Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 5, May 1899

So the nest at length was completed.

"My!" said a sharp-eyed old lady bird, whose curiosity led her to take a peep at the domicile one day while Mrs. B. was off visiting with one of her neighbors, "such an uncomfortable, ragged looking nest; it is not even domed as a nest should be when built in a tree. And then the lining! If the babies escape drowning in the first down-pour, I am sure they'll be crippled for life, if not hung outright, when they attempt to leave the nest. You know how dangerous it is when they get their feet entangled in the rag ravelings and coils of string, and if you'll believe me that shiftless Jenny has just laid a lot of it around the edges of the nest without ever tucking it in. The way girls are brought up now-a-days! Accomplishments indeed! I think," with a sniff, "if she had been taught something about housekeeping instead of how to arrange her feathers prettily, to dance and sing, and fly in graceful circles it would have been much better for poor Mr. B. Poor fellow, how I do pity him," and off the old lady flew to talk it over with another neighbor.

Unlike some young wives of the sparrow family, Mrs. B. did not sit on the first almost spotless white egg which she deposited in the nest, but waited till four others, prettily spotted with brown, and black, and lavender lay beside it.

"Whine, whine from morning till night!" cried her exasperated spouse after brooding had begun. "Sitting still so much, you say, doesn't agree with you. Your beauty is departing! You are growing thin and careworn! The little outings you take are only tantalizing. I am sure most wives wouldn't consider it a hardship to sit still and be fed with the delicious grubs and dainty tidbits which I go to such pains to fetch for you. That was a particularly fine grub I brought you this morning, and you ate it without one word of thanks, or even a look of gratitude. Nothing but complaints and tears! It is enough to drive any husband mad. I fly away in the morning with a heavy heart, and when I see and hear other sparrows hopping and singing cheerfully about their nests, receiving chirps of encouragement and love from their sitting mates in return, I feel as though – as though I would rather die than be compelled to return to my unhappy home again."

"Oh, you do?" sarcastically rejoined Mrs. B. "That is of a piece with the rest of your selfishness, Mr. Britisher, I am sure. Die and leave me, the partner of your bosom, to struggle through the brooding season and afterward bring up our large family the best I may. Oh," breaking into tears, "I wish I had never seen you, I really do."

"Oh, yes, that has been the burden of your song for days, Mrs. B. I'm sure I have no reason to bless the hour I first laid eyes on you. Why, as the saying goes, Mrs. B., you threw yourself at my head at our very first meeting. And your precious mamma! How she did chirp about her darling Jenny's accomplishments and sweet amiability. Bah, what a ninny I was, to be sure! Oh, you needn't shriek and pluck the feathers from your head. Truth burns sometimes, I know, and – oh you are going to faint. Well faint!" and with an exclamation more forcible than polite Mr. B. flew away out of sight and sound of his weeping spouse.

Wearily and sadly did Mrs. B. gaze out of her humble home upon darkening nature that evening. Many hours had passed since the flight of Mr. B., and the promptings of hunger, if nothing else, caused her to gaze about, wistfully hoping for his return. The calls of other birds to their mates filled the air, and lent an additional mournfulness to her lonely situation.

"How glad I shall be to see him," she thought, her heart warming toward him in his absence. "I'll be cheerful and pretend to be contented after this, for I should be very miserable without him. I have been very foolish, and given him cause for all the harsh things he has said, perhaps. Oh, I do wish he would come."

Night came down, dark and lonely. The voices and whirrings of her neighbors' wings had long since given place to stillness as one after another retired for the night. The wind swayed the branches of the tree in which she nested, their groanings and the sharp responses of the leaves filling the watcher's mind with gloomy forebodings.

"I am so frightened," she murmured, "there is surely going to be a storm. Oh, I wish I had listened to Mr. B. and not insisted upon building our home in the crotch of this tree. He said it was not wise, and that we would be much safer and snugger under the eaves or in a hole in the wall or tree. But, no, I said, if I was compelled to stay at home every day and sit upon the nest it should be situated where I could look out and see my neighbors as they flew about. That was the reason I was determined it should not be domed. I wanted to see and be seen. Oh, how foolish I have been! What shall I do? What shall I do? I am afraid to leave the nest even for a minute for fear the eggs will get cold. Mr. B. would never forgive me, then, I am sure. But to stay out here in the storm, all alone. Oh, I shall die, I know I shall."

Morning broke with all nature, after the rain, smiling and refreshed. Sleep had not visited the eyelids of the forsaken wife and with heavy eyes and throbbing brain, she viewed the rising dawn.

"Alas," she sighed, as the whirr of wings and happy chirps of her neighbors struck upon her ears, "how can people be joyous when aching hearts and lives broken with misery lie at their very thresholds? The songs and gleeful voices of my neighbors fill me with anger and despair. I hate the world and everybody in it. I am cold and wet and hungry. I even hate the sun that has risen to usher in a new day.

"I must make an effort," she murmured as the morning advanced and Mr. B. did not return, "and get home to mother. I am so weak I can scarcely stand, much less fly. I am burning with fever, and oh, how my head throbs! Such trouble and sorrow for one so young! I feel as though I shall never smile again."

She steadied herself upon the edge of the nest and, turning, gazed wistfully and sadly upon the five tiny eggs, which she now sorrowed to abandon.

"I may return," she sighed, "in time to lend them warmth, or may find my dear mate performing that office in my absence. I will pray that it may be so as I fly. Praises would be mockery from my throat to-day, mockery!"

"Why, Jenny!" shrieked her mother as Mrs. B. sank down exhausted upon the threshold of her old home. "Whatever is the matter with you, and what has brought you here this time of day?"

"I am hungry and sick, mother, and I feel as though, as though – I am going to die!"

"And where is Mr. Britisher? You've no business to be hungry with a husband to care for you," tartly replied her mother, whilst bustling about to find a grub or two to supply her daughter's wants.

"I have no husband, I fear, mother. He is – "

"Dead!" shrieked the old lady. "Don't tell me Mr. Britisher is dead!"

"Dead, or worse," sadly replied her daughter.

"Worse? Heaven defend us! You don't mean he has deserted you?"

"He left me yesterday afternoon in anger, and has not returned."

"Highty, tighty, that's it, is it? Well, you have brought it all upon yourself and will have to suffer for it. I am sure your father talked enough about idleness and vanity for you to have heeded, and time and time again I have told you that every husband in the sparrow family is a bully and a tyrant, and every wife, if she expects to live happily, must let her mate have his own way."

Mrs. B. sighed, and wearily dropped her head upon her breast.

"You must go back," emphatically said her mother, "before the neighborhood gets wind of the affair. Mr. Britisher may be home this very minute, and glad enough he will be to see you, I am sure. So go back, dear, before the eggs grow cold and your neighbors will be none the wiser."

"I am going, mother, but oh, I feel so ill, so ill!" said the bereaved little creature as she wearily poised for her flight.

"She does look weakly and sick, poor thing," said the mother with a sigh watching her out of sight, "but I don't believe in interfering between husband and wife. Mr. Britisher, indeed, gave me to understand from the first that the less he saw of his mother-in-law the better, remarking that if that class would only stay at home and manage their own household affairs fewer couples, he thought, would be parted. I considered that a rather broad hint, and in consequence have never visited them since they began housekeeping. He has only gone off in a huff, of course, and everything will come out all right, I am sure."

Ere nightfall, however, motherly anxiety impelled her to fly over to her daughter's home.

Alas, only desolation and ruin were there. At the foot of the tree lay the form of Mrs. B. Exposure, sorrow, and excitement had done their work. It was a lifeless form which met her tearful gaze.

The fate of Mr. Britisher was never known. Rumor assigned his absence to matrimonial infelicity, but his more charitable neighbors, as they dropped a tear to his memory, pictured his mangled form a victim to the wanton cruelty or mischievous sport of some idle boy.

A gentleman passing by one day saw the dismantled nest upon the ground and carelessly stirred it with his cane.

"What is that, uncle?" queried a little maid of some five summers who walked by his side.

"That, little one," came the answer slowly and impressively, "is an abandoned home."

"An abandoned home," I repeated, as his words floated up to my window. "Aye, truly to the casual observer that is all it seems, but, oh, how little do they dream of the folly, the suffering, the sad, almost tragic ending of the wee feathered couple whom I saw build that humble home."

THE CONY

C. C. M

THE specimen of this animal presented here (Hyrax abyssinicus) is the best-known of the species. It measures from ten to twelve inches in length; the fur consists of somewhat long, fine hairs, gray-brown at the base, lighter gray in the middle portions, merging into a dark-brown surmounted by a light-colored tip, the resulting general color of this combination being a mottled pale-gray.

The Book of Proverbs, enumerating four animals which it describes as "exceeding wise," says: "The conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks." The conies are mentioned by various writers as well-known animals in days of remotest antiquity. They are found in the wild, desolate mountain regions of Africa and western Asia, and the variety inhabiting Syria and Palestine is probably referred to in the Hebrew text of the Bible under the name of "laphan," which Luther translated by the word, "rabbit," and in the authorized and revised versions is rendered "cony." They inhabit all the mountains of Syria, Palestine, and Arabia, perhaps also of Persia, the Nile country, east, west, and south Africa, frequently at elevations of six thousand or nine thousand feet above sea-level, and "the peaks and cones that rise like islands sheer above the surface of the plains – the presence of the little animals constituting one of the characteristic features of the high table-lands of northeastern Africa." It is stated that if the observer quietly passes through the valleys he sees them sitting or lying in rows on the projecting ledges, as they are a lazy, comfort-loving tribe and like to bask in the warm sunshine. A rapid movement or unusual noise quickly stampedes them, and they all flee with an agility like that usual among rodents, and almost instantly disappear. A traveler says of them, that in the neighborhood of villages, where they are also to be found, they show little fear of the natives, and boldly attend to their affairs as if they understood that nobody thinks of molesting them; but when approached by people whose color or attire differs from that of their usual human neighbors, they at once retreat to their holes in the rocks. A dog inspires them with greater fear than does a human being. When startled by a canine foe, even after they have become hidden, safe from pursuit, in their rocky crevices, they continue to give utterance to their curious, tremulous yell, which resembles the cry of small monkeys.

Brehm confirms the statement of another traveler, who called attention to the striking fact that the peaceable and defenseless cony lives in the permanent society and on the best of terms with a by no means despicable beast of prey, a variety of mongoose.

In regard to their movements and mental characteristics, the conies have been placed between the unwieldy rhinoceros and the nimble rodent. They are excellent climbers. The soles of the feet are as elastic and springy as rubber, enabling the animal to contract and distend the middle cleft or fissure of its sole-pad at will, and thereby to secure a hold on a smooth surface by means of suction. In behavior the conies are gentle, simple, and timid. The social instinct is highly developed in them, and they are rarely seen alone.

The conies have been regarded as the smallest and daintiest of all the existing species of odd-toed animals. Naturalists, however, have held widely divergent opinions as to the classification of the pretty cliff-dwellers. Pallas, because of their habits and outward appearance, called them rodents. Oken thought them to be related to the marsupials, or pouched animals. Cuvier placed them in his order of "many-toed animals," which classification has also been disputed, and Huxley has raised them to the dignity of representatives of a distinct order. Who shall decide where all pretend to know?

COFFEE

(Coffea Arabica L.)

DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER,

Northwestern University School of Pharmacy

"Directly after coffee the band began to play."

    – Greville, Memoirs, June 5, 1831.

COFFEE is the seed of a small evergreen tree or shrub ranging from 15 to 25 feet in height. The branches are spreading or even pendant with opposite short petioled leaves, which are ovate, smooth, leathery, and dark green. The flowers are perfect, fragrant, occurring in groups of from three to seven in the axils of the leaves. The corolla is white, the calyx green and small. The ovary is green at first, changing to yellowish, and finally to deep red or purple at maturity. Each ovary has two seeds, the so-called coffee beans.

The coffee tree is a native of the tropical parts of Africa, in Abyssinia and the interior. The Arabians were among the first to transport it to their native country for the purposes of cultivation. From Arabia it was soon transplanted to other tropical countries.