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Non^l SchoS! nUlt^ '' S:XS:«?!f 5%;^;-- -^^^^ -e. by P. P. 8. Soleotioiis fh)iii the Canadian Pfom WHta*. ph:-^ "■ 2S!S2'«^? WpntoWOrth. Ew Book. P»rt II. Edit«i O. J. StcveMon, M.A., D.P»d. ?^ !«. HamttYtPoemi. Edit«l with notes by John C. Saul, M.^ . "* C* siSl?™?^ ^'*"**'' *'*^*- Edited with note, by Joto- *** ^'gS?Si?®" '^"''•"®^- Edited with note, by John **" bi W»!W!!!r'5 ■•W^Mtof Venice. Edited with note. C^l^, B.A., Pnnapal, Humbenide CoUegiate I,iitute. 22. SUakMpeye's A* You Like It Edited with note, by CoLe;::e.^T:rXkto; ^^ ^"'^"•*' ^P^^'"*' "'^ School o? "• A^*ff!*^*" "^'S*'*- Editedwithnoteeby MiMA.K. AU,n, M.A., formerly En»li.h Speci«li.t, Hi^h SchoS. Liod- **• 15*"}*%^^^^ ^S^,?<>f?' ^*rt I- Edited with note. ShL ^ '• ^AirH^P" P"n«P^. Provincial N««3 School, OtUwA, and W. J. Sylce., B.aT ^^ ^' bJ^'^wtSlNr?*?;^*' **"*"• Edited with note, by J. F. Wh!li,%.A., LL.D., and W. J. Syke., B.A. ^ b?*i"p wi?*' I?^t^<>*' P»^ IM- Edited with note, by J. P. White, B.A., £L.D., and W. J. Syke., B.A. ^^ •"• ?rfo&?lal?^Ml*^*^^"»»-*^'- Edited With note. M. HIcb Sebool RMdlBff Bo(*. ». Lrafcp NuratlTe Poems. Ediud ^th „-.„ ,. ■ . J.**.. RA., Principal. J.rvi. c5.1S^.ri?..S^ ^jj^^ K.i I . '•• grir' MACUnXAN-S UTSSATVKM SBKISS BIRDS AND BEES BT JOHN BURROUGHS TOaOMTO MACMILLAK COMPANY 01^ CANADA, UWTBD ^msm>m f5i3af 858 no --H CoPTBtan. Cahada. im. n MOEAKO EDUoItIONAL COMPANY LUIITID f i * NOTE "Bird EnemiM" «,d the "Tragedies ^ The life of birds is beset with dangers and mishaps of which we know little. One day, in my walk, I came upon a goldfinch with the tip or one wing securely fastened to the feathers of its rump, by what ap-25 peared to be the silk of some caterpillar. The bird, though uninjured, was completely crippled, and oould not fly a stroke. Its little body was hot and pant- ing in my hands, as I carefully broke the fetter. Then it darted swiftly away with a happy cry. A record ft» of dl the accidents and tragedies of bird life for a cdn^e season would show many curious incidents. A friend of mine opened his box-stove one fall to kindle a fire in it> when he beheld in the black interior the desic* t 14 BOBS •^fonnsaftirobbiebWi. The bWHy^i jwhdMy tjk« r«f ijB. m the diimney duriag «« ^, «d lukl eoii^e ctown the pipe to tht rtove, few whence they wewunaWe to ••jencL A paouUariy toiich- 5uig htUe incident of hW life occurred iHSfB^ canary Though unmated, it hud lome ^gs, and the haw»y burd wai 10 carried away by her feelinge that ahe would offer food to the eggs, &ad chatter and twitter tiyingaa It seemed, to encourage them to eat! Thi » moident is hardly tragic, neither is it comic. Certain birds nest in the Aidnity of our houses and outbuildmgs or even in and upon them, for protec- tion from their enemies, but they oftai thus expose themselves to a plague of the most deadly character^ M I refer to the vennjn with which their nests often ^^, and which kill the young before tliey are fledged. In a state of nature this probably never happens; at least I have never seen or heard of it haiyenmg to nests placed in trees or under rocks. It 20 IS the curse of civilization falling upon the birds which c^ too near man. The vermin, or the germ of the v«min, 18 probably conveyed to the nest in h^'s feathers, or m straws and hairs picked up about the bam or hen-house. • A robin's nest upon your porch auor m 3^ summer-house wiU occasionaUy become an mtolerable nuisance from the swarms upon swarms ol minute vermin with which it is fiUed. The par«it buKte 8t^ the tide as long as they can, but are often coi^Ued to leave the young to their terrible fate. » One season a phoebe-bu-d built on a projecting stone u^Imi^I^''^ °^ *^® ^'^' "^^ a" appeared to go well till the young were nearly fledged, when, the nest ««Wenly became a hit of purgatory. The birds kept their phM^ in their burning bed tiU they muld hold BIBD MMMMIMS U out no longer, when they leaped forth and fell dead upon the ground. After a delay of a week or more, during which I mgine the parent birds purified themselves by every means known to them, the couple built another nest as few yards from the first, and proceeded to rear a sec- ond brood; but the new nest developed into the same bed of torment that the first did, and the three young birds, nearly ready to fly, perished as they sat within it. The parent birds then left the place as if it had 10 been accursed. I imagine the smaller birds have an enemy in our native white-footed mouse, though I have not proof enough to convict him. But one season the nest of % chickadee which I was observing was broken up ir aw position where nothing but a mouse could have reuf ied it. The bird had chosen a cavity in the limb of an ap- ple-tree which stood but a few yards from the house. The cavity was deep, and the entrance to it, which was ten feet from the ground, was small. Barely light ao enough was admitted, when the sun was in the most ' favorable position, to enable one to make out the num- ber of eggs, which was six, at the bottom of the dim interior. While one was peering in and trying to get his head out of his own light, the bird would startleas hmi by a queer kind of puffing sound. She would not leave her nest like most birds, but really tried to bk)w, or scare, the intruder away; and after repeated experiments I could hardly refram from jerking my head back when that little explosion of sound came upao from the dark interior. One night, when incubation was about half finished, the nest was harried. A sUght t^cf of hair or fur at the entrance led me to infer that some small anhnal was the robber A weasel might have 19 BOBBB f . ' r done % M they Mimetiiiies climb treei, bal I dottbi {f either a ■quirrel or a rat could have pawed the ^p^kraaoe. Probably few persons have ever suqieeted th^ eat-^ bird of being an egg-sucker; I do not know that she shas ever bem' accused of sudi a thing, but there is something uncanny and disagreeable about her, which I at once understood, when I one day cau^t her in the very act of going throuf^ a ^est of eggs. A pair of the least fly-catchers, the bird which saya loMebee, (^iu^ieCf and is a small edition of the pewee, one season built their nest where I bad them for many hours each day* under my observation. The nest was a very snug and compact structure placed in the forks ' of a small mi^e about twelve feet from the groimd. 15 The season before, a red squirrel had harried the nest of a wpod-thrush in this same tree, and I was appre- hensive that he would serve the fly-catchers the same trick; so, as I sat with my book in a summer-house ' near by, I kept my loaded gun within easy rew^. » One egg was laid, and the next morning, as I made my daily inspection oi the nest, only a fragment of its empty shell was to be found. This I removed, mentally imprecating the rogue (rf a red squirrel. The birds were much disturl>ed by the event, but did 9B not desert the nest, as I had feared they would^ but after much inspection of it and many consultations together, concluded, it seems, to try again. TWO more eggs were laid, when one day I heard the Inrds utter a i^arp cry, and on looking up I saw a cat-bird 80 perched upon the rim of the nest, hastily devouring the eggs. I soon regretted jny precipitation in kill- mg her, becau!» such interference is generally unwise. It turned out Ihat she had a nest of her om^ with fiV« eggs, in a spruce-tree near my window. .\ BIBD MIIEM1M8 17 Tbm Uua pair of little ay-catchen did what I h«d never wen birds do before; they pulled the neet to pieces and rebuilt it in a peach-tree not many rods away, where a brood was successfully reared. The nest was here exposed to the direct rays of the noon- 5 day sun, and to shield her younn when the heat was greatest, the mother-bird would stand above them with wings slightly spread, as other birds have been known to do under like circumstances, v* To what extent the cat-bird is a nest-robber I have 10 no evidence, but that fe'ine mew of hers, and that flirting, flexible tail, suggest something not entirely bird-like. Probably the darkest tragedy of the nest is enacted when a snake plunders it. All birds and aninu. . sois far as I have observed, behave in a peculiar manner towards a snake. They seem to feel something of the same loathing towards it that the human species expe- riences. The bark of a dog when he encounters a snake is different from that which he gives out on 30 any other occasion; it is a mingled note of alarm, inquiry, and disgust. One day a tragedy was enacted a few yards from where I was sitting with a book; two song-sparrows -vere trying to defend their nest against a black snake. 25 rhe curious, interrogating note of a chicken who had suddenly come upon the scene in his walk, first caused me to look up from my reading. There were the spar- rows, with wings raised in a way peculiarly expressive of horror and dismay, rushing about a low clump ofao grass and bushes. Then, looking more closely, I saw the glistening form of the black snake, and the quick movement of his head as he tried to sdse the birds. The sparrows darted about and through the tt BfBJ>8 graas and weeds, trying to beat the snake off. Their tails and wings were spread, and, panting with the heat and the desperate struggle, they presented a most smgular spectacle. They uttered no cry, not a sound 6 escaped them; they were plainly speechless with horror and dismay. Not once did they drop their wings, and ' the peculiar expression of those uplifted pahns, as it were, I shall never forget. It occurred to me that pov haps here was a case of attempted bird^hanuing on 10 the part of the Eoiake, so I looked on from behind the fence. The birds charged the snake and harassed him from every side, but were evidently under no spell save that of courage in defending their nest. Every mo- ment or two I could see the head and* neck of the ser- 15 pent make a sweep at the birds, when the* one struck at would fall back, and the other would renew the as- sault from the rear. There appeared to be. little dan^ ger that the snake could strike and hold one of the birds, thou^ I trembled for them, they were so bofd 90 and approached so near to the snake's head. Time and agun he sprang at them, but without success. How the poor things panted, and held up their wings appealingly! Then the snake glided off to the near fence, barely escaping the stone which I hurled at 35 him. I found the nest rifled and deranged; whether it had contained eggs or young I know not. The male sparrow had cheered me many a day with his song, and I blamed myself for not having rushed at once to the rescue, '^hen the arch enemy was upon 90 him. There is probably little truth in the popular notion that snakes charm birds. The black snake is the most subtle, alert, and devilish of our snakes, and I have never seen him have any but young, helpless birds in his mouth. BIRD ENXMIES 19 We have one parasitical bird, the cow->bird, so-called because it walks about amid the grazing cattle and seiaes the insects which their heavy Iread sets going, which is an enemy of most of the smaUer birds. It drops its egg in the nest of the songnsparrow, thes social sparrow, the snow-bird, the vireos, and the wood-warblers, and as a rule it is the only egg in the nest that issues successfully. Either the eggs of the rightful owner of the nest are not hatched, or else the young are overridden and overreached by theio parasite and perish prematurely.^ Among the worst enemies of our birds are the so- called "collectors,'' men who plunder nests and mur- der their owners in the name of science. Not the genuine ornithologist, for no one is more careful of 15 squandering bird life than he; but the sham ornithol- ogist, the man whose vanity or aflfectation happens to take an ornithological turn. He is seized with an itching for a collection of eggs and birds because it happens to be the fashion, or because it gives him theao «ur of a man of science. But in the majority of cases the motive is a mercenary one; the collector expects to sell these spoils of the groves and orchards. Rob- bing nests and killing birds becomes a business with him. He goes about it systematically, and becomes 25 an expert in circumventmg and slaying our songsters. Every town of any considerable size is infested with one or more of these bu-d highwaymen, and every nest in the country round about that the wretches can lay hands on is harried. Their professional term forao a nest of eggs is " a clutch," a word that well expresses the work of their grasping, murderous fingers. They clutch and destroy in the germ the life and music of the woodlands. Certain of our natural history Jour- ^SSSS". 20 BlMDa I/. nals are maiiily organs of communication between tbcw human weasels. TheyTccord their exploits at nesir robbing and birdnalaying in their columns. One col- lector tells, with gusto how he "worked his way" 5 through an orchard, ransacking every tree, and leav- ing, as he believed, not one nest behind him. He had better not be caught working his way through my orchard. Another gloats over the number of Con- necticut warblers — a rare bird — he killed in one 10 season in Massachusetts. Another tells how a mock- ing-bird appeared in southern New England and was hunted down by himself and friend, its eggs "clutched," and the bird killed. Who knows how much the Wrd lovers of New England lost by that 15 foul deed ? The progeny of the birds would probably have returned to Connecticut to breed, and their progeny, or a part of them, the same, till in time the famous songster woiild have become a regular visitant to New England. In the same journal still another » collector describes minutely how he outwitted three humming-birds tod captured their nests tod eggs, — a clutch he was very proud of. A Massachusetts bird harrier boasts of his clutch of the eggs of that dMnty little warbler, the blue yellow-back. One season 26 he took two sets, the next five sets, the next four sets, besides some single eggs, tod the next season four sets, and says he might have found more had he had more time. One season he took, in about twenty days, three sets from one tree. I have heard of a collector who 30 boasted of having taken one hundred sets of the eggs of the mardi wren in a single day; of another, who ■iook, in the same ^me, tMrty nests of the yellow- breasted chat; tod of still toother, who clwmed to have 1»ken one thoustod sets of eggs of different birds 'v-- BISD XNSMIS8 9^: ii\ one season. A large business has gprown up und^ the influence of this collecting erase. One dealer in • eggs has those of over five hundred species. He says that his business in 1883 was twice that of 1882; in 1884 it was twice that of 1883, and so on. Ck>llectors5 vie with each other in the extent and variety of their cabinets. They not only obtain eggs* in sets, but aim to have a number of sets of the same bird, so as to show all possible variations. I hear of a private collection that contains twelve sets of king-burds' eggs, eight lO sets of hoiise-wrens' e^^, four sets of moddng-birds' eggs, etc.; sets of eggs taken in low trees, hi^ trees, medium trees; spotted sets, dark sets, plain sets, and light sets of the same species of bird. Many collec- . tions are made on this latter plan. 15 Thus are our birds hunted and cut off, and all in the name of science; as if science had not long ago finished with these birds. She has wei|^ed and meas- ured, and dissected, and described them, and their . nests, and eggs, and placed them in her cabinet; and 20 the interest of science and of humanity now demands that this wholesale nest-robbing cease. These inci- 4eD.i6 I have given above, it is true, are but drops in the bucket, but the bucket would be more than full if we could get all the facts. Where one man publishes 25 his notes, hundreds, perhaps thousands, say nothing, but go as silently about their nest-robbing as weasels. It is true that the student of ornithology often feels - compelled to take bird-life. It is not an easy matter to ''name all the birds without a gun," though an so opera-glass will often render identification entirely certain, and leave the songster unharmed; but (mce having mastered the birds, the true ornithologist leaves Ub gOB at home. Thii view of the case may not be 22 BiitDa agreeable to that desiccated mortal called the ''eloeet - naturalist," but for my. own part \he closet naturalist is a person with whom I have very little sympathy. He is about the most wearisome and profitless creature 6 in existence. With his piles of skins, his cases of eggs, his laborious feather-splitting, and Us outlandish no- menclature, he is not only the jenemy of the birds, but the enemy of all those who would know them rightly. 10 Not the collectors alone are to blame for the dimin- ishing numbers of om wild birds, but a lai^e share , of the responsibiUty rests upon quite a different class of persons; namely, the milliners. False taste in dress is as destructive to our feathered friends as are 16 false aims in science. It is said that the traffic in. the skins of our brighter plumaged birds, arising from their use by the milliners, reaches to hundreds of thousands annually. I am told of one middleman who collected from the shooters in one district, in four ao months, seventy thousand skins. It is a barbarous taste l^at craves this kind of ornamentation. Think of a wom&n or girl of real refinement appearing upon the street with her head-gear adorned with the scalps of our songsters I ^ . 36 It is probably true that the number of our birds destroyed by man is but a small percentage of the number cut off by their natural enemies; but it is to be remembered that those he destroys are in addition to those thus cut off, and that it is this extra or or- ao^cial destruction that disturbs the balance of nature. The operation of natural causes keeps the birds in check, but the greed of the collectors and miUinfifS tends to th^r extinction. I can iiardon a man who wishes to make a- ooUeo- JtlBD ENEMIES 28 tion of eggi aod birds for bis own private use, if he will content himself with one or two specimens of a kind, though he will find any collection much less satisfactory and less valuable than he imagines ; but the professional nest-robber and skin collector should 6 be put down, either by legislation or with dogs and shot-guns. I have remarked above that there is probably very little truth in the popular notion that snakes can "charm" birds. But two of my correspondents haveio each furnished me with an incident from his o^ ex- perience, which seems to confirm the popular belief. One of them write;, 'com Georgia as follows: — "Some twenty-eight years ago I was in Calaveras County, California, engaged in cutting lumber. One is day in commg out of the camp or cabm, my attention was attracted to the curious action of a quail in the air, which, instead of flying low and straight ahead as usual, was some fifty feet high, flying ma circle, and uttering cries of distress. I watched the bbd andao saw it gradually descend, and> following with my eye in a Une from the bird to the ground saw a large snake with head erect and some ten or twelve inches above the ground, and mouth wide open, and as far as I could see, gazing intently on the quail (I was about thirty 25 feet from the snake). The quail gradually descended, its circles growing smaller and smaller and all the tune uttering cries of distress, until its feet were within two or three mches of the mouth of the snake; when I tiirew a stone, and though not hitting the snake, yet» struck the ground so near as to frighten bun, and he gradually st&rted off. The quail, however, fell to the ground, appar^tly lifeless. I Vrcnt forward and picked It up and foimd it was thoroo^^y ovcaroome with fright, 24 BIBDB %■ its little heart beating as if it would burst through the skin. After holding it in my hand a few moments it flew away. I then tried to find the snake, but could not. I am unable to say whether the snake was ven- 6 omous or belonged to the constricting family, like the black snake. I can well recollect it was large and moved Off rather slow. As I had never seen anything of the kind before, it made a great impression on my mind, and after the lapse of so I'^ng a time, the incident appears 10 as vivid to me as though it had occurred yesterday." It is not probable that the snake had its mouth open; its darting tongue may have given that impres- sion. The other incident < comes to me from Vermont. 15 "While returning from church in 187Q," says the writer, "as I was crossing a bridge ... I noticed a striped snake in the act of charming a song-sparrow. They were both upon the sand beneath the bridge. The snake kept his head swaying slowly from side to 30 side, and darted his tongue out continually. The bird, not over a foot away, was facing the snake, hop- ping from one foot to the other, and uttering a dis- satisfied littie chirp. I watched them till the snake seized the bird, having gradually drawn nearer. As 35 he seised it, I leaped over the side of the bridge; the snake glided away And I took up the bird, which he had dropped. It was too frightened to try to fly, and I - carried it nearly a mile before it flew fpwn my open hand." 80 If these observers are quite sure of what, they saw, then undoubtedly snakes have the power to draw bircfa within thdr grasp. I. remember tl»t my mother once-told me that while gatharing wild 8trawberri» she had on (me occasion come upon a Urd fitttteiBijl V i t^^ > ■ BIBD ENMMIWa 26 about the head of a snake as if held there by a spell. On her appearance, the snake lowered its head and made off, and the panting bird flew away. A neigh- bor of mine killed a black snake which had swallowed a full-grown red squirrel, probably captured by the 6 same power of fascination. i i) THE TRAGEDIES OP THE NESTS The life of the birds, especially of our minatory song-birds, is a series of adventures and of hair-breadth escapes by flood and field. Very few of them probably die a natural death, or even live out half their ap- 8 pointed days. The home instinct is strong in birds as it is in most creatures; and I am convinced that every spring a large number of those which have sur- vived the Southern campaign return to their old haunts to breed. A Connecticut farmer took me out 10 under his porch, one April day, and showed me a phoebe-bird's nest six stories high. The same bird had no doubt returned year after year; and as there * was room for only one nest upon her favorite shelf, she had each season reared a new superstructure upon 18 the old as a foundation. I have heard of a white robin -- an albino — that nested several years in suc- CMsion in the suburbs of a Maryland city. A sparrow with a-\rery marked peculiarity of song I have heard several seasons in my own locality. But the birds 20 do not aU live to return to their olcf haunts: the bobo- links and starlings run. a gantlet of fire from the Hud- son to the Savannah, and the robins and meadow-larks and other song-birds are shot by boys and pot-hunters in great numbers, — to say nothing of their danger from 25 hawks and owls, feut of those that do return, what perils beset their nests, even m the most favored lo- calities! The cabins of the early settlers, when the country was swarming with hostile Indians, w&e not m TUB TRA0KDIS3 OF THE NESTS 27 gurroundod by such dangers. The tender households of the burds are not only exposed to hostile Indians m the shape of cats and collectors; but to numerous murderous and bloodthirsty animals, against whom they have no d^ence but concealment. They lead the 5 darkest kind of pioneer life, even in our gardens and orchards, and under the wallfi of our houses. Not a day or a night passes, from the time the eggs are laid till the young are flown, when the chances are not greatly in favor of the nest being rifled and its contents lo devoured, — by owls, skunks, minks, and coons^at night, and by crows, jays, squirrels, weasels, snakes, and rats during the day. Infancy, we say, is hedged about by many perils; but the infancy of birds is cradled and pillowed in peril. An old Michigan settler is told me that the first six children that were bom to him died; malaria and teething invariably carried them off when they had reached a certain age; but other children were bom, the country improved, and by and by the babies weathered the critical period, 20 and the next six lived and grew up. " The birds, too, would no doubt persevere six times and twice six times, if the season were long enough, and finally rear their family, but the waning summer cuts them short, and but few species have the heart and strength to make 25 even the third trial. ^ The first nest-builders in spring, like the first settlers near h(Mtile tribe? suffer the most casualties. A large proportion of the nests of April and May we destroyed; their enemies have been many months without eggs,ao and their appetites are* keen for them. It is a time, too, when other food is scarce, and the crows and squirrels are hard put. But the second nests of June, and still more the nests of July and August, are seldom BiBi>a molested. It is rarely that the nest of thet goldfinch or the cedar-bird is harried. My neighborhood on the Hudson is perhaps except tionally unfavorable as a breeding haunt for birds, sowing to the abundance of fish-crows and of red squir- rels; and the season of which this chapter is mainly a chronicle, the season of 1881, seems to have been a black-letter one even for this place, for at least nine nests out of every ten that I observed during that 10 spring and summer failed of their proper issue. From the first nest I noted, which was that of a bluebird, — built (very imprudently I thought at the time) in a squirrel-hole in a decayed apple-tree, about the last of April, and which came to naught, even the mother- is bird, I suspect, peAshing by a violent death, — to the last, which was that of a snow-bird, observed in August, among the Catskills,. deftly concealed in a mossy bank by the side of a road that skirted a wood, ^ where the tall thimble blackberries grew in abundance, aoand from which the last young one was taken, when it was about half grown, by some nocturnal walker or daylight prowler, some untoward fate seemed hovering about them. It was a season of calamities, of violent deaths, of pillage and massacre, among our feathered 26 neighbors. For the fij^t time I noticed that the orioles were not safe in their strong, pendent nests. Three broods were started in the apple-trees, only a few yards from the house, where, for previous seasons, the birds had nested without molestation; but this time the ao young were all destroyed when about half grown. Their chirping and chattering, «which was so noticeable one day, suddenly ceased the next. The nests were probably plundered at night, and doubtless by the little red acreech-owl, which I know is a denizen of these old THE TBAGMDIM8 OF THE NESTS orehards, living in the deeper cavities of the trees. The owl could aligb'. on the top of the nest, and easily thrust his murderous claw down into its long pocket and seize the young and draw them forth. The tragedy of one oi the nests was heightened, or at least made a more palpable, by one of the half-fledged birds, either in its attempt to escape or while in the clutches of the enemy, being caught and entangled in one of the horse- hairs by which the nest was stayed and held to the limb above. There it hung bruised and dead, gibbeted lo to its own cradle. This nest was the thebtre of another little tragedy later in the season. Some time in August a bluebird, indulging its propensity to peep and pry -into holes and crevices, alighted upon it and probably inspected the interior; but by some unlucky move it 13 got its wings entangled in this same fatal horsehair. Its efforts to free itself appeared only to result in its being more securely and hopelessly bound; and there it perished; and there its form, dried and embalmed by the summer heats, was yet hanging in September, 26 the outspread wings and plumage showing nearly as bright as in life. B A correspondent writes me that one of his orioles got entangled in a cord while building her nest, and that though by the aid of a ladder he reached and 25 liberated her, she died soon afterwards. He also found a "chippie" (called also "hair bird") suspended from a ^branch by a horsehair, beneath a partly con- structed nest. I heard of a cedar-bird caught and de- stroyed in the same way, and of two young bluebirds, » around whose legs a horsehair had become so tightly . wound that the legs withered up and dropped off. The birds became fledged, and finally left the nest with the others. Such tragedies are probably quite commcm. 80 BIMDB Before the advent of civilisatioii in this eountry, the oriole probably built a much deeper nest than it usuaUy does at present. When now it builds in remote trees and along the borders of the woods, its nest, I have • noticed, is long ai..^ gourd-shaped; but in orchards and near dwellings it is only a deep cup or pouch. It shortens it up in proportion as the danger lessens. Frobably a succession of disastrous years, like the one under review, would cause it to lengthen it again be- loyond the reach of owl's talons or jay-bird's beak. The first song-sparrow's nest I observed in the ^nng of 1881 was in the field under a fragment of a board, the board being raised from the ground a couple of inches by two poles. It had its full com- iaplement of eggs, and probably sent forth a brood of young birds, though 'as to this I cannot speak posi- tively, as I neglected to observe it furthrr. It ^as well sheltered and concealed, and was not easily come at by any of its natural enemies, save snakes and ao weasels. But conceahnent often avails httle. In May a song-sparrow, that had evidently met with disaste^ earlier in the season, built its nest in a thick mass of woodbme against the side of my house, about fifteen feet from the ground. Perhaps it took the hint from 28 Its cousm, the English sparrow. The nest was ad- mirably placed, protected from the storms by the overhanging eaves and from all eyes by the thick screen of leaves. Only by patiently watching the suspicious bird, as she lingered near With food in her aobeak^ did I discover its whereabouts. That brood is safe, I thought, beyond doubt. But it was not- the nest was pillaged one night, either by an owl, or else by a rat that had climbed into the vine, seeking an entrance to the house. The mother-bird, after reflect- TBM TBAQMDIEB OF THE NMSTa big upon her ill-luck about a week, teemed to reiolve to try a different system of tactics and to throw all appearances of concealment aside. She built a nest a few yards from the house bende the drive, upon a smooth piece of greensward. There :was not a wp'xis or a shrub or anything whatever to conceal it or mark its site. The structure was completed And incubation had begun before I discovered what was going on. "Well, well," I said, looking down upon the bird almost '-t my feet, "this is going to the other extreme id indeea, now, the cats will have you." The desper- 1^ little' bird sat there day after day, looking like a brown leaf pressed down in the short green grass. As the weather grew hot, her position became very trying. It was no longer a question of keeping the is eggs warm, but of keeping them from roasting. The sun had no mercy on her, and she furly panted in the middle of the day. In such an emergency the male robin has been known to perch above the sitting female and shade her with bis outstretched wings. » But hi whis case there was no perch for the male bird, Had he been disposed to make a suni^hade of himself. I thought to lend a hand in this direction myself, and so stuck a leafy twig beside the nest. This was probably an unwise interference; it guided disaster to2S the spot; the nest was broken up, and the mother-bird was probably caught, as I never saw her afterwards. H For several previous summers a pair of king-birds had reared, unmoiestc-d, a brood of young in an apple- tree, only a few yards from the house; but during so this season disaster overtook them also. The nest was completed, the eggs laid, and incubation ^had just b^un, when, one morning about sunri^, I heard loud cries of distress and alarm proceed from ^e old 82 BIBD8 ! - apple-tree. Looking out of the window I saw a crow, wtiich I knew to be a fish-crow, perched upon the* edge of the nest, hastily bolting the eggs. The pa(^t birds, usually so ready for the attack, 5 come with grief .and alarm. They fluttered^ aboin m the most helpless and bewildered manner, and it was not till the robber fled on my approach that they recovered themselves and charged upon him. The cro^ scurried away with upturned, threatening head, 10 the furious king-birds fairly upon his back. The pair lingered around their desecrated nest for several days, almost silent, and saddened by their loss, and then disappeared. They probably made another trial else- where. 15 The fish-crow only fishes when it has destroyed all the eggs and young birds it can find. It is the most despicable thief and robber among our feathered creatures. From May to August it is gorged with the fledgelings of the nest. It is fortunate that its range 20 is so limited. In size it is smaller than the common crow, and is a much less noble and dignified bird. Its caw is weak and feminine — a sort of split and abortive caw, that stamps it the sneak-thief it is. This crow is common farther south, but is not found 25 in this State,* so far as I have observed, except in the valley of the Hudson. V One season a pair of them built a nest in a Norway spruce that stood amid a dense growth of other orna- mental trees near a large unoccupied house. They 30 sat down amid plenty. The wolf established himself in the fold. The many birds — robins, thrushes, fi * Thi» Stair. John Burroughs lives near Esopus, on th« Hudson, in New York State. ■:mv^ mm-'. rfi^ TBAOMmMB or TBjS MMST8 $8 ia^ei% vmm, peweei*^tliat Muk tiie ^ndnity of dw^Ois^ (tiipeoklly he pmnt where ike eye natinaUy pauses in its sean^; namely, on the extremeas aid c^ ^B^ lowest branch <^ the tree, usual^^i^nf or five fee^t^from the gro^d. One looks up and 4awsk and through the tree, -^ shoots his eye^bema into it as he mii^t discharge his gun at some game hklden then, but the droi^Hng tip <^ that ^w honsoiMso fafaneh-^K^ would thuds of pointing Ids pieee just there" If a ^ow or other n»raiid» Were to a£i|^t Iq^ iiie ' 'liBcli or iqion those j^ooye it, ffl»» mHi^ wouM be sQfWBSd IroBitldm by ^ large liitf ti^ 84 . BlBDa ' • usually fonns a eanopy immediately above it. The nest-hunter, standing at the foot of the tree and look- ing strught before him, might discover it easily, were it not for its soft, neutral gray tint which blends so 5 thoroughly with the trunks and branches of trees. Indeed, I think there is no nest in the woods " no arboreal nest — so well concealed. The last one I saw was pendent from the end of a low branch of a maple, that nearly grazed the clapboards of an un- 10 used hay-bam in a remote backwoods clearing. I peeped through a crack and saw the old birds feed the nearly fledged young within a few inches of my face. And yet the cow-bird finds this nest and drops her parasitical egg in it. Her tactics .in this as in 16 other cases are probably to watch the movements of the parent bird. She may often be seen searching imxiously through the trees or bushes for a suitable nest, yet she may still oftener be seen perched upon some good point of observation watching the birds as 20 they come and go about her. There is no doubt that, in muiy cases, the cow-bird makes room for her own illegitimate egg in the nest by removing one of the bird's own. When the cow-bird finds two or more eggs in a nest in which she wishes to deposit her own,^ 25 she will remove one of them. I found a sparrow's nest with two sparrow's e^s and one cow-bird's egg, and another egg lying a foot or so below it on the ground. I replaced the ejected egg, and the next day found it again removed, and another cow-bird's egg aoin its place; ° I put it back the second time, when it was again ejected, or destroyed, for I failed to find it anywhere. Very alert and sensitive birds like the warblers often bury the strange e^ beneatli a second ii«st. built on top of the old. A lady, living in the ^ THE TRAGBJ>IB8 BF THE ^ESTS 85 «ubiirt)8 Of an E^m city, on6 morning heard cries of distress from a pair of house wrens that had a neiit in a honeysuckle on her front porcl .. On looking otit of the window, she beheld this little comedy — com- edy from her point of view, but no doubt grim tragedy s from the point f view of the wrens: a cow-bird with a wren's egg in its beak running rajiidly along the waUc, with the outraged wrens forming a pro'cession behmd It, screaming, scolding, and gesticulating as only these voluble little birds can. The cow-bird had lo probably been surprised in the act of violating the nest and the wrens were giving her a piece-of their minds. ' Every cow-bird is reared at the expense of two or more song-birds. For every one of these dusky little pedestrians there amid the grazing cattle there are is two or more sparrows, or vireos, or warblers, the lesd. It IS a big price to pay — two larks for a bunting — two sovereigns for a shilling; but Nature does not hesitate occasionally to contradict hferself in just this way. The young of the -cow-bird is disproportion- ab ately large and aggressive, one might say hoggish. When disturbed it will clasp the nest and scream, and snap its beak threateningly. One hatched out in a song-sparroVs nest which was under my observation, and would soon have overridden and overborne the 96 young sparrow, which came out of the shell a few hours later, had I not interfered from time to time and lent the young sparrow a helping hand. Every day I woidd visit the nest and take the sparrow out from under the pot-beUied interloper and place it onfio top, so that presently it was able to hold its own against its enemy. Both birds became fledged and left the nest about the same time. Whether the raee was an even one after that, 1 know not. ,^^' ^/ 86 BIBM I noted but two warblers' nests during that season, one of the blaok-ihroated bluerblack and one of the redstart, — the latter built in an apple-tree but a few yards from a little rustic summer-house where I idle 6 away many summer daye. The lively little birds, darting and flashing about, attracted my attention for a week before I discovered their nest. They prob- ably built it by working early in the morning, be- fore I appeared upon the scene, as I never saw them 10 with material in their beaks. Guessing from their movements that the nest was in a large maple that stood near by, I climbed the tree and explored -it thoroughly, looking especially in the forks of the branches, as the authorities say these birds build in a 15 fork. But no nest qould I find. Indeed, how can one by searching find a bird's nest ? I overshot the mai^i; the nest was much nearer me, almost under my very nose, and I discovered it, not by searching, but by a casual glance of the eye, while thinking of soother matters. The bird was just settling upon it as I looked up from my book and caught her in the act. Ihe nest was built near the end of a long, knotty, horisontal branch of an apple-tree, but effectually hid- den by the grouping of the leaves; it had Uiree ^gg^, 96 one of which proved to be barren. The two young birds grew apace, and were out of the nest early in the second ¥reek; but something caught one of them the first night. The other probably grew to maturity, as it disappeared from the vicinity with its parents 30 after some da3rs. The blue-back's nest was scarcely a foot from the ground, in a little bush situated in a low, dense wood of hemlock and beech and mi^le, amid liie Catskilis, — fk de^, massive, ^borate structure, in which the k THM TRAOEDIMS OF TBS JtMSTS 8t sitting bird sank till her b-ak and tail alone were vis- ible above the brim. It was a misty, chilly day when I chanced to find the nest, and the mother-bird knew instinctively that it was hot prudent to leave her four half incubated eggs uncovered and exposed for a mo-s ment^When I sat down near the nest she grew very uneasy, and after trying in vain to decoy me away by suddenly dropping from the branches and dragging herself over the ground m if mortally wounded, she approached and timidly and half doubtingly covered lo her 'jggs within two yards of where I sat. I disturbed her several times to note her ways. There came to be something almost appealing in her looks and man- ner, and she would keep her place on her precious eggs till my outstretched hand was within a few feet w of her. Finally, I covered the cavity of the nest with a dry leaf. This she did not remove with her beak, but thrust her head deftly beneath it and shook it off upon the ground. Many of her sympathizing neigh- bors, attracted by her alarm note, came and had aao peep at the intruder and then flew away, but the male bird did not appear upon the scene. The final his- tory of this nest I am unable to give, as I did not again visit it till late in the season, when, of course, it was empty. ^t Years pass without my finding a brown-thrasher's nest; it is not a nest you are likely to stumble upon in your walk; it is hidden as a miser hides his gold, and watched as jealously. The male pours out his rich and triumphant song from the tallest tree he» can find, and fairiy challenges you to come and look for his treasures in his inanity. But you will not find them if you go. The nest is somewhere on the outer eircle of his song; he is never so imimident as to » ■ *' 88^ AERDtf take up hif) stan^ very near it. The lurtistB who dnm those cosy little pictures of a brooding mothor-bini with the male perched but a yard away in full song, do not copy from nature. The tiirasher's nest I fbund a was thirty or forty rods from the point where the male was w<»it to indulge in his brilliant recitative. It was in an open field under a low ground juniper. My dog disturbed the sitting bird as I was pasnng. near. The nest could be seen only by lifting up and 10 parting away the branches. All the arta of conceal ment had been carefully studied. It was the ku^t place you would think of looking, and, if you did look, nothing was viable but the dense green circle of the low-spreadiug Juniper. When you approached, the 15 bird would keep her place till you had begun to stir the branches, when i^e would start out, and, just skimmittg the ground^ make a br^fat brown hne to the near fence and bushes. I confidently expected that thi» nest would escf^ mc^estation, but it did not. »Its discovery by myself and dog probably^pened the' door for ill-luck, as one day, not long afterward^ when I peeped in upon it, it was empty. The proud song^ of the male had ceased from his accustomed tree, and the pair were seen no more in that vicinity. as The phoebe-bird is a wise archite^, and perhi^w enjoys as great an immunity from dangi^, both in its person and its nest, as any other bird. Its modest, ashen gray suit is the color of the rocks where it builds, and the moss of which it makes such free use solves to its nest the lOok of a natural iprowtii or ac- cretion. But when it comes mto the bam or under the shed to build, as it so frequently does, the moss is rather out of place. Doubtless in time the bird mU take the hintj and when she builds in such places will THE TBAOXbJMa OF THE KX8T& 89 I'i leave the mose out. I noted but two nesta, the sum* mer I, am speaking of: one, in a bam, failed of issue, on account of the rats, I suspect, though the little owl may have been the depredator; the other, in the woods, sent forth three young. Thifl latter nest wass most charmingly and ingeniously placed. I discovered it while in quest of pond-hlies in a long, deep, level stretch of water in the woods. A large tree had blown over at the edijs of the water, and its dense mass of upturned root*, Ti^th the black, peaty soil fill-io ing the interstices, was like the fragment of a wall several feet high, rising from the edge of the languid current. In a niche in this earthy wall, and visible and accessible only from the water, a phoebe had built her nest and reared her brood. I paddled my boat up and u came alongside prepared to take the family aboard. The young, nearly ready to fly, were quite undisturbed by my presence, having probably been assured that no danger need be ^prehended from that side. It was not a likely place for minks, or they would not have 20 been so secure. I noted but one nest of the wood pewee, and that, too, like so many other nests, failed of issue. It was saddled upon a small dry limb of a pUne- tree that stood by the roadside, about forty feet from the ground, s Every day for nearly a week, sm I passed by I saw the sitting bird upon the nest. Then one morning she was not m her place, and on examination the nest . proved to be empty -- robbed, I had no doubt, by the red squirrels, as they were very abundant in its vicinity, » and appeared to mike a clean sweep of every nest. Hie wood pewee builds an exquisite nest, shaped and finished as if cast in a mould. It is modelled without and within with equal n^tnets and wt, hke the ne^t 4a ^laoa \k of the humming-bird and the little gray gnat-catcher. The material is much more refractory than that used by either of these birds, being, in the present ease, dry, fine cedar twigs; but these were bound into a 5 shape as rounded and compact as could be moidded out of ih.e most plastic material. Indeed, the nest el this l»rd looks precisely like a* large, lichen-covered, cup-shaped excrescence of the limb upon v^ch It is placed. And the bird, while (otting, seems entirely at 10 her ease. Most biidis seem.'to make very hard work of incubation. It is^ a kind of niartyrdom which ap" pears to tax all their powers of endurance. They have uch a fixed, rigid, predetermined lode, pressed down into the nest and as motionless as if made of IB cast-iron. But the wood pewee is an exception. She is largely visible above the rim of the nest. Her atti- tude is easy and gcaciful; she moves her head this way and that, and seems t j take note of Whatever goes on about her; and if her ndghbor were to drop in- for 20 a little social chat, she could doubtless do her part. In fact, she makes light and easy work of what, to most other birds, is such a seriotus andengroesng matter. If it does not look like play with her, it at least looks like leisure and quiet contemplation. H as There is no nest-builder that suffers more from crows and squirrels and other enemies than the wood- thrush. It builds as openly and unsuspiciously as if • it thought the whole world as honest as itself. Its favorite place is the fork of a sapling, eight or ten feet so from the grotind, where it falls an easy prey to every nest-robber that comes prowling through the woods and groves. It is not a bird that skulks and hides, like ihe cat-bird, the brown-thrasher, the chat, ot the cheewink^ and ita nest is not ccmoealed with the Iwoie s>: TBM TBAGSDIS8 OF THE NMBT8 41 /» art ail ihein. Our thrushea are all frank, opa>>man- nered Inrda; but the veery and the hermit build upon the ground, where they at least escape the crows, owls, and jays, and stand a better chance to be overlooked by the red squirre. and weasel tdso; while the robins sedcs the protection of dwellings and out-buildings. For years I have not known the nest of a woodrthrush to succeed. During the season referred to I observed but two, both apparently a second attempt, as the season was well advanced, and both failures. In oneio case, the nest was placed in a branch that an apple- tree, standing near a dwelling, held out over the high- way. The structure was barely ten feet above the middle of the road, and would just escape a passing ' load of hay. It was made conspicuous by the use of iff a large fragment of newspaper in its foundation — an unsafe material to build upon in most cases. What- ev&e else the press may guard, this particular news- paper did not guard this nest from harm. It saw the egg and probably the chick, but not the fledgeling. A 20 murderous deed was conmiitted above the public high- way, but whether in the open day or u' der cover -of daiimess I have no means of knowing. The frisky red squirrel was doubtless the culprit. The other nest was in a maple sapUng, within a few yards of the as little rustic summer-house already referred to. The first attempt of the season, I suspect, had failed in a more secluded place under the hill; so the pair had ccnne up nearer the house for protection. The male sang in the trees near by for several days before I so chanced to see the nest. The very morning, I think, it was finished, I saw a red squirrd exploring a tree but a few yards away; he probably knew what the singing meimt as weU as I did. I did not see the in- 4S ^BIMDB tide of the BMt, for it wa^ almott instantly deserted, the female having probably laid a single egg, whieh the squirrel had devoured.4P If I were a bird, in building my nest I should fol- slow the example of the bobolink, placing it in the midst of a broad meadow, where there was no spear of grass, or flower, or growtii unlike another to mark its site. I judge that the bobolink escapes the dangers to which I have adverted as few or no other birds do. 10 Unless the mowers come along at an earlier date than she has anticipated, that is, before July 1, or a skunk goes nosing through the grass, which is unusual, she Is as safe as bird well can be in the great open of nature. She selects the most monotonous and uniform place ifi she can find amid the chusics or the timothy and clover, and places her simple structure upon the ground in the midst of it. There is no concealment, except as the great conceals the little, as the desert conceals the pebble, as the myriad conceals the unit. You may «find the nest once, if your course chances to lead you across it and your eye is quick enou«^ to note the silent brown bird as she darts quickly away; but step three paces in the wrong direction, and your search will probably be fruitless. My frigid and I 25 found a nest by accident one day, and then lost it again one minute afterwards. I n^oved away a few yards to be sure of the mother-bird, charging my friend not to stir from, his tracks. When I returned, he had moved two paces, he said (he had really moved 30 four), and we spent a h^ hour stooping over the dai«es and the buttercups, looking for the lost clew. We grew desperate, and fairiy felt the ground all ov» with our hands, but without avail. I marked the spot with a bush, and came the next day, and with TBM TBAOMDIMa OF THE NWaTB 48 the buah m a centre, moved aboot it in slowly in- creasing drclee, covering, I thought, nearly every inch of ground with my feet, and laying hold of it with all (he visual power that I could command, till my patience was exhausted, and I gave up, baffled. I be- ft gan to doubt the ability of the parent birds themselves to find it, and so secreted myself and watched. After . much delay, the male bird appeared with food in hit beak, and satisfying himself that the coast was clear, dropped into the grass which I had trodden down inio my search. Fastening my eye upon a particular meadow-lily, I walked straight to the spot, bent down, and gaied long and intently into the grass. Finally my eye separated the nest and its young from its sur- ix>undings. My foot had barely missed them in my is search, but by how mu^ they had escaped my eye I . could not tell. Probabl) it by distance at all, but simply by unrecognition. They were virtually in- vimble. The dark gray and yellowish brown dry grass and stubble' of the meadow-bottom were exactly 20 coined in the color of the half-fledged young. More than that, they hugged the nest so closely and formed such a ccmipact mass, that though there were five of them, they preserved the unit of expression, — no sinc^e head or form was defined; they were one, and as liiat one was without shape or color, and not separa* ble, except by closest scrutiny, from the one of the meadow-bottom. That nest prospered, as bobolinks' nests doubtless generally do; for, notwithstanding thd enormous slaughter of the birds during their fall mi- 89 grations by Southern sportsmen, the bobolink ap- pes^ to hold it« own, and its music do^ not diminish in our Northern meadows. ' Birds with whom the strug^e for life is the sbarpeft 44 MIBDa Mem to be more prolific than those wnoie nest «nd young are exposed to fewer dangers. The robin, the sparrow, the pewee, etc., will rear, or make the at- tempt to rear, two and sometimes three broods in a •season; but the boboUnk, t^e oriole, the king-bird, tht goldfinch, the cedar-bird, the birds of prey, and the ^roodpeckers, that build in safe retreats, In the trunks of trees, have usually but a single brood. If the bobo- link reared two broods, our meadows would swarm 10 with them. I noted three nests of the cedar-bird in August in a sinarle orchwd, all productive, but all with one or more unfruitful eggs in them. The cedar-bird is the most silent of our birds, having but a single fine note, IB so far as I have observed, but its manners are very expressive at times. No bird known to me is capa- ble of expressing so much silent alarm while on the nest as this bird. As you ascend the tree and draw near it, it depresses its plumage and crest, stretches »up its neck, and becomes the very picture of fear. Other birds, under like circumstances, hardly change their expression at a" ill they launch into the air, when ^ their voice uey express anger rather than alarm.W SB I have referred to the red squirrel as a destroyer of the eggs and young of birds. I think the mischief it does in this respect can hardly be overestimated. Nf^arly all birds look upon it as their enemy, and at- tack and annoy it when it appears near their breed- aoing haunts. Thus, I have seen the pewee, the cuckoo, the robin, and the wood-thrush pursuing it with an^ry voice and gestures. A friend of mine Saw a pidr of rolnns attack one in the top of a tall tree so vigor- QvaAy ^mt they caused it to lose its hold, when it fell V».,. n-^-v TBM TMAOMDUB Of TBM WMBTB 45 V to the ground, and was so stunned by the blow as to allow him to pick it up. I( you widi the birds to breed and thrive in your orchard and groves, kill tvety red squirrel that infests the place; kill every weasel also. The weasel is a subtle and arch enemy s of the birds. It climbs trees and explores them with great ease and nimbleneas. I have seen it do so cm several occasions. One day my attention was arrested by the angry notes of a pair of brown-thr'vshers that were flitting from bush to bush along an old stoned) row in a remote field. Presently I saw what it was that excited them — three large red weasels, or ermines, coming along the stone wall, and leisurely and half playfully exploring every tree that stood near it. They had probably robbed the thrashers. They would go is up the trees with great ease, and glide serpent-like out upon the main branches. When they descended the tree they were unable to come straight down, like a squirrel, but went around it spirally. How boldly they thrust their heads out of the wall, and eyed meao and sniffed me, as I drew near, — their round, thin eus, their prominent, glistening, bead-like eyes, and the curving, snake-like motions of the head and neck being very noticeable. They looked like blood-suckers and egg-suckers. They suggested something extremely 2S remorseless and cruel. One could understand the alarm of the rats when they discover one of these fearlessj subtle, and circumventing creatures thread- ing their holes. To flee must be like trying to escape death itself. I was one day standing in the woods 30 upon a flat stone, in what at certain seasons was the bed of a stream, when one of these weasels came un- dulating along and ran under the stone upon which I was standing. As I remained motionless, he thrust fn, ^?«flfc„„jtar''.r''<^-^riBc: .•¥90211^3%^ 4e BlitM out Ms wedg^aptd head, and turned it back above the stone as If half in mind to seiie my foot; then he drew back, and preeently went his way. These weaeela often Imnt in paeln Ulte the British stoat. When 1 8 was a boy, my father one day armed me with an old musket and sent me to shoot chipmunks around the corn. While watching the squirrels, a troop of weasels tried to cross a baNway where I sat, and were so bent on doing it that I fiwd at them, boy-like, simply to *^ u)!^*'*^' purpose. One of the weasels was dis- abled by my shot, but the troop was not discouraged, tod, after making sever^ feints to cross, one of them seised the wounded one and bore it over, and the pack disappeared in the wall on the other side. 18 Let me conclude this chapter with two or three more notes about this alert enemy of the birds and the lesser animals, the weasel. A farmer one day heard a queer growling sound in the grwa; on approaching the spot he saw two weasels » contending over a mouse; each had hold of the mouse pulhng m opposite directions, and were so absorbed in «ie stru^e that the farmer cautiously put his hands down and grabbed them both by the back of the neck. He put them in a cage, and offered them bread and -other food. TWs they refused to eat, but m a few days one of them had eaten the other up, picking his bon^M clean and leaving nothing but the skeleton. The same fanner was one day in his ceUar when two rata came oufof a hole near him in great haste 30 and ran up the ceDar wall and along its top till they ciune to a floor timber that stopped their progress, when they turned at bay, and looked excitedly back ^^ the course they had come. In a moment a ^nmtA, evident^ in hot pursuit of them, came out ctf TBX TR4GtsmEB OF TBM IftaTa 47 the bole, and seeing the farmer, checked his course and darted back. The rats had doubtless turned to give him fight, and would probably have been a match for him. The weasel seems to track its game by scent. A a hunter of my acquaintance was one day sitting in the woods, when he saw a red squirrel run with great speed up a tree near him, and out upon a long branch, from which he leaped to some rocks, and disappeared beneath them. In a moment a weasel came in fullio course upon his trail, ran up the tree, then out along the branch, from the end of which he leaped to the rocks as the squirrel did, and plunged beneath them. Doubtless the squirrel fell a prey to him. The squirrel's best game would have been to have kept to 16 the higher tree-tops, where he could easily have dis- tanced the weasel. But beneath the rooks he stood a very poor chance. I have often wondered what keeps such an animal as the weasel in check, for weaseb are quite rare. They never need go hungry, for lats and 20 squirrels and mice and birds are ever)rwhere. They probably do not fall a prey to any other animal, and very rarely to man. But the circumstances or agen- cies that check the increase of any species of animal or bird are, as Darwin* sasrs, very obscure and butau little known. * Danoin. Charles Darwin (180»-1882), the great EngUah naturalist. BEES iMil ',4^JL~4 'jsW^r*;^ / P": \ BEES AN IDYL OJ" THE HONEY-BEE Thbrb is no creature with which man has stu^ rounded himself tiiat seems so touch like a product