The Masnavi

The individuals which possessed variations in accordance with the environment persisted, while those having injurious variations had a tendency to disappear. Congenital variations were (and are) transmitted with great certainty. This is Mr. Darwin’s “Process of Natural Selection,” called by Mr. Spencer “The Survival of the Fittest.”

The trees are forced into a period of inactivity by the cold, so, if a twig is broken off, and placed in moderately warm water, in a warm, light place, the buds on it will open just as they do in the spring and their development may be easily watched.

Mr. Woodpecker was recognized as king of Leafy Lawn, perhaps because of his lordly manner and fine clothes. He always wore a jet black coat and white satin vest, and what was queer on a king, a large scarlet bonnet.

The Fijian’s method of capturing the Nautilus for food is thus described (Tryon,—Structural and Systematic Conchology): “When the water is smooth so that the bottom, at several fathoms’ depth, near the border of the reef, may be distinctly seen, the fisherman in his little, frail canoe scrutinizes the sands and the coral masses below, to discover the animal in its favorite haunts. The experienced eye of the native may probably encounter it in its usual position, clinging to some prominent ledge, with the shell turned downwards. The tackle consists first, of a large, round, wicker-work basket, shaped very much like a cage rat-trap, having an opening above, with a circlet of points directed inward, so as to permit of entry but to preclude escape; secondly, a rough piece of rope of sufficient length to reach the bottom; and lastly, a small piece of branched wood, with the branches sharpened to form a sort of grapnel, to which a perforated stone is attached, answering the purpose of a sinker. The basket is now weighted with stones, well baited with boiled cray-fish (the principal food of the Nautilus is crabs of different species), and then dropped gently down near the victim. The trap is now either closely watched or a mark is placed upon the spot, and the fisherman pursues his avocation upon other parts of the reef until a certain period has elapsed, when he returns and in all probability finds the Nautilus in his cage, feeding upon the bait. The grapnel is now carefully let down, and having entered the basket through the opening on top, a dextrous movement of the hand fixes one or more of the points or hooks and the prize is safely hoisted into the canoe.”

Ah, no shepherds in far-off Arcady ever piped more sweetly to their beloved than this winged lover! His note is wild and free, a touch of anxious pleading perhaps in the brooding song that one does not catch in the first triumphant cry of joy with which he flashes upon our sight in April, but inexpressibly sweet and liquid. It is essentially music of the pipes, like the soft airs blown by lips of happy children upon reeds cut from the brook-side in the first joyous days of spring, but it is different in its airy quality, as if a melody, unfinished, were floating far above our heads! They are loving house-holders, and, if undisturbed, will return, year after year, to the same nest.

The plant of our illustration is a native of the eastern portion of the United States, where it grows in sandy or rocky woods and is more abundant in mountainous regions. This shrub, which grows to a maximum height of twenty feet, is a superb object early in June, when it is covered with corymbs of rather large pink or pinkish-white flowers and numerous evergreen leaves.

Baby Jim’s eyes opened very wide. He seized the book and studied the drawing long and earnestly.

Many years ago, before the Mayflower had cast anchor in Plymouth Bay or Columbus had landed at San Salvador, an aged indian sat shivering in his wigwam. Vainly had he sought for fuel and in his extremity he called upon the Great Spirit, that he might not perish with the cold. Crouching over the dying embers of his fire he stoically awaited the end, when suddenly there appeared before him a beautiful maiden wreathed with wild flowers and carrying in her hands, buds of the willow. Ferns and grasses draped her form and her moccasins were fashioned from pure white lilies. When she breathed the landscape suddenly blossomed with the thousand hues of nature and the warm rains fell in obedience to her will.

“I’ll keep it till papa comes back, he’ll be sure to know!” exclaimed Rob proudly.

E Eagle, A Golden (Charles Elmer Jenney), 152 Eagle, The [Poem] (Alfred Tennyson), 62 Elk or Wapiti, The American [Illustration], 216

The true orioles are birds of the Old World and are closely related to the thrushes. It is said that no fewer than twenty species from Asia and Africa have been described.

K Knot or Robin Snipe, The [Illustration], 14

Probably the best known of the shell-less cephalopods is the octopus, with its rounded body, large eyes and long arms. Almost everybody has read Victor Hugo’s weird account of the octopus in his “Toilers of the Sea,” and the animal has thus been rendered more or less familiar, although it was made to do several things by the author that it would not do in nature, as, for example, “drinking” a man alive. The Octopus is found abundantly throughout temperate and tropical seas, generally on the coast among rocks, but frequently on the sandy bottom in water of moderate depth. Here it may occasionally be seen “walking” clumsily along on its eight long arms, its little round body being balanced above the arms. Its favorite position, however, is among the rocks. In such a locality it will squeeze its body into some crevice and spread out its arms until they form a sort of web, resembling in this position a huge spider waiting for its prey. And it may well be likened to a spider for from this web there is no escape if once a hapless fish has come in contact with the powerful suckers on the long arms. The poor fish is paralyzed when seized by the octopus and is drawn towards the mouth, where it is torn to pieces by the beak-like jaws, and swallowed.

The origin of the name Godwit is veiled in obscurity. It has been suggested that it may be a corruption of the two words good and the antiquated word wight, the latter meaning swift, though the Godwits are not birds of very rapid flight.

Everybody professes to be aware in a sort of unconscious way that the theory of Evolution was invented by Mr. Darwin, and patented by Mr. Spencer, the most important points in the doctrine being that all men are descended from monkeys which had lost their tails, that the fittest survived, and that there is a “missing link” between man and his ancestors.

Many of our readers reside near the home of the Mountain Laurel and can examine the interesting features of this beautiful plant in Nature’s own garden. Those that do this will be well repaid.

The peculiar hop-like fruiting known as strobiles are collected in the fall of the year (September to October), dried and tightly packed into bales. The base of the scales of the strobile are covered with a yellowish powder, consisting of resin-bearing glands, known as lupulin. One pound of hops yields about one ounce of lupulin. Since the medicinal virtues of hops reside in the lupulin it will be readily understood that the hops from which the glands have been removed is of little or no medicinal value. Lupulin as well as the hops have a faint, peculiar, somewhat yeasty odor, which increases with age due to the development of valerianic acid. For medicinal purposes only fresh hops should be used.

Neltje Blanchan has very aptly described the habits of this bird. She says: “It is not the intention of the Godwit to give anyone a near view of either plumage or bill. The most stealthy intruder on its domains—salt or fresh water shores, marshes or prairie lands—startles it to wing; its loud, whistled notes sound the alarm to other marlins hidden among the tall sedges, and the entire flock flies off at an easy, steady pace, not rapid, yet not to be overtaken afoot. A beautiful posture, common to the plovers, curlews, terns and some other birds, is struck just as they alight. Raising the tips of the wings till they meet high above the back, the marlins suggest the favorite attitude of angels shown by the early Italian painters.”

Mr. Woodpecker said it might be no personal affair of his as he had heard no drumming nor mocking of his song, but if Leafy Lawn were to be occupied by kildares, bobolinks, meadow larks and blackbirds he thought there would be scarce picking of worms, bugs or seeds for the old settlers who were the rightful possessors of these premises and it was a serious condition of things. In closing his pompous speech he shook his scarlet bonnet furiously, smoothed his waistcoat and jumped upon a higher limp and called off his “chit-it-it-it-it-it” so shrill and high that his companions were for the moment alarmed lest he should split his throat. But he stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and upon the silence that followed the birds heard, as surely as they saw the blossoms on the apple trees, the song of the thrush.

I Instinct, Do Plants Have (Rowland Watts), 162

F February [Sonnet] (Helen Hunt Jackson), 49 Field Mouse, A Friendly (J. Clyde Hayden), 219 Fishes and Fish-Culture Among the Greeks and Romans (T. Louis Camparette), 89 Flower Garden, A Night in the (Fanny Wright Dixon), 36 Flycatcher, The Yellow-Breasted [Poem] (Carrie B. Sanborn), 8 Frost King’s Realm, A Stroll in the (Addie L. Booker), 73 Frost Work [Poem] (Thomas Bailey Aldrich), 49

The most familiar member of this class to the layman is the Pearly Nautilus, the shell of which may be found on the mantel shelf or what-not of very many dwellings. The shell of the Nautilus is formed in a spiral and is made up of many chambers, all connected by a tube called a siphuncle, the outer chamber containing the animal and hence called the living chamber. The shell is called the “Pearly Nautilus,” but the pearly tints cannot be seen until the outer layer—which is yellowish-white with brown markings—is taken off, when the exquisite, rainbow-like colors may be observed.

While Rob was getting his bottles ready in which to “electrocute” the bugs and Lora was going to the library after the books, Mrs. Farnum was rummaging in the attic. At last she came down bearing triumphantly aloft a big old-fashioned work-box.

C Cinnamon [Illustration] (Albert Schneider), 95 Crossbill, The Legend of the [Poem] (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), 5 Crossbill, The White-Winged [Illustration], 2 Cubebs [Illustration] (Albert Schneider), 191 Curassow, The [Illustration], 146

In early spring Robin Redbreast returned to Leafy Lawn and selected a new site for his nest in the same apple tree his father and grandfather had occupied during preceding summers. No other birds had yet arrived and Robin jumped about on the sprouting lawn master of all he surveyed.

We cannot show the characteristics of this plant in any better way than to quote from “Nature’s Garden,” where we find the following passage:

The highest group of mollusks belongs to the class Cephalopoda, which signifies head-footed, the name being given to them because the head is surrounded by a circle of eight or ten arms, which act both as arms and feet. Let us take as an example of this class the common squid of the Atlantic coast (Ommastrephes illecebrosa), and see how it is formed. The body is long and cylindrical and ends at the tail in a point; the dorsal side of the tail end has a pair of triangular fins. The body is practically a hollow cylinder or sac which contains the vital organs of the animal. The neck is in many genera fastened to this cylinder or mantle by an apparatus which may be likened to a button and button-hole. The head is rounded, has on either side the large, round eyes, and at the end it is split up into ten arms, two of which are longer than the others and are called the tentacular arms. On the inner side, the arms are provided with two rows of suckers, which are little, rounded cups placed on pedicels or stems and which form a vacuum when they touch an object and so cling to it. The two long arms are expanded and club-shaped at the end, each club being armed with four rows of suckers. Directly in the center of the circle of arms the mouth is placed and is provided with two sharp beaks like those of a parrot, only inverted. In addition to these organs there is a large siphon or tube on the ventral side, which is really an organ of locomotion, for it expels water from the mantle cavity with great force, thus rapidly sending the animal backward, its usual direction of propulsion. The body has no shell for protection, but in its place there is a long rod called a pen, which acts as a backbone to support the body of the animal, although of course not in the same sense as the backbone of vertebrated animals. In some cephalopods this pen is hard and stiff but in Ommastrephes it is thin and soft. Such is the general form of a cephalopod, familiar names of which are the Octopus, Squid, Nautilus, Paper-nautilus and Devil-fish. In this class, also, the majority of the shelled species are extinct, only a few living at the present time. The Ammonite is an example of the extinct cephalopods.

“Pshaw! Only a few spiders are poisonous, that is, I think so. Let’s get a library book about them and find out; then may be we’ll have a spider collection, too,” answered the practical brother.

I occasionally hear the old argument that species are immutable—that a species is something which never changes. It seems a little late in the day to revive this contention, but it is necessary to be prepared with a reply. The critics of Darwin’s theory of “the Origin of Species by Natural Selection” have always refused to give a tangible definition of the word “species,” and, as a result, the real difficulty turns upon that point. What is a species? Linnaeus said: “There are as many species as an infinite Being created at the beginning,” a statement which is a confession of faith, and not a scientific definition. We must remember, of course, that Linnaeus died as long ago as 1778. The truth is that all the various tests for species have proved faulty, that of the fertility of hybrids having little more value than many of the other so-called “tests.” In classification, the word “species” means the lowest subdivision to which a name is usually applied, and to aid the zoologist’s or botanist’s memory, some system of classification is, I need not say, an absolute necessity.

The family all laughed, and still more at Rob, who asked, “Is Jim going to be an ant-hropologist, papa?”

“I don’t want the ants crawling all over you,” she said.

In spite of the beauty of this plant, it has a bad reputation, for its leaves are narcotic and poisonous to some animals. “Even the intelligent grouse, hard pressed with hunger when deep snow covers much of their chosen food, are sometimes found dead and their crops distended by these leaves.”

As is the case with many of our game birds, this species bears a number of common names, such as the Straight-Billed Curlew, the Marbled or Brown Marlin, the Red Curlew and, among sportsmen, the Dough and the Doe Bird.

Under the influence of this spirit of the springtime the aged red man slumbered and, as his head sank upon his breast, the sunshine came out in all its splendor and a blue bird alighted upon the top of the wigwam. Slowly the maiden passed her hand above the old indian and gradually he shrank away until nothing remained but a cluster of green leaves. Then taking from her bosom a cluster of rosy blossoms, she concealed them among the leaves, bestowing upon them her own sweetness and fragrance and telling them that as the harbingers of spring, all who would inhale their fragrance, must bow the knee in honor of the vernal goddess. The maiden then passed away through the woods and over the prairies and wherever her footsteps lingered, there grows today the sweet-breathed mayflower.

H Hawks, The [Illustration] (Seth Mindwell), 50 Heart of a Dryad, The (Ella F. Mosby), 198 Hops [Illustration] (Albert Schneider), 235

Little thou hast, old friend, that’s new, Storms and wrecks are old things to thee; Sick am I of these changes, too; Little to care for, little to rue,— I on the shore, and thou on the sea,

They fearlessly sought those localities which would furnish them the most abundant supply of food and water. Unmolested except by their natural enemies, they multiplied and lived a free and untrammeled life.

THE RUSTY BLACKBIRD OR GRACKLE. (_Scolecophagus carolinus._)

The regular places for buds to grow are in the axes of the leaves or on the end of the twigs. Buds, however, can be made to grow on unusual places. If the tops of the tree are cut off, as we often see them in the maple, buds will grow on the trunks. Then, if trees are cut down or blown over, buds will grow on the stumps or from the roots.

Their nesting range covers the whole of British America, but in the United States it is restricted to a comparatively small area. Its nests have only been reported as occurring in portions of New England and in the wild Adirondack forests. In winter it makes its home in the Middle and Southern States. At this time, from necessity, it is often seen around barn and stock yards, feeding on the grain that has been dropped by the cattle.

When food is plentiful and the Wapiti is not constantly disturbed, it will remain in the same region, only straying away during the mating season. They assemble in herds of a greater or less number of individuals. The females and fawns usually remain together; the older females without fawns form another herd and the old males, as a rule, lead a more or less solitary life, except during the mating season.

Unlike the other blackbirds and our common orioles the Rusty Blackbird must not be sought in the orchards and fields of our farms and waysides, but in our forests and the heavily wooded banks of mountain streams and lakes. In such places this retiring bird passes the breeding season and raises its family in quiet solitude. It even seems to shun the company of its own kind and, unlike the red-winged blackbird, is seldom seen in large flocks. It is only in the spring that we may observe even small flocks from “whence issues a confused medley of whistles, sweeter and higher-pitched than the best efforts of the redwings.” Captain Charles Bendire says: “The ordinary call note sounds like ‘tehack, tehack,’ several times repeated; another like ‘turnlee, turnlee, turnlee,’ uttered in a clear tone and varied occasionally to ‘trallahee, trallahee.’”

The other Darwinian factor in evolution is Sexual Selection. It is that department of Natural Selection in which sex is especially concerned. Anything which exhibits the prowess or beauty of the one sex attracts the other, and decides the preference for one individual over another, with the result that those individuals which are unattractive to the opposite sex are unable to reproduce their kind. The importance of this factor will be appreciated if I give an extract from Darwin’s “Descent of Man” (Vol. II., p. 367). “For my own part,” wrote our great master, “I conclude that of all the causes which have led to the differences in external appearance between the races of men, and to a great extent between man and the lower animals, sexual selection must have been by far the most efficient.”

The children set to work at once, and in vain the neighbors’ children whistled for them on the other side of the high board fence. Lora took the hammock from the front lawn to swing beneath the old apple tree. But the tall weeds reached up to the hammock, so Rob had to go for the old scythe rusting in the fence corner and Baby Jim came dragging a hoe with which to cut them down. Soon they had a large space cleared under and around the apple trees, and when it was carefully raked and swept they ran in to beg their mother for some porch chairs for their “summer parlor.”

During the summer season the Rusty Blackbird depends almost entirely on animal life for its food, eating caterpillars, moths and other insects, worms, snails and spiders, also eating, to a limited extent, wild berries.

V Vanilla [Illustration] (Albert Schneider), 47 Viola Blanda [Poem] (Nelly Hart Woodworth), 14

MAY. 193 Now, shrilleth clear each several bird his note 193 AUDUBON’S ORIOLE. (_Icterus audubonii._) 194 TO A SEA-BIRD. 197 FROM AN ORNITHOLOGIST’S YEAR BOOK. THE HEART OF A DRYAD. I. 198 THE MARBLED GODWIT. (_Limosa fedoa._) 201 A BIRD-JOKE AT LEAFY LAWN. 202 THE RUSTY BLACKBIRD OR GRACKLE. (_Scolecophagus carolinus._) 204 WHAT EVOLUTION MEANS. 207 THE SURF SCOTER. (_Oidemia perspicillata._) 213 A BACK-YARD CLASS. 214 THE AMERICAN ELK OR WAPITI. (_Cervus canadensis._) 216 A FRIENDLY FIELD MOUSE. 219 THE OPENING OF WINTER BUDS. 220 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 221 THE NAUTILUS AND OTHER CEPHALOPODS. 222 God made all the creatures and gave them 227 THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. (_Epigaea repens._) 228 TRAILING ARBUTUS. 231 THE MOUNTAIN LAUREL. (_Kalmia latifolia._) 232 Violets stir and arbutus waits 232 HOPS. (_Humulus lupulus L._) 235 AWAKENING. 236 INDEX. Volume IX—January, 1901, to May, 1901, Inclusive. 237

Thus, we can see by watching the formation and development of buds, and the growth of branches, that trees follow certain fixed laws of nature, modifying these laws only on account of some peculiar external conditions as, for example, nourishment, light, heat or moisture.

The Surf Scoter is also known by several other popular names, such as the Surf Duck, the Surf or Sea Coot and, not infrequently, the Booby. The name Velvet Duck, though more commonly applied to the white-winged scoter, is also sometimes used to designate this species.

“Your sheep are all down in the rooms now, having a nice Sunday, I think,” continued Lora. “When winter comes and the snow is all over the ground they won’t come up at all. Haven’t you seen them carrying food in to pile up in one of their rooms?”