Birds and All Nature, Vol. VI, No. 5, December 1899

There are eighteen varieties of willow, several of the alder, but throughout the United States there is only one kind of beech. The ironwood is often wrongly called the beech. The hard and soft pine are interesting trees. The soft especially is a favorite for the sawyer, a beetle with long horns, who cuts large holes through the wood. When obtaining your specimen from the thorn tree you may be fortunate enough to see the shrike getting his breakfast from the thorns where he had placed it some time before. The locust with its fragrant racemes of white blossoms in the spring and long seed pods in the fall will call for attention, and you may perhaps receive, as I did, a locust seed from the tree planted by George Washington at his Mount Vernon home many years ago. The shumachs and white birches are very artistic and sought out by all artists, for who does not want to put a white birch into a landscape! Every one knows the black birch by its taste. The laurel has a pretty, fine grain. The witch hazel is another favorite for its medicinal qualities as well as its popularity for being the last blossom of the autumn. And many others will be added from the shrubs and vines until your collection, just from your own town, will number nearly, if not quite, one hundred. You will thus, too, have become interested in all nature and will be able more fully to appreciate all the beautiful things God has given us to use and enjoy.

BIRD WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD

POSSIBLY the rarest of all feathered creatures is the "takahe" bird of New Zealand. Science names it Notornis Mantelli. The first one ever seen by white men was caught in 1849. A second came to white hands in 1851. Like the first it was tracked over snow, and caught with dogs, fighting stoutly, and uttering piercing screams of rage until over-mastered. Both became the property of the British museum. After that it was not seen again until 1879. That year's specimen went to the Dresden museum at the cost of $500. The fourth, which was captured last fall in the fiords of Lake Te Anau, in New Zealand, has been offered to the government there for the tidy sum of $1,250.

Thus it appears that the bird is precious; worth very much more than its weight in gold. The value, of course, comes of rarity. The wise men were beginning to set it down as extinct. Scarcity aside, it must be worth looking at – a gorgeous creature about the size of a big goose, with breast, head, and neck of the richest dark-blue, growing dullish as it reaches the under parts. Back, wings, and tail-feathers are olive-green, and the plumage throughout has a metallic lustre. The tail is very short, and has underneath it a thick patch of soft, pure white feathers.

Having wings, the takahe flies not. The wings are not rudimentary, but the bird makes no attempt to use them. The legs are longish and very stout, the feet not webbed, and furnished with sharp, powerful claws. The oddest feature of all is the bill, an equilateral triangle of hard pink horn. Along the edge, where it joins the head, there is a strip of soft tissue much like the rudimentary comb of a barn-yard fowl.

"Around the glistening wonder bentThe blue wall of the firmament;No clouds above, no earth below,A universe of sky and snow."– Whittier.

THE RED-TAILED HAWK

(Buteo borealis.)C. C. M

UNTIL recently the red-tailed hawk was classified with the obnoxious hawks which prey upon birds and poultry, but the Department of Agriculture instituted an investigation of this species and concluded that it has a far worse reputation with the average farmer than it deserves. The late Major Bendire asserts that, while it does capture a chicken or one of the smaller game birds now and then, it can readily be proved that it is far more beneficial than otherwise and really deserves protection instead of having a bounty placed on its head, as has been the case in several states. The red-tailed buzzard, as it is sometimes called, in its light and dark geographical races, is distributed throughout the whole of North America. Its food is chiefly small quadrupeds, red squirrels, gophers, and moles, and the remains of these rodents may be found in this bird's nest containing young. Where this hawk is found these small animals are most abundant. Longfellow in the "Birds of Killingworth," among the "Tales of a Wayside Inn," has written a defense of the hawks that the Audubon societies might well use as a tract.

The nest of the red-tail is placed in high trees in deep woods; it is large and bulky, though comparatively shallow, and is made of sticks and twigs mixed together with corn husks, grass, moss, and on the inside may be found a few feathers. It is said that sometimes the deserted nest of a crow or that of another hawk is fitted up and used. Mr. J. Parker Morris records a nest occupied first by the great horned owl and afterwards by the red-tailed hawk each year. The young owls leave the nest before the hawk is ready to occupy it. Two or three, rarely four, eggs are laid. Eggs are found as late as the middle or latter part of May. They present many differences in size and markings; their ground color is white or bluish white, some are entirely unmarked, while others are very heavily blotched and splashed with many shades of red and brown; and Davie says some are faintly marked here and there with a light purplish tint, and again the colorings may form an almost confluent wreath at either end. The average size is 2.36 by 1.80.

In old paintings the hawk is represented as the criterion of nobility; no person of rank stirred without his hawk in his hand. Harold, afterwards king of England, going on an important embassy into Normandy, is drawn in an old bas-relief, embarking with a hawk on his fist. In those days it was sufficient for noblemen's sons to wind the horn and carry the hawk.

According to Mr. Horace A. King this is one of the commonest birds of prey to be found in northern Illinois. They may be met with in all sorts of places, but are most common in the vicinity of heavy timber. In driving through the country one will see them perched upon rail fences, trees by the wayside, sitting on the ground in stubble or pasture fields, or soaring, over fields in search of their prey. When on one of his foraging expeditions, the red tail, on sighting his quarry, will remain at the same place in the air by a continual flapping of the wings, when at the proper time he will dart swiftly and silently upon it.

Mr. Claude Barton, while rowing up Flat river recently, came upon six mallards. At sight of him the birds took flight, following the river. About two miles further up the stream he again came upon the same flock. There were four ducks and two fine drakes. He hid his boat in the rice and watched them. All at once a large red-tailed hawk dashed into the flock. The ducks, with the exception of one, dove, and this one took wing, a swift pursuer following. The hawk did not seem to gain on his prize, and the poor duck was screaming with terror. Had the duck sought safety in the water it would probably have escaped, but it was too frightened apparently to think of it.

A TRANSPLANTING

ALICE WINSTON

IT WAS the kitten who did it, though no one knew but Martha. Aunt Jenny thought it was the work of Providence and Aunt Amy thought it was the result of her own smiles and caresses. Aunt Mary never thought about it at all, of course. But really it was the kitten. And what was this thing that the kitten accomplished? The taming of Martha. And why did Martha need taming? Because she came at twelve, a very barbarian, with freckles and unmanageable hair, under the dominion of three smooth-locked ladies, who never had a freckle and whose hair had always been smooth.

Perhaps it would be better to begin at the beginning which was twenty years before there was any kitten. Most serene and happy would have been the lives of the three Miss Clarkes, if it had not been for Arthur. Arthur was their brother, and the combination of prim, blonde girls and harum-scarum black-eyed boy, made a most surprising family. The son and heir was not looked on as a success by his sisters and the other staid and respectable citizens of Summerfield. He did not join the church and he did not go to college, he wedded no one of the many eligible town's daughters, and, lastly, on his father's death he did not settle down at home, to take care of his property and his sisters.

This last of his misdeeds had made a breach between himself and his sisters. The more serious, because of the very deep affection which lay at the bottom of their half apologetic demeanor toward their brother. The difference between them was augmented by his removal to a far western town and his marriage with one of the natives. For the next twelve or thirteen years they never saw him and heard of him but seldom. Then he died suddenly, after accomplishing his task of wasting all his money.

So it happened that Martha saw her aunts for the first time on the day of her father's funeral, and her dim recollection was of cold faces and mannerisms which worried her mother. Martha was the eldest of four and her mother was one of the ornamental of earth, and her father one of the restless. So the first eleven years of her existence was wandering up and down through many cities, attended with much care for her slender shoulders, and an amount of worldly experience such as forty years of life had not given to the elder generation. Then her father died and they all went to share the spendthrift poverty of the home, whence her mother drew her ideas of domestic economy.

Through wifehood and widowhood, to her deathbed, Mrs. Clarke clung to an unreasoning hate of her sisters-in-law, and a dread of the time when her children must come into their hands kept her struggling against death for months.

But just one month after her pitiful fight was over, Martha started for Summerfield.

Poor Martha! Never captive carried to slavery felt such dread as did she on her eastward journey. When the friend who had borne her company left her at a station near Summerfield, even the stoicism of Martha gave way before the horror of the unknown and she clung to the last landmark of her old life, with a sobbing eagerness, which even a carefully nurtured child might know.

But there was no trace of frail, human grief in the little maiden who lifted the sullen blackness of her big eyes to Aunt Jenny's face that evening, who received Aunt Mary's greeting with a self-possessed composure alarming to that shy and gentle lady, and who gave the same degree of cold attention to Aunt Amy's sweet speeches.

They had looked forward to the coming of Arthur's daughter with a strange mixture of excitement, pleasure, and dread. The dread was predominant now. For this stern little woman was not their flesh and blood, not the child of their brother, but of the woman who had kept them apart from their brother in his trouble and sickness and death.

Martha was quiet and docile enough. In fact she did what she was told with a resignation most depressing. Aunt Jenny took her to church and the sight of her critical dark eyes roving over minister and congregation spoiled the sermon for Aunt Jenny. Aunt Mary told her stories of her father intended to be gently humorous. In the midst of them Martha jumped up and ran off into the garden. She cried there for half an hour, but nobody ever knew, and this business lost her the little hold she had had on Aunt Mary's heart. Aunt Amy tried to amuse her and took her to Sunday-school, and to the Band of Hope. She gave her a doll and invited the neighbor's children to come and take tea. The doll was a source of secret amusement to Martha, but the visits of these pretty and proper children were trials which she could scarcely bear with patience.

All the while, as the aunts half suspected, she was criticising everything that came within the ken of her hungry eyes. She found Aunt Jenny imperious, Aunt Mary dull, and knew that Aunt Amy was thinking of her sweet smile as she smiled. For Martha was outside of it all, a mere spectator of this life of peace and quiet and plenty, and she secretly hungered after something to care for – something to take the place of the little brothers and sisters who had always run to her to have their faces washed and their aprons buttoned. They expected her to play with dolls, she, Martha Clarke, who had had real work to do and had learned to push and crowd her own way.

Months went by and the barrier was unbroken. One evening the tea bell rang again and again without bringing any Martha. The aunts were in consternation. Had she run away or was it a case of kidnapping? After nearly an hour the suspense was ended by the arrival of Martha. But such a Martha! Her neat raiment was muddy and torn. Her hair was in shocking disorder. Her right hand, tied up in a handkerchief, was emphatically bloody, but in spite of this, it was used to steady her bonnet, which she carried by the string, basket-wise, in her left hand.

Exclamations of horror and surprise burst from the astonished women. "Martha, where have you been? What have you been doing? What is the matter with your dress? Have you hurt your hand? Why, it's bloody! Has the child been fighting? Martha, are you going to answer?"

Martha was actually embarrassed. As she advanced into the lamplight they saw that her cheeks were crimson and her eyes sparkling, also that the contents of her bonnet was a dilapidated kitten. When she did speak, her voice was shriller than usual.

"I fell down in the mud and my hand is hurt," was her meager and hesitating answer.

"Where did the cat come from?"

"It isn't a cat, it's a kitten, and it was out in the yard, and I tried to catch it and it ran away and a dog chased it. When I came up, the dog was eating the kitten, and I hit him and then he bit me and pushed me down in the mud. But I'm going to keep the kitten." The last defiantly, then on second thought, she added:

"If you please. It's awfully hurt, that kitten."

In the silence that followed the shrill child-voice the aunts looked at each other and one thought was in the mind of each. "She looks like Arthur."

When Martha went to bed that night the kitten, with its wounds all dressed, was slumbering peacefully before the kitchen fire.

Time passed on happily for the kitten, which was not very much injured after all, and full of new interest for Martha, who plunged head and soul into the education of the kitten. Toward her aunts her feeling was unchanged. She drew a line between them and the kitten.

One evening Aunt Jenny and Aunt Amy had gone to prayer-meeting. Aunt Mary was not well and she sat bolstered up in a rocking-chair, knitting, before the bright fire in the sitting-room grate. Martha sat beside her, also knitting, in theory, but in practice carrying on a flirtation with the kitten, which was now a very gay kitten, indeed. An empty rocking-chair stood very near the fire and the kitten was leaping back and forth between its chair and Martha's, making its attacks with much caution and its retreats with much speed. Aunt Mary was sleepily watching the fun.

Suddenly there was a loud crash. The kitten had fallen into the fire in such a fashion as to knock over the rocking chair in front of the grate. It was a prisoner in the fiery furnace.

Many years had passed since Aunt Mary had moved so quickly. She threw herself at the rocking-chair and flung it to one side. She snatched up the unfortunate kitten and made one rush to the kitchen and the kerosene can, and by the time Martha overtook her, was soaking the poor little burned paws.

Half an hour later when Aunts Jenny and Amy opened the sitting-room door, an astonishing sight met their eyes. The firelight redness flickered over the excited faces of Martha and Aunt Mary laughing and talking eagerly together, Martha no longer dignified and Aunt Mary no longer shy. That was the beginning of the end, but Aunt Mary was always Martha's favorite.

And it was the little kitten who did it.

TWO BIRD LOVERS

SUNDAY afternoon the birds were sweetly mad, and the lovely rage of song drove them hither and thither, and swelled their breasts amain. It was nothing less than a tornado of fine music. I kept saying, "Yes, yes, yes, I know, dear little maniacs! I know there never was such an air, such a day, such a sky, such a God! I know it! I know it!" But they would not be pacified. Their throats must have been made of fine gold, or they would have been rent by such rapture-quakes. —Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in a letter to her mother.

Lovely flocks of rose-breasted grosbeaks were here yesterday in the high elms above the springhouse. How very elegant they are! I heard a lark, too, in the meadows near the lake, the note more minor than ever in October air. And oh, such white crowns and white throats! A jeweled crown is not to be mentioned beside theirs – such marvelous contrasts of velvets, black, and white! Swamp sparrows, too, and fox sparrows – I saw both during my last drive. —From letter to Ed., from Nelly Hart Woodworth, Vermont, Oct. 20, 1899.

WINTER TIME

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSONLate lies the wintry sun a-bed,A frosty, fiery, sleepy-head;Blinks but an hour or two; and then,A blood-red orange sets again.Before the stars have left the skies,At morning in the dark I rise;And shivering in my nakedness,By the cold candle, bathe and dress.Close by the jolly fire I sitTo warm my frozen bones a bit;Or, with a reindeer-sled, exploreThe colder countries round the door.When to go out, my nurse doth wrapMe in my comforter and cap,The cold wind burns my face, and blowsIts frosty pepper up my nose.Black are my steps on silver sod;Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;And tree and house, and hill and lake,Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

THE MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT

(Geothlypis trichas.)C. C. M

ONE of the first birds with which we became acquainted was the Maryland Yellow-throat, not especially because of its beauty but on account of its song, which at once arrests attention. Wichity, wichity, wichity, wichity, it announces from some thicket or bush where it makes its home. It is one of the most active of the warblers and is found throughout the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia; in winter it migrates to the South Atlantic and Gulf States and the West Indies.

The nest is not an easy one to find, being built on the ground, under the foot of a bush or tussock of rank grass, sometimes partly roofed over like the oven bird's. The eggs are four or five, rarely six in number, creamy-white, speckled, chiefly at the larger end, with reddish-brown, dark umber, and black; in some, occasional lines or scrawls appear. The average size is .69 × .52 inches. Oliver Davie says that the best description of this bird's song was given by Mr. Thomas M. Earl. One evening in May, 1884, he was returning from a day's hunt, and, after a rest on an old log, he was about to start on his journey homeward. At this instant a little yellow-throat mounted a small bush and, in quick succession, said: Tackle me! tackle me! tackle me! The fact is, the yellow-throat has several notes and is rather noisy for so small a bird. It is known by other names, as black-masked ground warbler, black-spectacled warbler, brier wren, and yellow brier wren.

The female is much duller in color than the male, without black, gray, or white on head. The young are somewhat like the adult female.

BOB-O-LINK

GRANVILLE OSBORNESoaring high up in the bright blue sky,Can't keep track of him if you try;Flitting around in the pasture lot,Likes to be friendly, rather than not;Dancing along on the old rail fence,Sunshine and flowers where the woods commence;Got so he almost talks to me;Head a-nodding, he says, says he —"Bob-o-link, o-link, o-link."Clover and buttercups just seem to tryCoaxing him up in the meadow to fly;Bees hunting honey keep buzzing around,Seem to know best where the sweetest is found,Almost forget when a-hearing him singWhat kind of honey they all came to bring;Pert and saucy as he can be,Tail a-flitting, he says, says he —"Bob-o-link, o-link, o-link."Wings jet black and glossy as silk,Waistcoat a-gleaming as white as milk;Dainty and slender, quicker than light,First in the morning, last one at night,Perched on the post of the barn-yard gate,Singing his sweetest to waken his mate;Dressing his feathers and winking at me,Mincing around, he says, says he —"Bob-o-link, o-link, o-link."

A STUDY OF THE COLOR PHOTOGRAPH

THE color photograph is found to be most useful in developing the color sense in children. The act of recognizing various colors and shades is educative. When we consider that all the effects of the color photograph are produced by combinations of the three primary colors we at once step into a realm of thought and observation that is boundless. The danger is that we may attempt too much with the abundance of material at hand and, by forgetting the limitations of the unformed mind, confuse instead of enlighten.

It is well for the teacher to know the process by which the color photograph is produced, but young children who know little of the laws of light are not expected to understand it fully. In advanced classes the following will be found beneficial:

A natural object is placed before a camera and a water screen is adjusted so no rays but the yellow may reach the photographic plate. A negative is thus obtained recording all the yellow that appears upon the surface of the object, whether it shows as pure yellow or in combination with other colors. With the camera and object in exactly the same position and another screen which absorbs all the rays but the red ones coming from the object, a negative of the red is obtained. A third negative of the blue in the object is similarly got, and we have an accurate representation of the form and all the colors of the object separated into red, yellow, and blue.

From these negatives three half-tone plates are made upon copper. A half-tone plate is an acid etching produced by photographic process with fine lines crossing each at right angles so that the picture appears as a series of microscopic square points which decrease in size in the lighter portions of the plate.

Red, yellow, and blue inks of the rarest quality are used in printing from these plates, with great care exercised as to getting the exact depth of color required for each. By placing a sheet of fine tissue paper beneath a plate printing red, the red is deepened, another sheet makes it more intense, and others are placed under the plate, if necessary, to get the rich red required to blend with the yellow and blue to make the exact reproductions of nature's colors which appear in the color photograph.

The order of the printing is yellow first, and when this is thoroughly dry the red is laid on, and the blue a day later. As the color is nowhere a solid mass, but a series of points, one color does not hide another, but the three colors shine through and make the blendings which appear in the beautiful and delicate shades and tints of the color photographs.

Do not manifest surprise when you find pupils wholly or partly color blind. The boy who cannot find a red marble in the grass will show by his conversation that red and green are the same to him. His is an extreme case, but there are many who are slow to name the primary colors and totally fail to recognize differences in tints.

For ordinary purposes there should be little effort given to the naming of the shades. If the colors are talked about by name, enough is done in the line of language. But classes become readily interested in comparing reds, and blues, or greens to say which is the deeper or the purer. The location of a patch of color often changes its apparent intensity. Contrast with surroundings may deceive the eye. Whistler has used Naples yellow so the observer declares it pure white.

A good exercise in color recognition is given in choosing masses of color on the picture and telling what primary colors are in them; also in comparing two masses and saying which appears to have the more red or yellow in it.

Where the class have water colors excellent practice may be had in selecting and mixing colors to correspond with a given one. The mixing should be first tried without placing the mixed mass beside the copy. Very young children often make surprisingly accurate judgments of color, and no game pleases them more than a mixing contest, having the game decided in each instance by placing the best work beside the original.