Birds and all Nature, Vol. IV, No. 4, October 1898

Kuekenthal declares that its diving powers are remarkable; 300 fathoms of line were taken off by a harpooned Bottle-nose which remained forty-five minutes under water. They swim with such extraordinary speed that they not only follow the course of the swiftest steamer with ease, but gambol near it on their way, circling around it at will, and without being left behind. Occasionally one of them jerks himself up into the air, and, turning a somersault, falls noiselessly back into the water and hurriedly resumes his former position.

Several years ago we saw a school of Dolphins swimming and frolicking in the East River on the way from New York Bay to Long Island Sound. They seemed to us like gigantic Swine, their motions being similar to those that precipitated themselves, according to the New Testament, into the sea. They are very interesting to watch, and travelers find great pleasure in their company in crossing the ocean. Sometimes a small school of Dolphins will play about the ship for days at a time, affording constant amusement to the spectators.

NEW CHAMPION FOR THE SPARROW

The Sparrow has found an unexpected champion in the Prime Minister of France. The farmers have recently been agitating in favor of the extermination of the little bird, and succeeded so far that a decree was submitted to Premier Meline for signature, giving orders for the destruction of the bird throughout the country by all available means. Before giving his sanction to the measure the Prime Minister determined to make an investigation, in the course of which he has received so much information in favor of the birds, especially from the Forestry Department, that he has not only refused to sign the decree, but has announced that he is about to take steps to promote the increase of the species in consequence of its usefulness. It seems that the harm they do to the crops is more than counterbalanced by the benefits which they confer in destroying the Caterpillars, Worms, and other insects that are so detrimental to trees.

It seems incredible that the matter of the usefulness or noxiousness of this little bird cannot be settled finally by those vested with authority to act. It is either beneficial or a pest. We think it is both, according to circumstances.

THE VOICE OF NATURE

Who could not sleep in this embowered roomPerched high above the suffocating ground;Where clinging vines, and tree-tops in their bloomCast grateful shade and fragrance all around;When, added to the magic spell of flowers,The night bird's song fills up the witching hours!Who could not rise refreshed at early dawnIn this same sweet, enchanted nook;When, to the half-unconscious ear is borne,From Lark and Robin, Sparrow, Thrush and Rook,The gentle warning of the opening day —God's earliest sermon to humanity!What soul could feel the burdening weight of sinWhen, from these tiny, upraised throats,The songs of Nature's praise beginAnd Heavenward pour, in liquid dulcet notes!We gladly join our grateful voice to theirsAnd turn our thoughts to God in earnest prayers.E. D. Barron.

IN THE ANIMAL WORLD

The organs of smell in a Vulture and a Carrion Crow are so keen that they can scent their food for a distance of forty miles, so they say.

The wings of birds are not only to aid locomotion in the air, but also on the ground and water. One bird even has claws in the "elbows" of its wings to aid in climbing.

The Elephant does not smell with his trunk. His olfactory nerves are contained in a single nostril, which is in the roof of the mouth, near the front.

Humming Birds are domesticated by placing in their cages a number of paper flowers of tubular form, containing a small quantity of sugar and water, which must be frequently renewed. Of this liquid the birds partake and quickly become apparently contented with their captivity.

Rightly considered, a Spider's web is a most curious as well as a most beautiful thing. When we were children, the majority of us supposed that the Spider's web was pulled out of its mouth, and that the little insect had a large reel of the stuff in his stomach, and that he could almost instantly add feet, yards, or rods to the roll. The facts are that Spiders have a regular spinning machine – a set of tiny tubes at the far end of the body – and that the threads are nothing more nor less than a white, sticky fluid, which hardens as soon as it comes in contact with the air. The Spider does not really and truly "spin," but begins a thread by pressing his "spinneret" against some object, to which the liquid sticks. He then moves away and by constantly ejecting the fluid and allowing it to harden, forms his ropes or wonderful geometrical nets.

Birds have separate notes of warning to indicate whether danger is in the shape of a Hawk or a Cat or a man. If a Cat, a Hawk, or an Owl is on the move, the Birds, especially Blackbirds, always utter a clattering note, constantly repeated, and Chickens have a special sound to indicate the presence of a Hawk. But when disturbed by man the Blackbirds have quite a different sound of alarm and the Chickens also.

THE TUFTED PUFFIN

THESE birds nest in colonies, the family consisting of about thirty species, nearly all found in the northern parts of the northern hemisphere. Audubon is said to have procured the specimen figured by him at the mouth of the Kennebec river, Maine, the only record of its occurrence on the Atlantic coast.

The Tufted Puffin breeds upon the rocks and in the Rabbit warrens near the sea, finding the ready-made burrows of the Rabbit very convenient for the reception of its egg, and fighting with the owner for the possession of its burrow. Where Rabbits do not exist, the Puffin digs its own burrows, and works hard at its labor. The egg is generally placed several feet within the holes, and the parent defends it vigorously.

Like most of the sea birds, both sexes assist in incubation, says a recent writer, referring to the birds found at the famous rookery in the open sea two hundred miles west of Fort Wrangell, an island often visited by the Indians for birds and eggs, and are close sitters, a great amount of probing with a long stick being necessary to dislodge them. A grassy hill side is a favorite retreat and here it is dangerous to travel about on account of the Puffins constantly coming blindly out of their dark holes with a force sufficient to upset one if fairly struck by the flying birds. When specimens are wanted they are easily captured with snares set over their holes during the night. The vari-colored pear-shaped eggs are well known and make good eating.

The Farrallones are the home of vast numbers of Puffins, as well as other sea-birds, though less numerous than formerly. The nests have been robbed for the eggs to an extent that threatened their extermination until a recent law was enacted for their protection. A portion of the island is a veritable rookery, the grotesque birds standing guard all about the rocks. They are very awkward on land, moving with a comical waddling stride, but on the wing are graceful, rapid flyers. They dive and swim with ease, pursuing the fish in the water, which, with crustaceans and insects, constitutes their food.

The Farrallones have become largely known from the wholesale collection of the eggs of sea birds for market purposes. As they nest chiefly in colonies, the eggs therefore being numerous, it has been, hitherto, a considerable industry. The eggers starting together soon separate to cover their various routes over the cliffs, the birds appearing in rows all over the hill side. "As an egger climbs his familiar trail toward the birds, a commotion becomes apparent among them. They jostle their neighbors about the uneven rocks and now and then with open bills utter a vain protest and crowd as far as possible from the intruder without deserting their eggs. But they do not stay his progress and soon a pair, then a group, and finally, as the fright spreads, the whole vast rookery take wing toward the ocean. Instantly the Western Gulls congregate with their hollow kock-kock-ka and shrill cries adding to the din, to secure their share of the booty, and the egger must then work rapidly to secure the eggs."

"THE TALK OF ANIMALS."

[This is the title of an article from the London Telegraph, which is so well written, and is so interesting that we cannot deny ourselves the privilege of making liberal extracts from it..] – Ed

NATURALISTS have recently been discussing the interesting question whether or not Bees can talk with each other. Those best informed on the subject are, we gather, inclined to regard it as perfectly possible. Such a view would, perhaps, astonish many minds not familiar with these and others of the lower creatures by daily observation. Yet the more people live in close notice of animals and insects the less inclined they will feel to draw that very difficult line which divides instinct from reason, or to set any hard and fast limit to the wonders of Nature. In fact, the very word "lower" becomes sometimes an insult, a positive affront to the wonderful life about us, which even proud Man himself has scarcely a right to offer. There could, for instance, be nothing well conceived humbler than the Earthworm. Until the illustrious Darwin took up the subject of that despised being no one comprehended the vastness of man's debt to this poor, ugly, trampled creature. The numberless millions of that obscure tribe, none the less, have created all the loam and all the arable land of the whole globe, passing through their bodies the fallen leaves and decaying vegetable matter; and by their single sphere of labor in this respect rendering cultivation and harvests possible. When we tread on that Worm we destroy an agricultural laborer of the most respectable class. To those eternal and widespread toils of the creeping friend of men we owe the woods, the meadows, and the flowers. This is, of course, only an example of the importance, not of the faculties of the lower creatures.

Nevertheless even Worms communicate sufficiently to have and to observe their seasons of love; and Bees are so much higher in the scale of life, and so richly gifted in all details of their work, and so sociable in their habits, that it would not be at all a safe thing to say they possess no means of intercourse. Certainly no skillful and watchful bee-master would ever venture upon such an assertion. He knows very well how the sounds in the hive and those produced by individual Bees vary from time to time, and in a manner which appears to convey, occasionally at all events, mutual information. A Wasp or a strange Bee entering a hive without permission seems mighty quickly to hear something not very much to its advantage, and when two or three Bees have found a good source of honey, how on earth do all the others know which path to take through the trackless air, except by some friendly buzz or wing-hint? Now, the bee-masters tell us that there is surely one particular moment in the history of the hive when something very much like actual language appears to be obviously employed. It is when the young queen is nearly ready to move away. She begins to utter a series of faint, staccato, piping noises, quite different from her ordinary note, and just before she flies off this sound becomes altered to a low, delicate kind of whistle, as if emanating from some tiny fairy flute. How this small cry, or call, or signal, is produced nobody understands. The major portion of sounds in a hive is, of course, caused by the vibration more or less rapidly of the wings of the Bees. But whoever has examined the delicate machinery with which the Grass-hopper makes his chirp would not be surprised to find that the queen Bee had also some peculiar contrivance by which to deliver what may be called the royal speech on the one or two great and signal occasions of her exemplary life.

We should, however, confine the subject in the boundary of far too close a fancy if it were imagined that sound was the only way in which speech and intercourse may pass among these humble creatures. Human beings naturally gather up that idea by living themselves in an atmosphere of which they agitate the waves for objects of mutual communication. No scientific Bee or highly educated Ant, if such creatures were possible, seeing and hearing men and women talk to each other, would dream that they could equally well exchange thoughts by making marks upon paper, or send their messages of love and business by seas and lands through a quivering wire. Nay, if report is to be believed, we are soon to be able to transmit, at a flash over long distances, a face, a map, a plan, a picture, a whole page of a newspaper, or an actual scene. As, therefore, those lower creatures, if they indeed could hear us speak, would have no notion of how we make the air waves into words, and still less grasp knowledge of any subtler form among human intercourse, so it is not quite safe for man to think and call all these strange families of the silent world alike dumb, or to despise them for being free of grammars and dictionaries. As a matter of fact, it is obvious that some power of mutual communication assuredly comes to all creatures that live in societies. Nobody can watch the flight of a flock of birds, the behavior of a herd of cattle, or, lower down, the marvelous accommodations for common existence of the small creeping and flying things, without perceiving that they know each other's minds in some way or other in a very satisfactory manner. Evidently there is, to begin with, a common language – a lingua franca – of the fields and of the forests. All sportsmen know how the particular cry of a frightened bird will put all the wild animals on the alert who would otherwise quite disregard the bird's ordinary note. And the evil success with which poachers can imitate the cries of love and defiance from denizens of the woodlands, proves that its inhabitants possess a vocabulary which can be stolen.

But, who, in truth, loving Dogs and Cats and such-like humble friends ever can doubt their high intelligence and the strong and clear significance attaching to certain among their habitual utterances? Even London cab and cart Horses, though they cannot – fortunately for some among us – speak, grow to understand the few invariable words of direction which their drivers address to them. In the inferior orders of life there are doubtless many other methods of intercourse, and almost certainly there exists a plain and very useful language of touch. Nobody can read the delightful researches of Sir John Lubbock into the habits and customs of Ants without feeling persuaded that those little beings transact their business perfectly well by touching each other's antennæ. When Ants meet, a rapid passage of these wonderful organs takes place, gliding like rapiers above and below, and this quickly informs them whether they be friends or enemies, which is the nearest respective road home, whether any food is to be procured nigh at hand, and what is the general news in the formicatory world. Truly it would be more desirable to learn what Bees talk about rather than to discuss the problem whether they talk at all. The views of Bees upon the purposes and colors of flowers, upon the moral duties of frugality and loyalty, and as to the real meaning and lovliness of a Rose, would be worth hearing. Of this much we may be all assured, that the little things of the world evade our knowledge as much and are quite as marvelous as the very largest and highest.

THE BUTTERFLY

By Emily C. Thompson

IN THE western part of England if the first Butterfly you see in the spring is white and if you succeed in killing this Butterfly, good luck will surely come to you. Some gentlemen on their way to church one day saw a friend dashing down the road wildly brandishing a cane. He could not stop to explain. He was as a rule a sedate, calm man, so this excitement alarmed them. As nothing could be done, they went on their way and soon met the father of their friend, an old man who usually hobbled painfully along on two canes. He too was excited and was doing his best to make his way down the road with only one cane. His first words were, "I'm afraid he has missed it." "Missed what?" thought the gentlemen, and finally after many efforts to quiet him enough for conversation learned from the old man that his son had seen his first butterfly, that it was white and that without more ado he had snatched his old father's cane and set off in pursuit. Still the old man was perfectly willing to hobble along as best he could, if only good luck and prosperity could be procured by the slaughter of the pretty little insect. The color of its wings is due to what seems to us a fine dust scattered over them, but in reality this dust is made up of little discs fastened by stalks to the wings, arranged usually in rows somewhat like the shingles on a house.

Notice its two great round eyes and remember that each of these is composed of thousands of perfect little eyes. Its trunk you will find coiled up under its head and sometimes this Butterfly of ours completes its toilet by opening its trunk and cleaning it. By the antennæ of the Butterfly you can tell it from, the Moth, for those of the former are immovable and furnished with knobs, while those of the other have not the knobs and can be stowed away under the wings. If you wish to distinguish the Butterfly from the Moth, remember this fact, and also that Butterflies fly only in the daytime and always rest with the wings erect. These facts are trustworthy, for no Moth has ever been found to possess all three of these characteristics, though some do possess one or two.

Though curious in itself, its life history is still more curious. Man, in passing through his seven ages never loses the distinguishing characteristics which make him a man, but our Butterfly as it passes through its three ages changes so much that we seem, while studying it to be studying three distinct creatures – the Caterpillar, the Chrysalis, and the Butterfly.

In the Caterpillar our dainty little fairy presents itself as it appears in its first stage, having just spent a few days, or a month, or perhaps the whole winter in the egg. It changes its old skin many times during its Caterpillar life of twenty or thirty days, at each change gaining in weight and brilliancy, until with the last it appears as a Chrysalis "a legless, mummy-like creature," which maintains its suspended position by means of the hooks on its tail or by a silken girth around its body. A few days before the Butterfly comes forth, it can be seen through the thin cases. Finally the skin on the back bursts open and the little insect is free. For a few minutes it stands with drooping wings. Gradually the wings distend and in a short while reach four times their original size. Then our Butterfly hastens away to carry its joyful greeting to man and flower. So the cycle of Butterfly life can thus be indicated: Egg, Caterpillar, Chrysalis, Butterfly, Egg.

Such quantities of eggs are laid by the Butterflies that if certain animals did not contend against them, man would not be able to withstand the ravages of the Caterpillar. Man has one powerful ally in the birds which devour enormous quantities of these eggs, but a still more powerful ally is the Ichneumon Fly. This little insect is a parasite through its grub state and chooses as its host either the egg of the Butterfly or the Caterpillar. The full grown Fly lays its egg by means of an ovipositor, a sharp, hollow instrument with which it can pierce the skin or shell of its victim. The eggs of the fly hatch and the grubs feed upon the Caterpillar, but usually do not touch upon its vital parts until it is full grown, then they devour them and within the skin of their former host form their own cocoons. Sometimes they wait until the Caterpillar assumes its Chrysalis state before they finish their dread work, then much to the surprise of interested beholders, a little cluster of flies appears at the breaking of the cocoon, and no beautiful Butterfly.

Some of these brightly colored little messengers of gladness live through the winter. Usually they pass this trying period wrapped warmly in the cocoon or nestled under some leaf, still a Chrysalis; but a few species weather the cold and the snow and, shut up in some hollow tree or some empty shed, sleep away the happy days of Jack Frost and Santa Claus and are ready to awake with the spring, when they are not abashed in their bedraggled garments to appear among their brothers, who come forth brightly clad, fresh from the soft, warm resting place of the cocoon.

Perhaps the marvelous migration of Butterflies which occurred on Oct. 3, 1898, will be more interesting to us than those already mentioned because it happened so recently and in our own country, and perhaps, most of all, because the reason for flight is hazarded. The inhabitants of Wichita, Kansas, at 3:15 o'clock in the afternoon of that day were greeted with the sight of many Butterflies flying south. Gradually the number increased until business practically ceased, the inhabitants all turning out to view the brilliant spectacle. The stream of yellow and brown insects, with the accompanying purr and brilliant effects of fluttering wings flowed on until within a half an hour of sunset, and even after this, millions of stragglers hastened southward. But you are interested in the reason given? They say that our little friends were driven away from their customary haunts by the forest fires in Colorado. This is only one more supposition to add to the list already awaiting some enterprising student, who shall at last solve the mystery of these wonderful flights and fully acquaint us with all the other interesting facts which our little Butterflies are still keeping secret.

THE ARMADILLO

ALL Armadillos bear the name Fatu in the South American Guarau Indian language. Although the name is of Spanish origin the Indian term Fatu has also been adopted in European languages, except in the single case of the six-banded species. They are all of more or less similar appearance and habits. They are natives of the southern American belt, extending as far north as Mexico, and the specimen presented here was taken in Texas, where it is occasionally found. The Armadillos are at home in sparsely grown and sandy plains, and in fields on the edges of woods, which, however, they never enter. During the breeding season they consort together, but at all other times lead solitary lives and show no regard for any living thing except as it may serve for food.

Singular as it may appear, Armadillos do not have a regular abiding place, and they frequently change their homes. They can dig a hole in the ground five or six feet deep with such expedition that they are able to have several places of retreat. The hole is circular, at the entrance from eight to twenty-four inches wide, and at the bottom is a snug chamber large enough for them to turn around in. They are great night rovers and seldom move about by daylight, the glaring sunlight dazing them. When seen during the day it is always in rainy weather when the sky is overcast. It has been shown that Armadillos excavate their burrows under the hills of Ants or Termites, where they are able to gather their principal food with the greatest convenience by day as well as by night. Besides the foregoing they eat Caterpillars, Lizards, and Earthworms and are thus advantageous to the husbandman. Plants also constitute a part of their diet.

Armadillos are not agile but are remarkably muscular. It is said, to avoid their enemies they can cut their way into the earth in places which a hoe wielded by a strong man can pierce with difficulty. The Fatu needs only three minutes to drive a tunnel exceeding the length of its own body. The strongest man is incapable of pulling it out by the tail. Once in its hole, it is always secure from Dogs. When it is seized by Dogs, it never defends itself in any way. This is probably not from cowardice, but because it believes itself secure from danger.

Best of all, the Armadillo is a useful animal. The Indians are fond of nearly all the species. While it has an unpleasant odor of musk, it can be prepared for the table; and some think it one of the most palatable of dishes. One of the species can roll itself into a ball, which, however, it does only in extremity.

In captivity Armadillos are usually put in cages with Monkeys, who, if they do not precisely reduce them to servitude, at least use them as playthings. The Monkeys ride their backs sportively, turn them over, without the danger they might experience from Turtles, who are less harmless, and cause them no end of worry. The Armadillo, with all his coat of mail, has a fur lining on his belly, and the experienced Dog quickly turns it over and makes short work of the apparently invulnerable quadruped. The Dog quickly crunches the thin armour and leaves the poor beast lifeless. Only the powerful digging claws which might, one would think, be used in his own defense, remain to tell the tale of the only means which nature has seemed to provide him with against his enemies.