Part 3

No, not quite all of them. Way over on Last street there was an exciting scene. Mr. Silence Prairie Dog sat upright in front of his door fairly shaking all over with anger. His body shook, his tail shook, his head shook, and he yelped and barked--turned and popped into his burrow--turned again and popped out of his burrow in the same instant, and acted like one going crazy.

No wonder! Crawling slowly along through the short, dry grass, came a large rattlesnake. Nearer and nearer it glided to the door of the burrow. When it was almost there, Mr. Silence Prairie Dog keeled into his house, the snake slid after him, and then silence fell.

That night the village heard the rest of the story--how Mr. and Mrs. Silence Prairie Dog bit at the rattlesnake with their sharp teeth and scratched at him with their sharp claws, but could not drive him out of their nest where lay two baby prairie dogs. These two he ate for his dinner and then lay down in the deep, soft, warm nest of dried grass. How Mother Silence crept back after a long time and found the greedy old snake lying dead. Yes, truly; killed by the fierce bites of Mr. and Mrs. Silence.

Now all these sad affairs made young Wish-ton-wish quite blue.

Besides, when he went that afternoon to call on the Talky misses, he found that the plumpest one had gone after timothy with another young fellow. All at once he made up his mind that life was a failure and that he would run away from home.

When the prairie-dog folk found out that he was gone they were very sorry. They felt sure he had been eaten by some bird of prey or by a sly coyote.

"He was so wise and so handsome and so brave," said his mother; "there was no young fellow in the village who could be named in the same day with Wish-ton-wish."

Most everybody praised him now that he was dead, or now that they thought he was. I wonder if it isn't rather a poor plan to wait until people are dead or far away before we say the kind things that might have made them happy when they were near?

"We must not neglect our duties even in sorrow," said the father. "It is going to rain. Let us go out and put our mound into good order so that the water may not run into our burrows." They worked with a will, and found out, as everyone always does, that nothing helps sorrow and trouble so quickly as hard work.

When morning came the very first one to be out of a burrow was Wish-ton-wish's mother. Perhaps she had not slept any all night.

She went up to the top of the mound, then stood still with astonishment and joy; for there, on the other side of it, was Wish-ton-wish, hard at work. He was patting and smoothing the sides and making them even after the rain.

"O, where have you been all night, Wish-ton-wish?" cried his mother.

"I went over to the next village; I thought they might not have so many troubles as we have and perhaps I'd stay. But they have even more, mother; they have snakes and hawks and owls and coyotes and _men_, for yesterday some _men_ came there with a great tank of water and poured five barrels into one burrow. They said they were making an 'experiment.' Of course they couldn't drown anybody because the burrows run down and up in every direction. So I thought I'd come home again."

"My son," said his mother, "you have learned a wise lesson. It is of no use to run away from trouble, hoping to find a place where there isn't any. Trouble comes everywhere; and so does happiness."

"Yes, mother; I believe it," said Wish-ton-wish, and he looked with soft eyes over toward the burrow of the plumpest Miss Talky.

THE BEE AND THE FLOWER.

MRS. G. T. DRENNAN.

Virgil, in his "Pastorals," beautifully alludes to the industry of the bee in culling its sweets from the flower. Perhaps we do not definitely know more of the mystery of the flower's secreting the nectar, and of the bee's making the honey, than was known in ancient times. There are differences of opinion on the subject. Darwin considers the honey secreted by the nectary to be the natural food with which the stamens and pistils are nourished. Others assert that the only use of honey with which flowers are supplied is to tempt insects, which, in procuring it, scatter the dust of the anthers and fertilize the flowers, and even carry the pollen from barren to fertile flowers. Linnæus considered the nectary a separate organ from the corolla; and every part of the flower which was neither stamen, pistil, calyx, nor corolla, he called a nectary; but what he called nectaries are at present regarded as modifications of some part of the flower; in some cases a prolongation of the petals, and in others an inner row of petals, or modified stamens adhering to the corolla. The term disk is now applied to whatever appendages appear between the stamen and pistil, formerly called nectaries. The form of the honey sac, or nectary, differs with different flowers. In the lily it is a mere cavity, or gland. In the honeysuckle a golden fluid is secreted at the end of the tube, without the sac. Few things in nature can be more beautiful than the nectary and the honey drops in the crown imperial. Each one is a shallow cup and pearly white. From each cup hangs a shining drop, like a tear. The tint of the cup gives the drop its hue and each one looks a splendid pearl fastened in the crown of each of the flowers of the crown imperial which, hanging down, only display the pearly honey drops when we look up into the flower. The buttercup is one of the most interesting flowers that secrete nectar. It belongs to the _Ranunculus_, or crowfoot family, which numbers many wild and some of the choicest of cultivated flowers. The nectar-cups are under the petals, and the mission of the flowers seems to be to feed the bees. It is well known that beyond the realm of romance and poetry the buttercup is a plant abhorred by the cow that gives the milk that makes the butter. The lovely yellow color of the buttercup no doubt suggested the name. Apiarists know that certain kinds of flowers make certain grades of honey. They know also that while the bee makes its honey from the flower, it will also make honey from sugar and molasses. The drainings of molasses casks are given the bee for winter food, and it is one of the unsolved mysteries how the bee makes its honey. The nectar in the flower is not honey. The bee makes the honey from what is abstracted from the flower, and also preserves life and makes honey from sweets that are given it for food. Buckwheat is an example of dark, rich honey and white clover and raspberry blooms of clear, translucent honey. Also the fact is, that abstracting the nectar in no wise impairs the beauty nor the fruitfulness of the flower. Instance the rich, productive buckwheat, how profusely it yields its flower; and raspberries ripen sweet and juicy from vines that have had the bees hovering over the snowy blooms from the time they open till the berries form. Honey bees are not always safe in their selection of flowers to feed upon, for Xenophon, in his "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," describes the honey of Trebizond as having produced the effect of temporary madness, or drunkenness, upon the whole army. Mr. Abbott, writing from the same country in 1833, says he witnessed the same effects of honey upon those partaking of it as Xenophon describes.

This would indicate that the honey undergoes some chemical change in the making, as the bees, in these instances, were not injured by the flowers, yet the honey they made from them was injurious to man.

THE CANARY.

(_Serinus canarius._)

C. C. M.

This favorite singer and cage bird is a native of the Canary Islands, Madeiras, Azores and other small islands near the western coast of Africa. The islands are in the latitude of Florida and the climate may be said to be of a tropical character, though varied by lofty mountains. The canary in its native habitat is chiefly found in the mountainous districts, often several thousand feet above the level of the sea. The wild birds mate about the latter part of March. The nest is built in the tall trees of the evergreen species, frequently in the tops of these trees, and never less than eight or ten feet from the ground. We have seen it stated that they build on the ground, but this has been found to be an error.

The first canaries known to Europeans were brought from there by a merchant ship trading with the Canary Islands as a part of her cargo, several thousand of these birds having been trapped in the hope that they could be sold for a good price as song-birds. The ship was wrecked near the coast of Italy, but by the thoughtfulness of a sailor the cage containing the birds was opened and the birds liberated. They flew at once to the nearest point of land, which happened to be the island of Elba. The climate was so propitious that the canaries multiplied rapidly. In a very short time their superiority as songsters attracted attention and their domestication followed. The shipwreck referred to occurred early in the sixteenth century. The Italians were the first to breed these birds, and they were by them shipped to Russia, Germany, Belgium, and England. They were first described in an English book on natural history in 1610. The rage for breeding the canary with home birds became curiously popular and resulted in a curious intermixture of colors. In Italy they were bred with the citril and serin; in Germany with the linnet, green finch, and siskin. Mr. C. N. Page says, in his "Feathered Pets," a very valuable book for bird fanciers, that in an English book published in 1709 there are twenty-eight varieties of canaries mentioned, comprising nearly all those known at the present time and some which have become extinct. The climate has also had much to do with the change of color in these birds. The canary, which in its native home at Teneriffe is almost brown, becomes yellow and sometimes nearly white after being bred a few years in France, and it has been observed by naturalists that the winter fur of animals and feathers of birds become thicker and lighter in color in proportion to the coldness of the climate which they inhabit.

In England and Germany canary societies have existed for upwards of a century, and annual shows or exhibitions are held with prizes offered for the best birds.

Of the many varieties of canaries the most popular in the United States is the German. It is smaller than the English canary and is a much finer singer, being bred and trained for song and not for size. They are called Hartz Mountain canaries, and experts consider them the most satisfactory bird for the people. They are bred by the peasants in ordinary living-rooms high up among the Hartz Mountains of Germany. These birds are even more hardy than the American-bred canaries. They are brilliant singers. We had one for five years, and while its voice was wonderfully clear, full, and musical, it was too loud and was not admired by our neighbors. The shrill and piercing note of some of this species renders them somewhat objectionable as house pets. The birds are happy in the cage, require very little care, and if properly attended to are said to be free from diseases. Most of the Hartz Mountain canaries are somewhat mottled with dark, greenish-brown, though many of the birds are clear yellow, and few have crests. In the canary-breeding section of Germany, almost every family keeps a few cages of these birds, or has a room devoted to their breeding. The German people are very fond of birds and there are many of them in the United States who have many cages of rare specimens.

Milwaukee supplies the United States with the bulk of the Hartz Mountain canaries, and there is no great crime in the deception, for the Milwaukee bird is really an improvement on the imported article, having just as fine a voice and being much hardier.

Experience has shown that the imported singer loses the power of transmitting his voice to the young after passing through an American winter. This is the case also, it is said, with Tyrolean singers who come to this country, their voices losing the peculiar yodling quality when they have been here a year. The native canary is hardier than the imported one, and, with proper training, is every bit as good a singer.

Before they are mated the hen birds are kept in separate cages in the music room, carefully fed and made to listen to the music of the singers and the machine used in training their voices. In this way the hen is enabled to transmit the best musical quality to her offspring. The music-room is a large one, with a south exposure, and is kept with the same scrupulous neatness as the breeding-room. In the corner of this room is the bird organ, and with it the little birds are given their vocal training.

When the machine is started the notes emitted are wonderfully like the song of the untutored canary. These notes are known to bird-trainers by the term _pfeiffen_. Gradually the whistle strikes onto a different line. It is an improvement over the _pfeiffen_, and is called the _klingel rolle_. A higher step still is called the _klingel_, and a still higher step _hohl klingel_. Lastly comes what is called _hol rollen_, and a bird whose voice has been developed up to that point is worth $50 in the market any day.

In this country there are only three importers of canaries. Each of these firms employs "bird-pickers" who travel over the mountains in Germany and gather together a supply of birds which are selected from the stocks of the small breeders.

There are several varieties of English canaries. The Norwich is a general favorite. It takes its name from the city of Norwich, where for generations it has been bred and cultivated. It has a brilliant, deep, reddish-yellow plumage. It is regarded as the most beautiful of all the canaries. Its color is frequently so dark that it is called the red canary. This color is produced artificially by feeding them during the moulting season a large amount of cayenne pepper mixed with hard boiled egg and cracker crumbs.

Canaries have many pretty ways and can be taught many pretty tricks. One that belonged to the writer had been deprived of its feet. Its wing feathers never grew out, hence it could not fly or perch and was obliged to stump about on the floor like an old veteran on his crutch. But it was healthy and vigorous, and so pugnacious that on our return, after the day's absence, it would fly at us, or try to, poor thing, and peck our outstretched fingers, even while taking offered hemp seed greedily. The bird watched and waited for our coming and we became so much attached to it that its death was a real loss.

The little birds can fill our hearts As full as larger creatures' arts.

The nest of the canary is a pretty, neatly formed structure of any soft material it can find. Five bluish eggs are usually laid, and three or four broods are raised between February and September, though the female will sometimes persist in building until much later.

THE PAROQUET.

"I am so sorry," wrote a little girl from Tarrytown, N. Y., to the editor of BIRDS AND ALL NATURE, "not to find in your magazine any more the bird-talks to the little folks. I used to read them with so much interest. Are there to be no more of them?"

Other little folks have written to the editor in much the same strain, so that this month the paroquet will speak for himself.

"From my photograph," he says; "you will notice that I am fond of gay dress, green, blue, yellow, orange-chrome, and red being my favorite colors. From my brilliant coat you would judge me to be a tropical bird, but I'm not. I was born and raised in the United States, as was my family, therefore I am an American citizen.

"In appearance I greatly resemble my cousin, the glib-tongued parrot, but for some reason, though my tongue is thick and short like his, and my bill as charmingly curved, I cannot talk--that is, not to be understood by the human family, I mean, for among ourselves we keep up a very lively conversation, in very loud tones--a mark we think, as do some other folk, of good breeding. On the other hand there are people unreasonable enough not to like it, and they say we 'scream' and that our notes are 'ear-splitting' and that, though we are beautiful to look upon and extremely docile, our voices render us undesirable as cage birds or pets. The idea! As though we do not consider that very fortunate!--for a cage is a prison, no matter if the bars are gilded. For my part I prefer to be free even if I do have to hustle for a living and, between you and me, I think that a bird that can screech and doesn't screech when shut up in a little cage doesn't deserve to live. He ought to be killed and stuffed and set up in a museum for people to gape at. Don't you think so, too?

"It is a great pity, but we paroquets are fast being exterminated. In some regions, where less than twenty-five years ago we were very plentiful, not a paroquet is now to be seen. We were once quite common in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and other parts of the United States. We are now to be found, in diminished numbers, in remote localities only of the lower Mississippi Valley and the Gulf States and in some regions of Florida. To escape from our enemy, the plume-hunter, we make our homes in practically uninhabitable regions. That is a long word for you little folks, but spell it out slowly, as I did, and you will understand what it means.

"Our nesting-time is during February and March. Then colonies of us paroquets, sometimes numbering a thousand, flock to a cypress swamp and build our flimsy nests in forks of trees, near the end of a slender, horizontal branch. Often there are fifty nests in one small tree, each containing from four to five pretty, greenish-white eggs. It is a good thing we build our nests in wild and unsettled places, for they are so flimsy that the eggs are plainly visible from beneath. What a temptation to the bad boy they would be, and to the bad man, also! Some paroquets, however, choose a hollow tree in which to deposit their eggs.

"Well, I have told you about all I know of myself and family, so will close by reciting in my very loudest and prettiest screech, so that all the neighborhood may hear, a few lines about a Mr. Macaw who was silly enough, after escaping from a cage, to return to it. He is a cousin of mine, a _distant_ cousin, for he was born in South America; but he wears the same colored coat and vest as I do, his tongue is just as thick, and his bill curves like a parrot's, also:

MR. MACAW'S LESSON.

'Mr. Macaw was tired of his cage-- Too much of a prison for home; Mr. Macaw was in a great rage, And so he _settled_ to roam.

The cage-door was open, the window too (Strange chance, both open together!), So he took his chance and away he flew; But, alas! it was wintry weather.

Wind from the north, ground covered with rime, A frost that made your limbs shiver; Poor Mr. Macaw! this was not like the clime On the banks of the Amazon River.

So Mr. Macaw grew wise, as do men, When taught by experience bitter; He flew back to his cage, and determined then He would never again be a flitter.'"

THE CAROLINA PAROQUET.

(_Conurus carolinensis._)

BY LYNDS JONES.

Few birds indeed can lay claim to such beautiful and varied dress as our native paroquet. But for this dress and for certain habits which will be spoken of more particularly a little later, he has had to pay a most severe penalty. Once an abundant bird over the whole southeastern portion of the country, ranging commonly as far north as southern Ohio and Illinois, and sometimes even as far north as southern Michigan and New York, and as far west as eastern Colorado, his numbers and range have been reduced to a few individuals in the wilds of the Indian Territory and the adjacent parts of Texas, and the fastnesses of the Florida swamps. The region over which he ranged so numerously in advance of civilization, suffers a distinct loss in his extermination.

It is hardly fair to lay the blame for the disappearance of this bird solely at the door of the plume-hunters and collectors, for it must be admitted that the paroquet was a real menace to the fruit-grower and farmer when he was abundant. Even his extreme fondness for the fruit of the cockle-bur, thistle, and a few other noxious plants, could hardly atone for the complete ruin of the apple crop, or his serious inroads upon the wheat or corn field. One could not stand tamely by while a flock of these birds, with all their beauty, stripped his orchard of every blossom and bud.

The food of the paroquet was entirely vegetable, consisting of the seed of the cockle-bur, as already stated, sycamore and cypress seed, pecan and beech nuts, the fruit of the pawpaw, mulberries, wild grapes and various other wild fruits as well as cultivated fruits, the seeds of pine cones and the burgrass. Grains of various kinds were eaten while in the milk, and Mr. Frank M. Chapman found them eating the seeds of thistles. So varied a diet enabled these birds to pass the winter in the northern parts of their range as well as farther south. It has been stated that paroquets have been found hibernating in hollow trees in the coldest winters. If they were actually found in such places they were undoubtedly simply taking refuge from some severe storm, to issue forth again when it had passed.

The paroquet's strong, hooked beak was probably so formed for the cutting of stems and husks of plants and the crushing of seeds and nuts, but he also finds it useful in climbing about trees as an aid to his yoked feet, and as a partial support while he sleeps in some hollow tree, the bill being hooked over a projection or into a convenient crevice.

Major Charles E. Bendire describes the flight as undulating, like that of the woodpeckers, but very swift, accompanied by a continuous chattering while on the wing. The birds remain together in flocks of from six to twenty individuals (before they became so scarce, by hundreds), and are very devoted to each other. The cries of a wounded companion will always recall the whole flock to his aid, thus enabling the hunter to kill every bird in the flock. It is this characteristic, no doubt, which has very largely caused the rapid disappearance of the birds before advancing civilization.

The nesting-habits of the paroquet are in some doubt, but the evidence seems to indicate that the birds may rear their brood either in a cavity in a tree or build a slight nest after the fashion of the mourning-dove. Such nests seem to be largely confined to the cypress swamps of Florida. The eggs, several of which have been secured from birds in confinement, are pure glossy white, smooth, and rather ovate in shape, somewhat larger than those of the mourning-dove, and averaging 1.39 × 1.07 of an inch.

These birds seem to nest in colonies, a fact which led Major Bendire to suggest that when the colonies were very large the birds were forced to build open nests from a lack of suitable nesting-places in cavities.

The cry is described as "shrill and disagreeable, a kind of grating, metallic shriek." One call resembles the shrill cry of a goose. They sometimes give utterance to low conversational notes while perched.