Birds and Nature Vol. 9 No. 1 [January 1901]

    – Benjamin Karr.

THE COLLARED LIZARD

(Crotaphytus collaris.)

The Collared or Ring-necked Lizard may be found among the rocks and open woods of the plateau or in desert regions from southern Missouri southward into Mexico, westward to southeastern California and northward to southern Idaho. However, this is its general range, and it is not common over all this territory. Though it has been known to ascend to an altitude of nearly six thousand feet, yet it does not seem to have crossed the Sierra Nevada range, as it has not been observed at any point on the Pacific coast or the interior of California.

The Collared Lizard is so called because of the black bars, which resemble a collar, and are situated between the fore legs and extend across the back of the animal. They vary greatly in color, depending on their age or geographical position. The back is usually some shade of dull or rather dark green, or it may have a bluish cast, with numerous oblong or rounded lighter spots, which may be either whitish, or various shades of red, orange or yellow. These spots may be quite definite or they may form quite continuous bands. The variations in color are much more marked in the young.

Dr. Cope tells us that “it runs very swiftly, carrying the tail over its back. In its manners it is perhaps the most pugnacious of our lizards, opening its mouth when cornered, and biting savagely. Its sharp teeth can do no more than slightly cut the skin.”

Mr. Frank M. Woodruff relates the following interesting account of his experiences with this lizard: “I found the Collared Lizard at three points in Missouri – Vineland, DeSoto and Pilot Knob. They are restricted to the rocky glades, where they live with the scorpions and the rattlesnakes. The only place where I found them abundant was between Vineland and the old Kingston mines. During the hot summer months they make their appearance upon the broad slabs of rock, often quite a distance from their lairs. When disturbed they make a dash to escape and usually in the direction that leads to their accustomed crevice, even though the intruder is in its path. I have had them run almost across my feet in their frantic efforts to hide. They are a somewhat terrifying object as they run toward you. At this time they apparently assume a partly upright position, looking for all the world like a small edition of Mephistopheles. The negroes are mortally afraid of them. They call them ‘Glade Devils,’ and the more superstitious believe that the souls of the very bad negroes reside in them. A negro will never go through a glade frequented by this species, and will make a long detour to avoid doing so. The only time I ever saw a negro ‘turn gray’ was when I brought one of these lizards to Ironton and asked for assistance in capturing it when it escaped. They are so swift in their movements that I found the best method of capturing them was by tying a noose of fine copper wire to a fish pole. This can be slipped over their heads, as they lie sunning themselves, as they seem to pay but little attention to the loop as it touches them. By exercising caution it is possible to approach from the rear to within eight or ten feet without exciting them. They make delightful pets, if a lizard can be considered such. By feeding them through the winter on meal worms and in the summer on flies and grasshoppers they can be kept for a year or more.”

A NIGHT IN THE FLOWER GARDEN

A FAIRY STORY

The day had passed and the sun had gone to sleep in a bed of crimson and gold. The wind blew softly, at which the leaves on the great trees in the garden began to murmur; though it was evening they were not sleepy like some of the flowers who thought it time to go to sleep when the sun did. Sometimes the leaves were awake all night; you could hear them moving gently in the breeze. The clover leaves were folded close in sleep long ago and the Poppies declared they could not sit up a moment longer. But the tall white Lilies, who loved the night, were wide awake; they could not sleep when the garden was full of moonlight. They said the Crickets were so noisy and the Katydids so quarrelsome that it disturbed them, so they stood fair and white gathering the dew in their silvery cups which filled the soft night air with sweet perfume. The Roses were looking pale and sad in the moonlight; they reveled in the golden sunshine and grew brilliant in the heat of day. But they were languid now and sometimes a little breeze would send their velvet petals floating to the ground to fade and die.

The Pansies nestled low with closed eyes. You would not have known where the Mignonette and Heliotrope were had you not breathed their sweet perfume, for they were fast asleep. The Nasturtiums, Hollyhocks, and Marigolds were still as bright and gay as if the sun, whom they loved, could see them and they felt like sitting up with the Four O’Clocks and Evening Primroses, who never went to sleep until very late.

But of all the flowers in the garden, the Sweet Peas were the widest awake. There they stood in rows, dainty and fair, never thinking of going to sleep, but trembling with excitement. You could see them whispering together, for they had heard that to-night the Fairy Queen was to come to the garden and would give a soul to some flower; which one they did not know but hoped it would be to them.

A little Humming Bird had brought the news and had told it only to the Sweet Peas, so they thought it must be for them that this beautiful change was to come. Had they not heard that years ago a sweet flower called Narcissus had been changed into a beautiful youth, who could wander where he wished? What delight that would be! And had they not also heard of Pansies changing into little children, and Larkspurs into larks that soared away into the bright blue sky? Of Water Lilies changing into maidens, who made their homes under the green waves? And they had always thought that myriads of brilliant flowers were changed into the daintiest of all things. The little Humming Birds must have been flowers at one time, for they were always hovering around them, kissing them and making love to them. Oh! if the Fairy Queen would only change them into birds, or velvet bees, or, better still, into the beautiful butterflies, that came to them so often and fluttered like a cloud around them. Yes, they would rather be butterflies than anything else.

Slowly the moonlight faded from the flowers, the shadows of the night deepened and the soft dew fell like a benediction. A Fairy form floated over the sweetest of blossoms, then disappeared, and all was dark and silent save a gentle flutter, as of wings.

But in the morning when the sunbeams had awakened the sleeping blossoms, a flight of bright-winged Butterflies floated in the air or lighted for a moment on the flowers, but the Sweet Peas had all disappeared and were nowhere to be seen.

    Fannie Wright Dixon.

RABBIT’S CREAM

Everyone is well acquainted
With the arts of Frosty Jack —
With his etchings on the windows,
With the tints that mark his track;
But the quaint and merry artist
Has a fancy of his own
That is delicate and graceful,
But is not so widely known.

When no green is in the forest,
And no bloom is in the dell,
Not a flower star to twinkle,
Not the smallest blossom-bell, —
Here and there, an herb he singles,
Brown and dry, and round its stem
Fastens, with his magic fingers,
One great, silver-shining gem;

Shell-like, delicate and dainty,
White and lucent as a pearl;
Just as though he took a fragment
Of the mist, and with a twirl
Froze it into shape and substance —
Such a fine and fragile thing,
That the fairy queen might crush it,
If she brushed it with her wing.

Then he steals away, delighted;
He has planned a morning treat
For a troop who soon will flutter
Through the wood, on dancing feet;
All the little country urchins
Love to see its silver gleam —
Love to fancy it a dainty,
And they call it “rabbit’s cream.”

    – Hattie Whitney.

THE APPLE

Both pagan and Christian mythologies have endowed the Apple with wonderful virtues. It has possessed a symbolism for man in all stages of civilization. Standing for the type of the earthly in its contrast with the spiritual, it represented the idea of that conflict between Ormuzd and Arimanes in which the evil principle is continually victor. The stories of Eve, of Paris, the Hesperides and Atalanta all emphasize this thought, showing the Apple to have been a reward of appetite over conscience.

The allegorical tree of knowledge bore apples guarded by the serpent, and the golden fruit of the garden of Hesperides was apples protected by the sleepless dragon, which it was one of the triumphs of Hercules to slay. The Assyrian tree Gavkerena, the Persian “Jima’s Paradise,” “Indra’s heaven” and the Scandinavian ash tree Yggdrasil, all prefaced the story of Paris and the apple of discord which Ate brought to the banquet of the gods. In Greece it became the emblem of love, being dedicated to Venus. Aphrodite bore it in her hand as well as Eve, and it is said that Ulysses longed for it in the garden of Alcinous, while Tantalus vainly grasped for it in hades. The fruit was offered as a prize in the Grecian games given in honor of Apollo.

Among the heathen gods of the north there were apples fabled to possess the power of conferring immortality, which were carefully watched over by the goddess Iduna and jealously preserved for the dessert of the gods who experienced the enervation of old age. Azrael accomplished his mission by holding the apple to the nostrils of his victims, and the Scandinavian genii are said to have possessed the power of turning the fruit into gold.

The ancients better appreciated the importance of the apple than do the moderns, who treat it chiefly as “the embryonic condition of cider or as something to be metamorphosed into pies.” It is said to be indigenous to every part of the inhabited globe except South America and the islands of the Pacific. It is equally at home in the fierce heat of the equator and among the frosts of Siberia. In olden times, the fig was the index of a native civilization. Later on, the vine was king, but at the present time there are many who maintain that the Apple is the only genuine index of civilized man, and claim that it flourishes best in those regions where man’s moral and intellectual supremacy is most marked.

The Athenians made frequent mention of the cultivation of the Apple, and Pliny enumerates twenty varieties that were known in his day. It is generally supposed that the Goths and Vandals introduced the manufacture and use of cider into the Mediterranean provinces and references to it are made by Tertullian and the African Fathers. The use of cider can be traced from Africa into the Biscayan provinces of Spain, and thence to Normandy. It is supposed to have come into England at the time of the conquest, but the word “cyder” is said to be Anglo-Saxon, and there is reason to believe that it was known in the island as early as the time of Henghist. As the mistletoe grew chiefly on the apple and the oak, the former was regarded with great respect by the ancient Druids of Britain, and even to this day in some parts of England, the antique custom of saluting the apple trees in the orchards, in the hope of obtaining a good crop the next year, still lingers among the farmers of Devonshire and Herefordshire. During the middle ages, the fruit was made the pretext for massacring the oppressed tribes of Israel, as it was supposed that the Hebrews used apples to entice children into their homes to furnish their cannibal banquets.

The different varieties of apples have all descended from a species of crab found wild in most parts of Europe. Although there are two or three species of wild crab belonging to this country, yet none of our cultivated varieties have been raised from them, but rather from seeds of the species brought here by the colonists from Europe – over two hundred varieties of apples are known at the present time. As a rule, the Apple is a hardy, slow-growing tree, with an irregular head, rigid branches, roughish bark, and a close-grained wood. It thrives best in limestone soils and deep loams. It will not flourish in wet soils or on those of a peaty or sandy character. As a rule, the trees live to be fifty or eighty years of age, but there are specimens now bearing fruit in this country that are known to be over two hundred years old. The wood is often stained black and used as ebony. It is also made into shoe lasts, cog-wheels and small articles of furniture, and is greatly prized in Italy for wood carving and statuary.

New and choice varieties of apples are derived from seeds planted to produce stocks. One stock in ten thousand may prove better than the original, and its virtues are perpetuated by layers, cuttings, graftings and budding. The tree is not subject to disease. Insects, notably the borer, the woolly aphis, the caterpillar, the apple moth and the bark louse, have to be guarded against, and several blights occasionally attack the foliage, but as a rule small loss is experienced from these sources.

    Charles S. Raddin.

Shed no tear! – O shed no tear,
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! – O weep no more,
Young buds sleep in the roots’ white core.
Dry your eyes! – O dry your eyes
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies —
Shed no tear!

Overhead! – look overhead