and calls me pet names, and sings at the top of his voice every love song he knows. Sometimes I try to imitate him, when he flies into a rage and sharply bids me "shut up." I am too meek to return the compliment, even when I have grown weary of his music, but my mistress shakes her finger at him and calls him a "naughty, naughty bird."

She can't tame Jim, all she may do. Few canary birds will resist a hemp seed when offered on a finger. My mistress used to crack them between her teeth and coax and coax him to take one, but he never would. That's the reason she calls him stupid, for we love hemp seed just as you little folks love peanuts, you know. That's the way she tamed me, and that's the way you can tame your canary if you have one.

I have had a rather eventful history for a bird. In the first place—but let me begin at the beginning and tell you the circumstance just as it happened.

It was about four years ago, so far as I can recollect, that I caught my first glimpse of the world and tasted the sweets of freedom. One balmy morning in June, I escaped from my cage, and the window being open, out I joyously flew into the bright sunshine. I was a little dazzled at first and frightened. How immense the world seemed! How far away the tender blue sky over which the fleecy clouds sailed, that sky which I had thought a mere patch when seen from my cage in the window! How many houses there were, and how inviting the green trees and grass-plots! I fairly danced with joy, and chirped, "I'm free, I'm free," as I flew from place to place, my wings, never tiring, bearing me from tree to housetop and from housetop to tree.

Ah, that was a day never to be forgotten. How I escaped the dangers which lurk about the steps of the unwary and innocent has always been a marvel to me. The hostile sparrows, for instance, the green-eyed, sharp-clawed cat, the sling-shot of the cruel boy, the—but why linger over horrors which might, but did not happen?

In this way the morning passed joyfully, the pangs of hunger, as noon approached, however, advising me sharply it was near dinner time. From housetop to housetop I flew, from tree to tree, but nowhere could I find a little china cup filled with rape, hemp, and canary seed, or a tiny glass vessel filled with water that I might slake my thirst.

What should I do? A bird brought up as I had been, I reflected, could never descend to work for a living, as the sparrows did, and other wild birds which I had met among the trees. Some of them ate insects—fact, I assure you—and one red-headed bird, wearing a coat of many gay colors, simply tapped and tapped on a tree with his hard bill whenever he wanted his dinner.

"Come in," said the bug, innocently, who was making his home between the bark and the tree, "come in."

Nobody appearing, the bug ventured out to see who his caller might be.

"Good morning," grinned the woodpecker, and then politely gobbled the poor bug up.

But I was not brought up that way. I could not eat bugs, neither could I rummage in the garbage boxes as the sparrows did. Oh, how unwise of me, and how ungrateful to run away from a home where my every need was faithfully served by a kind mistress. Like the prodigal I would return. Surely I would know the house, the very window from which I had fled. Yes, I would start at once, and off I flew in the direction which I thought I had come.

But, alas! how alike all the houses in that neighborhood seemed. Vainly did I fly down on many a window-sill and peer in. No mistress' face greeted me, no empty cage swung idly between the curtains. At length, faint from hunger and fatigue, I flew down and perched upon the railing of a porch where two ladies were sitting.

"You dear little thing," said one of the ladies—I want to say here that I am much smaller than the dark Hartz Mountain bird who sat for her picture—"I never saw a sparrow so tiny, or marked like you before."

"It's a canary, not a sparrow," said the other lady, "doubtless, somebody's lost pet," and she held out her hand, and chirped and talked to me very much like my lost mistress had done.

"Poor little wanderer," she at length said, as I looked at her, but made no effort to fly away, "I have an idea you came to us for food," and then she went into the house and shortly returned with a cage in the bottom of which she scattered seed, placing it upon the ground very close to me.

"Rape, hemp and canary," I chirped, "the seed I am used to," and down I at once flew, hopped into the cage, and, the next moment, was made prisoner.

Sorry?

Well, really I don't know. My period of freedom had been so brief, and attended with such anxiety and fear, that I hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. The next day, however, I knew that my lines had indeed fallen in pleasant places. My first mistress had been kind, but oh, how much more tender and thoughtful the new one proved to be!

"I was a helpless little creature," she said, "and upon her depended my entire comfort and happiness." Never for one day did she neglect me. Though my regular bill-of-fare was bird-seed, yet she varied it as she did her own. Cracker, lettuce, apples, grapes, cherries, sugar, and always in the summer, pepper-grass. If you little folks have a canary never fail, I beseech you, to give them of the latter all they want to eat. It costs nothing and may be gathered in any vacant lot fresh every day.

What pleasure so kind a mistress could find in keeping me in a little gilt cage, I could not see, for there were screens in the window, and even if there had not been I don't believe I should have cared to fly away. Something in my appearance one day suggested the thought to her, I am sure, for looking at me earnestly, she said:

"You are not happy, my birdie, I fear. Neither would I be, cooped up in a cage like that," and so she opened wide the door and out I flew, never to be a prisoner again—till, well, I will not speak of that just here, but keep it for the close.

What famous times we did have after that, to be sure. Whenever I felt lonesome down I'd fly upon the desk where my mistress sat writing. She would pretend not to see me till I had hopped upon the very sheet over which her pen was gliding.

"Why birdie!" she would then cry, as though very much astonished, and off I'd fly, as she made a dash for me, to the window where I would hide behind the ruffle of the sash curtain.

"Cheep, cheep," I'd cry, just as you little folks cry "whoop," when all is ready, "cheep, cheep."

"Where can my birdie be?" she would say after awhile, dropping her pen. "Where can she be?" and then she would look here and there, till presently approaching my hiding-place, out I'd fly, with a gurgle, into an adjoining room, where I'd again crouch behind the curtain. Between you and me I believe she knew all the time where I was hiding and only pretended to search for me here and there. Anyway it was capital fun, and I never tired of it, though mistress did.

"I can't play with you any more," she would say, "you quite tire me out," and then she would go to writing again and so our game of "hide and seek" would end for that day.

"Everything needs companionship," she said one morning to my master, "birds, children and men," and so that day he brought home a large wooden cage in which was as handsome a canary bird as you would want to see. That was Jim, and oh, how happy I was, when, a few days after, he asked me to be his mate. I said "yes," almost before he had got the song out of his mouth—I didn't know what a tyrant and bully he was till afterward, you know—and so we went pretty soon to housekeeping in the wooden cage.

My mistress understood what I wanted when she saw me picking up threads and pulling her chenille table cover to pieces, and so in one corner of the cage she put a nest made of wire and covered with a bit of muslin. Near by were little heaps of cotton-batting, wrapping-cord, and hair. Dear, dear, how busy I was for days! Jim, as I have said before, did nothing much but sing—and criticise. More than once I dragged all the furniture out of our wire home, because he thought I should have put the hair in first, and the cotton and strings in afterward. For a newly wedded couple, on their honeymoon so to speak, we did a vast amount of quarreling. The nest, however, was at last made cozy enough to suit us, and so one day I climbed in it and sat for quite a while. Then I called to Jim and I must say he seemed to be just as proud as I was of the little blue speckled egg which lay there so snug in the cotton. The next day but one I laid another, and then one every day till I had laid five. My, how I felt when I gathered them up close under me and sat down to brood. If all went well, after thirteen or fourteen days, we would have five dear birdlings. For fear the eggs might get chilled I left them only a few minutes at a time, hurriedly eating a few seeds, then back on the nest again. Jim could have helped me very much by brooding the eggs while I took exercise and my meals, but he was too selfish for that. All he did was to fly about and sing, bidding me to keep my spirits up. If it hadn't been for my mistress I should have fared badly, you may believe. She fed me crackers soaked in milk, cracked hemp seeds and placed them around the edge of the nest, besides other delicacies in the vegetable line too numerous to mention. When the birdlings were born Jim appeared to be very proud indeed. He couldn't sing long or loud enough, leaving me to feed the five gaping, pleading red mouths every day. Ah, no one knows better than a mother how much trouble and worry there is in bringing up a family. I'm sure I have had experience enough, for since that time I have had so many birdlings I can't count them. One season I had eighteen, three nests, and six in the nest each time. They were considered such fine birds that my mistress had no difficulty in selling them as soon as they learned to sing.

Now I am coming to a period the thought of which fills my heart with sorrow. For some reason that I am not able to tell you, my mistress concluded to part with me and Jim. She shed tears over it, I know, but nevertheless we felt ourselves being borne away one night, and in the morning, lo! we found ourselves in a large, bare room, on the floor of which was painted an immense ring or circle. I was sitting on six blue, speckled eggs at the time, and didn't mind it so much, but Jim was very cross and restless, for the cage door was fastened and he bitterly resented imprisonment. Alas! from that time forth we never were to know freedom again; from that time forth we had to accustom ourselves to many, many changes.

About nine o'clock the door of the room opened and in came a little girl, followed by a little boy. Then more little girls and boys, till I counted, as well as I could, seventeen. All one family? Oh, no, I'm not talking about bird families now. As many as could crowded about the cage and stared at me with wide-open eyes. The cage was on a low table so they could peep into the nest. Oh, how frightened I was. One little chap thrust his finger through the bars, and down I flew, leaving my precious eggs exposed. That was what they wanted, and oh how they did exclaim! I went back pretty soon, however, for I began to understand that they did not mean to harm me or the eggs either. However, it was many days ere I got over the feeling of fright when stared at by so many eyes, but by the time the birdlings were hatched out I had grown quite used to it. Indeed I felt somewhat proud of the interest those wee tots took in my babies, my manner of feeding them never failing to call forth cries of wonder and praise.

"She just chews up the seeds and swallows 'em," said a little chap one day, "then when the baby birds cry for something to eat she brings it up and stuffs it down their long throats with her bill. My! it's ever so much better than a spoon."

The teacher laughed and patted the little fellow on the head.

"That is your first lesson in nature-study, Victor," said she, and then a lady at the piano struck up a march and off they all trooped two by two.

"Where do you suppose we are?" crossly said Jim, hopping excitedly from one perch to another, "it looks like a lunatic asylum to me."

Jim, as I have stated before, is a very stupid bird. The words "lesson" and "nature-study" held no meaning for him.

"It seems to me," I said, watching the little tots marching with an observing eye, "that we are in a kindergarten."

"A kindergarten," echoed Jim, "what's that?"

"Why," I explained, "a school where young children are taught to love everything and everybody. Surely we have nothing to fear."

And so it turned out to be, a kindergarten, in which, I am proud to say, for purposes of nature-study, I have raised many and many a brood.

WHY AND WHEREFORE OF THE COLORS OF BIRDS' EGGS.

THE why and wherefore of the colors of birds' eggs, says Ernest Ingersoll, has been a favorite theme for speculation, from the quaint surmisings of Sir Thomas Browne to the solemn guess-work of Shufeldt, in his ten "biological laws explanatory of the variation in color of the shells of the eggs in class Aves."* Hewitson piously concludes that the beauty of these elegant and often exquisitely attractive objects is intended for the delight of human eyes; hence, as he says, eggs simply white are put out of sight in holes! He also sees in the larger number of eggs laid by game-birds a provision by a benevolent Providence for the joy of the sportsman and the delectation of the epicure. Next comes a man who assures us that the colors of eggs are due to the influence of their respective surroundings on the imagination of the hen birds—the old story of Jacob's little trick on Laban in the matter of young cattle. This school instances as an example the red blotches prevalent on the eggs of falcons, regarded by it as a record of the bloody experiences of the parents; but it does not explain why the equally rapacious owls produce pure white eggs, or the blood-thirsty skuas and shrikes lay greenish ones. Other equally fallacious theorizings might be noted.

TEA.
Camellia Thea Link.

DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER,
Northwestern University School of Pharmacy.

The gentle fair on nervous tea relies,

Whilst gay good nature sparkles in her eyes.

—Crabbe: "Inebriety."

THE highly esteemed drink referred to in the above lines is made from the leaves and very young terminal branches of a shrub known as Camellia Thea. The shrub is spreading, usually two or three meters high, though it may attain a height of nine or ten meters. It has smooth, dark-green, alternate, irregularly serrate-dentate, lanceolate to obovate, blunt-pointed, simple leaves. The young leaves and branches are woolly owing to the presence of numerous hair-cells. The flowers are perfect, solitary or in twos and threes in the axils of the leaves. They are white and rather showy. Some authors state that they are fragrant, while others state that they are practically odorless. Stamens are numerous. The ovary is three-celled, with one seed in each cell, which is about the size of a cherry seed.

The tea-plant is no doubt a native of India, upper Assam, from whence it was early introduced into China, where it is now cultivated on an immense scale. It is, however, also extensively cultivated in various parts of India, in Japan, Java, Australia, Sicily, Corea, and other tropical and subtropical countries and islands. It is also cultivated to some extent in the southern United States, as in Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and California, but apparently without any great success. The plant is extensively grown in green-houses and conservatories on account of its beauty.

According to a Japanese myth the tea plant originated as follows: A very pious follower of Buddha, Darma, vowed that he would pray without ceasing. He had prayed for some years when finally the Evil One over-powered him and he fell asleep. When he awoke he felt so chagrined and humiliated that he cut off both his eyelids and threw them from him. From the spot where they fell grew two plants endowed with the property of dispelling sleep. Chinese writers maintain that priests of Buddha introduced the plant from India. Some authorities are inclined to believe that the plant is a native of China; others, that it was brought from Corea to China about the ninth century.

Tea-drinking was supposed to have been discovered by a servant of Emperor Buttei, 150 B. C., but concerning this there is much uncertainty. It is said to have been in use in Japan as early as 729 of our era. The first definite information about tea-consumption in China dates from the year 1550, when a Persian merchant brought tea from that country to Venice. At a little later period we find tea mentioned in various letters and documents of travelers and merchants, yet it is evident that it was a costly and rare article as late as 1660. In 1664 the East India Company presented the queen of England with two pounds of tea. In fact, it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century and later that tea began to be used in different parts of Europe. During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century tea-houses were established in various cities of Europe, especially in England. At the present time tea-houses, like coffee-houses, have become practically extinct in civilized countries, but that does not imply that tea-drinking and coffee-drinking are on the wane. Among the English and Slavs tea-parties are all the rage. The favorite Gesellschaft Kaffee, coffee-party, of German housewives indicates that they give coffee the preference. The biggest tea-party on record was doubtless the so-called Boston Tea Party, at which tea valued at £18,000 sterling was destroyed.

In spite of the tropical origin of the plant the largest quantities of tea are consumed in northern countries, notably in Russia and Asiatic Russia. Large quantities are consumed in England and the United States.

Most authorities are agreed that the different kinds of tea on the market are derived from the same species of plant. Some admit a variety C. Thea var. viridis. The following are the principal teas of the market and the manner of their preparation:

1. Green Tea. After collecting the leaves are allowed to lie for about two hours in warmed pans and stirred and then rolled upon small bamboo tables, whereupon they are further dried upon hurdles and again in heated pans for about one hour, accompanied by stirring. The leaves now assume a bluish-green color, which is frequently enhanced by adding Prussian blue or indigo. Of these green teas the most important are Gunpowder, Twankay, Hyson, Young Hyson, Hyson skin, Songla, Soulang, and Imperial.

2. Black Tea. The leaves are allowed to lie in heaps for a day, when they are thoroughly shaken and mixed. After another period of rest, two to three days, they are dried and rolled much as green tea. In the storing process the leaves undergo a fermentation which develops the aroma and the dark color. The following are the principal varieties: Campoe, Congou, Linki-sam, Padre Souchon (caravan tea), Pecoe, Souchong, and Bohe.

In some countries the teas are scented with jasmine flowers or orange flowers. This is, however, no longer extensively practiced. The essentially Chinese custom of coloring teas with Prussian blue, gypsum, and indigo is dying out, at least so far as the export trade is concerned, because intelligent civilized consumers are beginning to prefer the uncolored teas. Competent authorities maintain that there is not enough of the coloring substances added to be harmful. The workmen preparing the better qualities of tea are not permitted to eat fish, as the very enduring and penetrating fish-flavor would be transmitted to the tea in the thorough handling. It seems, however, that a more or less distinct fishy flavor is perceptible in many teas, even the better qualities.

Tea-dust consists of remnants from tea-chests, dust from the working tables upon which the leaves are rolled—in fact, tea-refuse of all kinds. It is certainly not a desirable article. Besides true tea there are leaves and other parts of a great variety of plants which have been used as tea. To enumerate and describe these would be impracticable in this paper. The following are a few of the more important: Paraguay tea, or maté, is highly esteemed in South America. The Coreans prepare tea from ginger. The poor Siberians use cabbage leaves. Teas are made from the leaves of a great variety of herbs which are supposed to have medicinal or stimulating properties similar to those of tea. Peppermint tea and chamomile tea are greatly esteemed in certain localities.

Concerning the adulteration of tea there seems to be considerable difference of opinion, some authorities maintaining that adulteration is common, while others maintain that it is very rare, indeed. There is, however, little doubt that used tea is frequently redried, rerolled, and resold as good tea. Willow leaves, strawberry leaves, and mulberry leaves are said to be added occasionally.

Every housewife knows that good tea is expensive. Since the different teas are all from the same species of plant why should there be such a difference in price? The expensive teas consist of the very young leaves and terminal branches and are carefully dried and prepared under special supervision. The young leaves and branches have a more delicate flavor. To determine whether a sample of tea consists of young leaves or not soak it in water, carefully roll out the leaves, and measure them. If the majority of leaves measure an inch or more in length it is a poor quality. It must be remembered that even fair medium qualities are mixed; that is, they consist of mature and immature leaves. The best and most expensive teas are often sold at one hundred dollars per pound. They are never exported, but consumed by high Chinese officials. Imperial tea is prepared under the direct supervision of royal government officials.

Tea owes its stimulating properties to an active constituent known as thein, which is in all respects similar to caffein, the active constituent of coffee. The flavor which is developed by the drying process is due to several constituents. Besides these substances tea also contains considerable tannin. Tea consumed in moderate quantities is beneficial rather than otherwise. Its injurious properties are due to the tannin, which affects digestion. If consumed in large quantities for a long time the thein causes nervousness and the tannin causes various dyspeptic conditions. In China some chew the leaves treated with arsenic to improve the complexion. The whitening of the complexion is, however, due to the arsenic and not the tea.

Tea is prepared in different ways in different countries, nevertheless the preparation of a good cup of tea is comparatively simple, leaving out of consideration the many paraphernalia used by different nations and which really have no effect except that upon the imagination. The following is Emperor Kien Lung's (1680) recipe for making tea, and which is frequently found upon Chinese tea cups: "Over a moderate fire place a vessel with three feet, showing by its color and form that it has been much used; fill with clear water of melted snow and heat it until the water will turn a fish white or a lobster red. Pour this water into a cup containing the leaves of a select variety of tea; allow it to stand until the first rising vapors, which form a dense cloud, become gradually less and float over the surface as a faint mist. Drink this precious liquid slowly and thou wilt find it a powerful dissipator of the five sorrows which disturb our minds. The sweet and peaceful rest which we owe to this drink we may taste and feel, but may not describe." This recipe, although two hundred years old, has not been improved upon. Stated in a little simpler form the recipe would read: In a cup with good tea leaves pour clean boiling water and allow to stand five or six minutes; decant and drink slowly.

Tea leaves should never be infused for a long time for several reasons. The flavor dissipates and the objectionable tannin is more and more extracted, imparting to the tea astringency and a bitterness, which are not only disagreeable to the taste but also cause indigestion and constipation. After the tea is prepared as indicated it may be taken hot or cold, with or without sugar, with or without cream or milk. Iced tea, with a little lemon juice added, is a delicious drink for hot weather. It is cooling besides having a tendency to check excessive perspiration. Tea has also been found valuable as a wash for inflammation of the eyes.

In conclusion, I wish to refer the reader to an article in the July number of the Cosmopolitan on "Tea-drinking in many lands," by Laura B. Starr, in which are related many interesting customs relative to the use and preparation of tea.

Explanation of plate: A, flowering branch, nearly natural size; 1, flower in section; 2, stamen; 3, ovary in transverse section; 4, pistil; 5 and 6, fruit, with seed; 7, seed; 8, seed in sections.

THE TOWHEE; CHEWINK.
(Pipilo erythrophthalmus.)

BY LYNDS JONES.

THE home of my childhood and early youth nestles in one of the gems of woodland which are so characteristic of the rolling prairies of central Iowa. This hundred-acre grove covers five main hills, with their valleys and the lesser runs which divide each of the five hills into two, three, or four lesser hills. The hills radiate in a semicircle to the north and west from the height on which the old home stands, rolling away to the creek which bathes their feet. Here are tall, heavy woods, without underbrush, covering the north slopes; lower, more open woods with patches of plum, and wild crab apple trees, with some hazel brush on all lower slopes of the hills; and finally a liberal fringe of low, brushy trees—hawthorn, plum and crab apple trees—and dense hazel brush on the uplands and on lower lands away from the creek. This dense growth also fringes the county road which extends from end to end of the grove, and it was from this roadside that towhee first heralded his arrival from the south, during the bright days of late March or early April. Later, when the frost had left the ground, and his mate was growing anxious to be selecting a nesting-place, he might be seen on the topmost twig of one of the taller small trees in every brushy place on every hillside. I have sometimes wondered if the towhee household did not have some disagreement about the family name, for the male, from his elevated perch loudly calls towhee-e-e-e, while his spouse on the ground below no less vigorously reiterates che-wink. But if danger seems to threaten his lordship quickly descends to join his mate in earnest warning that this small bit of earth belongs by right of discovery to che-wink. How earnestly both birds emphasize their claim by the nervous fluff of the short, stiff wings and the quick spreading of the long tail, as if the large patches of white at its end would startle the intruder away. But the male bird does not always confine himself to the iteration of the name he seems to love so well. Instead of the single first syllable there may be two or even three, no two in the same pitch. It has been a surprise to me that persons unfamiliar with the towhee's song do not realize that the two parts proceed from the same bird. To them the first part seems to resemble some part of the wood thrush's song and the last part—the he-e-e-e—the rattle of downy woodpecker. My ear persistently renders the whole song, towhee-e-e-e, or towhe-hee-e-e-e-e, or O towhe-he-e-e-e-e-e. Others render it chuck burr pilla-will-a-will. But towhee is not limited to this variety of vocalization. Besides the abbreviation of his che-wink alarm note to swink, or even wink, and a chuck, chuck, when the nest is threatened, he sometimes sings a rarely beautiful ditty which is totally unlike any of his other performances. I have heard it only shortly after his arrival from the south, before his mate had joined him, and have tried in vain to describe it. The bird moves slowly and sedately about among the fallen leaves in a soliloquy over the happenings of the long journey just ended, with apparently no thought of the absent mate. The manner of its utterance indicates that this is the bird's private song, egotistic if you please, while his tree-top rendition is evidently his altruistic performance.

The ordinary song and call and alarm notes are well rendered in the local names bestowed upon the bird: Towhee, che-wink, joreet, joree, charee, pink-pink, and wink-wink. His chestnut-colored sides and lowly habits have given him the names of ground robin and swamp robin, and his red iris, red-eyed towhee.

Nesting begins about the first of May in northern Ohio. The nest is almost always placed on the ground, often in a slight depression made by the birds, rarely in a bush up to seven feet from the ground. It is made of material easily accessible in the region of the nest, of dry leaves for a foundation upon which plant stems, dry grass, grape-vine bark, or like material is arranged, and the whole lined with fine rootlets. The material will vary somewhat with locality and situation of the nest, as a matter of course. Rarely the nest may be covered, with the entrance in the side, but it is usually not covered. The nest site is preferably some distance from a road or foot-path, often in moderately deep woods where there is little underbrush, but more often in the shrubbery fringing the woods, either on a hill-top or side hill or bottom land. Here at Oberlin, Ohio, I have found more nests in the low second growth near swampy places than elsewhere.

The nest complement is from three to five eggs, usually four. The egg seems to be a rather rounded ovate, running to nearly spherical on the one hand to elongate oval on the other. The ground color is white, not seldom tinged with pink or blue, with sprinkling of reddish-brown dots, spots, and blotches. It is a common experience to find eggs of the parasitic cowbird in nests of towhee. Twice I have found nests on which the mother towhee was serenely sitting with four eggs of the cowbird beneath her and none of her own. Two eggs of the cowbird and two or three of the towhee in a nest are common. Sometimes the parasitic eggs so closely resemble those of the parent that it is not easy to distinguish between them, but often the difference is very marked.

The towhee is a fairly common inhabitant of the whole region east of the Rocky Mountains and north to the northern border of the United States, breeding everywhere north of northern Alabama.

WEE BABIES.

ELLA F. MOSBY.

THE past summer I saw the most charming baby-bird of my life. He was so tiny and silvery, his upper feathers such a lovely olive-green and the under plumage such soft white, and over the bright, innocent little eyes a beautiful curving line like an eyebrow. I did not at first recognize him, but the next day I saw two, probably of the same flock, hunting very industriously over an old tree, and I knew they were the young red eyed vireos. Their feathers were all new and fresh, and that made them look so silvery and the tints seem so clear.

The same summer I became very well acquainted with a different set of bird-babies. They were still younger, for their feathers had a soft, downy look, and fluffed out so that they really looked larger than their tiny parents. They were silver gray, the little blue-gray gnat-catchers, and nothing could be more charming than the way they twinkled about the bushes, or turned somersaults in the air to catch flying insects on the wing. Their little songs, as low as whispers, their call-notes "like a banjo-string" ting! and even their low scoldings, were very pretty, and seemed to belong to them perfectly. Someone, who did not know birds very well called them little wrens, and they really had a good many of the restless movements and alert attitudes of these birds, but their habits are totally different. For instance, their life begins in a lichened cup high up among the top boughs and it is only in the late summer, when birds break their rules and go as they please for a brief holiday time before the migration, that you will see the gnat-catchers come down to the low bushes. I can hardly believe it myself, but I once saw a young one picking away on the ground.

One charm about the tiny birds, gnat-catchers, chebecks, vireos, kinglets, and the like, is that they are not usually so shy as large, handsome birds, and I have often had them almost within touch, singing, feeding, preening their feathers, in the loveliest and most confiding way.

WISH-TON-WISH.

EMMA M. GREENLEAF.

ONE bright May morning Wish-ton-wish sat on the mound in front of his family burrow. Wish-ton-wish was a lively young prairie-dog and he wanted to talk with someone.

Presently Madam Talky came out of her burrow and ran up to the top of her mound.

"Good-morning," called out Wish-ton-wish; but Madam Talky did not even turn her head his way. I dare say she thought to herself, "Humph! A chit of a fellow like that isn't worth my time."

Now Wish-ton-wish was an only boy in a family where there were five other children, so that he had come to believe, as only sons often do, that he was wise enough to talk with a very Solomon of prairie-dogs. The silence of Madam Talky didn't hurt his feelings in the least. Presently he called out again and this time with greater tact: "How are your charming daughters this morning?"

O, you should have seen the change in Mrs. Talky. She turned her whole face toward Wish-ton-wish now and fairly beamed upon him.

"Very well, indeed, thank you," she answered; "you must call to see us."

And this time I dare say she thought to herself, "Why, I can hardly realize that the young fellow is about grown up; how fine he looks, too; his family must have great confidence in him to let him be sentinel when he is so young."

Wish-ton-wish thanked her politely for the invitation, and said that perhaps he might call that afternoon.

"Have you heard that Mr. Grizzle Prairie Dog has been found?" asked Madam Talky.

"No, where?" said Wish-ton-wish.

"O, in a very strange place," madam answered.

"It was Mr. Talky that found him. At least we feel pretty sure that he did. It was this way: Mr. Talky often has attacks of dyspepsia, and last night he ate so much timothy hay for his supper that he had to run back and forth in our burrows for exercise, ever so long before he went to bed. He put his head out at the end of the longest burrow to see if the moon was full and there stood two boys with a gun and a dead hawk. He heard them say they wanted the hawk for a 'collection.' Then one of them said, 'Wish we could have shot it before it caught that prairie-dog.' Mr. Talky was so dreadfully startled that he whirled round and fairly flew back through the burrow to his nest, but we feel sure it was Mr. Grizzle that the hawk had caught."

"How many enemies our race has!" said Wish-ton-wish with a sigh. "Have you told Mrs. Grizzle the sad news?"

"Yes, I told her before sunrise this morning; but she's got used to it now and doesn't feel so bad. He had been missing two days, you know. I saw her going after clover with Mr. Reddy Prairie Dog. You remember Mrs. Reddy was eaten up by a coyote last week."

"Dear me, dear me," sighed Wish-ton-wish again, "how many enemies our race has!"

Just then there came a warning yelp from a sentinel some distance away. Madam Talky and Wish-ton-wish and every other prairie-dog in sight echoed the yelp and then each one of them leaped into his burrow like a flash. They must have turned a double-quick somersault, for, like another flash there were the little heads and bright eyes looking out at the very openings where their tails had vanished an instant before. Scores of curious little faces were peering out and their owners were anxious to know what made the first prairie-dog call out, "Danger, danger!"

Again came several quick calls from the distant sentinel; then all the little animals disappeared into their burrows.

No, not quite all of them. Way over on Last street there was an exciting scene. Mr. Silence Prairie Dog sat upright in front of his door fairly shaking all over with anger. His body shook, his tail shook, his head shook, and he yelped and barked—turned and popped into his burrow—turned again and popped out of his burrow in the same instant, and acted like one going crazy.

No wonder! Crawling slowly along through the short, dry grass, came a large rattlesnake. Nearer and nearer it glided to the door of the burrow. When it was almost there, Mr. Silence Prairie Dog keeled into his house, the snake slid after him, and then silence fell.

That night the village heard the rest of the story—how Mr. and Mrs. Silence Prairie Dog bit at the rattlesnake with their sharp teeth and scratched at him with their sharp claws, but could not drive him out of their nest where lay two baby prairie dogs. These two he ate for his dinner and then lay down in the deep, soft, warm nest of dried grass. How Mother Silence crept back after a long time and found the greedy old snake lying dead. Yes, truly; killed by the fierce bites of Mr. and Mrs. Silence.

Now all these sad affairs made young Wish-ton-wish quite blue.

Besides, when he went that afternoon to call on the Talky misses, he found that the plumpest one had gone after timothy with another young fellow. All at once he made up his mind that life was a failure and that he would run away from home.

When the prairie-dog folk found out that he was gone they were very sorry. They felt sure he had been eaten by some bird of prey or by a sly coyote.

"He was so wise and so handsome and so brave," said his mother; "there was no young fellow in the village who could be named in the same day with Wish-ton-wish."

Most everybody praised him now that he was dead, or now that they thought he was. I wonder if it isn't rather a poor plan to wait until people are dead or far away before we say the kind things that might have made them happy when they were near?

"We must not neglect our duties even in sorrow," said the father. "It is going to rain. Let us go out and put our mound into good order so that the water may not run into our burrows." They worked with a will, and found out, as everyone always does, that nothing helps sorrow and trouble so quickly as hard work.

When morning came the very first one to be out of a burrow was Wish-ton-wish's mother. Perhaps she had not slept any all night.

She went up to the top of the mound, then stood still with astonishment and joy; for there, on the other side of it, was Wish-ton-wish, hard at work. He was patting and smoothing the sides and making them even after the rain.

"O, where have you been all night, Wish-ton-wish?" cried his mother.

"I went over to the next village; I thought they might not have so many troubles as we have and perhaps I'd stay. But they have even more, mother; they have snakes and hawks and owls and coyotes and men, for yesterday some men came there with a great tank of water and poured five barrels into one burrow. They said they were making an 'experiment.' Of course they couldn't drown anybody because the burrows run down and up in every direction. So I thought I'd come home again."

"My son," said his mother, "you have learned a wise lesson. It is of no use to run away from trouble, hoping to find a place where there isn't any. Trouble comes everywhere; and so does happiness."

"Yes, mother; I believe it," said Wish-ton-wish, and he looked with soft eyes over toward the burrow of the plumpest Miss Talky.

THE BEE AND THE FLOWER.

MRS. G. T. DRENNAN.

VIRGIL, in his "Pastorals," beautifully alludes to the industry of the bee in culling its sweets from the flower. Perhaps we do not definitely know more of the mystery of the flower's secreting the nectar, and of the bee's making the honey, than was known in ancient times. There are differences of opinion on the subject. Darwin considers the honey secreted by the nectary to be the natural food with which the stamens and pistils are nourished. Others assert that the only use of honey with which flowers are supplied is to tempt insects, which, in procuring it, scatter the dust of the anthers and fertilize the flowers, and even carry the pollen from barren to fertile flowers. Linnæus considered the nectary a separate organ from the corolla; and every part of the flower which was neither stamen, pistil, calyx, nor corolla, he called a nectary; but what he called nectaries are at present regarded as modifications of some part of the flower; in some cases a prolongation of the petals, and in others an inner row of petals, or modified stamens adhering to the corolla. The term disk is now applied to whatever appendages appear between the stamen and pistil, formerly called nectaries. The form of the honey sac, or nectary, differs with different flowers. In the lily it is a mere cavity, or gland. In the honeysuckle a golden fluid is secreted at the end of the tube, without the sac. Few things in nature can be more beautiful than the nectary and the honey drops in the crown imperial. Each one is a shallow cup and pearly white. From each cup hangs a shining drop, like a tear. The tint of the cup gives the drop its hue and each one looks a splendid pearl fastened in the crown of each of the flowers of the crown imperial which, hanging down, only display the pearly honey drops when we look up into the flower. The buttercup is one of the most interesting flowers that secrete nectar. It belongs to the Ranunculus, or crowfoot family, which numbers many wild and some of the choicest of cultivated flowers. The nectar-cups are under the petals, and the mission of the flowers seems to be to feed the bees. It is well known that beyond the realm of romance and poetry the buttercup is a plant abhorred by the cow that gives the milk that makes the butter. The lovely yellow color of the buttercup no doubt suggested the name. Apiarists know that certain kinds of flowers make certain grades of honey. They know also that while the bee makes its honey from the flower, it will also make honey from sugar and molasses. The drainings of molasses casks are given the bee for winter food, and it is one of the unsolved mysteries how the bee makes its honey. The nectar in the flower is not honey. The bee makes the honey from what is abstracted from the flower, and also preserves life and makes honey from sweets that are given it for food. Buckwheat is an example of dark, rich honey and white clover and raspberry blooms of clear, translucent honey. Also the fact is, that abstracting the nectar in no wise impairs the beauty nor the fruitfulness of the flower. Instance the rich, productive buckwheat, how profusely it yields its flower; and raspberries ripen sweet and juicy from vines that have had the bees hovering over the snowy blooms from the time they open till the berries form. Honey bees are not always safe in their selection of flowers to feed upon, for Xenophon, in his "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," describes the honey of Trebizond as having produced the effect of temporary madness, or drunkenness, upon the whole army. Mr. Abbott, writing from the same country in 1833, says he witnessed the same effects of honey upon those partaking of it as Xenophon describes.

This would indicate that the honey undergoes some chemical change in the making, as the bees, in these instances, were not injured by the flowers, yet the honey they made from them was injurious to man.

THE CANARY.
(Serinus canarius.)

C. C. M.

THIS favorite singer and cage bird is a native of the Canary Islands, Madeiras, Azores and other small islands near the western coast of Africa. The islands are in the latitude of Florida and the climate may be said to be of a tropical character, though varied by lofty mountains. The canary in its native habitat is chiefly found in the mountainous districts, often several thousand feet above the level of the sea. The wild birds mate about the latter part of March. The nest is built in the tall trees of the evergreen species, frequently in the tops of these trees, and never less than eight or ten feet from the ground. We have seen it stated that they build on the ground, but this has been found to be an error.

The first canaries known to Europeans were brought from there by a merchant ship trading with the Canary Islands as a part of her cargo, several thousand of these birds having been trapped in the hope that they could be sold for a good price as song-birds. The ship was wrecked near the coast of Italy, but by the thoughtfulness of a sailor the cage containing the birds was opened and the birds liberated. They flew at once to the nearest point of land, which happened to be the island of Elba. The climate was so propitious that the canaries multiplied rapidly. In a very short time their superiority as songsters attracted attention and their domestication followed. The shipwreck referred to occurred early in the sixteenth century. The Italians were the first to breed these birds, and they were by them shipped to Russia, Germany, Belgium, and England. They were first described in an English book on natural history in 1610. The rage for breeding the canary with home birds became curiously popular and resulted in a curious intermixture of colors. In Italy they were bred with the citril and serin; in Germany with the linnet, green finch, and siskin. Mr. C. N. Page says, in his "Feathered Pets," a very valuable book for bird fanciers, that in an English book published in 1709 there are twenty-eight varieties of canaries mentioned, comprising nearly all those known at the present time and some which have become extinct. The climate has also had much to do with the change of color in these birds. The canary, which in its native home at Teneriffe is almost brown, becomes yellow and sometimes nearly white after being bred a few years in France, and it has been observed by naturalists that the winter fur of animals and feathers of birds become thicker and lighter in color in proportion to the coldness of the climate which they inhabit.

In England and Germany canary societies have existed for upwards of a century, and annual shows or exhibitions are held with prizes offered for the best birds.

Of the many varieties of canaries the most popular in the United States is the German. It is smaller than the English canary and is a much finer singer, being bred and trained for song and not for size. They are called Hartz Mountain canaries, and experts consider them the most satisfactory bird for the people. They are bred by the peasants in ordinary living-rooms high up among the Hartz Mountains of Germany. These birds are even more hardy than the American-bred canaries. They are brilliant singers. We had one for five years, and while its voice was wonderfully clear, full, and musical, it was too loud and was not admired by our neighbors. The shrill and piercing note of some of this species renders them somewhat objectionable as house pets. The birds are happy in the cage, require very little care, and if properly attended to are said to be free from diseases. Most of the Hartz Mountain canaries are somewhat mottled with dark, greenish-brown, though many of the birds are clear yellow, and few have crests. In the canary-breeding section of Germany, almost every family keeps a few cages of these birds, or has a room devoted to their breeding. The German people are very fond of birds and there are many of them in the United States who have many cages of rare specimens.

Milwaukee supplies the United States with the bulk of the Hartz Mountain canaries, and there is no great crime in the deception, for the Milwaukee bird is really an improvement on the imported article, having just as fine a voice and being much hardier.

Experience has shown that the imported singer loses the power of transmitting his voice to the young after passing through an American winter. This is the case also, it is said, with Tyrolean singers who come to this country, their voices losing the peculiar yodling quality when they have been here a year. The native canary is hardier than the imported one, and, with proper training, is every bit as good a singer.

Before they are mated the hen birds are kept in separate cages in the music room, carefully fed and made to listen to the music of the singers and the machine used in training their voices. In this way the hen is enabled to transmit the best musical quality to her offspring. The music-room is a large one, with a south exposure, and is kept with the same scrupulous neatness as the breeding-room. In the corner of this room is the bird organ, and with it the little birds are given their vocal training.

When the machine is started the notes emitted are wonderfully like the song of the untutored canary. These notes are known to bird-trainers by the term pfeiffen. Gradually the whistle strikes onto a different line. It is an improvement over the pfeiffen, and is called the klingel rolle. A higher step still is called the klingel, and a still higher step hohl klingel. Lastly comes what is called hol rollen, and a bird whose voice has been developed up to that point is worth $50 in the market any day.

In this country there are only three importers of canaries. Each of these firms employs "bird-pickers" who travel over the mountains in Germany and gather together a supply of birds which are selected from the stocks of the small breeders.

There are several varieties of English canaries. The Norwich is a general favorite. It takes its name from the city of Norwich, where for generations it has been bred and cultivated. It has a brilliant, deep, reddish-yellow plumage. It is regarded as the most beautiful of all the canaries. Its color is frequently so dark that it is called the red canary. This color is produced artificially by feeding them during the moulting season a large amount of cayenne pepper mixed with hard boiled egg and cracker crumbs.

Canaries have many pretty ways and can be taught many pretty tricks. One that belonged to the writer had been deprived of its feet. Its wing feathers never grew out, hence it could not fly or perch and was obliged to stump about on the floor like an old veteran on his crutch. But it was healthy and vigorous, and so pugnacious that on our return, after the day's absence, it would fly at us, or try to, poor thing, and peck our outstretched fingers, even while taking offered hemp seed greedily. The bird watched and waited for our coming and we became so much attached to it that its death was a real loss.

The little birds can fill our hearts

As full as larger creatures' arts.

The nest of the canary is a pretty, neatly formed structure of any soft material it can find. Five bluish eggs are usually laid, and three or four broods are raised between February and September, though the female will sometimes persist in building until much later.

THE PAROQUET.

"I AM SO SORRY," wrote a little girl from Tarrytown, N. Y., to the editor of Birds and all Nature, "not to find in your magazine any more the bird-talks to the little folks. I used to read them with so much interest. Are there to be no more of them?"

Other little folks have written to the editor in much the same strain, so that this month the paroquet will speak for himself.

"From my photograph," he says; "you will notice that I am fond of gay dress, green, blue, yellow, orange-chrome, and red being my favorite colors. From my brilliant coat you would judge me to be a tropical bird, but I'm not. I was born and raised in the United States, as was my family, therefore I am an American citizen.

"In appearance I greatly resemble my cousin, the glib-tongued parrot, but for some reason, though my tongue is thick and short like his, and my bill as charmingly curved, I cannot talk—that is, not to be understood by the human family, I mean, for among ourselves we keep up a very lively conversation, in very loud tones—a mark we think, as do some other folk, of good breeding. On the other hand there are people unreasonable enough not to like it, and they say we 'scream' and that our notes are 'ear-splitting' and that, though we are beautiful to look upon and extremely docile, our voices render us undesirable as cage birds or pets. The idea! As though we do not consider that very fortunate!—for a cage is a prison, no matter if the bars are gilded. For my part I prefer to be free even if I do have to hustle for a living and, between you and me, I think that a bird that can screech and doesn't screech when shut up in a little cage doesn't deserve to live. He ought to be killed and stuffed and set up in a museum for people to gape at. Don't you think so, too?

"It is a great pity, but we paroquets are fast being exterminated. In some regions, where less than twenty-five years ago we were very plentiful, not a paroquet is now to be seen. We were once quite common in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and other parts of the United States. We are now to be found, in diminished numbers, in remote localities only of the lower Mississippi Valley and the Gulf States and in some regions of Florida. To escape from our enemy, the plume-hunter, we make our homes in practically uninhabitable regions. That is a long word for you little folks, but spell it out slowly, as I did, and you will understand what it means.

"Our nesting-time is during February and March. Then colonies of us paroquets, sometimes numbering a thousand, flock to a cypress swamp and build our flimsy nests in forks of trees, near the end of a slender, horizontal branch. Often there are fifty nests in one small tree, each containing from four to five pretty, greenish-white eggs. It is a good thing we build our nests in wild and unsettled places, for they are so flimsy that the eggs are plainly visible from beneath. What a temptation to the bad boy they would be, and to the bad man, also! Some paroquets, however, choose a hollow tree in which to deposit their eggs.

"Well, I have told you about all I know of myself and family, so will close by reciting in my very loudest and prettiest screech, so that all the neighborhood may hear, a few lines about a Mr. Macaw who was silly enough, after escaping from a cage, to return to it. He is a cousin of mine, a distant cousin, for he was born in South America; but he wears the same colored coat and vest as I do, his tongue is just as thick, and his bill curves like a parrot's, also:

MR. MACAW'S LESSON.

'Mr. Macaw was tired of his cage—

Too much of a prison for home;

Mr. Macaw was in a great rage,

And so he settled to roam.

The cage-door was open, the window too

(Strange chance, both open together!),

So he took his chance and away he flew;

But, alas! it was wintry weather.

Wind from the north, ground covered with rime,

A frost that made your limbs shiver;

Poor Mr. Macaw! this was not like the clime

On the banks of the Amazon River.

So Mr. Macaw grew wise, as do men,

When taught by experience bitter;

He flew back to his cage, and determined then

He would never again be a flitter.'"

THE CAROLINA PAROQUET.
(Conurus carolinensis.)

BY LYNDS JONES.

FEW birds indeed can lay claim to such beautiful and varied dress as our native paroquet. But for this dress and for certain habits which will be spoken of more particularly a little later, he has had to pay a most severe penalty. Once an abundant bird over the whole southeastern portion of the country, ranging commonly as far north as southern Ohio and Illinois, and sometimes even as far north as southern Michigan and New York, and as far west as eastern Colorado, his numbers and range have been reduced to a few individuals in the wilds of the Indian Territory and the adjacent parts of Texas, and the fastnesses of the Florida swamps. The region over which he ranged so numerously in advance of civilization, suffers a distinct loss in his extermination.

It is hardly fair to lay the blame for the disappearance of this bird solely at the door of the plume-hunters and collectors, for it must be admitted that the paroquet was a real menace to the fruit-grower and farmer when he was abundant. Even his extreme fondness for the fruit of the cockle-bur, thistle, and a few other noxious plants, could hardly atone for the complete ruin of the apple crop, or his serious inroads upon the wheat or corn field. One could not stand tamely by while a flock of these birds, with all their beauty, stripped his orchard of every blossom and bud.

The food of the paroquet was entirely vegetable, consisting of the seed of the cockle-bur, as already stated, sycamore and cypress seed, pecan and beech nuts, the fruit of the pawpaw, mulberries, wild grapes and various other wild fruits as well as cultivated fruits, the seeds of pine cones and the burgrass. Grains of various kinds were eaten while in the milk, and Mr. Frank M. Chapman found them eating the seeds of thistles. So varied a diet enabled these birds to pass the winter in the northern parts of their range as well as farther south. It has been stated that paroquets have been found hibernating in hollow trees in the coldest winters. If they were actually found in such places they were undoubtedly simply taking refuge from some severe storm, to issue forth again when it had passed.

The paroquet's strong, hooked beak was probably so formed for the cutting of stems and husks of plants and the crushing of seeds and nuts, but he also finds it useful in climbing about trees as an aid to his yoked feet, and as a partial support while he sleeps in some hollow tree, the bill being hooked over a projection or into a convenient crevice.

Major Charles E. Bendire describes the flight as undulating, like that of the woodpeckers, but very swift, accompanied by a continuous chattering while on the wing. The birds remain together in flocks of from six to twenty individuals (before they became so scarce, by hundreds), and are very devoted to each other. The cries of a wounded companion will always recall the whole flock to his aid, thus enabling the hunter to kill every bird in the flock. It is this characteristic, no doubt, which has very largely caused the rapid disappearance of the birds before advancing civilization.

The nesting-habits of the paroquet are in some doubt, but the evidence seems to indicate that the birds may rear their brood either in a cavity in a tree or build a slight nest after the fashion of the mourning-dove. Such nests seem to be largely confined to the cypress swamps of Florida. The eggs, several of which have been secured from birds in confinement, are pure glossy white, smooth, and rather ovate in shape, somewhat larger than those of the mourning-dove, and averaging 1.39 × 1.07 of an inch.

These birds seem to nest in colonies, a fact which led Major Bendire to suggest that when the colonies were very large the birds were forced to build open nests from a lack of suitable nesting-places in cavities.

The cry is described as "shrill and disagreeable, a kind of grating, metallic shriek." One call resembles the shrill cry of a goose. They sometimes give utterance to low conversational notes while perched.

It seems almost incredible that scarcely more than half a century has witnessed the passing of a once abundant species of our native bird. Like the bison, the paroquet has been swept away by the rushing tide of progress, leaving only fading memories where once they were characteristic features of the landscape. We may congratulate ourselves that there are few of our birds and mammals that find it so impossible to survive the advance of civilization.

WHAT THE WOOD FIRE SAID TO A LITTLE BOY.

What said the wood in the fire

To the little boy that night,

The little boy of the golden hair,

As he rocked himself in his little arm-chair,

When the blaze was burning bright?

The wood said: "See

What they've done to me!

I stood in the forest, a beautiful tree!

And waved my branches from east to west;

And many a sweet bird built its nest

In my leaves of green,

That loved to lean

In springtime over the daisy's breast.

"From the blossomy dells,

Where the violet dwells,

The cattle came with their clanging bells,

And rested under my shadows sweet;

And the winds that went over the clover and wheat,

Told me all that they knew

Of the flowers that grew

In the beautiful meadows that dreamed at my feet!

"And the wild wind's caresses

Oft rumpled my tresses;

But, sometimes, as soft as a mother's lip presses

On the brow of the child of her bosom, it laid

Its lips on my leaves, and I was not afraid,

And I listened and heard

The small heart of each bird,

As it beat in the nests that their mothers had made.

"And in springtime sweet faces,

Of myriad graces,

Came beaming and gleaming from flowery places.

And under my grateful and joy-giving shade,

With cheeks like primroses, the little ones played;

And the sunshine in showers,

Through all the bright hours,

Bound their flowery ringlets with silvery braid.

"And the lightning

Came brightening,

From storm skies, and frightening

The wandering birds that were tossed by the breeze,

And tilted like ships on black, billowy seas;

But they flew to my breast,

And I rocked them to rest,

While the trembling vines clustered and clung to my knees.

"But how soon," said the wood,

"Fades the memory of good!

For the forester came, with his axe gleaming bright,

And I fell like a giant all shorn of his might.

Yet still there must be

Some sweet mission for me,

For have I not warmed you and cheered you to-night?"

So said the wood in the fire

To the little boy that night,

The little boy of the golden hair,

As he rocked himself in his little arm-chair,

When the blaze was burning bright.

—Atlanta Constitution.