Part 3

The nests are bulky and constructed with dead leaves, often partly decayed, which are obtained from the muddy banks and with the mud still adhering to them. These, with twigs and rootlets, are laid together and when the mud dries all are cemented into a compact mass which forms the wall of the nest. This is lined with fine grasses, small roots, bark fibers and feathers or hair. The nest is so similar in color to that of its environment that it is not easily detected.

The Louisiana Water-thrush seldom utters its interesting song when on the ground, but from some higher perch or when flying. Audubon thought its song was equal to that of the European nightingale; that its notes were as powerful and mellow and not infrequently as varied. Dr. Ridgway says, “This may be true of the ecstatic love-song, heard on rare occasions, and uttered as the singer floats in perfect abandon of joy, with spread tail and fluttering wings, but it can hardly be true of the ordinary song, which, although rich, sweet and penetrating, and almost startling in the first impression it creates, is soon finished and the pleasing effect is somewhat transient. It cannot be denied, however, that its song is one of the richest to be heard in our forests.”

Another Writer speaks of its song as “a beautiful, wild, wayward effort,” and Mr. Chapman says, “As a songster the Water-thrush is without a rival. His song is not to be compared with the clear-voiced carol of the rose-breasted grosbeak, the plaintive chant of the field sparrow, or the hymnlike melody of the true thrushes; it is of a different kind. It is the untamable spirit of the bird rendered in music. There is an almost fierce wildness in its ringing notes. On rare occasions he is inspired to voice his passion in a flight-song, which so far exceeds his usual performance that even the memory of it is thrilling.”

SOME DOGS.

When I was a small boy I lived with my parents in my grandfather’s home. Here was grandfather’s large dog Rouse. He was the constant companion of my uncle in his work on the farm. His great desire was to carry something in his mouth when the team started for the field. He was often given a singletree, with which he marched along, showing evident satisfaction. One day he concluded to cut across a field instead of going around the road. The fence was a high rail one and, burdened with the weight of the heavy singletree, he could not jump over. After several vain attempts he dropped his load, stood looking up and down the road. Then looking at the singletree for a moment picked it up and put it through between the rails. He then jumped over the fence, gathered up the singletree and trotted on.

One thing he absolutely refused to carry was an iron wedge unless it was put in a basket. On one occasion this same uncle lost the lash of the whip he was using in driving a yoke of oxen. He had another at the house, but it was nearly a mile distant. He wrote his want on a slip of paper and giving it to Rouse said, “Take this to mother.” He was soon scratching at the kitchen door. When the door was opened he dropped the note on the floor, was given the whip lash and hurried away to the field.

A certain dog belonged to a doctor. He often trotted along under the buggy when the doctor went to call on his patients. On one occasion the doctor rode horseback and hurriedly threw the bridle rein over a hitching post where the visit was made. The horse threw up his head, the bridle rein was freed from the post and the horse started down the road. The dog saw the move and started after him. After some little difficulty he caught the dangling rein, brought the horse back to the post and held him there until the doctor came out.

On another occasion a horse was tied to a post of the porch at the doctor’s house. He got restless and was soon standing with fore feet on the porch. The dog saw it and, catching him by the tail, pulled until he backed down and stood on the ground.

There is a big shepherd dog not far from where I live that watches for the evening train. As soon as it appears he runs to a certain place beside the track, where the mail clerk throws him a bundle of papers. He never fails to be at his post or on the way.

A dog who was utilized to run a dog power churn at last grew tired and resorted to various schemes to get out of the work. Just after the churn had been made ready one day the lady heard the vigorous bawling of a calf and looking out she saw the dog trying hard to get a calf into position to do the churning. After this it was necessary to tie his dog-ship the night before if he was to be used next day.

An Iowa dog who had suffered much from firecrackers on the Fourth always disappeared soon after midnight of the third at the first shot of an anvil or cannon cracker. He spent the day in the country far from town and never returned until the noise had ceased.

A friend who was a photographer had a large Newfoundland dog who had a great deal of curiosity about his make-up, as well as much sense. His face was always the first to appear at the village postoffice window when the mail was opened. The master was an oldtime photographer when stronger water ammonia was much used in the preparation of paper. There was an assistant in the gallery who liked to tease the dog and knowing the trait of desiring to investigate every box or bottle that was opened, played many tricks on him, but none of them seemed to cure him or to lessen this desire until he got a good full whiff of stronger ammonia, which laid him full length on the floor and made him less anxious to look into everything with his nose.

His master had a book for the butcher and a different one for his account with the grocer. When meat or groceries were wanted it was only necessary to give him a book in which had been written the articles desired and a basket and away he went. He knew where to go by the color of the book. Often in coming home with meat he was set upon by other dogs who tried to rob him. One day a large hound tried several times to get the meat, but was kept away by very significant growls. Becoming more determined he made a final dash, when Newfoundland set the basket down and no hound ever got a sounder thrashing. Then with head and tail held high the basket was carried home in triumph.

Alvin M. Hendee.

PECULIAR MEXICAN BREAD.

Among some curios lately brought from Mexico, is a cake made of the eggs of water beetles.

This odd sort of edible resembles, outwardly, a biscuit made of coarse brown or oatmeal flour. In taste it is not unlike the same wholesome article of diet. As a matter of fact, water beetles hold a high place in the domestic economy of the poorer natives of Mexico.

Their collection is, therefore, quite an industry, and one in which the Indians, particularly, are adepts.

This is the plan of operation: Reeds are cut and placed along the margins of lakes and ponds. Soon these reeds are covered by an incredible number of eggs so minute that it is necessary to shake them on a cloth to gather them.

These eggs are then put in bags and pounded.

The result is a coarse flour, which may be cooked in a great variety of ways. All highly nutritious and stimulating. A vast number of beetles are also collected and used as food for chickens, but notwithstanding this immense demand, the supply suffers no appreciable diminution.

Louise Jamison.

NATURE’S GLORY.

Oh, golden days with cloudless skies— When forests flame with gorgeous dyes; A touch of wine seems in the air, Fields are brown—pastures bare. Deep purple wraps the distant hills, Gray shadows fall upon the rills;— Thro’ rustling corn the zephyrs sigh, In grief to see fair summer die. These are days of Nature’s glory, Sung in song, and told in story. —J. Mayne Baltimore.

LAPIS LAZULI, AMBER AND MALICHITE.

LAPIS LAZULI.

This stone was the sapphire of the Greeks, Romans and Hebrew Scriptures. Pliny likened it to the blue sky adorned with stars. Large quantities of worked pieces of it are found in early Egyptian tombs, and the Chinese have long held it in high esteem. Marco Polo visited Asiatic mines of the mineral in 1271 A. D., and these had doubtless been worked for a long time previous. Besides its value as a stone it was in former times used as a blue pigment, giving the ultramarine blue. In modern times not only has the esteem in which the stone is held for ornamental purposes declined but the mineral can be artificially made so as to give the desired blue color for paints and thus the use of the natural lapis lazuli has greatly diminished. It is still however carved to make vases, small dishes, brooches and ring stones and is used to a considerable extent for mosaic work. When, also, pieces of sufficient size and of a uniform color can be found, large carved objects may be made which command a high price.

The stone known as lapis lazuli as it occurs in nature is not a single mineral but a mixture of several, among which are calcite, pyrite and pyroxene. From these however it is possible to separate a mineral of uniform composition sometimes crystallized in dodecahedrons which is probably the essential ingredient of the stone. This mineral is known as lazulite and in composition is a silicate of soda and alumina with a small quantity of sodium sulphide. It is by making a substance of this composition that the artificial ultramarine is produced. The artificial is said to be as good as the natural for a pigment and can be produced for a three-hundredth part of the cost. The natural lapis lazuli has a hardness of 5½ and a specific gravity about like that of quartz. It is quite opaque. In color it is blue, varying from the prized ultramarine to paler, and at times is of a greenish shade. It is said the pale colored portions can be turned darker by heating to a red heat. When the variety from Chile is heated in the dark it emits a phosphorescent green light. The stone in Nature is often flecked with white calcite. Portions so affected are not considered as valuable as the uniform blue. Grains of pyrite are also usually scattered through the stone giving the “starry” effect referred to by Pliny.

Lapis lazuli usually occurs in limestone but in connection with granite so that it seems to be a product of the eruption of the granite through the limestone. The lapis lazuli of best quality comes from Asia, the mines being at Badakschan in the northeastern part of Afghanistan on the Oxus river. The mining is done by building great fires on the rocks and throwing water on them to break them. The yield at present is small, not over 1,500 pounds a year being obtained. The lapis lazuli from these mines is distributed all over Asia, going chiefly to China and Russia. The price realized is said to be from $50 to $75 per pound. Lapis lazuli of poorer quality comes from a region at the western end of Lake Baikal in Siberia. The only other important locality is in the Andes Mts. of Chile near the boundary of the Argentine Republic. This material is not much used at the present time on account of its poor quality but it was employed by the Incas for decorative purposes. One mass 24×12×8 in., doubtless from this locality is now in the Field Columbian Museum, and was found in a Peruvian grave. It is one of the largest masses of lapis lazuli known.

The walls of a palace at Zarskoe-Selo, Russia, built by order of Catherine II are entirely lined with slabs of lapis lazuli and amber. Pulverized the stone was used as a tonic and purgative by the Greeks and Romans. The name lapis lazuli means blue stone. Armenian stone is another term by which the stone is known in trade.

First row: Lapis-lazuli, polished (Siberia). Amber, rolled pebble (Coast of Baltic Sea). Second row: Amber, polished, showing insects enclosed (Coast of Baltic Sea). Third row: Malachite and Azurite, polished (Arizona). Malachite, polished (Ural Mountains). Fourth row: Malachite, polished (Australia). Malachite (Arizona).

AMBER.

Few minerals have been longer in favor for ornamental purposes than amber. Among remains of the earliest peoples such as the Egyptians and Cave-dwellers of Switzerland it is found in carved masses indicating that it was highly prized. The Phenicians are said to have sailed to the Baltic for the purpose of procuring it, while the Greeks’ knowledge of it is indelibly preserved in our word electricity derived from their word elektron. The high favor in which the ancients regarded amber has hardly endured however to the present time. Were it not for its use for mouthpieces of pipes and other smokers’ articles and the occasional amber necklace to be seen, amber would hardly be known among the present generation in our country.

Amber is a fossil gum of trees of the genus Pinus and is thus a vegetable rather than mineral product. In color it is yellow, varying to reddish, brownish and whitish. Its hardness is 2 to 2.5, it being slightly harder than gypsum and softer than calcite. It cannot be scratched by the finger nail but easily and deeply with a knife. It is also brittle. Its specific gravity is scarcely greater than that of water, the exact specific weight being 1.050-1.096. It thus almost floats in water, especially sea water. It is transparent to translucent. On being heated it becomes soft at 150 degrees and at 250 degrees to 300 degrees melts. It also burns readily and at a low temperature, a fact which has given rise to the name of bernstein by which the Germans know it, and to one of the Roman names for it, lapis ardens. Rubbed with a cloth it becomes strongly electric, attracting bits of paper, etc. As already noted, our word electricity comes from the Greek for amber, this seeming to be one of the first minerals in which this property was noted. Amber being a poor conductor of heat feels warm rather than cold in the hand, contrary to most minerals. It is attacked but slowly by alcohol, ether and similar solvents, a property by which it may be distinguished from most modern gums and some other fossil ones. In composition it is an oxygenated hydrocarbon, the percentages of these elements being in an average sample, carbon 78.94, hydrogen 10.53 and oxygen 10.53. The mineralogical name of amber is succinite, a word derived from the Latin succum, juice. One of its constituents is the organic acid called succinic acid.

The present source of most of the amber of commerce is the Prussian Coast of the Baltic Sea, between Memel and Dantzig, although it is found as far west as Schleswig-Holstein and the Frisian Islands and even occasionally on the shores of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. From time immemorial pieces of amber have been cast upon the shore in these localities and their collection and sale has afforded a livelihood to coast dwellers. Such amber is called sea stone or sea amber and is superior to that obtained by mining, since it is usually of uniform quality and not discolored and altered on the surface. Owing to its lightness the amber is often found entangled in seaweed and the collectors are accustomed to draw in masses of seaweed and search them for amber. Amber so obtained is called scoopstone, nets being sometimes used to gather in the seaweed. In the marshy regions men on horse-back, called amber riders, follow the outgoing tide and search for the yellow gum. It is also searched for by divers to some extent. From the earliest times the title to this amber has vested in the State and its collecting has been done either under State control or as at present when a tax is levied by the government upon it. This tax is levied on the amber that is mined as well as that obtained from the sea and brings a revenue at the present time of about $200,000.

Up to 1860 the methods of procuring amber were largely confined to obtaining it in the manner above noted. As it was evident however that the sea amber came from strata underneath and that if either by dredging or mining these strata could be reached a much larger supply could be obtained, exploration was carried on by mining methods with successful results, and the principal amount of the amber of commerce is now so obtained. The strata as shown in the mines of Samland, the rectangular peninsula of East Prussia where most of the mining is carried on, are: First, a bed of sand; below this a layer of lignite with sand and clay, and following this a stratum of greensand, fifty or sixty feet in thickness. While all these strata contain scattered pieces of amber, it is at the bottom of the greensand layer that the amber chiefly occurs, in a stratum four or five feet thick and of very dark color. It is called the “blue earth.” This stratum is of Tertiary age and there can be no doubt that its amber represents gum fallen from pines which grew at this period and whose woody remains are represented to some extent in the layer of lignite. It is probably true as Zaddach remarks that the amber has been collected here from older deposits. One of the most interesting proofs of the vegetable origin of amber is the occurrence in it of insects, sometimes with a leg or wing separated a little distance from the body, showing that it had struggled to escape. These insects include spiders, flies, ants and beetles, while the feather of a bird has even been found thus preserved. Indeed the amber deposits have furnished important contributions to our knowledge of Tertiary life. Inasmuch as the pieces bearing such remains are valued more highly than ordinary amber, unscrupulous persons have at times found profitable employment in boring cavities into pieces of amber, introducing flies or lizards into them and then filling up the hole with some modern gum of the same color. It is said that all amphibious or water animals seen in amber have been introduced in this way.

Besides the counterfeiting of the inclusions of amber there are several substitutes for the gum itself. These are chiefly celluloid and glass, the substitution of the former being dangerous if used for the embellishment of pipes, on account of its inflammatory character. Celluloid can be distinguished from amber by the fact that when rubbed it does not become electric and gives off an odor of camphor instead of the somewhat aromatic one of amber. It is also quickly attacked by alcohol or ether, and when scraped with a knife gives a shaving rather than a powder as amber does. Glass can be distinguished by its cold feeling and greater specific gravity.

Besides these substitutes it has been found possible by heating and pressing the scraps of amber not large enough for carving to make them into a homogeneous mass which is sometimes sold as amber and sometimes as amberoid. Amber is worked to desired shapes by turning it on lathes or by cutting by hand. By heating it in linseed oil it becomes soft so that it can be bent and often all opaque spots can be made to disappear by such treatment. The amber which is most highly prized of any in the world comes from Sicily. Eight hundred dollars have been paid for pieces of this no larger than walnuts, making their value nearly equal to that of diamonds. The beauty of the Sicilian amber consists in the variety of colors which it displays, blood red and chrysolite green being not uncommon, and the fact that these often exhibit a brilliant fluorescence, glowing within with a light of different color from the exterior. Chemically the Sicilian amber is not the same as the Prussian as it contains less succinic acid and is somewhat more soluble. In other respects it is not essentially different. It occurs chiefly on the eastern and southeastern coasts being washed up in a manner very similar to the Prussian amber.

Amber has been found in several places in the United States, but there is little of commercial value. It is mostly connected with the Cretaceous glauconitic or green sand deposits of New Jersey, fragments being frequently found there. This amber is of yellow color but not so compact or lustrous as foreign amber. Amber has also been reported from the marls of North Carolina, some of the coal beds of Wyoming and in connection with lignite in Alaska. In the latter region the natives are said to carve it into rude beads.

Amber occurs in small quantities in several countries of Europe, such as near Basel in Switzerland, near Paris in France, and near London in England. It is also found in many parts of Asia, these localities being a source of supply to the Asiatic countries such as China and India. Occasionally amber is obtained from Mexico which has the beautiful fluorescence of the Sicilian article, though the exact locality whence it comes is not known. Specimens of carved amber are found among the relics of the Aztecs and it is probable that they used it for incense. The early use of amber by European peoples has already been referred to. There are references to it in the most ancient literature and worked masses of it are found among human relics of the greatest antiquity. Up to comparatively modern times it was an important article of commerce among widely scattered peoples and had much to do with bringing about communication between them. Together with tin it was one of the chief objects which led the Romans to penetrate the Gallic regions to the west and north of the Mediterranean and Pliny says that “it had been so highly valued as an object of luxury that a very diminutive human effigy made of amber had been known to sell at a higher price than living men, even in stout and vigorous health.” One of the most elaborate of the Greek myths is that which accounts for the origin of amber. It runs in this wise:—Phaethon, undertaking to drive the chariot of his sun god father, Helios, lost control of his steeds and approaching too near the earth set it on fire. Jupiter to stop him launched a thunder-bolt at Phaethon and he fell dead into the Eridanus. His sisters lamenting his death were changed into poplars and their tears became amber.

In the Odyssey one of Penelope’s admirers gives her an amber necklace, and Martial compares the fragrance of amber to the fragrance of a kiss. Milton writes of amber and Shakespeare mentions it both in “Love’s Labor Lost” and “The Taming of the Shrew.”

Necklaces of amber are popular wedding presents among the peasants of Prussia and they form an important feature of the ornaments worn by many African chiefs.

The properties assigned to amber both as a charm and as a medicine have been many. From the earliest times it has been used as an amulet, being supposed to bring good luck and to protect the wearer against the evil eye of an enemy. Necklaces of amber beads are used to this day as preventive or curative of sore throat and the Shah of Persia wears around his neck a cube of amber reported to have fallen from heaven in the time of Mohammed, which is supposed to have the power of rendering its wearer invulnerable. Amber was also taken internally in former times as a cure for asthma, dropsy, toothache and other diseases and to this day is prescribed by physicians in France, Germany and Italy for different ailments.

The use of amber for artistic and decorative purposes has declined considerably since the Middle Ages, but magnificent illustrations of its employment for these purposes are to be seen in many European museums, notably the Green Vaults of Dresden.

Though so soft and easily destructible a substance it endures with ordinary care as well as the hardest stone, and works of art formed from amber are as well preserved as any to be found.

MALICHITE.