Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 2, February 1899

THE IRIS

IN botany this is the generic name of a number of beautiful plants belonging to the natural order of Iridaceæ. The plants have a creeping rootstock, or else a flat tuber, equitant leaves, irregular flowers, and three stamens. They are represented equally in the temperate and hotter regions of the globe. The wild species of iris are generally called blue-flag, and the cultivated flower-de-luce, from the French fleur de Louis, it having been the device of Louis VII. of France. Our commonest blue-flag, Iris versicolor, is a widely distributed plant, its violet-blue flowers, as may be seen, upon stems one to three feet high, being conspicuous in wet places in early summer. The root of this possesses cathartic and diuretic properties, and is used by some medical practitioners. The slender blue-flag found in similar localities near the Atlantic coast, is smaller in all its parts. A yellowish or reddish-brown species, resembling the first named in appearance, is found in Illinois and southward. There are three native species which grow only about six inches high and have blue flowers. They are found in Virginia and southward, and on the shores of the great lakes; these are sometimes seen as garden plants. The orris root of commerce is the product of Iris Florentina, I. pallida, and I. Germanica, which grow wild in the south of Europe; the rhizomes are pared and dried, and exported from Trieste and Leghorn, chiefly for the use of perfumers; they have the odor of violets. The garden species of iris are numerous, and by crossing have produced a great many known only by garden names. The dwarf iris, I. pumila, from three to six inches high, flowers very early and makes good edgings to borders; the common flower-de-luce of the gardens is I. Germanica; the elder-scented flower-de-luce is I. sambucina. These and many others are hardy in our climate, and readily multiplied by division of their rootstocks. The mourning or crape iris is one of the finest of the genus, its flowers being very large, dotted and striped with purple on a gray ground. The flowers of most of the species are beautiful. Some of them have received much attention from florists, particularly the Spanish, English, and German, or common iris, all corm-rooted species, and all European. The Persian iris is delightfully fragrant. The roots of all these species are annually exported in considerable quantities from Holland. The roasted seeds of one species have been used as a substitute for coffee.

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS

THE language of flowers is a study at once interesting and innocent, cultivating, as it does, a taste for the works of nature, filling the soul with the sweetest emotions and presenting to view one of the most enchanting phases of a beautiful world full of wonders. Following are a few of the best known flowers and the sentiments which they represent:

Sweet alyssum, worth beyond beauty; apple blossom, preference; bachelor's button, single and selfish; balm, sympathy; barberry, sourness; candytuft, indifference; carnation pink, woman's love; Chinese chrysanthemum, cheerfulness under misfortune; clematis, mental beauty; columbine, folly; red clover, industry; dahlia, dignity; white daisy, innocence; faded leaves, melancholy; forget-me-not, remembrance; jonquil, affection returned; lily of the valley, return of happiness; myrtle, love in absence; pansy, you occupy my thoughts; moss rose, superior merit; red rose, beauty; white rose, I am worthy of love; sunflower, haughtiness; yellow rose, infidelity.

THE PEACOCK

ANNA R. HENDERSON

AS THE rose among flowers, so is the peacock among the feathered tribes.

No other bird has so many colors in its plumage. Its hues are all beautiful; the brilliant blue and black, shot with gold, of the eyes of the tail, the satin-like peacock blue of its neck and breast, the shining green of its back, each feather with its tiny eye of brown, the clear brown of the stiff fan that supports its tail, the soft gray down that clothes its body – all are fit robing for this royal bird.

In keeping with his kingly raiment is his regal movement; so graceful, so dignified, that one seems disposed to believe the legend of India, his native home, that he contains the metamorphosed spirit of a peerless prince. I have said that his step is kingly, yet I am often disposed to yield to the opinion of an old man who declared that the gait of the peacock is queenly, much like that of a beautiful and graceful woman with a long train. Certain it is, that nothing else can make such an addition to a green lawn as a peacock, stepping lightly along, keeping his brilliant feathers swaying just above the grass.

My West Virginia home has many beauties of nature, shady dells where waters sparkle, pastures that slope toward the shining Ohio, lofty trees that give shade to sleek cattle and spirited horses; but amid all these charms we have always rated highly the gorgeous peacocks which have so long adorned its grounds that it has become known as the "Home of the Peacocks." Though now sadly diminished by poachers and hunters, there were many years in which scores of them, sometimes nearly a hundred, strutted around our rural home.

The peacock's tail does not assume full length and beauty until his fourth or fifth year. The feathers begin to grow in January, and by early spring are long, and then his season of strutting begins; and he spends a large part of every day in this proud employment. Each peacock has his favorite place of strutting, and frequents it day after day. Open gateposts are much sought after; and our front gateposts have always been favorite resting-places on sunny afternoons, where these beauties seemed posing to order.

For many seasons a very handsome one strutted in front of our sitting-room window. Some of the family slipped over its neck a cord on which hung a silver dime, which shone on its blue feathers. Alas for his majesty! Strutting in the road one day, a horse shied at him, and its owner threw a stone and killed the beauty.

The peahen, a meek-looking matron with a green neck and long gray feathers, is very secretive as to a nest, and seeks an orchard or wheatfield. When the little gray brood, from three to five in number, are a few weeks old she brings them to the yard.

Peafowls scorn the shelter of a house and roost in the loftiest trees. Near our home are some tall oaks and under them they gather on summer evenings, and, after many shrill good-night cries, fly upward to the high limbs.

In cold weather they do not come down until late in the day. Sometimes on snowy days they get so weighted with snow that they cannot fly up, and so settle on the ground, and their long feathers freezing, have to be cut loose. In June or early July their feathers begin to drop, and to secure them they must be plucked. Though so docile as to frequent the porches, they do not like to be caught, but take to the wing, so a rainy day is selected, when their feathers are weighted with water, and they are soon chased down. After being plucked they are unsteady in gait and hide in the bushes for days.

Peafowls have a strong home-feeling and when taken away are hard to retain; as they wander off, striving to return. They are enemies to young chickens, and are exasperating to the good housewife, as they are hard to drive away, performing a circle and returning. The peafowl is almost as good a table fowl as the turkey.

OWLS

JOHN WINTHROP SCOTT

BIRDS that fly in the night and whose wings move so smoothly through the air that they make no noise act much like the burglar that gets into your house quietly when you are asleep to steal your money. But the owl is not a burglar. He is the friend of man. There is no other bird that does the farmer so much good as the owl. The owl comes out in the dark to get the small animals that are out at that time stealing things from the farmer. So we may call the owl the night watchman of the farm. He sometimes comes out in the daytime, but most owls prefer the night or at least a dark day.

The owl has been called a wise bird for the same reason that some men are thought to be wise – he looks wise. One reason he looks so steadily at you that you think he is studying you is because the light is so strong in the daytime that his sight is bad. But the owl is not as wise as he is said to be. He does some foolish things as well as other birds. In fact he is sometimes more foolish than any other bird would be in the same place. One owl was known to sit for more than a half day under a leaking water tap. The water fell at the rate of twenty drops a minute right down upon the owl's head, and yet he was not wise enough to move out of the wet.

All owls are not too stupid to learn. Puffy, a tame young owl, caught and ate a two-pound pullet. An old hen afterwards took a fancy to his perch. She went in and gave the little owl a sound whipping, and after that shared the perch with him. He never forgot the lesson the hen had given him and always treated her well.

Owls have a way of hiding from notice by making believe they are something besides owls. They can move their feathers so as to change their looks entirely. The great horned owl sometimes makes himself a frightful mass of feathers a yard wide, and at other times he seems to be a very slim bird, too thin for an owl. Puffy once got away from his master. He flew to the top of a stump and sat like a stake for an hour while his master looked all round the place for him without knowing there was a bird on the stump in plain sight. Owls draw the feathers away from their mouths in an odd way when they eat, and when walking softly to steal upon a mouse tuck up their feathers as a lady lifts her skirts.

Owls are fond of mice. A boy who had a half-grown barn owl tried him one day to see how many mice he would eat. The first four mice went down the owl's throat very quickly. Then number five and number six were eaten in a short time. Number seven did not go down quite as rapidly and number eight was slower still. Number nine was taken greedily, but the owl could not swallow it. The tail hung out of the owl's mouth for awhile before it could be fairly counted. Then no more were eaten till about three hours after, when the owl was pleased to take four more mice.

The gopher is a small animal that does damage to growing things. It digs up corn after it is planted, and it gnaws the roots of fruit trees so as to hurt them badly. Owls catch gophers and eat them. This is one reason why the farmer likes the owl so well. Barn owls sometimes roost with pigeons, but they are good friends. We know they do not eat the pigeons because owls swallow their food whole and have to throw up the bones afterwards, and it is known that the owls living with the pigeons throw up bones of rats and mice but not of pigeons.

Sometimes so many mice have come upon the farms in England that it looked as if everything would be eaten up by them. But a great many owls always came when the mice were so thick and helped the farmers save their crops. One owl was seen to make, in thirty minutes, seventeen trips to her young with food.

A gentleman living in the West when there was so much damage done by grasshoppers found that the owls were living on them and not eating much of any other kind of food. The only way he could tell what the owls had for supper was to shoot an owl once in awhile and see what was in its stomach. One barn owl had thirty-nine locusts, twenty-two other insects, and one mouse which it had just taken. Screech owls and burrowing owls usually had more than two dozen locusts, and some of them had other kinds of insects.

A rabbit, a weasel, a mink, or even a skunk is good eating for the owl. And there are times when one owl will make a meal of another owl of smaller size. A large red-tailed hawk was once put into a garret where there was a snowy owl. That night the hawk was killed and partly eaten by the owl. A tame great horned owl and a little screech owl were shut up in a hay loft together. The wings of the big owl were cut so he could not fly. After about a week they both became one owl, and that owl threw up the claws, beak, bones, and feathers which had once been useful to the little screech owl.

Owls sometimes catch partridges and quails. This is not so bad, for they pick out the weak birds that are not well, and so keep disease from spreading among the fine birds. A hunter once shot a bob white so that it was not killed but could not fly. He and his dog were chasing the bird in the grass along a fence hoping to catch it. An owl saw the wounded bird and thought it belonged to him because it was not well. He came out of the woods very swiftly and picked up the bob white right before the eyes of the hunter.

In woods where there are panthers one will often hear in the night fearful cries that make it seem as if some wild beast were about to jump down from some tree near by to kill the one who is out so late. Most of these cries which frighten people so are made by hoot owls. But it is not easy to tell whether the sound comes from a hoot owl or from the throat of a wild cat. There is a saying among country people who wish to seem wise: "I wasn't brought up in the woods to be afraid of owls."

The hoot owl has so many wild notes in his voice that it is not at all strange that he scares people who have not been brought up in the woods. Before he sends out his proper hoot he sometimes seems to try to frighten everybody out of the forest with his awful shrieks. Sometimes several hoot owls get together in the night to hold a concert. One of them seems to tell a funny story and all the rest break out with shouts of he-he-he-he-hi-hi-hi-hi-ha-ha-ha-ha, and then they become as solemn as any other owls, and the stillness of the night is perfect until another owl has a droll story or song to set the rest a-shouting at.

The owl is brave. One that weighed less than six ounces once fought a nine-pound rooster. A teamster in Maine once went to sleep on top of his load while his horses ate their oats beside a forest road. When he pulled the blanket away from his face an owl pounced down upon it, perhaps thinking his white skin was a rabbit, and tore his cheeks fiercely. He was much frightened, having just awakened. But he caught the owl and killed it after a short struggle, and called himself lucky because his eyes were not put out by the bird.

If the owl is a sober and wise bird he forgets all about it when he woos his mate. Such awkward dancing and foolish boo-hoo-ing is never seen except when the owl is trying to choose a mate for life. But he makes up for his awkwardness when there are eggs to sit upon, for the owl is the best husband a bird ever had. When there is room in the old hollow where the nest is he will sit on the eggs with his wife and help her hatch the puffy little owl children.

Owls are the best of parents, too, for they will risk their own lives freely to protect their young. If their nests are robbed and the old birds can find where their young ones are caged they will come daily with food for them though they are in great danger in doing so.

They lay their eggs earlier than other birds, and often the falling snow covers the back of the sitting bird. The warmth of her body melts it so that water runs gently down through the nest and forms icicles that hang below and glisten in the sunshine to tell of the faithful conduct of the mother owl.

Small birds, as a rule, hate owls, and they delight in getting round these great awkward fellows whenever they can catch them by day and doing all they can to hurt their feelings. Bird-catchers sometimes catch small birds because they are so fond of teasing owls. An owl is caught and tied to a tree. The tree is covered with sticky stuff called bird lime. As soon as a little bird sees the owl in the tree he cries to his friends and they come in great crowds to tease the owl. But the small birds find their desire to torment ends in their own capture, for they cannot get away from the bird lime until the trapper comes along and gathers all the little birds that are hanging to the sticky limbs and twigs about the big bird they were trying to tease.

THE DUCK MOLE

WE ARE indebted to Dr. George Bennett for the first good description of the duck mole (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) which was an object of wonder to naturalists long after its discovery. This enthusiastic investigator traveled to Australia for the sole purpose of observing the animal. Up to that time little was known of it. We simply knew that the duck mole lives in the water and was persistently hunted by the natives, as it yielded a savory flesh and laid eggs. The latter discovery was made by Caldwell in 1884.

The duck mole is about two feet in length, six inches of which are included in the tail. The males are larger than the females. The legs are very small, all four feet being five-toed and webbed. All the toes are very strong, blunt, and excellently adapted for digging. The middle toes are the longest. The tail is flat and is broad at the end, the extremity being formed by long hairs. It is abruptly cut off, and in old animals is either entirely naked beneath or covered with a few coarse hairs. In young animals it is quite hairy. The adult animal has only four horny teeth in its two jaws, of which the upper front tooth is broad and flat and resembles a grinder.

The fur of the duck mole consists of a coarse outer coat of a dark brown color with a silvery-white surface tinge, and a very soft, grayish inner fur, similar to that of the seal and the otter. A peculiar fish-like odor is given forth by the fur, especially when it is wet. The Australians, however, are very fond of the flesh of the animal in spite of its disgusting odor. The duck mole is said to be fondest of calm spots in rivers filled with aquatic plants and the banks of which are shaded by the dense foliage of trees; and it constructs more or less complicated burrows in the banks. A tunnel about eighteen feet long terminates in a large chamber, both the chamber and its approaches being strewn with dry aquatic plants. The chamber usually has two entrances, one below the surface of the water, and the other about twelve inches above.

The duck moles are seen at all times in the rivers of Australia, especially during the spring and summer. They emerge from their retreats at dusk, though they sometimes also appear in the day time, searching for food. When the water is clear, the observer can follow with the eye the movements of the animal as it dives and reappears above the surface. It likes to stay near the shore, amidst the mud, searching for its food between the roots of the plants, where insects abound. The mollusks which it captures in its forays it stores temporarily in its cheek-pouches and then consumes them at greater leisure.

"On a beautiful summer evening," says Bennett, "I approached a small river in Australia, and as I knew the predilection of the duck mole for the hour of dusk, I tried to obtain a glimpse of one. With a constant grasp on our guns, we patiently stood on the shore. It was not long before we saw a black object appear near us on the top of the water, the head being raised but little above the surface. We stood motionless, lest we should scare the animal, carefully observing and following its movements, for one must be ready to shoot just as the duck mole reappears after diving. Only a shot in the head is effective, as the loose, thick fur will not allow a bullet to penetrate it readily. We wounded one which gave evidence of severe injury and sank immediately, but soon rose again. When the dog brought it to us we found it to be a fine male. Several minutes after it had been brought out of the water it apparently revived, and, instantly rising to its feet, staggered toward the river. About twenty-five minutes later it turned over several times and then died. As I had heard much about the danger of being pierced by its spur even when the animal is mortally injured, I put my hand near the so-called poisonous spur at the first grasp. In its violent exertions to escape the animal scratched me slightly with its hind paws and also with its spur, but despite the roughness with which I seized it, it did not wound me intentionally. I had also been further told that the duck mole lay on its back when it wished to use the spur, which statement will not be received as at all probable by anyone who knows the animal in ever so slight a way. I put it in this position, but it only strove to regain its feet without attempting to wound me by using its spur. In short, I tried in every way to induce the animal to make use of its spur as a weapon, but in vain; and I am perfectly convinced that the spur has another function than that of a weapon. The natives characterize the spur as 'mischievous,' that being with them a word which in general conveys the idea of dangerous or poisonous character; yet they use the same expression in speaking of the scratches inflicted by the animal with the hinder feet, and they are not at all afraid of seizing a living duck mole. When the queer creature runs along the ground, it produces an impression of something unnatural, and its strange shape easily startles a timid person. Cats instantly take flight at its appearance, and even dogs, which are not specially trained, stare at it, prick their ears, and bark, but are afraid to touch it."

On another voyage Bennett discovered a burrow containing three young ones, upon which the hair had already grown, and which he could observe for some time. When he found the nest with the young ones and placed them on the ground, they ran to and fro, but did not make such savage attempts to escape as did the old ones. The natives, whose mouths watered at the sight of these fat young animals, said that they were about eight months old, and added that the young duck moles were fed milk by their mother only during their early infancy and later were given insects, small shells, and mud.

At evening Bennett's two little pets emerged from their cage at dusk and usually ate their food; then they began to play like a couple of young dogs, attacking each other with their beaks, lifting their fore paws and climbing over each other. They were very lively. Their little eyes gleamed and the apertures of the ears opened and closed in remarkably rapid succession. As their eyes stand quite high on their heads they cannot see very well straight ahead, and therefore are apt to come into collision with near-by objects. The young animals survived only five weeks.

The duck mole lays several soft-shelled eggs. The eggs are hatched in the nest. The newly-hatched young are small, naked, blind and as helpless as those of the pouched animals. Their beaks are short.

In the zoölogical garden at Melbourne duck moles have occasionally been kept of late years, but none have, thus far, reached Europe or America alive.

Brehm says that the duck mole is the last among the known mammals.

THE HIBERNATION OF ANIMALS

NATURE presents no greater or more curious phenomenon than the habit of certain animals to conceal themselves and lie dormant, in a lethargic sleep, for weeks and months. It is known that in perfect hibernators the processes of nature are interrupted during the period of this long insensibility. Breathing is nearly, and in some animals, entirely suspended, and the temperature of the blood even in the warmer blooded animals, falls so low that how life can be maintained in them is a great mystery.

A variety of Rocky Mountain ground squirrels, when in perfect hibernation, says an observer, has a temperature only three degrees above freezing point of water, and when taken from their burrows are as rigid as if they were not only dead, but frozen. But a few minutes in a warm room will show that they are not only alive, but full of life.