Part 4

It seems almost incredible that scarcely more than half a century has witnessed the passing of a once abundant species of our native bird. Like the bison, the paroquet has been swept away by the rushing tide of progress, leaving only fading memories where once they were characteristic features of the landscape. We may congratulate ourselves that there are few of our birds and mammals that find it so impossible to survive the advance of civilization.

WHAT THE WOOD FIRE SAID TO A LITTLE BOY.

What said the wood in the fire To the little boy that night, The little boy of the golden hair, As he rocked himself in his little arm-chair, When the blaze was burning bright?

The wood said: "See What they've done to me! I stood in the forest, a beautiful tree! And waved my branches from east to west; And many a sweet bird built its nest In my leaves of green, That loved to lean In springtime over the daisy's breast.

"From the blossomy dells, Where the violet dwells, The cattle came with their clanging bells, And rested under my shadows sweet; And the winds that went over the clover and wheat, Told me all that they knew Of the flowers that grew In the beautiful meadows that dreamed at my feet!

"And the wild wind's caresses Oft rumpled my tresses; But, sometimes, as soft as a mother's lip presses On the brow of the child of her bosom, it laid Its lips on my leaves, and I was not afraid, And I listened and heard The small heart of each bird, As it beat in the nests that their mothers had made.

"And in springtime sweet faces, Of myriad graces, Came beaming and gleaming from flowery places. And under my grateful and joy-giving shade, With cheeks like primroses, the little ones played; And the sunshine in showers, Through all the bright hours, Bound their flowery ringlets with silvery braid.

"And the lightning Came brightening, From storm skies, and frightening The wandering birds that were tossed by the breeze, And tilted like ships on black, billowy seas; But they flew to my breast, And I rocked them to rest, While the trembling vines clustered and clung to my knees.

"But how soon," said the wood, "Fades the memory of good! For the forester came, with his axe gleaming bright, And I fell like a giant all shorn of his might. Yet still there must be Some sweet mission for me, For have I not warmed you and cheered you to-night?"

So said the wood in the fire To the little boy that night, The little boy of the golden hair, As he rocked himself in his little arm-chair, When the blaze was burning bright. --_Atlanta Constitution._

THE MISSISSIPPI.

W. E. WATT.

Americans like to boast of the things of this country that are larger, longer, more valuable, or more wonderful than anything of the kind in the world. They have recited in school such a number of statements about the Mississippi river that the great stream has become one of the essential points of our nation's honor.

You may be able to make the average man believe that Washington was not always as truthful in his youth as Weems in the cherry-tree story tried to make him; that Captain John Smith drew somewhat on his imagination when some sixteen years after the expedition into the woods he told the story of his rescue by Pocahontas; that perhaps, after all, we did not whip the entire British nation twice in open warfare--but it will be hard to make any native-born American admit that the Mississippi river is not the longest in the world.

He may listen to your argument in favor of the Nile or the Amazon, but he will tell you that he still thinks that if the Mississippi had been measured correctly at first, taking the source of the Missouri as the source of the Mississippi, we would have been the possessors of the longest river on earth.

And if that should seem a trifle weak he will at once tell you that the great river is more wonderful than all others because its source is several hundred feet nearer the center of the earth than its mouth. In other words, the river flows up hill. The curvature of the earth is not the true arc of a circle from the equator to the poles, for the axis of the earth is shorter than its diameter at the equator by about twenty-six miles. It is thirteen miles less from the north pole to the center of the earth than from any point on the equator to the center. So the river flows towards the equator with an apparent fall as estimated from the sea-level, but with an actual rising away from the earth's center just as the sea rises round this shoulder of the earth.

So the Mississippi is a source of joy and boastful conversation to every citizen of the United States.

The Acadian settlers of Nova Scotia whose praises have been sung by Longfellow in his "Evangeline", were the earliest to reclaim land from the sea in America. Being weaker than those who used the ax to fell the giants of the forest primeval, they were more skillful with the spade. They took advantage of the extremely high tides of the Bay of Fundy and its branches, and when the water was low threw up embankments which prevented the sea from covering part of the rich red mud flats before the village of Grand Pre.

At the time of their painful dispersion they had secured all the land between the original shore and the island which stood out in the basin of Minas.

Though they could not take these rich lands with them in their exile, many of them carried the knowledge of dike-building down to the lower courses of the Mississippi, and taught the rest of the Americans there how to get the fat lands of the river bottoms by means of levees.

When General Pakenham gave up his life and lost a fine British army to General Jackson after the treaty of peace had been signed in the War of 1812, his right rested on the bank of the Mississippi where there was a levee a little over five feet high.

This levee cut off the waters from spreading when the freshet was on. It was sufficient at that time. Extensions of levee work cut off more and more of the bottom-lands from the spread of the high waters till now nearly four-fifths of the area over which the waters of the June freshet used to spread are protected by these structures.

The levees are not now the low banks of earth which once kept the waters back. The great mass of water that comes from the melting of snows in the Alleghenies and the Rockies must either spread out or pile up. Confining within less than a mile of width a surplus of water that formerly spread itself for a hundred miles makes it necessary for the water to rise and rush forward with greater violence.

Year by year the levees have crept up the sides of the great river, choking it into narrow walls. Year after year it has risen in its wrath and burst its bounds to destroy the cities and plantations which have been fattening in the mud of its alluvial flats. Every year the levees are put up higher, and as the works extend to the northward and more effectually close up the southern places of spreading out there is an average increase in the stage of high water and in velocity of the current. When it was allowed to wander over great stretches of country the water seemed in no hurry to get to the gulf, but now it goes tearing madly through its narrowed banks, and it has become a question with Congress which will take much deliberation and experiment as well as great financial outlay to solve.

It has been proposed that great reservoirs be constructed in the mountain districts to hold back the waters that are wasted in their rush to the sea. If there could be made in the Bad Lands in northern Wyoming a reservoir that would hold all the waters accumulating there during the months of spring, that reservoir would "skim off" the top of the Mississippi river two thousand miles away and save the people there from the perils that threaten them whenever the water mounts toward the danger-point.

It would require a vast artificial lake to hold these waters, but there are mountain ranges that could be utilized to form the barriers and the land taken from profitable grazing could be paid for with much less expense than the cost of one inundation of Mississippi bottom lands when a levee breaks.

Instead of one vast reservoir it will probably be found expedient to lay out a great number of works for retaining the western waters, as well as others in the eastern mountains and some in the beds of other tributary rivers whose sources are in the great basin between.

If these stores of water could be utilized for irrigation it is probable that the works would eventually pay for themselves in the increase in value of cultivated lands. The water at present is largely wasted because it rushes past the lands that need it before their distress of drouth comes, and its bulk is fairly spent when they need most the water that has passed. Adequate systems of reservoirs would also prevent largely the wearing away of banks and the changing of the course of the channel and even of the river itself which now sometimes tears away the foundations of cities, obliterates landmarks, and carries off bodily many well-tilled farms. Navigation could be much improved if the stages of high water could be moderated.

The Kansas farmer complained that the Missouri river is too thick to drink and too thin to plow. Control of surplus water near the sources would make this river so moderate that commerce would move along its surface. Varying moods and shifting sands now prevent navigation on that great river almost completely.

The Chinese have a problem similar to ours. Their government esteems their board of public works as one of the highest in their country. This board has charge of the canals and embankments along the great rivers. But it is a Chinese board.

The Hoang Ho resembles our great water course in that it rises in mountains and flows for hundreds of miles through comparatively level country in its lower courses. It deposits mud along its way through the great plain so that the people are continually obliged to construct levees higher and higher until nature no longer will put up with such treatment and the great yellow river breaks its bonds and travels across the country to find a new outlet at the seacoast.

In 2500 years it has altered its general course nine times with terrible destruction of life and property. Its last great breach occurred in 1887, when it tore through the empire a new channel that caused its waters to reach the sea through the mouth of the Yangtse-kiang five hundred miles away from its present mouth. More than a million lives were lost and the devastation of the country has never been approximately estimated. The gap torn in its embankment was two-thirds of a mile in width. Efforts to close it were ineffective except in low water, and when it was at last almost accomplished the celestials had a narrow but constantly deepening breach to mend, its depth during the last days of the work being so great that a torrent sixty feet deep fought with gigantic might against the endeavors of the men. At times the bed of this river has actually stood above the level of the surrounding country, its walls having risen with the rise of the bed due to the deposit of mud till it seemed as if the great river had risen to take a look over the surrounding plain to see where it could wreak the direst vengeance on those who prevented it from running unvexed to the sea.

We may learn from the wide experience of the Chinese that there is no safety for us in merely building higher the walls to restrain the Mississippi. The nation must take hold of the matter with a strong hand. Possibly forty or fifty millions will be necessary to construct the works which will moderate the flow and distribute its waters to those who need it in their irrigating ditches. Even though it cost thrice the sum paid to Spain in settlement of the Philippine question, the people would more gladly give it.

Nothing short of a great ship canal along the bed of the Mississippi will satisfy Americans. There is but one objection to the work, and that is its great expense. But we have recently seen that the cost of one great inundation along the Brazos was far more than the figures here named, and no account need be made of the loss of life and the suffering that followed that great disaster.

Our great river must be controlled. Not in the Chinese fashion, which we know to be merely the storing of wrath against the day of wrath, but it must be done intelligently and with patience, with faith in ourselves and a determination to prevent the great loss of life which will be imminent every time there happens to be the coming of a flood from the eastern mountains and another from the western at the same time.

Our great water way, when properly controlled and protected by permanent revetments and masonry, will furnish the farmers of the great plains a natural outlet to the sea for all their produce. This will be monopolized by no railway trust; no combination of steam-boat men will put the farmer into the hands of corporations seeking to rob him of the best part of his crop on the way to market, for there will be docks along every man's water front, and the rudest flatboat will always rely upon the favoring current to bear its cargo to the sides of independent vessels plying the seas to the uttermost parts of the earth.

INDIAN SUMMER.

Withal there comes a time when summers wane, When from the sunshine something seems withdrawn, And pensive shadows lengthen on the lawn; White bindweed wanders lonely in the lane, The one sweet thing that now unwithered doth remain.

But there is beauty in autumnal bough No less than in dear April's dewy leaves, When with its store of golden-girdled sheaves Piled stands the wain where one time passed the plow, And ripened labor reaps fulfillment of its vow.

Then, though no more the oblivious cuckoo calls From land to land, nor longer on the spray Of yellowing elm the throstle vaunts his lay, The ringdove's mate, as fades the leaf and falls, Reiterates its note of love that never palls.

Though fluttereth still the soul-like lark aloft, There is a quiet in the woodland ways, The retrospective hush of vanished days, And around garden close and orchard croft A something in the air celestially soft.

From hamlet roofs blue spires of smoke once more, As dies the day in mist along the dale, And widowed evening weeps behind her veil, From log-replenished ingle heavenward soar, And lamps are early lit, and early latched the door. --_Alfred Austin._

THE CHIPMUNK.

(_Tamias lysteri._)

C. C. M.

Naturalists, as well as many ordinary observers, it is said, recognize numerous varieties among the chipmunks of the United States, founded principally on the markings of the fur; for in their habits they are all very similar. Elliott Coues describes four varieties found in this country.

The American chipmunk, hackee, or chipping squirrel (_Tamias lysteri_) is distributed all over the United States. The face is of a reddish brown tint, with darker spots on the forehead and cheeks; the nape of the neck is ashen gray, the hind-quarters reddish brown, the under surface whitish; there is a dark-brown stripe on the back, a black stripe over the eye, with white above and below it, and there is a wide white side-streak edged with blackish brown; the upper surface of the tail is dark-brown, the base being grayish yellow, the tip whitish and the lower surface a ruddy hue.

This description may seem superfluous, in view of our picture of the lively little animal; we think, however, it may induce closer observation of the markings of its fur.

The chipmunk is visible at all seasons of the year, but late in summer it may be seen running about, "its cheek pouches filled and its eyes beaming with the satisfaction which its riches afford it." According to the different months in which they mature, it gathers its varied stores, for the most part consisting of buckwheat, hazelnuts, maple seeds, and corn. During the winter it hibernates to some extent, but it seems to stand in need of food during the whole winter. Audubon dug up a burrow in January, and at the depth of about four feet he found a large nest of leaves and grass in which were three chipmunks; others seemed to have disappeared in the lateral passages at the approach of the diggers. The animals were overcome with sleep and not very active, but they were not as torpid as true hibernating animals are, and they snapped viciously at the naturalist, who tried to handle them. The animal does not become torpid before November. It does not leave its subterranean home during the winter, but keeps a passage open. When the snow melts it begins its activity above ground.

The young are born in May, and a second litter usually in August. It is said the males engage in fierce combats during the breeding-season.

The farmer is not very friendly to this animal, which he regards as a pest. It is hunted extensively. A whole army of enemies is constantly engaged in its pursuit. "Boys utilize it to practice the noble sport of hunting; weasels pursue it both on and under the ground; cats deem it a prey equally as good as rats and mice, and all larger birds of prey carry it off whenever they have a chance. One of these birds has even gained for itself the name of squirrel-hawk, because of its attacks on the chipmunk." The rattlesnake, according to the observations of Geyer, also follows the poor little creature with a great deal of perseverance. Winter often causes sad havoc among the numerous young brood born in summer. Yet they are very plentiful, at least in favorable years, the great fecundity of the female making up for the losses. Their chief protection against enemies is the difficulty in finding them and the amazing nimbleness they display as they dart between and under hedges like wrens.

The beauty and gracefulness of the ground-squirrels render them interesting pets, but as they never become quite tame, are timid and addicted to biting, and gnaw everything in the cage they are not very desirable to keep. Their care presents no difficulties, and they thrive well on the simplest diet of grain and fruit.

Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N. Y., is suffering for the second time in its history from a too great increase in its colony of chipmunks. Eighteen years ago they became such a nuisance that a trapper was employed, and 28,000 small striped pelts were the results of his first year's work.

This year it was noticed that an unusual number were about, even in the early spring, when the chipmunks first appear after a winter's sleep. Now it is estimated that there are at least 20,000 chipmunks in the cemetery, and a great deal of damage has been done. Through their burrowing habits they have undermined the gravestones, and even in many cases caused graves to sink in, when rainwater has helped to hollow out their burrows.

The chief enemies of the chipmunks are the florists, for the animals nip growing plants at the roots to reach the sap. One Brooklyn florist says that since Decoration Day he has had to put in 250 new plants to keep up an original plat of 150. Florists with contracts to keep graves in condition have entered strong protests, but outside florists, who work by the piece, have been making money.

The eight special policemen on the grounds have been furnished with poisoned nuts to scatter about. No diminution has yet appeared in the chipmunk army, as they reproduce three or four times a year and increase fourfold in a season if not checked. But if poison fails another trapper may be called in.

_Our Animal Friends_ says that some children were feeding chickens with some stale bread one day, and two or three chipmunks appeared. They wanted the bread, too, and every time the children threw a bit down, both chickens and chipmunks would make a rush for it; and nearly always the chipmunks got it. One of them was particularly smart; he gathered all his pieces in a little pile between two stones, and he seemed to keep one eye on them and the other on the lookout for fresh pieces all the time. At last one of the chickens saw the pile and made a run for it, but its owner got there first, and he just sat right down on the top of the heap and _chattered_. The chicken kept on coming nearer and looking rather as if he would fight for it, so Mr. Chipmunk sat straight up, twirled his tail, and just seemed to shake with anger. Then another came along to help him, and the two tucked all the pieces into their pockets and off they darted, leaving the poor chicken looking awfully disappointed.

TED'S WEATHER PROPHET.

GRANVILLE OSBORNE.

Flittin' along from tree to tree, Chipper 'n friendly ez he kin be; Dancin' erbout on the'r talles' lim', Jes' the likeliest place fer him. Bound ter foller 'n seems to know Very bes' places I like to go; Bobbin' his head 'n winkin' his eye, 'S if he knew all erbout ther sky; 'Nen he nods an' sez as plain, "Goin' ter rain; goin' ter rain!"

Little feller 'ith coat all brown, Vest uv red wher' the wings come down, Primpin' his feathers 'n winkin' at me, Mincin' er-round so he kin see; 'Taint no use ter hide erway, 'At's a game what two can play; 'Course he finds me, 'nen he tries Ter make believe he's awful wise. All uv a suddin he sez again, "Goin' ter rain, goin' ter rain!"

Climbed way up ter his nest one day, "Better be careful," I heard him say; Ruffled his coat 'n looked so mad, I didn't 'spose he could be so bad. Coziest nest 'at ever you seen, Snuggled way up amongst ther green; Four little eggs, ther purtiest blue, Didn't touch one uv 'em, honest 'n true! Robin hops on 'n begins ter explain, "Goin' ter rain, goin' ter rain!"

THREATENED EXTERMINATION OF THE FUR SEAL.

The fur-seal herds of the north Pacific breed on islands situated in Bering Sea and belonging to the United States and Russia. On these islands, Pribilof and Komandorski, for nearly a hundred years they have received all necessary protection from attacks on land. The existence of the herds, however, demands the further protection of the females when they are feeding or migrating in the open sea beyond the usual three-mile limit of territorial jurisdiction. The animals visit certain islands in the summer. They breed on them and make them their home. The young remain there until driven away by the storms of winter. The adults leave the islands in summer only to feed, going to a distance of one hundred to two hundred miles for that purpose. The winter is spent by the entire herd in the open sea, their migrations extending from one thousand to twenty-five hundred miles to the southward of their breeding-resorts.