Part 4

The caterpillar or larva is nearly as beautiful in color as the perfect moth, being about three inches long, of a light green color with coral red, yellow and blue warts with short black bristles near its head. It feeds on the leaves of nearly every species of forest fruit and shade trees, till late in August or September; then it descends from the trees to seek some shrub upon which to fasten its winter home. Occasionally they will be satisfied with a location in a tree-top, but not often.

This home building is exceedingly interesting, and although you can watch them only for a few hours you still linger near and imagine what you cannot see.

When the right location is found it spins a very strong thread for the outside, fastening it securely to a small branch, and going back and forth with this strong silk until it assumes its proper shape and proportion. You will find it almost impossible to tear it open with your fingers, and only a sharp knife will enable you to see the contents. This strong outside is necessary for protection, as the woodpeckers are very fond of the larva and imago. After this strong outside is completed the silk is woven very loosely between it and the cocoon proper. This serves as a blanket for warmth, so that the baby moth is as safe from severe winter cold and storms as a baby child in its cradle.

The inner room of this home or the cocoon proper is made of very fine silk, which can be readily reeled off, and we are told that it has been carded and spun and knit into stockings that washed like linen, and that cloth woven from this silk is much more durable than that made by the silk worm.

But for the delicate character of the larvæ, which are very difficult to raise, it would become an important article of commerce.

The inside of this cocoon is as smooth as satin and the larva after changing to the proper state is glossy black, from one and a half inches to two inches in length. As the time draws near for the great change to the beautiful moth, the pupa grows very soft and, moistening the smaller end of the cocoon with a secretion prepared for this use, comes forth with damp, small wings, which as they dry out develop into the regular size of the beautiful moth, leaving a round hole in the cocoon where both the outer and inner cocoon were woven less closely and strong than any other portion.

In New England the cecropia may be found in the month of June.

Often the larva uses a leaf in forming the outside, and after a leaf dies and is blown away the impress of the veins remains, making such a pretty cocoon. You can easily find them during the winter months, when the trees are bare, if you keep a sharp watch for them.

THE GENISTA.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM KERR HIGLEY, Secretary of The Chicago Academy of Sciences.

The green earth sends its incense up From every mountain-shrine, From every flower and dewy cup That greeteth the sunshine. --_Whittier._

The more one studies plant life with reference to its structure, its mode of growth, its uses and the changes which may be wrought by man to adapt it to the requirements of his taste, the more one finds it impossible to repress the words--Wonderful! Beautiful! For there is no plant so insignificant as not to have something attractive about it.

The countries adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean produce a profusion of forms noted alike for their beauty and economic value.

In this region, with about forty-five sister species, is found the plant of our illustration. Carried from its home, it is now a common decoration of the greenhouse and private conservatory. Its sisters are of economic value. Some are used for garden hedges, some to arrest the ever drifting sands of the seashore, and some to furnish a tanning principle. Cattle browse upon some species and all contain more or less of a yellow dye called _scoparin_.

These plants belong to the pea or pulse family (_Leguminosæ_), which also includes the clovers, the peanut, the locusts, the vetches, the acacias, the bean, the lupine, the tamarind, logwood, and licorice.

It has been estimated that this family contains over four hundred and sixty genera and about seven thousand species. Here are grouped herbs, shrubs, vines, and trees, the fruit of which is a pod similar in structure to that of the bean, and usually with irregular flowers. In this family the beasts of the field, as well as man, find some of their most valuable foods and nearly all of the species are without harmful qualities. The name of the family is derived from the Latin word _legumen_, meaning _pulse_.

The flowers of this group of plants are peculiarly adapted to cross-fertilization. Their colors, their odors, or the abundant nectar secreted by them attract numerous insects, and, while these little animals are providing for themselves Nature has also provided for the best interests of the plant, as the pollen scattered upon their bodies during their visit to a flower, is carried to another flower of like kind, thus causing a cross between the two plants, which results in a better grade of seeds.

The botanical name of the genista in the illustration is _Cytisus canariensis_, a native of the Canary Islands. The origin of the generic name, _Cytisus_, is obscure, though it is generally considered to be the ancient Greek name of the plant, and has its origin in the fact that the first species was discovered on the island of Cythrus, one of the Cyclades, a group of islands south of Greece. The specific name is derived from the name of the island where the plant is native.

The pure yellow flowers are grouped along the branches in terminal clusters. They are sweet-scented, showy and frequently so numerous as to make the plant appear like a mass of yellow blooms.

The leaves are very small, consisting of three leaflets similar in form to those of the common clove. The surface of the leaves, and of the young twigs, is covered by fine and soft hairs, causing a hoary appearance.

The plant is a shrub varying in height from a few inches to that of a man. It bears numerous and crowded branches.

Some of the other species of this interesting genus of plants bear purple or white flowers, and some obtain the stature of trees.

WHERE VEGETABLES CAME FROM.

The customer at a Lewiston market was in a reflective mood Saturday morning and would talk.

"How many of your customers know anything about what they eat?" said he.

"They ought to," said the blue frock, "they buy it and they order it."

"I don't mean that," was the reply. "Of course they know what they eat, but who of them know anything about the stuff? Take vegetables, for instance."

"Oh, lots of 'em know," said the market man. "Here's potatoes, for instance. They are native Americans. I guess Sir Walter Raleigh introduced them to Europe."

"I guess he never ate one, for in his time they were not considered fit to eat. They went to Europe from the hills of South America and a strange matter of fact, when you come to think of it, is that in the United States, where, barring a few sections, vegetables grow in greater abundance and beauty than any other part of the world, none save maize and the ground artichokes are native products."

"Nonsense!" ejaculated the amazed market man.

"No nonsense about it," continued the contemplative customer. "Europe, Asia, Africa and South America are all more richly endowed than we. I used to think the watermelon was ours, but, bless you! the north African tribes grew the big, juicy fellows and gave us our first seeds. As to the musk-melon, it is a vegetable of such lineage that, like the cabbage and lettuce, nobody knows just who were their first wild progenitors. The melon, at any rate, came out of Persia as a developed table delicacy, while the Adam of the cabbage family is agreed by botanists to have flourished way back there in Central Asia, where they say the Caucasian race came from. The Romans ate cabbage salad, and, according to count, there are nearly as many varieties of this sturdy old green goods as there are different races of men.

"There is another Roman delicacy," continued the customer, pointing to a box of beets. "They do say that the Greek philosophers thought a dish of boiled beets, served up with salt and oil, a great aid to mental exercise. For my part, though, I don't know a vegetable that should be prouder of its family history than the radish. Radishes came from China, but a scientific journal the other day announced the discovery from a translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics that Pharaoh fed his pyramid builders on radishes. He even went so far as to spend 1,900 silver talents in order to regale his masons with the crisp and spicy root. Again, if you read the Old Testament carefully, you will be sure to come across the announcement that in Egypt the children of Israel ate melons, beets, onions and garlic, and, evidently, in traveling through the wilderness, Moses had a great deal of difficulty in persuading them to cease yearning after these Egyptian dainties.

"Besides the melons and peaches and geraniums," continued the garrulous customer, "for all of which we have to thank productive Persia, water cress comes from her valleys and brooks and she taught the world how to grow and head lettuce. However, the Roman gourmands, who adopted both these salads, ate green peas and string beans that their gardeners found growing in France and South Germany, and cucumbers were as popular with them as with the Jews and Egyptians.

"To Arabia honor is due for the burr artichoke. They ate it for liver difficulties--and, as a matter of fact, there is no vegetable so good for men and women who lead a sedentary life, just as carrots, that grew first in Belgium, are an admirable tonic for the complexion, spinach for the blood, potatoes for the hair, and celery for the nerves. Rhubarb, they say, was never known until the fifteenth century, when the Russians found it on the banks of the Volga, and, if you will believe it, the only European people who appreciate the eggplant as we do are the Turks. North Africa first produced this vegetable; in France it is eaten raw often as not and in obstinate England they use it for decoration. However, the potato had to make a desperate struggle for popularity and for nearly a century, after it was imported and grown in Europe nobody could be persuaded to touch it. Finally Parmentier gave it a boom that in two centuries has not in the least diminished, and twice this little tuber has saved Europe from what promised to be a cruel famine." Whereupon the customer hurried off down the street, leaving the green-grocer staring at his stock of truck with a refreshing expression of pride and interest.

BIRDS AND FARMERS.

If it were customary, says a contemporary, to list such matters after the manner of stock reports, the pages of the daily papers in these days, suggestive of approaching spring, would contain two quotations something like these: "Millinery active," "Audubons aggressive."

During the cold winter months just passed, while its bird friends were in the South, the Illinois Audubon Society has been working to the end that the women who will flock to the "spring millinery openings" already heralded shall with resolute faces pass by the dainty feather-decked creations, and purchase only those which are flower-crowned or ribbon-decked. The directors of the bird protective society have issued within a day or two a pamphlet compiled by William Dutcher, treasurer of the American Ornithologists' Union. It will be sent to all the farmers' institutes, and to individual husbandmen by the hundreds, for the society believes, after having tried many means of teaching the bird-preservation lesson, that the best way to get at the milliners and the women is through the agriculturists. The more enthusiastic Audubonites declare that when the farmers read Mr. Dutcher's leaflet they will rise in mass and demand that bird killing for millinery or any other purpose be stopped. The husbandmen have a yearly crop interest of nearly three billion dollars. The total capital invested in the millinery trade is only twenty-five millions. Mr. Dutcher says that agriculture loses two hundred million every year because of the attacks of injurious insects. As the birds diminish in number, the loss increases, a fact which he declares is proved beyond a peradventure. A difference of only one per cent in the value of the farm products means a loss equal to the value of the millinery trade of the country. As a matter of fact, the farmer is the man who is paying the greater part of the millinery bills of the land.

The Audubon Society, after three years of active work, has come to the conclusion that appeals to the sympathies, and the humane feelings of men and women, are not so potent as are plain statements of facts which show how the pocketbook is touched.

FISH HAVE FAVORITE HAUNTS.

One strange feature of this sea life of the tropics is the regular recurrence of migratory swarms of fish of very small size that return in huge numbers year after year with such absolute regularity that the natives calculate on the event on a certain date in each year and even within an hour or two of the day, says a writer in _Lippincott's Magazine_. One such swarm of fish forms the occasion of an annual holiday and feast at Samoa. The fish is not unlike the whitebait for which the English Thames has so long been celebrated and each year it arrives in Samoa on the same day in the month of October, remains for a day, or at the most two days and then disappears entirely until the same day the following year. Why it comes, or whence, no curious naturalist has yet discovered, nor has anybody traced its onward course when it leaves the Samoan group, but the fact is unquestionable that suddenly, without notice, the still waters of the lagoon which surround each island within the fringing reef become alive with millions of fishes, passing through them for a single day and night and then disappearing for a year as though they had never come.

A visit to Samoa enabled me to see this strange phenomenon for myself and to witness the native feast by which it is celebrated year by year. I had been in Samoa for a month and in that month I had enjoyed almost a surfeit of beauty. I had coasted the shores of its islands, I had bathed in the warm, still waters of its lagoons, fringed to seaward by the white reef, on which the ocean broke in golden spray, and to landward by the silver beach of coral sand, flecked with the tremulous shadows of the swaying palms. I had climbed with my native guide the abrupt hills, covered with dense forests of tropical luxuriance, through the arcades of which I caught glimpses of the flash and luster of the ocean's myriad smiles, and again we had plunged into deep valleys among the hills, where little headlong streams murmur under the shade of the widespreading bread-fruit trees and wave the broad leaves of the great water lilies of the Pacific coast islands. This visit of the fishes came as a climax of wonders.

SILLIEST BIRD IN THE WORLD.

Dodo is the Portuguese name for simpleton, and it is given to the silliest bird that ever lived.

Three hundred years ago, when the Portuguese first visited the Island of Mauritius, they found a great number of these birds. They were about the size of a large swan, blackish gray in color and having only a bunch of feathers in place of a tail, and little, useless wings. More stupid and foolish birds could not be imagined. They ran about making a silly, hissing noise like a goose, and the sailors easily knocked them over with their paddles. They couldn't fly, they couldn't swim, they couldn't run at any great speed, and as for fighting, they were the greatest cowards in the world. They were much too stupid to build a nest, and so they dropped an egg in the grass and went off and let it hatch as best it could. Added to all these things its flesh was fairly good to eat, and the Portuguese pursued it so steadily for food that in less than a century's time there wasn't a single dodo left in the world. It was quite too silly and stupid to save its own life, and so it became extinct.

THYME.

(_Thymus Serpyllum L._)

DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER, Northwestern University School of Pharmacy.

But, if a pinching winter thou foresee, And wouldst preserve thy famished family, With fragrant thyme the city fumigate. --_Virgil, Georgics, (Dryden), IV., 350._

The field or wild thyme (_Thymus serpyllum_) is a small, much-branched shrub, about one foot high, with rather slender quadrangular, purplish, pubescent stems. Leaves small, opposite, sessile. Flowers numerous, in clusters in the axils of the upper leaves. Corolla purplish, irregular; calyx green and persistent. The plant is propagated by means of underground stems. It is far from being a showy plant.

This plant is closely related to the garden thyme (_T. vulgaris, L._), and grows profusely in meadows, fields and gardens. Both species are very fragrant and it is to this characteristic that they owe their popularity. The ancient Greeks and Romans valued thyme very highly and made use of it as a cosmetic, in medicine and in veterinary practice, much as it is used at the present time. Thyme yields the oil of thyme which is a valuable antiseptic, used as a gargle and mouth wash, for toothache, in dressing wounds and ulcers, also for sprains and bruises, in chronic rheumatism, etc. It finds extensive use in the preparation of perfumes and scented soaps; but its principal use is in veterinary practice. The herb is much used as a flavoring agent in soups and sauces, in fomentations, in baths and in the preparation of scented pillows.

Two kinds of oil of thyme appear upon the market, the red oil and the white oil. The latter is less aromatic being the product of redistillation. The oil is also known as oil of origanum.

Although thyme is an insignificant plant as far as appearances are concerned it has been sung by many poets. In Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" Oberon, the king of the fairies, says to Robin Goodfellow;

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."

Another reference to thyme is to be found in the beautiful and pathetic story of "The Adopted Child" by Mrs. Hemans. The orphan boy in speaking to the kind lady who has adopted him, says:

"Oh! green is the turf where my brothers play Through the long, bright hours of the summer day; They find the red cup-moss where they climb, And they chase the bee o'er the scented thyme."

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE.--_A_, plant somewhat reduced; 1, 2, leaves; 3, flower bud; 4, 5, flower; 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, different views of the flower; 9, flower without stamens; 10, stamens; 11, pollen grains; 12, 13, pistil; 14, developing fruit; 15, transverse section of fruit; 16, ripening fruit; 17, 18, 19, seed.

A CURIOUS SURVIVAL.

ELLA F. MOSBY.

The tongue of a bird, says Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, is the tool that shows how he gets his living, as the anvil and hammer tell of the blacksmith's work, the hod of the bricklayer's, and the chisel and plane of the carpenter's. The tongue of the woodpecker is a barbed spear, very adhesive or sticky on its surface. We know at a glance that he uses it to capture insects hiding in the crevices of the bark, and if they are too small to be speared by its sharp point, they will stick to its gluey surface. "The four-tined fork" of the little nuthatch is admirable for catching grubs out of the rough tree-trunk, and the slender tube of the humming-bird's tongue proves him a dainty taster of flower-sweets, though he, too, catches insects, with a _click_ of his long, sharp bill as he flies, when flowers are rare. But there is a small bird whose tongue does not tell his own story. His tropical ancestry of many and many a year ago, like the humming-bird, sucked honey from flower-cups and juices from fruits, and so by a very curious survival of structure, this Cape May warbler that feeds on insects now has the tongue cleft at the tip and provided with a fringe like the iridescent and shining sunbird's, the honey-creeper's and flower-pecker's of southern isles. Their tongues, "pencils of delicate filaments," brush the drops of honeyed nectar from the deep tubes of tropic flowers and their sharp, needle-like bills probe the juicy fruits, though, like humming-birds, they adds small insects to their bill of fare when necessary.

This peculiarity on the part of the Cape May is the more curious because _all_ the warblers, numerous as these are and varying as widely as possible in character, plumage and habits, are alike in one respect--they are insect-eaters. Whether they are ground warblers or haunt river side and stream or explore trunk, branch, and twig-like creepers, or glean their food from the leaves, or resemble the flycatchers in habit, they live on insects, flies, ants, canker-worms, caterpillars, gnats, the larvæ and eggs of insects; nothing of this sort comes amiss to them. Some warblers seek this food in the tree-tops, and rarely descend; others feed on the ground and build their nests there. Many frequent lower boughs and shrubs, but all seek insects as their prey. A few, it is true, like the eccentric chat and the pretty gold-crowned thrush, who is _not_ a thrush after all, in spite of his speckled breast, are very fond of berries. But none retain the honey-sucking habits for which the tube-like and fringed tongues, and keen, needle-like bills, were fashioned.

There is also a queer coincidence between the nest-making of the Cape May warbler and that of the flower-peckers in the Philippines Islands--another curious survival. Mr. John Whitehead, the naturalist and explorer, found a most exquisite rose-colored pouch, which looked as if formed of rose-petals, though it was in fact made of other material. The little honey-sucker had woven it together with the silken threads of a spider's web. Now, the Cape May warbler weaves his partly hanging nest of twigs and grass, and lines it with horsehair in the great fir woods of the north, but he, too, fastens it together _with spider's webbing_.

The Cape May is a rare warbler. Dr. Rives, in his list of Virginia birds, mentions it as "a rare migrant," though Dr. Fisher says it is sometimes comparatively common in the fall near Washington. It was, therefore, a charming surprise when (September, 1899,) I found the Cape Mays our most common migrants at Lynchburg, Va. From September 20 to October 18 our maple-tree was rarely without them. A great deal of noisy work was going on close by, as the street was being widened and newly paved, but these "tiny scraps of valor," as Emerson calls his friends, the chickadees, showed no timidity or distrust. The colors of the different birds varied widely. One could hardly believe that the adult male Cape May with his striking white on rich olive above, and his tiger-like streaks of glossy black on shining yellow below, his dark cap and chestnut-red ear-patches, belonged to the same family as the immature female. _She_ is plain grayish olive above, and has a streaked grayish breast, as sober as a Quaker, save for her yellow rump. The Cape May, the prairie, the myrtle and the magnolia warblers are the four yellow-rumped species--a most convenient mark of distinction.