Birds and All Nature, Vol. VI, No. 1, June 1899

In music's swelling flow, to sing
Sweet songs of praise to nature's king.

From azure heights the lark's loud song
Is borne the balmy breeze along;

The robin tunes his sweetest strain,
And blithely sings his glad refrain

Of summer days and summer joys;
The tawny thrush his voice employs,

In chorus with the warbling throng,
To fill his measure of the song.

The river, too, with rippling flow,
As it winds through its banks below,

And leaps and plays in merry glee,
O'er rocky bed, 'neath grassy lea,

Or silent glides through sylvan shade,
To laugh again in sunny glade,

Sends back its murm'ring voice to swell
The music of each lovely dell,

Where Flora decks with brilliant sheen
The virgin sward of velvet green.

    – From a forthcoming poem by Geo. H. Cooke, Chicago.

WESTERN YELLOW-THROAT

(Geothlypis trichas occidentalis.)

The birds are here, for all the season's late.
They take the sun's height, an' don' never wait;
Soon's he officially declares it's spring,
Their light hearts lift 'em on a north'ard wing,
An' th' aint an acre, fur ez you can hear,
Can't by the music tell the time o' year.

    – Lowell.
THIS common, but beautiful resident of the western United States begins to arrive about the middle of April and leaves during the month of September. It is one of the most conspicuous of the warbler family, is very numerous and familiar, and is decked with such a marked plumage that it cannot fail to be noticed. The adult male is olive-green above, becoming browner on the nape. The female is duller in color than the male without black, gray, or white on head, which is mostly dull brownish. The yellow of throat is much duller than in the male. The young are somewhat like the adult female. This is said to be the prevailing form in Illinois and Indiana, the larger number of specimens having the more extensively yellow lower parts of the western form, though there is much variation.

This little fellow is found among the briars or weed-stalks, in rose bushes and brambles, where it sings throughout the day. Its nest, generally built between upright weed-stalks or coarse grass in damp meadow land, is shaped like a cup, the opening at the top. The eggs vary from four to six, and are of a delicate pinkish-white, the larger end marked by a ring of specks and lines of different shades of brown. The western yellow-throat inhabits the Mississippi valley to the Pacific coast. It is found as far north as Manitoba; south in winter from the southern United States, through central and western Mexico to Guatemala. With a few exceptions the warblers are migratory birds, the majority of them passing rapidly across the United States in the spring on the way to the northern breeding-grounds. It is for this reason that they are known to few except the close observers of bird life, though in season they are known to literally swarm where their insect food is most plentiful – "always where the green leaves are, whether in lofty tree-top, by an embowered coppice, or budding orchard. When the apple trees bloom the warblers revel among the flowers, vying in activity and numbers with the bees; now probing the recesses of a blossom for an insect which has effected lodgment there, then darting to another, where, poised daintily upon a slender twig, or suspended from it, he explores, hastily, but carefully for another morsel. Every movement is the personification of nervous activity, as if the time for the journey was short; and, indeed, such appears to be the case, for two or three days, at most, suffice some species in a single locality; a day spent in gleaning through the woods and orchards of one neighborhood, with occasional brief siestas among the leafy bowers, then the following night in continuous flight toward its northern destination, is probably the history of every individual of the moving throng."

CHARLEY AND THE ANGLEWORM

ALICE DE BERDT

CHARLEY was going fishing and he took great pride in the quantity of squirming bait he carried in the tin box.

He was quite a small boy, only eight years old, but country boys learn to take care of themselves sooner than city children.

When he reached the little stream where he meant to fish, he found some one before him. It was a stranger whom Charley had seen once or twice at a neighbor's, where he was boarding during the summer.

The old mill was the best place in miles for fish, and Charley wished that the city boarder had chosen some other spot in which to read his book.

He gave a shy, not very cordial reply to the stranger's pleasant "Good morning!" and began to arrange his line. In a few minutes one of the largest earthworms was wriggling in the water at the end of Charley's hook, and he himself was sprawled out upon the ground at the end of a long beam projecting from the mill intently regarding the water.

"No luck, my boy?" asked the stranger, watching Charley work with the struggling worm that was as hard to get off the hook as it had been to put on.

"No, sir," replied the little boy. "The fishes don't seem to bite."

"Not hungry to-day, eh?" said the stranger. "I should think that would be a good thing for the worms."

Charley opened his eyes. It had never occurred to him to consider the worms in the matter. They were to him nothing but ugly, stupid things, which, his father said, injured the roots of plants.

"Don't you think the worms are as fond of their life as you are of yours?" went on Charley's new friend. "In their little underground earth houses they are very comfortable and happy."

Charley smiled. This was a new view of the case to him, and he edged nearer to the stranger to hear what more he would say.

"They's on'y worms," said Charley.

"And a worm is a very good sort of creature in its way. They are harmless, cleanly animals. See, I can take that one of yours in the palm of my hand and it will not harm me in the least. Let me put it down on the ground and see how it hurries to get away. It is frightened. Now it is trying to force a way into that damp earth. I wonder if you know just how the worm makes its way through the ground."

Charley shook his head, and the stranger said:

"You have often noticed the shape of the worm, I dare say. One end of its body is much thicker than the other, which runs to a point. The thicker end of the body is the head. The body itself, you will see, is made of many small rings, held together by tiny muscles and skin, making it possible for the worm to bend and curl and wriggle in a way that is impossible for you and me, whose bones are fewer and fitted tightly together, so that they move about less easily.

"Now, if you will take this one in your hand," said the stranger, "and run your fingers very gently down its sides from tail to head, you will find that the body of the worm is covered with fine hooks. If you run your fingers along the worm in the other direction, you will think the body perfectly smooth. This is because all the hooks point in the other direction.

"When the worm wishes to enter the earth, it pushes its blunt head through the soil, lengthening its body by means of the muscles that hold together the soft, cartilage-like rings. At first only a few rings go into the ground. Master Worm then draws up his body into a thick roll by shortening his muscles. In this way he forces apart the soft earth to make room for his body, the points on the sides holding it there while he again lengthens his head, pushing more earth apart. It is in this way, by alternately or in turn lengthening or shortening his body that he makes his way through the earth, which is pushed aside to give him passage through its dark depths.

"As his home is underground, eyes would not be of much use to him, so Mother Nature, whose children we all are, has given him none. One of her laws is that none of us shall have what we cannot or do not make use of. He has a strong mouth, however. It is placed on the second ring of the body. His food is earth, which he swallows to obtain the organic particles contained in it. This makes him especially interesting, for nearly all animals obtain their food from the soil quite indirectly. Some get it from plants, the plants themselves having gathered theirs from the earth through their roots. Certain animals depend on other creatures, which in turn get food from the plants.

"The life-giving particles which go to build up all bodies come directly or indirectly from the earth itself. It seems odd that a man who is starving, no matter where he may be, starves with the very food which he needs directly beneath his feet, only he does not know, nor has the wisest man yet learned, how to convert it into food which will directly sustain and give health to the body. Yet the little earthworm, which you despise as stupid, has this wonderful secret, which day by day it puts into operation for its own benefit. Worms also eat leaves, which sometimes they drag into their homes.

"The worm has no feet as we understand them, but moves along the ground by sticking its sharp claws into the ground and by in turn lengthening and shortening its flexible body.

"The young worms grow from eggs, which are deposited in the earth in the autumn. They have to look out for themselves. During the winter they burrow deep into the ground, coming to the surface with the warm rains of spring. Worms also come to the earth's surface at night. If you look carefully in the garden with a lantern some evening, you may see them."