Vol. VII. No. 2. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds and all Nature Vol VII, No. 2, February 1900, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Birds and all Nature Vol VII, No. 2, February 1900 Illustrated by Color Photography Author: Various Release Date: February 21, 2015 [EBook #48331] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND ALL NATURE, FEBRUARY 1900 *** Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Christian Boissonnas, The Internet Archive for some images and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net BIRDS AND ALL NATURE. ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. FEBRUARY, 1900. CONTENTS. Page A BABY HERON. 49 THE KILLDEER. 50 COTTON TEXTILES. II. 53 THE CINNAMON TEAL. 59 A SCRAP OF PAPER. 59 THE CLAPPER RAIL. 62 THE SWINGING LAMPS OF DAWN. 62 THE LATE DR. ELLIOTT COUES. 65 BOBBY'S "COTTON-TAIL." 67 "THE COUNTRY, THE COUNTRY!" 68 THE GOPHER. 71 HANS AND MIZI. 72 GEOGRAPHY LESSONS. 73 THE MINK. 74 THE NEW SPORT. 77 MOLE CRICKET LODGE. 78 SNOW BIRDS. 79 VEGETATION IN THE PHILIPPINES. 80 COMMON MINERALS AND VALUABLE ORES. 83 FEBRUARY. 85 LICORICE. 86 A WINTER WALK IN THE WOODS. 90 THE SCARLET PAINTED CUP. 92 THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 95 WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT. 96 [Pg 49] A BABY HERON. REST H. METCALF. OW many of the boys and girls who read Birds and All Nature ever saw a baby heron? I am sure you would like to see ours. He measures from tip to tip of his wings, that is, with his wings spread just as far as we could stretch them, five feet and ten inches, and from the tip of his bill to the tip of his toe very nearly five feet. Now, isn't that a little baby? He is nearly full-grown but has not on the dress of the old birds; that is why we call him baby. He is called a crane by some people, but his right name is great blue heron, and his scientific name is Ardea herodias. Shall I tell you about his dress? His head is all dusky now, but when he puts on his new dress his forehead and central part of the crown will be white enclosed by a circle of black—a fine black crest with two elongated black plumes that make him appear to be very much dressed up. His back and wings are blue-gray, but like his head will be decorated with elongated scapulæ feathers, when he gets on his dress suit, and his long neck, which now has a rather dingy look, will have a beautiful collar of cinnamon brown tinged with purple and a white line in front from throat to breast. The tail is short and very inconspicuous. He really is a beautiful bird in spite of his long neck and long legs. He is the largest of our New England herons and is not very abundant. You may find him about large bodies of water, and during the daytime he prefers the solitude of the forests and sits quietly in tall trees for hours, but in the early mornings and late afternoons he may be seen standing motionless at the edge of the water until a fish or a frog appears, when, with unerring stroke of his long beak, as quickly as lightning, he seizes it and beats it until dead, then swallows it; this act is often repeated. He varies his diet with meadow mice, snakes, and insects, so he certainly does not lead a very monotonous life. Our baby ate for his last breakfast four good-sized perch. Wasn't that a fine breakfast? I know you would like to hear about his early home. It was in a terribly dismal swamp, where it was almost impossible to reach, through mud to your knees and through briers and tangled bushes high as your head. There, several feet above your head was a nest, nearly flat, made of different sizes of twigs put together in a loose and lazy manner. Usually there are three or four light bluish-green eggs. Only one brood is reared in a season. There are some people who say that the blue heron is good for food, but those who have once tried it do not care for another plate. They are the most suspicious of our birds and the hardest to be approached for they are constantly on the lookout for danger and with their long necks, keen eyes, and delicate organs of hearing, they can detect the approach of a hunter long before he can get within gunshot. They have a very unmusical voice, their call being a hoarse guttural "honk." Once they were found in larger numbers, but now are seldom seen but in pairs or singly, and what a pity that foolish fashion of trimming ladies' hats has nearly exterminated so many varieties of beautiful birds! God gave us many beautiful things to enjoy in this world, and are they not more beautiful when we can see them alive in nature just where God placed them, than they are when dead and taken by pieces to adorn our heads? [Pg 50] THE KILLDEER. (Aegialitis vocifera.) R. LIVINGSTONE described a relative of this bird which he met with in Africa as "a most plaguey sort of public- spirited individual that follows you everywhere, flying overhead, and is most persevering in his attempts to give fair warning to all animals within hearing to flee from the approach of danger," a characteristic which has caused the killdeer to be an object of dislike to the gunner. It is usually the first to take alarm at his approach and starts up all other birds in the vicinity by its loud cries. It can run with such swiftness that, according to Audubon, to run "like a killdeer" has in some parts of the country passed into a proverb. It is also active on the wing and mounts at pleasure to a great height in the air, with a strong and rapid flight, which can be continued for a long distance. In the love season it performs various kinds of evolutions while on the wing. This plover is found throughout temperate North America to Newfoundland and Manitoba, nests throughout range, and winters south of New England to Bermuda, the West Indies, Central and South America. From March to November, and later, it is resident, and is very abundant in spring and autumn migrations. These birds are generally seen in flocks when on the wing, but scatter when feeding. Pastures and cultivated fields, tracts of land near water, lakesides and marshes seem necessary to it. The sound uttered by it, kildeer, kildeer, dee, dee, is almost incessant, but it is often low and agreeable, with a plaintive strain in it. When apparently in danger the voice rises higher and shriller. Cows, horses, sheep, and the larger poultry that wander over a farm are said not to alarm these birds in the least. But they are wild in the presence of man wherever they have been persecuted. They will often squat till one is close upon them, and will then suddenly fly up or run off, startling the unwary intruder by their loud and clear cry. In winter the killdeer is an unusually silent bird, in which season it is found dispersed over the cultivated fields in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and other southern states, diligently searching for food. Davie says that it may often be heard on moonlight nights. The nest is placed on the ground, usually in the vicinity of a stream or pond, often on an elevated spot in the grass or in a furrowed field. It is merely a slight depression in the ground. The eggs are drab or clay color, thickly spotted and blotched with blackish brown and umber, small and quite pointed. They are generally four in number, measuring 1.50 to 1.60 long by about 1.10 broad. The plovers resemble the snipe in structure, but are smaller, averaging about the size of a thrush. Their bills also are shorter. They have three toes usually; their bodies are plump; short, thick necks, long wings, and in some instances they have spurs on the wings. They pick their food, which is largely of an animal nature, from the surface of the ground, instead of probing for it, as their shorter bills indicate. The flesh of the killdeer is not highly regarded as a food. FROM COL. F. KAEMPFER. A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. KILLDEER. ⅔ Life-size. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO. [Pg 51] [Pg 53] COTTON TEXTILES. II. W. E. WATT, A. M. OTTON is spun and woven into so many useful forms that we could hardly live without it since we have become so thoroughly accustomed to the comforts and luxuries it supplies to us. From the loose fiber that we use in treating our teeth when they get to troubling us to the delicate lace handkerchief which is such a dream of the weaver's art we use cotton for our commonest and our most extraordinary purposes. Muslin takes its name from Mosul, in India, where it was first made. Although muslin is now made in both Europe and America in great quantities, the kind that is most famed for its fineness is that from Dacca, India. To get an idea of the fine threads used in making the rarest of this muslin we must note that one pound of cotton is spun into three hundred eighty hanks of thread with eight hundred forty yards of thread in each hank. This means that one pound of cotton is spun out to the length of 319,000 yards, or over one hundred eighty-one miles. One pound of this thread would, if it could be stretched out without breaking, reach from New York City up the Hudson to Albany, and there would still be enough of it unused to reach over to Saratoga. Ten pounds would reach from New York city to Omaha, with enough left over to reach back to Chicago. It is even possible to exceed this in fineness if we do not care for use. To show the perfection of a machine, a thread of the fineness of 10,000 has been spun. If this could be strung out, as suggested above, it would reach 4,770 miles. One pound of the finest fiber has thus been spun so that it would reach from New York to Naples, Italy, and there would still be enough of it left to reach half-way back to London on the return trip. Where three hundred and eighty hanks of thread are spun from a pound the muslin made from it is called three hundred eighty-degree muslin. But even this is not the finest muslin made. It is the finest made by the old hand processes, but the perfections of machinery have made it possible for us to have seven hundred-degree cotton. A strange thing about our finest machine-made cotton is that it does not seem to the eye or the touch to be as fine as the Dacca. There is a peculiar softness which cannot be imitated by the machine. I went the other day into one of our great dry-goods stores to see how fine a piece of cotton I could buy. I was surprised to find that the gentlemanly clerks knew very little about where the goods were made and almost nothing at all about the processes. They were very obliging, but their business of selling does not seem to require any knowledge of those things I was so desirous of learning. The finest things I found were India linen and Swiss mull. The India linen has a remarkable name, seeing it is not linen and is made in Scotland. The Swiss mull is nearly as well named, for it is also made in Glasgow. Whether these goods sell better because their names seem to indicate that they are made somewhere else I cannot say, but the truth seems to be that they were called by these names innocently enough by those who first made them, being proud that they could produce mull equal to the finest worn by the ladies in Switzerland or equal to the finest products of the Indian looms. It is well known that in the dry-goods business it seems to be greatly to the advantage of the merchant to have fine names for his wares, the larger houses regularly employing women who do nothing but find fancy names for the things that are for sale. Goods are sometimes displayed with one name for several days without finding a purchaser, but the namer soon comes in with a new name to attach to the goods and some of the very shoppers who do not care for them under the first name buy them readily under the new one. A lady recently asked me to tell her the difference between muslin and long cloth. I thought there might be a difference, but have been unable to find anyone who can tell what it is. Both names are applied to white cotton goods of various degrees of fineness. Long cloth is of a superior quality of cotton, and so is muslin when intended for dress goods. Some of the names under which white cotton goods are sold are muslins, tarletans, mulls, jaconets, nainsooks, lawns, grenadines, saccarillas, cottonade, cotton velvet, and velveteen. Cotton is rarely manufactured where raised. It is carried to the seacoast as a rule by river steamers, though there have been instances where the laziness and ingenuity of man have combined to send it down-stream in bales completely covered with india rubber wrappings, so they floated to their destination with little care and no harm from water. With all our boasted Yankee shrewdness and cunning in mechanics we do not make up the finer grades of cotton very extensively. As a rule the coarser kinds of cloth that take much material and less skill are made here, while the finer grades that get more value out of the pound of cotton are made abroad, chiefly in Great Britain. As an indication of this the figures taken in the year 1884 form a striking illustration. The average amount of cotton spun by each spindle in Great Britain that year was thirty-four and a half pounds, while the amount consumed by each spindle in America averaged just sixty-five pounds, showing that the products of our spindles are just twice as heavy on the average as those of the English and Scotch. A fortunate thing about our goods when sent abroad is that they are accurately marked and prove to be very nearly what they are represented. This is not the case with goods shipped out of Great Britain, where their long experience in handling cotton has made them more expert than we in stuffing their goods with sizing and other adulterations which make the goods deceptive. There is so little tendency in this direction among American manufacturers that our good name has given us an advantage in China and India, where our [Pg 54] manufactures are much more readily sold than what purport to be the same of British make. Most of our cotton that is not exported is made up into yarns, threads, and the coarser goods, such as shirtings, sheetings, drills, print cloths, bags, and so forth. Yet there are several of our mills, especially in the North, that turn out the finer fabrics with great credit to the country. Large quantities of cotton are, of course, used up in woolen mills, where mixed goods are made, and hosiery mills, felt factories, and hat works consume it largely. Much cotton also goes into mattresses and upholstery. It comes from a boll having three or five cells. This bursts open when it is ripe. Cotton fiber is either white or yellow, and varies in length from a little over half an inch to two inches. When gathered it is separated from its clinging seeds by the cotton gin, and is then pressed firmly in bales weighing about five hundred pounds each, although in some countries the customary sizes of bales vary two or three hundred pounds from this weight. Of the twenty or more varieties of cotton but two are given much attention in the United States. These are the famous sea island cotton and the common, woolly-seed kind. The sea island cotton grows on the islands off the coast of South Carolina, in Florida, and on the coast of Texas. The peculiar salt air and humidity of these coasts seem necessary to its perfection, for when it is planted in the interior it quickly loses its best qualities and becomes similar to the common variety. Its fibers are long and silky, and used for the finest laces, spool cotton, fine muslins, and such goods, but there is so little of it as compared with the woolly seed cotton that it is but an insignificant part of our great crop. Cotton is the only fibre that is naturally produced ready to be worked directly into cloth without special chemical or mechanical treatment. It is the great article of comfortable and cheap covering for man's person. When gathered and baled it is in a knotted and lumpy state, from which it is rather difficult to extricate the fibers and arrange them for spinning. As we follow the cotton through the mill we come to these machines in the following order: It goes to the opener first, where it is beaten and spread out so that a strong draft of air drives out much of its impurities; it then goes to the scutcher after being formed into laps; the lap machine makes it into flat folds; the carding engine not only cards it but straightens the fiber and gives it another cleaning; in the drawing frame it is arranged in loose ropes with the fibers parallel; then the slubbing frame gives it a slight twist; the intermediate and finishing frames twist it still farther, especially when preparing it for the higher numbers; the throstle frame prepares coarse warps; and on the mules, either self-acting or hand, the coarse or fine yarns are spun. In some systems several operations are performed by the same machine. Weaving follows. It consists in passing threads over and under each other as a stocking is darned, the main difference being that in darning the needle passes up and down to get over or under the threads it meets, while in weaving the threads met by the moving thread move out of the way so the shuttle may pass straight through the whole width of the cloth. As the shuttle comes back the threads are reversed so that the ones that were up before are now down and those that were down are now up. The machine that holds many threads for this work is the loom. An English clergyman by the name of Edmund Cartwright has the credit of inventing the power loom. His description of his labors is interesting. We copy from one of his letters: "Happening to be in Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with two gentlemen of Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright's spinning machinery. One of the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright's patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, that hands never could be found to weave it. To this observation I replied, that Arkwright must then set his wits to work and invent a weaving mill. This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable; and, in defense of their opinion, they adduced arguments which I certainly was incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject, having never at that time seen a person weave. I controverted, however, the impracticability of the thing, by remarking that there had lately been exhibited an automaton figure which played at chess." "Some little time afterward, a particular circumstance recalling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that, as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had of the business, there could only be three movements, which were to follow each other in succession, there would be very little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of these ideas, I immediately got a carpenter and smith to carry them into effect. As soon as the machine was finished I got a weaver to put in the warp, which was of such material as sail-cloth is usually made of. To my delight a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the product. As I had never before turned my thoughts to anything mechanical, either in theory or practice, nor had ever seen a loom at work or knew anything of its construction, you will readily suppose that my first loom must have been a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed perpendicularly, the reed fell with a force of at least half a hundred weight and the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. "In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate and only for a short time. Conceiving in my great simplicity that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most valuable property by a patent, 4th of April, 1785. This being done, I then condescended to see how other people wove. And you will guess my astonishment when I compared their easy mode of operation and mine. Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its general principles nearly as they are now made; but it was not until the year 1787 that I completed my invention, when I took out my first weaving patent Aug. 1 of that year." As usual this worthy man, who had won the right to the title he received, was not the only discoverer or inventor of the thing credited to his name. Long before his time a description of a similar loom had been presented to the Royal Society of London, but he had no knowledge of it. He spent between £30,000 and £40,000 bringing his invention to a successful stage, but failed to make it profitable to himself. A small return was made to him later, at the suggestion of the [Pg 55] [Pg 56] principal mill-owners of the country, when he received from the government the sum of £10,000. His work has been much improved in detail since, but it has never been altered in its main principles. But with all our arts and marvelous machines the most beautifully fine cotton fabric is yet the Dacca muslin. It is called "woven wind," and when spread out upon the grass it is said to resemble gossamer. It used to be made for the Indian princes before the days when the British took possession of the country. It was made only in a strip of territory about forty miles long and three miles in width. With the change in rulers the weavers largely dropped the work which they and their ancestors had done for centuries, handing down their art from father to son; they took to the business of raising indigo, as their soil and climate were well adapted to its production and the demand was good. Yet there are some of them weaving at this day, though not in sufficient numbers to produce the muslin as a regular article of commerce. A bamboo bow strung with catgut, like a fiddle string, is used to separate the fiber from the seed. It is carded with a big fishbone. The distaff is held in the hand and the loom is a very old-fashioned affair, home-made of bamboo reeds, so simple that a few shillings will purchase one, though a lifetime will not make one able to use it. The weaver chooses a spot under the shade of a large tree, digs a hole in the dirt for his legs and the lower part of the "geer" and fastens his balances to some convenient bough overhead. His exceedingly fine threads will not work well except in such a shady spot and early in the morning, when there is just the right amount of moisture in the tropical air. There is no line of hand work in which there is such a contrast to-day as in the business of making cotton goods. Machinery has vastly outstripped the hand in quantity of product and accuracy, yet the old ways prevail in the manipulation of the very finest of web. Although Whitney's saw gin made a revolution in the industry, yet the long and delicate fibers of sea-island cotton are separated from the seed in the old way of passing seed cotton between two rollers which are going in different directions. The smooth seeds of this cotton pop away from the fiber quite readily without breaking it. If it were pulled through Whitney's gin there would be more or less tearing and breaking. So the great invention does not apply to cleaning the very finest material. The short wool fibers of common cotton are not so much hurt by the saw teeth and the amount of work done by the gin makes this damage of no account. At the Atlanta Cotton Exposition in 1882 the old and the new were strikingly contrasted. The mountain people of the South, in many instances, live after the old fashions of colonial times. They make homespun cloth which is a revelation to us. Some of these people were induced to show their work at the exposition, and they were as much astonished at the apparel of their visitors who gazed upon them and their strange labor as were the visitors at the work and manners of the mountaineers. Two carders operated hand cards, two spinsters ran the spinning-wheels and one weaver made cloth upon a hand loom. In ten hours these five people made eight yards of very coarse cloth. FROM COL. F. KAEMPFER. A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. CINNAMON TEAL. ½ Life-size. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO. [Pg 58] [Pg 59] THE CINNAMON TEAL. (Anas cyanoptera.) AVIE says that the geographical distribution of this beautiful teal is western America, from the Columbia river south to Chili, Patagonia, and Falkland Islands; east in North America to the Rocky Mountains; casual in the Mississippi Valley, and accidental in Ohio. It is abundant in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains, breeding in Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Idaho, and Oregon. Its habits are similar to those of the blue-wing. Its favorite breeding-places are in fields of tall grass or clover, not far from water. The eggs range from nine to thirteen, and the nest is so completely woven of grass, feathers, and down that it is said the entire structure may be picked up without its coming apart. Oliver Davie, the well known ornithologist, says that it gave him pleasure to be able to add this beautiful duck to the avifauna of Ohio as an accidental visitor. On the 4th of April, 1895, a fine male of this species was taken at the Licking County reservoir by William Harlow. On the 6th Mr. Davie skinned and mounted it and it is now one of the rare Ohio birds in his collection. It proved to be good eating. This, he says, is the first record of the cinnamon teal ever having been taken in the state. The eggs of this species are creamy-white or pale buff, the average size being 1.88×1.38. A SCRAP OF PAPER. ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE. "A bluebird sings on the leafless spray, Hey-ho, winter will go!" E ARRIVED that year very early in the season. It was about the twelfth of February that I first heard his plaintive note far up in the maple tree. Could it be Mr. Bluebird, I questioned as I hastened to the window opera-glass in hand? Yes, there he stood, not too comfortably dressed I am afraid, in his blue cap, sky-blue overcoat and russet-brown vest edged with a trimming of feathers soft and white. There had been a slight fall of snow during the night, and I fancied, from his pensive note, that he was chiding himself for leaving the Mississippi Valley, to which he had journeyed at the first touch of wintry weather in Illinois. "If it wasn't for the snowdrops, the crocus, the violets, and daffodils," he was saying in a faint sweet warble, "I'd linger longer in the South than I do. They, dear little things, never know, down in their frozen beds, that winter will soon give place to spring till they hear my voice, and so, no matter how bleak the winds or how gray the sky, I sing to let them know I have arrived, my presence heralding the birth of spring and death of winter. It well repays me, I am sure, when, in March under the warm kisses of the sun their pretty heads appear above the ground, and, smiling back at him, out they spring dressed in their new mantles of purple and yellow." At this moment from the topmost branch of an adjoining maple came a low, sweet, tremulous note very much indeed like a sigh. "Ah," said he, surveying the new-comer with flattering attention, "that is the young daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird who nested in Lincoln Park last summer. For some reason they decided not to go South this season but remained in Chicago all winter. She strikes me as being a very pretty young-lady bird, and certainly it will be no more than friendly upon my part to fly over there and inquire how she and her family withstood the rigors of a Northern winter." From Miss Bluebird's demeanor, when he alighted upon a twig beside her, I concluded she greatly disapproved of his unceremonius approach. Prettily lifting her wings and lightly trembling upon her perch she made as if to fly away, but instead only changed her position a little, coyly turning aside her head while listening to what the young gentleman had to say. Encouraged by this Mr. Bluebird's manner became very friendly indeed, and very soon, reassured by his respectful demeanor and sentiments uttered in a voice of oh, such touching sweetness, the young-lady bird unbent, responding at length in a very amiable manner, I noticed, to her companion's remarks. The conversation which followed may have been very commonplace or very bright and sparkling, but as there is always an undercurrent of sadness in the bluebird's note, and an air of pensiveness expressed in its actions, one could only conjecture what the tenor of this one might be. The pair, to my intense satisfaction, the next day met again in the top of the maple tree exchanging confidences in low, tremulous strains of surpassing sweetness, uneasily shifting their stations from time to time, lifting their wings, as is their pretty habit, and trembling lightly upon their perches as though about to rise and fly away. The following morning, which was the fourteenth day of February, Mr. Bluebird's manner when he greeted his new acquaintance appeared to offend her very much. She was cold and distant, whether from maidenly coyness or a laudable desire to check his too confident, proprietorship sort of air, who can say? In no way daunted, that gay bachelor pressed his suit warmly, picturing in tones of peculiar tenderness the snug little home they would establish together, what a devoted husband he would be, attentive, submissive, following her directions in all things. Miss Bluebird shook her head. It was all very well, she replied, for him to talk of poetry and romance, but he knew well enough that upon her would devolve all the serious cares of life. While he would be very active in hunting for tenements, submitting, no doubt, to her choice, was it not the custom of all the Mr. Bluebirds to fly ahead in quest of material, gayly singing, while their mates selected and carried and builded the nest? What poetry would there be in life for her, she would like to know, under such circumstances, and then, when all was done, to sit for hours and days on the eggs she had laid in order to rear a brood. Oh, no! She was not ready to give up all the pleasures of life yet, and then—and then—Miss Bluebird lowered her eyes and stammered something about being too young to leave her mother. What argument Mr. Bluebird brought to bear against this latter reason for rejecting his suit I cannot say, but being a wise bird he only stifled a laugh behind his foot and continued more warmly to press it. Again and again he followed her when she took a short flight, quavering tru-al-ly, tru-al-ly, no doubt telling her of the many good qualities of the Mr. Bluebirds, how devoted they were, how they ever relied upon the good judgment and practical turn of their mates, never directing, never disputing, but by cheerful song and gesture encouraging and applauding everything they did. Then, too, unlike some other husbands that wear feathers, they regularly fed their mates when sitting upon the nest and did their duty afterward in helping to rear the young. [Pg 60] [Pg 61] As he talked Miss Bluebird's coldness gradually melted till at length she coyly accepted his invitation to descend and examine a certain tenement which, hoping for her acceptance, he had the day previous, he said, been to view. "We can at least look it over," he said artfully, noticing the elevation of her bill at the word "acceptance," "though of course it is too early in the season to occupy it. Mr. Purple Martin lived in it last year and——" Miss Bluebird interrupted him, a trifle haughtily, I thought. "Is the tenement you speak of in a stump, fence hole, or tree cavity?" she inquired. "Neither," he hastened to answer; "it is a box erected by the owner of these premises." "Ah," said she, graciously, "that is another matter," and very amiably spread her wings and descended upon the roof of the box in question. "You see," explained Mr. Bluebird, "the man who put up this dwelling knew what he was about. He had no intention the sparrows should occupy it, so he built it without any doorsteps or piazza, as you have no doubt remarked." "Really," replied Miss Bluebird, "in my opinion that is a great defect. A house without doorsteps——" "Is just what certain families want," interrupted Mr. Bluebird, smilingly. "Our enemies, the sparrows, cannot fly directly into a nest hole or box like this, as we can, but must have a perch upon which first to alight. It is for that reason, my dear, this house was built without doorsteps. No sparrow families are wanted here." Miss Bluebird at this juncture thought it proper to be overcome with a feeling of shyness, and could not be prevailed upon to enter the box. More than once her companion flew in and returned to her side, singing praises of its coziness as a place of abode. "With new furnishings it will do capitally," said he; "we might even make the Purple Martins' nest do with a little——" Miss Bluebird's bill at once went up into the air. "If there is anything I detest," said she, scornfully, "it is old furniture, especially second-hand beds. If that is the best you have to offer a prospective bride, Mr. Bluebird, I will bid you good-day," and the haughty young creature prettily fluttered her wings as if about to fly off and leave him. "Do not go," he pleaded; "if this house does not please you I have others to offer," and Miss Bluebird, moved apparently by his tender strains, sweetly said tru-al-ly and condescended to fly down and enter the box. It was scarcely a minute ere she reappeared, and, flying at once to her favorite branch in the maple tree, called to him to follow. A scrap of paper, woven into his nest by the Purple Martin the past season, fluttered to the ground as she emerged from the box, and while the pair exchanged vows of love and constancy up in the maple tree, I picked it up and saw, not without marveling at the sagacity of Mr. Bluebird, who probably had dragged it into sight, a heart faintly drawn in red ink, and below it the words: "Thou art my valentine!" [Pg 62] THE CLAPPER RAIL. (Rallus longirostris crepitans.) HIS bird, sometimes called the salt-water marsh hen, is found in great abundance in the salt marshes of the Atlantic coast from New Jersey southward. It breeds in profusion in the marshes from the Carolinas to Florida, and has lately been found breeding on the coast of Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico, Dr. A. K. Fisher having taken an old bird and two young at Grand Isle in 1886. The clapper rail arrives on the south-eastern coast of New Jersey about the last of April, its presence being made known by harsh cries at early dawn and at sunset. Nest-building is commenced in the latter part of May, and by the first of June the full complement of eggs is laid, ranging, says Davie, from six to nine or ten in number, thirteen being the probable limit. Farther south the bird is known to lay as many as fifteen. On Cobb's Island, Virginia, the clapper breeds in great numbers, carefully concealing the nest in high grass. The color of the eggs is pale buffy-yellow, dotted and spotted with reddish-brown and pale lilac, with an average size of 1.72 × 1.20, but there is a great variation in this respect in a large series. At the nesting-season the rails are the noisiest of birds; their long, rolling cry is taken up and repeated by each member of the community. The thin bodies of the birds often measure no more than an inch and a quarter through the breast. "As thin as a rail" is a well-founded illustrative expression. "To get a good look at these birds in their grassy retreats," says Neltje Blanchan, "is no easy matter. Row a scow over the submerged grass at high-tide as far as it will go, listen to the skulking clatterers, and, if near by, plunge from the bow into the muddy meadow, and you may have the good fortune to flush a bird or two that rises fluttering just above the sedges, flies a few yards, trailing its legs behind it, and drops into the grasses again before you can press the button of your camera. A rarer sight still is to see a clapper rail running, with head tilted downward and tail upward, in a ludicrous gait, threading in and out of the grassy maze." The rail can swim fairly well, but not fast. Its wings are short, but useful, and it is so swift-footed that dogs chase it in vain. FROM COL. F. NUSSBAUMER & SON A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. CLAPPER RAIL. ⅖ Life-size. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO. THE SWINGING LAMPS OF DAWN. REV. CHARLES COKE WOODS. Anear the threshold of my home A wily foe had strayed, And on a rose-tree in the loam A wondrous thing he made; Beneath the cover of the night He built a silken gin, And at the break of morning light Bade all the homeless in. Each shining cord was made with skill, And woven with such grace, That none would dream he meant to kill, In such a royal place; The beauty of that bright bazar No one could ever fear, Its mirrors caught the morning star, That glistened crystal-clear. Its swinging lamps were globes of dew, Enkindled by the dawn, And when the morning breezes blew Across the velvet lawn, The shining lamps swung to and fro. Enravishing the eye, Till garbed in light-robes, all aglow, Was every flower and fly. But when the lights began to wane, As sea-tides slowly ebb, I heard the minor notes of pain Issuing from a web; And as my cautious feet drew nigh, I heard the dying song Of one deluded, wayward fly That watched the lamps too long. [Pg 65] THE LATE DR. ELLIOTT COUES. C. C. MARBLE. ELLIOTT COUES HE subject of this sketch, whose death occurred on Christmas, 1899, at Baltimore, Md., was one of the few men who have become famous both in physical and psychical science. He had long been recognized as one of the leading naturalists of America, and of late years had acquired equal distinction as a philosopher. Early in April last Dr. Coues supplied us with the material for a sketch of his life, to which we are indebted chiefly for what this article contains. He was born in Portsmouth, N. H., Sept. 9, 1842, and was the son of Samuel Elliott Coues and Charlotte Haven Ladd Coues. His father was the author of several scientific treatises which anticipated some of the more modern views of physics, astronomy, and geology; so that young Coues would seem to have inherited his bent of mind towards study and research. The name is of Norman French origin. Dr. Coues' father was a friend of Franklin Pierce, and early in the presidency of the latter received from him an appointment in the United States patent office, which he held nearly to his death in July, 1867. The family moved to Washington in 1833 and Dr. Coues had always been a resident of that city, excepting during the years he served in the West and South as an army officer or engaged in scientific explorations. As a boy he was educated under Jesuit influences at the seminary now known as Gonzaga College. In 1857 he entered a Baptist college, now Columbian University, where he graduated in 1861 in the academic department, and in 1863 in the medical department of that institution. To the degrees of A. B., A. M., Ph. D., and M. D., conferred by this college, his riper scholarship added titles enough to fill a page from learned societies all over the world. His taste for natural history developed early in an enthusiastic devotion to ornithology, and before he graduated he was sent by the Smithsonian Institution to collect birds in Labrador. Among his earliest writings are the account of this trip, and a treatise on the birds of the District of Columbia, both published in 1861, and both papers secured public recognition in England as well as in this country, thus making a beginning of his literary reputation. While yet a medical student, Dr. Coues was enlisted by Secretary Stanton as medical cadet, U. S. A., and served a year in one of the hospitals in Washington. On graduating in medicine in 1863, he was appointed by Surgeon-General Hammond for a year as acting assistant surgeon U. S. A. and, on coming of age passed a successful examination for the medical corps of the army. He received his commission in 1864, and was immediately ordered to duty in Arizona. His early years of service in that territory, and afterward in North and South Carolina, were utilized in investigating the natural history of those regions, respecting which he published various scientific papers. Though he wrote some professional articles, during his hospital experience, Dr. Coues seems never to have been much interested in the practice of medicine and surgery. After about ten years of ordinary military service as post surgeon in various places he was, in 1873, appointed naturalist of the U.S. northern boundary commission, which surveyed the line along the forty-ninth parallel from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky mountains. In 1874 he returned to Washington to prepare the scientific report of his operations. He edited all the publications of the United States geological and geographical survey of the territories from 1876 to 1880 and contributed several volumes to the reports of the survey, notably his "Birds of the Northwest," "Fur Bearing Animals," "Birds of the Colorado Valley," and several installments of a universal Bibliography of Ornithology. The latter work attracted especial attention in Europe, and Dr. Coues was signally complimented by an invitation, signed by Darwin, Huxley, Flower, Newton, Sclater, and about forty other leading British scientists to take up his residence in London and identify himself with the British Museum. Dr. Coues also projected and had well under way a "History of North American Mammals," which was ordered to be printed by act of Congress when suddenly, at the very height of his scientific researches and literary labors, he was ordered by the war department to routine medical duty on the frontier. He obeyed the order and proceeded to Arizona, but found it, of course, impossible to resume a life he had long since outgrown. His indignant protests being of no avail, he returned to Washington and promptly tendered his resignation from the army in order to continue his scientific career unhampered by red tape. As an author he is chiefly known by his numerous works on ornithology, mammalogy, herpetology, bibliography, lexicography, comparative anatomy, natural philosophy, and psychical research. He was one of the authors of the Century Dictionary of the English Language, in seven years contributing 40,000 words and definitions in general biology, comparative anatomy, and all branches of zoölogy. During the last few years he contributed several volumes on western history, in all twelve volumes, and by study and research was enabled to correct many errors. In 1877 he received the highest technical honor to be attained by an American scientist in his election to the Academy of National Science and was for some years the youngest academician. The same year saw his election to the chair of anatomy of the National Medical College in Washington, where he had graduated in '63. He then entered upon a professorship and lectured upon his favorite branch of the medical sciences for ten years. He appears to have been the first in Washington to teach human anatomy upon the broadest basis of morphology and upon the principle of evolution. Nearly all his life Dr. Coues has been a collaborator of the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, his name being most frequently mentioned in that connection. Many of the numberless specimens of natural history he presented to the United States [Pg 66] government were found new to science and several have been named in compliment to their discoverer. At the height of his intellectual activity in physical science the spiritual side of Dr. Coues' nature was awakened. He became interested in the phenomena of spiritualism, as well as in the speculations of theosophy. Belonging distinctively to the materialistic school of thought and skeptical to the last degree by his whole training and turn of mind, he nevertheless began to feel the inadequacy of formal orthodox science to deal with the deeper problems of human life and destiny. Convinced of the soundness of the main principles of evolution, as held by his peers in science, he wondered whether these might not be equally applicable to psychical research, and hence took up the theory of evolution at the point where Darwin left it, proposing to use it in explanation of the obscure phenomena of hypnotism, clairvoyance, telepathy and the like. He visited Europe to see Mme. Blavatsky, founded and became president of the Gnostic Theosophical Society of Washington, and later became the perpetual president of the Esoteric Theosophical Society of America. In 1890 he published an exposé of the impostures of Blavatsky, and from that time his interest in the cult gradually ceased. Most men can do some things well, but nature is seldom so lavish of her gifts as to produce a genius who does all things equally well. It is rare to find a man like Dr. Coues, who was capable of incessant drudgery in the most prosaic technicalities, yet blessed with the poetic temperament and ardent imagination, able to array the deepest problems in a sparkling style which fascinated while it convinced. His literary labors would have killed most men, but to his grasp of mind nature had kindly joined a strong, healthy body that proved capable of any demand upon his physical endurance that his intellectual activity might make. He was tall, well-formed, classic in features, straight as an arrow, with the air of the scholar without the student's stoop, betraying no trace of mental weariness—a man with the tastes of a sybarite and the soul of a poet; to quote from a leading journal, "the imagination of a Goethe and the research of a Humboldt." In conversation he was fascinating, possessing much of the personal magnetism ascribed to James G. Blaine. It was the pleasure of the writer to have many interviews and to enjoy a somewhat intimate correspondence with him almost up to the time of his death. [Pg 67] BOBBY'S "COTTON-TAIL." GRANVILLE OSBORNE. I. Name's Bobby Wilkins; I'm a-goin' on six years old; Aunt Polly says 'at I'm a-gettin' purty pert 'n bold; She 'aint er might uv use fer boys 'at's jest er-bout my size; If Tabby'n me hev eny fun her "angry pashuns rise," 'n When I try ter make some sparks fly out uv Tabby's tail Aunt Polly says, "Bad boys like you are sometimes put in jail;" But I don't mind her not a bit, an' make jest lots uv noise, An' nen she looks so cross an' sez, "Deliver me frum boys." II. My Aunt Polly likes her cat er-nough sight better'n me, 'n' Keeps a-coddlin' it 'ith cream 'n' sometimes catnip tea. Seen some tracks behin' ther shed, an' nen I sez, sez I, "I'll catch yer, Mister Cotton-Tail, to make a rabbit pie;" So me'n' Tommy Baker found er empty cracker box; Thought we'd hev it big er-nough fer fear he wuz er fox, An' nen we propped ther cover up 'n' fixed it 'ith a spring 'At shut it suddin' 'ith a bang ez tight ez anything. III. We cut er fresh green carrot top 'n' put it in fer bait, Wuz both so sure we'd ketch him 'at we couldn't hardly wait; Pounded in some stakes each side 'n' made it good 'n' stout; If Mister Cotton-Tail got in he never could get out. Tom staid 'ith me till mornin', an' almos' 'fore it wuz light We run behin' ther shed 'n' foun' our trap all shet up tight; An' nen I shouted, "Got him!" 'n' Tom threw up his hat— Blame 'f that ol' rabbit wasn't my Aunt Polly's cat! [Pg 68]