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BIRDS AND ALL NATURE.

ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY.

Vol. VII.

No. 5.

MAY, 1900.

CONTENTS.

MAY.

The voice of one who goes before to make

The paths of June more beautiful, is thine,

Sweet May! Without an envy of her crown

And bridal; patient stringing emeralds

And shining rubies for the brows of birch

And maple; flinging garlands of pure white

And pink, which to their bloom add prophecy;

Gold cups o'erfilling on a thousand hills

And calling honey-bees; out of their sleep

The tiny summer harpers with bright wings

Awaking, teaching them their notes for noon—

O, May, sweet-voiced one, going thus before,

Forever June may pour her warm, red wine

Of life and passion—sweeter days are thine!

—H. H.

WE MAY HEAR THE BIRD SING.

NELLY HART WOODWORTH.

We may hear the bird sing but we cannot descry

The heart of the singer; the great mystery

Of the singing is hidden from sight, and the heart

Of the sweet singing bird has a vision apart;

We may listen intently to catch the sweet theme,

But who can interpret the soul of the dream?

We may hear the bird sing, catch each generous note

That pours to the air from its quivering throat,

See the breast rent with ardors; unfathomed, deep-stirred

Folded under the song lies the soul of the bird,

Unsounded and soundless, too deep for our reach.

Though we listen entranced to its musical speech;

Who sees the lark's soul as it mounts from the sod,

Who sees the clear soul has a vision of God!

UNCLE NICK ON FISHING.

IRWIN RUSSELL.

It alluz sets me laughin', when I happens to be 'roun,'

To see a lot ob gemmen come a-fishin' frum de town:

Dey waits tell arter breakfus', 'fo' dey ebber makes a start,

An' den you sees 'em comin' in a little Jarsey kyart!

Now, Jarsey kyarts is springy, an,' to studdy up de seat,

De gemmen's 'bliged to ballus' hit wid suffin good to eat;

An' Jarsey kyarts is lighter run, de gemmen seems to think,

By totin' long a demijohn ob suffin good to drink.

When dy gits at de fishin' place, it's 'stonishin' indeed!

Such tricks to go a-fishin' wid nobody nebber seed:

Dey poles is stuck togedder wid a dozen jints ob tin,

An' has a block-an'-teeckle for to win' de fishes in!

De gemmen makes a heap o'fuss, an skeers de fishes off,

An' den dey takes an' sots de poles, some place de bank is sof,

An' den dey hunts a shady place, an' settles on de grass,

An' pruz'ntly heahs 'em: "Dat a spade? I has to pass!"

St. Petah wuz a fisherman, an' un'erstood his trade:

He sot an' watched his cork, instid ob lazin' in de shade!

De gemmen isn't copyin' arter him—dey bettah be!—

Or—I's a science fisherman—'t'd do to copy me.

When I goes out a-fishin', I puts on my ol'est clo'es:

(Dey age's putty tol'able, you'd nat'rally suppose!)

I gits up in de moh'nin', long afore de sun is riz,

An' grabbles wums, I tell you! like de yurly bird I is.

I's alluz berry 'ticlar 'bout de season ob the moon;

De dark ob hit is fishin'-time—an' time for huntin' coon;

An' den its mighty 'portant, too, as notus shed be tuk

Ob varis' little sarcumstances bearin' on de luck:

You has to spit upon de bait afore you draps it in;

Den keep yo' cork a-bobbin', des as easy as you kin;

Ef someone steps acrost de pole, you knows yo' luck is broke,

Widout dey steps it back agin afore a word is spoke.

Don't nebber, not for nuffin, think ob countin' ob yo' string;

'Kase ef you do, you ain't a-gwine to cotch anoder thing;

But ef a sarpent-doctor bug sh'd 'light upon de pole,

You knows you's good for cotchin' all de fishes in de hole.

Dah! now you has de science what a fisherman sh'd know;

So, any time yo' ready, all you has to do's to go,

An' toiler dem instruckshuns—ef you does it, to de notch,

Good marster! won't it s'prise de folks to see de mess you cotch!

THE MAGPIE.
(Pica pica hudsonica.)

THIS is a rare winter visitor and not much known. Its nest is a very bulky and somewhat remarkable structure, composed exteriorly of sticks of various sizes, forming a spherical mass, the upper portion of which forms a canopy to the nest proper, the entrance being through one side. The eggs are usually six in number, but often as many as nine, and are of a pale olive or grayish white color, thickly speckled with olive-brown.

The magpie can be taught to talk, is intelligent and inquisitive, and has many of the characteristics of the raven.

A BUTTERFLY'S HISTORY.
(The Troilus.)

ELLA F. MOSBY.

THE Troilus belongs to the knights or chevaliers, and is a beautiful creature. His front wings are velvety black, spotted with yellow; his hind wings blue, elegantly scalloped, with a long streamer at the end, and when he lifts his wings, the under side is also lovely in marking and color. His double tongue forms a tube for sucking honey from deep flower cups, and may also be coiled up like a lasso when not used. His knobbed antennæ are supposed to be organs of scent by which he detects the perfume of blossoms or of other butterflies. For butterflies have distinct odors; the mountain silver spot smells like sandalwood, and other butterflies have the delicate fragrance of jasmine, thyme, balsam or violets. The anosia butterfly has a faint smell of honey. The sight of the butterfly, in spite of his single and compound eyes, the latter made up of many shining facets like cut gems, is not believed to be very keen. It is thought that while he perceives color in mass, he has little perception of form, and is easily deceived. The white butterflies, for instance, alight on the white-veined and spotted leaves in a garden, while seeking white blossoms. No organs of hearing have ever been discovered, and, for the most part, the movements of the butterfly are noiseless as drifting snow-flakes, the only exception being a slight click from a sudden closing of the wings, or in rapid flight.

The whole structure of the creature is for movement. He has no brain, only a cluster of nerves somewhat like one; no heart, only a segmented tube, in which a white blood circulates; no distinct lungs, but air-chambers throughout the whole body, so that it is easily poised amid the aerial waves, as he glides, or flutters securely above the earth. There are many muscles, two or three pairs of legs, and about five pairs of hooked arrangements called pro-legs; and his glory lies in his four broad wings of radiant colors, covered with silvery and shining plumes of softest texture. These wings are to him as the knight's steed, bearing him proudly in his circling combats with his rivals, or in his sportive ascents with his mate, or on his gay journeys with a crowd of winged comrades along the aerial highroads. He need not seek adventures, for when he is a butterfly he has already passed through wonderful experiences.

His life begins with a tiny egg, the size of a pin-head, laid singly on the under side of a leaf for protection. Every species of butterfly has its own special food-plants, and will feed from no others; but do not imagine that the pastures of our Troilus are limited. He feeds upon two of the largest and most beautiful tree families—the Rosaceæ and the Lauraceæ—beautiful for fruit, flower, foliage and fragrance. With the rose family alone the range is immense, embracing, as it does, not only the rose, but the hawthorn, the meadow-sweet, the mountain ash, the strawberry, the cherry, apple and all the lovely orchard trees, while with the other family we find the glossy and shining leaf of the magnolia tribe, and the aromatic odors of sassafras and spice-wood. The butterfly eggs are marvels of color, pale green or white at first, changing to all sorts of iridescent tints as the life inside matures, and also of form, for they mimic the delicate sea-fashions of urchin and coral, the richness of oriental mosques, and the intricacy of design in Gothic windows.

Let us fancy the egg of our Troilus fastened—a fairy cradle, indeed—on the leaf of a wild cherry tree that has tossed its sprays of feathery white bloom, and its rustling leaves all June long in sunshine and wind and twinkling shower beneath a summer sky. When the shell is broken, what a strange thing creeps forth!—well-named a larva or mask, for it is a disguise that has no trace of a winged nature. The lover of the butterfly shrinks with loathing from this hideous creature, dragging itself slowly along in quest of the food which it greedily devours—the fresh, sweet leaves of the tree that has sheltered it! But unless it eats and grows there will be no butterfly, and sometimes the skin is cast off as many as five or six times, even the inner lining as well as the outside skin, to give its growth free play. If the caterpillar were large it would be terrible, for it protects itself, being soft-skinned and often helpless, by a mimicry of rage, pawing the ground, lashing its head furiously from one side to another, as a lion lashes its tail, rearing itself up menacingly in a sphinx-like attitude, grinding its mandibles with a grating sound. Its color is at first usually green like the leaf it feeds on, but it afterwards develops bright hues in some species. The Troilus caterpillar is green with a yellow stripe on each side, and row of blue dots, while its under side and feet are reddish. These varied colors show little, however, on the tree, for the leaves of fruit-trees, especially, quickly assume a yellow tint, and are streaked and spotted. Caterpillars protect themselves in many ways; some make a tent of a leaf near their feeding-ground, turning over an edge under which they creep, or weaving the different corners of the leaf closely together with silken threads. Even the petals of a blossom may be secured by a filmy web. If the caterpillar must spend the winter as a caterpillar, it makes of the leaf a winter-house, which it covers with wood-colored silk, and weaves the thread securely to the skin. These nests resemble closely the buds of the tree.

After the caterpillar stage of humiliation and danger, comes the strange period of sleep or seeming death, when the cocoon or chrysalid appears. The name pupa or babe is also used, from the likeness to an infant in swaddling bands. The caterpillar was always liable to curious fits of drowsiness or stupor; this stage of the pupa is a prolonged stupor, and it prepares for it by rolling off the garment of skin, and leaving it underfoot in the silken shroud or cell. Sometimes it sleeps in the earth, sometimes in a rock crevice, sometimes hangs like our Troilus looped up by a thread to a tree. The case has knobs or horns to protect the sleeper when the wind blows it against anything. It is sensitive to light, and swings towards or from it, according to need. At last comes the resurrection. From a narrow slit emerges a crumpled, wrinkled thing. If the struggles are long, dare not aid even by a touch! The butterfly is of such delicate texture that outside help means mutilation. Let it alone. Soon are the wings smoothed—I saw one hang himself up, and lengthen and lengthen, until he was about twice as long as at first—then he spreads them in flight, a glorious and joyous creature of the sunshine! He likes companions, and quickly will he find himself greeted by a Jason or splendid Ajax, or encounter a flock of his own kind, with whom he may feast by roadside puddle or beds of opening flowers.

Marvelous care is shown in the provision for the awakening from its long slumber. The threads are woven so loosely near the place of opening that they are easily broken, even in his first feebleness. The old garment, rolled in a heap at his feet, cannot impede or entangle him. He is now the imago—"image in full of his species,"—and, like the fairy, Ariel, he will follow summer as it flies, and swing "under the blossom that hangs on the bough"—an airy spirit of joy!

THE DEAD BIRD.

NELLY HART WOODWORTH.

Hark to the beating at the lattice!—sure

It is some winged creature asks for room

Within my walls. Shall I deny its quest,

Refuse a welcome to the homeless guest?

Who could the rigor of such night endure?

Nay, open wide the window. Come, oh, come,

And share my shelter! All the air was stirred

By the mysterious pulsing of the wings

In useless haste, until their murmurings

Grew faint and fainter; now they pulse-less lay.

Again they found the light—my eyes were blurred

With tears of pity. "Here upon my breast

Thou shalt have rest. Rest thee, dear bird, I pray!"

And as the bird's throat trembles when the song

Throbbing for wings pours to the generous air,

So my heart throbbed with pity and my hand

Went quivering as I held the stranger there.

The velvet wings dropped heavy. O'er the eyes

There came a mist, like hoary mists that roll

Far up the mountain, blotting out the skies

And leaving scars upon the lonely soul;

The stars were blurred, the hilltops canopied,

The valleys lost, the little bird was dead.

THE FIELD DAISY.

JENNY T. RUPRECHT.

Nomadic queen with softly petaled face,

Thine is a beauteous throne where'er thou art,

And thine a reign triumphant from the start;

And though thy throne were in half-desert place,

Or where thou may'st behold the brooklets race,

Or just above the sleepy valley's heart,

Or higher up the grasses tall to part—

Queen of the fields! thou reign'st with witching grace.

If shine, 'tis well; if shade, thou murmur'st not,

For thou hast learned of nature patient trust—

Glad of the cloudless light all golden wrought,

Nor sad if shadows fall, as shadows must—

All these shall flee before thy floral reign,

And leave fresh charms throughout thy wide domain.

A SUBMERGED FOREST.

MANY years ago, even so far back that the traditions of the oldest Siwash extend not thereto, there was some vast upheaval of mother earth on the shores of Lake Samamish that sent a portion of the big Newcastle hill sliding down into the lake, with its tall evergreen forest intact, and there it is to this day. About this time of the year the waters of the lake are at their lowest, and then the tops of the tallest of these big submerged trees are out of the water, but never more than ten or twelve inches.

Unfortunately for the curiosity seeker and traveling public generally the submerged forest is on the opposite side of the lake from the railroad and the station of Monohon, and very few people ever see the phenomenon unless they take the time and pains necessary to reach it.

Sam Coombs, the pioneer, has just been over to view the submerged forest, and he is very enthusiastic concerning its beauties and mystery. He talks Chinook fluently, but with all his quizzing of the red-skinned inhabitants he has never learned anything that will throw any light on the history of the forest under water. The waters of the lake are very deep, and the bluffs back of the beach very precipitous, so that the only explanation of the freak is that either by an earthquake or some other means a great slide has been started in early times, and it went down as a mass until it found lodgment at the bottom of the lake. At this time one can see down into the glassy, mirror-like depths of the lake for thirty feet or more. Near the banks the forest trees are interlaced at various angles and in confusion, but further out in the deep water they stand straight, erect, and limbless and barkless, 100 feet tall. They are not petrified in the sense of being turned to stone, but they are preserved and appear to have stood there for ages. They are three feet through, some of them, and so firm in texture as to be scarcely affected by a knife blade. The great slide extended for some distance, and it would now be a dangerous piece of work for a steamer to attempt passage over the tops of these tall trees. Even now the water along shore is very deep, and a ten-foot pole would sink perpendicularly out of sight ten feet from shore line.

All over this country are found strata of blue clay, which in the winter season are very treacherous, and, given the least bit of opportunity will slide away, carrying everything above with them. This is the theory of the submerged forest of Lake Samamish. It probably was growing above one of these blue earth strata, and heavy rains, or probably an earthquake, set it moving. The quantity of earth carried down was so great that the positions of the trees on the portion carried away were little affected. It is hardly to be believed that the earth suddenly sank down at this point and became a portion of the beautiful lake.

Few such places exist. There is a place in the famous Tumwater Cañon, on the line of the Great Northern, near Leavenworth, which is in some respects similar. At some early time a portion of the great mountain side came rushing down and buried itself at the bottom of the cañon. Now there is a considerable lake, and in the center stand tall, limbless trees, different in species from those growing along the cañon.

At Green Lake, near Georgetown, Colo.—a lake which is 10,000 feet above sea level—is a submerged forest of pine trees, some hundred feet tall, but not so numerous as in Lake Samamish. This same theory explains their presence as given above.

RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH.
(Sitta canadensis.)

BY LYNDS JONES.

IT IS doubtful if any bird has been more persistently overlooked or more universally confounded with a closely allied species than the subject of this sketch. His superficial resemblances to the white-breasted nuthatch, either in color or voice, are not striking, certainly not so much so as with other species which are not so confused, yet it is certainly true that but a small proportion of the laity are aware that there are two nuthatches roaming the woods, the one a migrant in the Middle and Southern States, the other resident wherever it is found. What, then, are the marked differences between them? The red-breast is decidedly smaller than his cousin, his breast is tinged with red or brown instead of the immaculate white, and there is a black line running through the eye to the back of the head, separating the white line above it from the white throat; the cry is a nasal, long drawn 'yank, yank,' very different from the brisk, crisp, business-like utterance of the white-breast. Moreover, he is a traveled gentleman who spends the winters in the South and his summers mostly north of the United States, while we have the white-breast with us during the entire year. So much for differences.

The habit of climbing head downward, sidewise, or any way, is common to all nuthatches. They feed upon the insects and their eggs and larvæ which inhabit the bark crevices, but also sometimes vault into the air in pursuit of a flying insect, after the manner of the flycatchers. In the North, where the red-breast sometimes tarries well into the winter, rarely remaining all winter long, they fasten nuts and seeds in cracks or crevices and hatch them with the beak, eating the meat, of course. It is this habit of 'hatching' nuts that gives the group its English name.

The red-breast is a bird of the whole of the United States and at least southern Canada, but can be called common only locally and occasionally. Some seasons it may not appear at all at some stations in its migration routes, and again be common for a short period, especially in the autumn. In most central localities it may be expected during the last two weeks of April and the first week of May, and again from September well into the winter months, if not all winter long.

The nest is placed in some dead stub in a hole excavated by the birds, usually several feet from the ground—as high as twelve feet sometimes. The nest material is some soft substance like fine grass and rootlets. The excavation is usually shallow, scarcely more than six inches down the stub, with other even shallower holes in other trees in the vicinity used as roosting-places for the male during incubation. In beginning the excavation, the birds drill small holes in a circle in the bark, then take out the center piece. In several instances the bark about the entrance to the nest cavity was coated with pitch in which were sticking the red-breast feathers of the architects. This pitching of the entrance to their home does not seem to be a habit common to all members of the species, however, for few collectors mention the pitch, as they certainly would if it were present.

While birds of the woods, neither the red-breast nor the white-breast are strictly confined to the woods during the seasons when they are not rearing a brood. The red-breast is frequently seen on the fences and out in the open, gleaning from weed-stalks, during his southward journey. He also seems very fond of orchards and the ornamental trees in the yard where he does excellent service for the next season's fruit and foliage. He is, perhaps, a little less inquisitive than his white-breasted cousin, but his small size and drawling voice make him a pleasant fellow to meet.

MIGRATORY BIRDS.

B. W. JONES.

"The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the crane, and the turtle, and the swallow observe the time of their coming."—Jer. 8: 7.

THE migration of birds, as Baily observes, is by no means the least interesting part of their history. I have noted for many years the migrations of the birds that make a longer or shorter stay with us, summer or winter, and have tabulated their arrivals and departures. And it has been to me a labor of love. Few things cast such attraction around the young and tender spring or over brown and matured autumn, as the coming and going of migratory birds. With delight we welcome the first notes of the purple martin, the bank or sand swallow, and the chimney swift, as they return to us in spring from the far sunny southland; and with feelings of wonder we witness the flight of the wild geese, as they pass over us high in air, or listen to the notes that tell us the whippoorwill and the chuckwills-widow are again the denizens of our groves. And, night after night as I listen to their weird song, feelings almost akin to superstition creep over me, till I can imagine their utterances to be the omen of good or ill to the hearer. There is no more mysterious bird in our land than the chuckwills-widow. Its migration so far northward as southeast Virginia has been doubted by some naturalists, but facts are against them.

And as I look abroad in autumn, and view the bevies of snowbirds that have just returned to us, and hear again the familiar "chip," "chip," as a passing vehicle puts them to sudden flight, how the finger of thought touches again on memory's bell, and I think of boyhood's happy hours, when I welcomed with delight the snowbirds back again to our lanes and fields.

Each feathered songster, as it revisits us from northland or southland, awakens feeling of profoundest interest, and if we have within us a single spark of that divine love of nature that dwells with the poet or the naturalist, we instinctively receive the birds back to their old haunts as we would welcome a long-absent friend. What boy of sensibility, having a spark of the nobler touch of manhood, could have it in his heart to harm the least of these sinless creatures that enliven our homes with their presence and song? Who can look without admiration upon them? Who could wish to destroy them? And when we reflect that the martins, willets, swifts and swallows that sport about our homes in summer, and the mocking bird that trills its polyglot song in our cedar groves by night, have returned to us from tropical or sub-tropical climes—that only a few weeks before they were flitting through the orange groves of Cuba, or building their nests amid the vine-latticed thickets of Florida, we cannot but admire and wonder at that "peculiar instinct," as Howitt calls it, that guides them with such unerring certainty through all the changes of their mysterious round.

For a period of twenty years the average time of the arrival of the purple martin has been about the last five days in March; and its departure for the South the second week in August. A few individuals may remain longer, but it is only when their breeding has been delayed. The earliest appearance of the martin that I have noted was the 8th of March, 1871, the latest the 26th of April, 1885. The last date was a cold and backward spring. This bird rears two broods of four or five each during the four months that it remains with us.

The chimney swift comes a week or ten days later than the martin, and seldom begins to build before the 10th of June. It raises one brood of four to six young, usually in some unused chimney. It remains with us longer than the martin, even until the cool nights of the last of September remind it that "the summer is over and gone." The flight of this bird is employed as a weather sign by country people. When it soars high, they say fair weather will continue, but when it flies low, then rain is near at hand.

The whippoorwill arrives, commonly, the last of March, but often not before the 10th or 15th of April. The chuckwills-widow comes three weeks later. Both of these strange birds rear one brood of two young. The nest is placed upon the bare ground, under a clump of low bushes, or a dense holly, or other low-growing tree. The eggs have the same markings as those of the bull bat, or night hawk, another very interesting migratory bird.

The catbird and the wood sparrows do not reach us till near the end of April, and often May is far advanced before these birds are noticed. The last is one of the sweetest songsters of our groves in summer, rivaling any bird of our clime. It seeks the coolest and darkest wood, where it pours forth its notes hour after hour, being one of the earliest to begin its mating lays.

The humming bird is the latest visitor to come to us in summer. This diminutive aerial voyager is one of the most charming of the migratory tribe, and worthy all the admiration that has been lavished upon it. It loves to sport in the flower gardens, where it sips the nectar from the honeycups of Flora's train. Only one species comes to us, the well-known ruby-throat.

But the young reader interested in these things should begin observation, and make a list for himself of all the migratory birds in his locality. A good form for such a record may be found in Howitt's "Book of the Seasons," an English work, but one from which a great deal about nature can be learned.

We will close our too brief sketch with the inquiry of Mrs. Kimball, of Connecticut:

"O, wise little birds, how do ye know

The way to go,

Southward and northward, to and fro?

Far up in ether piped they,

'We but obey

A voice that calleth us far away.'"

ACROSS THE WAY.

GEO. KLINGLE.

A distant line of misty hills,

A stretch of meadow low,

With wreaths of brush a-skirt the woods,

Midst fabrics spun of snow:

A vista through the forest trees—

A temple if you choose,

With pictured screen and arabesque,

Mosaic's dusky hues,

Dim mullioned windows half confessed

Beyond far-columned aisles,

And arches lost and found anew

Through tracery's defiles;

A roof?... we might perchance ascribe

The misty, stooping sky

Beyond the wreaths of crystal

Swung where winds go singing by.

Beneath, where worshiper might tread

A glimpse of crystal tile,

Caught through the weeds and tangled reeds

Which guard the near defile.

A myriad forms a-glint and white

Close, close beneath the feet;

Fantastic hands that reach across

A myriad hands to greet;

Low shrubs in fleecy, white array,

Tall stems with hood and wings,

And vines a-glint in crystal lace

Wound through fantastic rings;

And grasses frosted into gems;

Near by a bough bent down

With such a wealth of clinging leaves

Stained deep in ruddy brown.

These and the woods' low breath of song

Just now across the way;

To-morrow?... visions change, you know,

To meet each hour of day.

THE PURPLE MARTIN.
(Progne subis.)

BEAUTIFUL and interesting as this bird is known to be, less has been said about it than of any of our common birds of agreeable song and manners. Its common names are house martin, purple swallow, American martin, and violet swallow. The young male is several years in attaining the uniform glossy violet-black plumage, the steel blue feathers appearing in gradually coalescing patches. It is common to the whole of temperate North America, wintering in Mexico and the Bermudas. It is only accidental in Europe. The adult female is glossy blue-black above, becoming hoary grayish on the forehead, and sometimes on the nape also. The young are similar to the adult female.

Ridgway says that no bird of America is more deserving of protection and of encouragement to live about the habitations of man than the purple martin. One pair of them will destroy more insects in a season than all the English sparrows in a township will kill in their life-time. Besides, their notes are pleasing to the ear, and their actions both when on the wing and when perching upon their boxes extremely interesting. During the breeding-season the male has a continued and varied song of great beauty and considerable power; and it is as much on account of the sweetness of their notes as for their familiarity and usefulness that these birds are such general favorites. In the wild woods where they have not had opportunity to avail themselves of man's hospitality they are as lovely and musical as when semi-domesticated in our door-yards, and, it is said, are in all respects exactly the same birds. When Audubon was traveling through the Middle States, he reported that almost every country tavern had a martin-box on the upper part of its signboard, and commented: "I have observed that the handsomer the box, the better does the inn prove to be." The Indians hung up calabashes for the martins, so they would keep the vultures from the deerskins and venison that were drying. Mr. Nehrling says that the martin is as well satisfied with the simple hollow gourd attached to a pole near a negro hut as with the most ornamental and best arranged martin-house in the beautiful gardens and parks of rich planters and opulent merchants. He claims that where no nesting boxes are provided our martin will not breed, and that it hardly ever accepts nesting-boxes attached to trees, preferring localities where the chance is given to dart in and out uninterrupted by any obstacle.

The struggle between the martins and sparrows is so bitter that one pair of martins watched by Mr. Widmann adopted the plan of never leaving the nest alone, taking turns in going for food, because, as he explains, "it is comparatively easy to keep a sparrow out of a box, but it is impossible for a martin to dislodge him after he has built a nest."

Mr. Keyser says that in the autumn the martins assemble in flocks, sometimes large enough to suggest an ecumenical council, and fall to cackling, twittering, discussing, and in many other ways making preparation for their aerial voyage to another clime. They really seem to regret being compelled to leave their pleasant summer haunts, if one may judge from the length and fervor of their good-byes. "Perhaps they are like human beings who have a strong attachment for home, and must visit every nook and tryst to say au revoir before they take their departure. One can easily imagine how dear to their hearts are the scenes of their childhood, and of their nest-building and brood-rearing." After departing, they sometimes return in a day or two before they begin their southward pilgrimage in real earnest. Do they get homesick after they have gone some distance, and return once more to look upon the familiar scenes? It is one of the mysteries of bird life.

A GLIMPSE AT BEAUTIFUL PICTURES.

ANNE WAKELY JACKSON.

HOW many of you, I wonder, have a west window? Not one opening upon a blank wall, nor upon a vista of houses, but one from which you can see the sky. If your sky-view extends to the horizon, you are indeed blest; for then your window is no less than a frame for the most beautiful pictures—nature's own.

No landscape painter ever lived who could put upon canvas such beauty as you may see, on the majority of days, from your west window. It will only cost you a little time, and you will be richly repaid for time thus spent.

Of course finer views can be seen from a hilltop, or looking across an open plain. But one cannot often be in these places, while one might spare ten or fifteen minutes to stand by the window at sunset?

After a busy day, I know of nothing more composing to the spirit than the contemplation of some majestic form of beauty. And what could be more tranquillizing than the ever-changing beauty of a sunset?

Unless the day close enveloped in clouds, there will be some picture, well worth looking at, to be seen from your window. When a sunset is unusually gorgeous, we frequently exclaim, "That is the most beautiful one I ever saw!" But when we have watched them day after day, we will find comparisons impossible. Each one will have a special beauty of its own, quite beyond compare. Some will be more brilliant than others, but each one will be perfect in its way, and every one will have something new of beauty to reveal to us, if we look with seeing eyes.

I am particularly blessed with an open view to the west, just screened at its base by a delicate fringe of trees. The sunsets this winter have been a constant joy to me, and I long for others who love the beautiful to share this great pleasure with me.

The artistic nature, and love and appreciation of beauty, are well developed in many people whose lives are so hard and busy and full of care, that the delights of the world of art are out of their reach. It is to these particularly that I would commend the world of nature, which is more wonderful and far more beautiful than any art, and is a free gift to all.

It is an interesting study to note the different effect of the leafless trees against various backgrounds. I am one of the people who think trees are more lovely in winter than in summer. Nothing can be more exquisite, to my mind, than the tracery of bare branches and twigs against the sky.

What a study is offered by the varying lines of different trees—the limbs of some starting from the main stem in graceful curves, while others are twisted and bent at sharp angles.

During the cloudy days, I am apt to think a gray background the best that could be imagined. But next morning, perhaps, the clouds have melted away, and I find my trees wearing an entirely new expression, against the bright blue sky. Where they appeared just dark lines against the gray, they have brightened up, and taken on new and varied colors, seen against the blue; and I notice how much darker the trunks and lower limbs are, compared with the upper branches.

How different, again, they look with the sunset sky behind them! The whole western horizon, and upward for quite a space, is a blaze of orange flame! How black they look, silhouetted thus! Again, we have a pale, cold orange, or pink, fading into golden white! How clearly every twig is brought out!

How is it possible that we can pass such beauty by unnoticed, or be indifferent to it because it is common? It should be the cause of great rejoicing, that this miracle of beauty is an almost daily occurrence.

If the winter sunsets are less gorgeous than those of summer, they are full of refinement of detail. Theirs may be a cold beauty, but it is so clear cut and perfect.

Dear reader, if you possess the frame, don't let the pictures escape you. Remember that any day not absolutely cloudy and dull, will furnish you with a masterpiece. And even after the last bright rays of the dying sunlight have faded away, glance out of the window again, as you pass, for perhaps the calm beauty of the evening star has a message for you too.

GOOSE PLANT IN BLOOM.

ALL lovers of plants and flowers should visit the greenhouse at Washington Park, Chicago, and see the goose plant. It is growing in one of the small span-roofed structures, and as seen to-day there are over a dozen goslings and three or four geese growing on one plant.

One of the biggest geese is over a yard long and broad in proportion. This plant is one of the most unique, rare and valuable known to scientists. Its correct name is Aristolochia gigas Sturtevantii, and it was brought here for the World's Fair. At the Fair, however, it bore only one or two flowers, as it was too young to bear more. It is a native of South America and even there is considered a marvelous product. In one of the greenhouses next to the goose house at Washington Park is a collection of caladiums of the most varied shapes and colors ever dreamed of. Mr. Kanst, the head gardener, says the collection has no duplicate. Many of the plants have leaves as delicately traced as the finest valenciennes laces. A newspaper may be read if covered with one of these transparent leaves. The colors are all shades of red, pink, maroon, crimson and yellow. The collection of water lilies is now at the best and is truly beautiful. Mr. Kanst says that the aquatic plants are as amenable to cultivation as are the terrestrial plants.

A special stage is that of the semi-apes. Probably man's ancestors among the semi-apes closely resembled the existing lemurs, and, like these, led a quiet life climbing trees.

These are immediately followed by the true apes, or simians. It has long been beyond doubt that of all animals the apes are in all respects the most nearly allied to man. Just as on the one side the lowest apes approach very near to lemurs, so on the other side do the highest apes most closely resemble man.

The difference between man and the highest form of apes, the gorilla, is slighter than between the gorilla and the baboon. Below even the baboon, the oldest parent form of the whole ape group must certainly have been thickly covered with hair, and was, in fact, a tailed ape.

It is, after all, some satisfaction to know that a thousand million years may have been consumed in this evolution of man.

The heron seldom flaps his wings at a rate less than 120 to 150 times a minute. This is counting the downward strokes only, so that the bird's wings really make from 240 to 300 distinct movements a minute.

JOHNNY APPLESEED.

JOHNNY APPLESEED, by which name Jonathan Chapman was known in every log cabin from the Ohio river to the northern lakes, is an interesting character to remember. Barefooted, and with scanty clothing, he traversed the wilderness for many years, planting appleseeds in the most favorable locations. His self-sacrificing life made him a favorite with the frontier settlers—men, women, and especially children; even the savages treated him with kindness, and the rattlesnakes, it was said, hesitated to bite him. "During the war of 1812, when the frontier settlers were tortured and slaughtered by the savage allies of Great Britain, Johnny Appleseed continued his wanderings, and was never harmed by the roving bands of hostile Indians. On many occasions the impunity with which he ranged the country enabled him to give the settlers warning of approaching danger, in time to allow them to take refuge in their block-houses before the savages could attack them. An informant refers to one of these instances, when the news of Hull's surrender came like a thunderbolt upon the frontier. Large bands of Indians and British were destroying everything before them, and murdering defenseless women and children, and even the block-houses were not always a sufficient protection. At this time Johnny traveled day and night, warning the people of the impending danger. He visited every cabin and delivered this message; 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and He hath anointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, and sound an alarm in the forest; for behold, the tribes of the heathen are round about your doors, and a devouring flame followeth after them!' The aged man who narrated this incident said that he could feel even then the thrill that was caused by this prophetic announcement of the wild-looking herald of danger, who aroused the family on a bright moon-light midnight with his piercing cry. Refusing all offers of food, and denying himself a moment's rest, he traversed the borders day and night until he had warned every settler of the impending peril. Johnny also served as colporteur, systematically leaving with the settlers chapters of certain religious books, and calling for them afterward; and was the first to engage in the work of protecting dumb brutes. He believed it a sin to kill any creature for food. No Brahman could be more concerned for the preservation of insect life, and the only occasion on which he destroyed a venomous reptile was a source of long regret, to which he could never refer without manifesting sadness. He had selected a suitable place for planting appleseeds on a small prairie, and in order to prepare the ground, he was mowing the long grass, when he was bitten by a rattlesnake. In describing the event he sighed heavily, and said, 'Poor fellow, he only just touched me, when I, in the heat of my ungodly passion, put the heel of my scythe in him, and went away. Some time afterward I went back, and there lay the poor fellow, dead!'"

"He was a man after all." Hawthorne might have exclaimed of him, too, "his Maker's own truest image, a philanthropic man! not that steel engine of the devil's contrivance—a philanthropist!"—A. P. Russell's Library Notes.

Robins in the tree-tops,

Blossoms in the grass;

Green things a-growing

Everywhere you pass;

Sudden little breezes,

Showers of silver dew;

Black bough and bent twig

Budding out anew;

Pine tree and willow tree,

Fringed elm and larch,

Don't you think that May-time's

Pleasanter than March?

—T. B. Aldrich.

RING-NECKED DOVE.
(Zenaidura macroura.)

THE popular names for this favorite bird are turtle dove, common dove, and Carolina dove. It is an inhabitant of all of temperate North America to a little north of the United States boundary, south through Mexico and Central America to the Isthmus of Panama, Cuba, Jamaica, and some other West Indian islands. The species have even been known to winter as far north as Canada, Mr. John J. Morley, of Windsor, Ontario, informing Professor Baird that he had seen considerable numbers near that place on the 6th of December, 1878, and that he had on other occasions seen it in various places, from three to twelve at a time. It is a common summer resident in Illinois. The majority arrive the last of March or first of April, and depart by the middle of October. In many places it becomes partly domesticated, breeding in the trees in the yard and showing but little fear when approached.

THE RING-NECKED DOVE.