Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 2 [February 1902]

The plant commonly called Soapwort or Bouncing Bet also bears other popular names, many of which are purely local. Some of these are Hedge Pink, Bruisewort, Sheepweed, Old Maid’s Pink and Fuller’s Herb. It bears the name Soapwort because of a substance called saponin which is a constituent of its roots and causes a foaming that appears like soap suds when the powdered root is shaken with water.

Soapwort belongs to a large group of plants called the Caryophyllaceæ, or pink family. In this family there are about fifteen hundred species. These are widely distributed, but are most abundant in the Northern Hemisphere, extending to the Arctic regions and to the tops of very high mountains. The popular and beautiful carnations and some of the most common plants that grow abundantly in waste places also belong to the pink family. The Soapwort comes to us from Europe, where in some localities it is a common wild flower. In this country when it was first introduced it was simply a pretty cultivated garden plant. However, it lives from year to year and spreads by means of underground stems. It was not very long before it had escaped from yards to roadsides, where frequently large patches may be seen. The flowers are large and quite showy. The color of the petals is usually pinkish white. Blossoming in July, August and September, the Soapwort often beautifies waste places which other plants seem to shun. It is perhaps more generally loved than any other of our old-fashioned garden flowers. It grows luxuriantly without cultivation and seems to quite hold its own even among rank growths of weeds and grass. It is hard to tell what is the significance of the name Bouncing Bet, perhaps the most popular of all the names by which this plant is known.

Alice Lounsberry says: “It was always a mystery to Dickens that a doornail should have been considered so much more dead than any other inanimate object, and it seems also strange that this plant should have suggested the idea of bouncing more than other plants. Dear Bettie does not bounce, nor could she if she would. She sits most firmly on her stem, and her characteristics seem to be home-loving and simple. We are sure to find her peeping through the garden fence.”

TURTLE-HEAD OR SNAKE-HEAD

(Chelone glabra.)

The Turtle-head or Snake-head is one of three species that are natives of eastern North America. This plant is well supplied with common names, as it is also called Shell-flower, Cod-head, Bitter-herb and Balmony. The generic name of this flower of the swamps and moist banks of streams is from the Greek word which means tortoise, the name having been given to the plant because of the fancied resemblance between the flowers and the head of a turtle or snake. One may be able, by stretching his imagination, to see this resemblance in the flowers of our illustration.

The custom of giving names to plants that are suggestive of their real or fancied resemblance to various objects of nature, or are indicative of their beneficial or injurious qualities, is as old as history itself. In this way a large number of plants have become associated with good or evil spirits, Christian or pagan saints or martyrs, animate nature or some of the phenomena of nature. To the Indian the likeness of the flower of the Turtle-head to the head of a reptile not only gave it its name, but at the same time invested the plant with certain sacred associations by reason of the fact that not only among the Indians of North America, but among the uncivilized peoples in all parts of the world the tortoise has been considered sacred and highly symbolical.

Though commonly found in low altitudes, it is found in moist places in the Adirondacks, even at a height of three thousand feet.

This plant is not rare, and with its upright stem and its rather large and clustered white or slightly rose-colored flowers it is a dignified and beautiful feature of any floral community.

THE POCKET BIRD

About the middle of May a gaily colored bird from his winter home in neo-tropical regions visits the United States. His body is bright scarlet, his slightly forked tail and his wings intense black and his bill sea green. The ornithologist names him the scarlet tanager – tanager being a Brazilian word applied to this class of birds. But he is also sometimes called the “pocket bird,” because his jetty wings when closed upon his red sides are fancifully thought to resemble pockets. He is also known as the black-winged redbird. It takes three years for his gaudy plumage to become perfect. His mate is clad in green, so that she is easily concealed when on her nest amid the leaves of the swamp oak or some other favorite nesting tree. The nest is shallow and loosely woven, so that the eggs may be seen from beneath. But it is strong enough to hold the young birds securely until fledged. The eggs, three to five in number, are greenish-blue, spotted with brown and purple. The young birds are a clownish looking set in parti-colored robes of scarlet yellow and olive green. The song of the tanager somewhat resembles that of the robin in modulation; but the quality of the song is so soft and wavering that there are observers who call him a lazy bird, too lazy to sing. But others declare that it is worth while to take a long tramp in order to listen to his beautiful notes. Mr. Abbott calls him a “gayly colored blunder” without peculiarity of voice or manner. His song has been translated “Pshaw – wait – wait – wait for me.” His call note is “Chirp-chirr.”

There are some three hundred and eighty species of tanagers, and they are peculiar to America. They are perching birds and have usually conical bills, triangular at the base, with cutting edges near the tip of the upper mandible: this distinguishes them from the finches, to which they are closely allied. It is said that this genus is remarkable in having no gizzard.

The tanagers feed chiefly on ripe fruits and insects.

The organist tanager of San Domingo is purplish black, with forehead, rump and underparts yellow, and a cap of blue. Its tones are said to be extremely rich and full. But if our scarlet tanager is not so fine a musician as his cousin, if he has no such organ-like tones, yet we could ill spare the blaze of his scarlet coat and the sight of his black pockets, as he sits on the hedge very early in the morning – the rising sun emphasizing his brilliancy. Then he is an early riser I am sure, as I have seen him before four o’clock in the morning. But he has always been silent at that time as if not wide awake yet. In manners he is a most unobtrusive bird. He is rightly entitled to some of the plunder of the fruit trees. For there is no doubt that we owe all kinds of fruit to the agency of birds as seed distributors. Besides, the tanager is very destructive to larvae that injure fruit.

    Belle Paxson Drury.

THE BIRDS IN THEIR WINTER HOME. II

(In the Fields.)

A half day’s tramp through the pastures and fields of a Mississippi “second bottom” any sunshiny day from the first of December till the first of March will reveal some of the reasons why this is a veritable birds’ paradise in winter. Fields once in cultivation, but now abandoned to sedge and Bermuda grass, cultivated fields, where giant cockle burrs wrestle with morning glory vines for the possession of the soil, tracts of palmlike palmeto and marshy jungles of willows, pampass grass and briars afford attractive feeding grounds by day and safe roosting places by night to myriads of winter visitants. In such places are found abundant supplies of the insects, berries and seeds which this humid, semi-tropical climate produces in great profusion. Good shelter and plenty to eat settle the problem of living for the present for our little feathered friends.

Walk out on these broad savannas about the first of February before a tint of white or pale green has appeared on the chicasaw plum (Prunus chicasa) and take note of the abundance and vigor of bird life before spring has begun to make serious inroads upon it. In the drier parts of these lowlands, especially where stubby plum bushes and haws abound, our old friend the field sparrow meets us with the same innocent, confiding air that we remember as characteristic of him in the region of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. He is one of the birds that we can talk about in the indicative mood without “ifs” or apologies; the good that he does in disposing of surplus insect life is not offset by tolls levied on our ripest and juiciest fruit; he never goes over to the enemy to plunder those who trust him. Even the robin, whose praises are in everybody’s mouth, becomes a pirate when our cherries and mulberries ripen, and we wish he would stay away from our premises till the berry season is over.

The pale red or horn-colored beak of this bird will help us to distinguish him from another, often mistaken for him – the chippy, or chipping sparrow, a bird of the same general appearance and size. Even with the naked eye you can detect differences enough to distinguish the two species. Both are small birds with chestnut or rufous crown caps; the chippy has a patch of black on his forehead and bill of the same color; his brother of the fields wears no black, and his bill, as before stated, is a pale red or horn color. In Central Mississippi, as in parts of Northern Ohio, field sparrows are very numerous, but chippies quite rare.

In the grass or crouched down close to the brown earth and gray weed stems we see another of our friends. With a “chip” he jumps up out of the grass and is away before you can see what particular shade of gray or brown is most conspicuous. However, he doesn’t fly far, but suddenly drops into some inviting tuft, spreading out his tail like a fan as he does so, as if on purpose to show you its margin of white. This is the only one of our common sparrows that shows the white feather – the vesper sparrow, or bay-winged bunting. The field sparrow, as one authority says, had better be called the tree sparrow, because of his marked fondness for bushes and shrubs, but both of the former’s names fit; he is rightly called the vesper sparrow from his delightful custom of singing his choicest hymns to the dying sun, and bay-winged bunting from the conspicuous patch of bay or rufous on the lesser wing coverts.

Sometimes in company with the vespers we see the slate-colored junco, or snow bird; at other times a gorgeous, distinguished looking sparrow, named from his partiality to these broad, low fields, the savanna sparrow. He is the dandy of this winter resort. His plaid coat and striped shirt eclipse the somber colors of all his cousins. The epaulettes of gold on his shoulders indicate his high rank; but for all that he is no dude, for he works as hard as anybody to find his own breakfast and enjoys it all the more that he eats his crickets in the sweat of his brow. A simple “chip” is the only remark he makes to us or to his companions as he runs along the cotton rows in quest of food. Ornithologists, however, tell us that up in Canada in his summer home he sings a weak, grasshopper-like song in marked contrast to the musical efforts of his neutral tinted cousin, the vesper.

The fields of broom sedge are the favorite haunts of one of the birds whose cheerful music and winning ways help to make June in the North “the high tide of the year, when all of life that has ebbed away comes rippling back into each inlet and creek and bay.” I never see the meadow lark or hear his cheery whistle that I do not smell the blossoming clover and hear the ringing “spink, spank, spink” of the bobolink or catch the subtle suggestion of strawberries that comes floating to my nostrils on the warm June breeze. In a thirty minutes’ walk through the sedge I have flushed as many as two or three hundred of these birds. They are called “field larks” by the negroes, who regard them as legitimate game. The lark’s whistle – it can hardly be called a song – contains a bit of good advice habitually disregarded by the negroes. They interpret it as “laziness will kill you.”

The colored people have an ornithology all their own, in which their own observations are strangely mingled with superstition. They tell us of two kinds of mockingbirds, “de real” and “de French” varieties. The real mockingbird deserves an article all to himself. His winning ways, playful disposition and ability as a singer give him a place second to none among our American birds. I am pleased to see the spirit of Americanism growing in our literature, that conventional allusions to the skylark and the nightingale, birds few of us have ever seen or heard, are becoming rarer and rarer, while those to the robin, the mockingbird and the wood thrush are becoming more frequent. The mockingbird, like other singers, does his best during the courting and nesting seasons, but does not confine his concerts to that joyous time. On warm days in winter he loves to perch in the cedars and give his listeners a sample of what he can do, an earnest of the floods of melody that spring will bring. Balmy air, green of cedar and water oak and bird music disarrange our mental almanac. Even the nodding narcissus contributes to the illusion that it is not February, but May.

The “French mockingbird” is no mockingbird at all, but the logger-headed shrike, or butcher bird. Like some people, he tries to occupy a front seat, even if his music wins for him one of the lowest seats of the choir. A beanpole in the garden, the topmost wire of the fence and the top of a solitary shrub or tree are alike acceptable to him, for it’s all one to him if he gets to see all that is going on in his little world. No doubt he does do mischief during the nesting season, when eggs or tender nestlings are easier to find or more acceptable to his fastidious palate than the mice and insects which compose his winter diet. Just now he is a most pleasing bit of decided color, black, white and blue-gray, very refreshing to the eye, amid the browns and grays of last year’s vegetation.

When a cold wave comes, what a scurrying takes place! Each winter visitor packs his grip and strikes for the nearest shelter, be it canebrake or swampy jungle, where tall grass and cat-tails above, briars and water below, make a retreat impregnable to assault from the enemy flying through the air or creeping along the ground. If the cold wave continues until the ground freezes the birds suffer. At such times half-starved robins gorge themselves on the berries of the China tree (Melia azederach) and have a general “drunk.” They never eat many of the berries unless they are the only provisions obtainable, unless driven to it by stress of the weather, an excuse for drunks that cannot always be truthfully given by the lords of creation. While the silly birds are sitting around trying to throw off the effects of their debauch an enemy comes upon the scene. The negroes take advantage of the robin’s disability to manage his own affairs and feast high on roast robin, fried robin, stewed robin, etc., much to the detriment of next spring’s music in Northern fields and orchards.

The warm breath of the Gulf steals in upon our little world and a change comes. The birds remember that they are due in a few days in an Ohio orchard or on an Illinois prairie, so they pack and go. The allurements of a Southern spring, with all its fragrance and charm, do not hold them. Without a goodby they are gone, not to return till once more

“Frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.”

    James Stephen Compton.

MUSIC-LOVING FELINES

According to observation, music has power, not only to soothe the savage or the troubled breast of civilized man, but its potency extends to the brute world as well. Among those animals which appear to be charmed by musical sounds, it would seem difficult to find any manifesting a keener delight than the ordinary domestic cat.

The London Spectator some months ago referred to an instance where a cat showed marked pleasure in a whistled tune. This recalled to memory the circumstance of a certain cat, a beautiful creature with black and ecru stripes, whose appreciation of the musician’s art awakened in him inordinate emotion. Were he within hearing distance of the piano the eliciting of a few chords was sufficient to beguile him into the parlor. When permitted to walk across the keys he always appeared pleased with his performance. But he was discriminating and exhibited decided preferment for vocal renditions over instrumental. The “Miserere” from “Il Trovatore” affected him more deeply than anything else, and might appear to confirm the theory held by some that the possession of a soul is not limited to the human creation.

Settling himself in front of the singer, he would listen with bated breath and eyes widely dilated. Never would he move a muscle, unless after a prolonged interval in the music, when he would softly approach the vocalist to caress her face and neck with his paw or to smooth her cheek with his own. His coaxings always had the sought for effect, when he would once more seat himself with becoming decorum to imbibe the harmony which seemed to ravish his being.

This is by no means an isolated instance of fondness for musical discourse on the part of cats, though this particular case affords an extravagant illustration of that æsthetic sensitiveness which characterizes probably the whole feline tribe.

    S. Virginia Levis.

FIRE-FLIES

The Day, disrobing for her rest,
Delayed to lift the twilight bars;
And o’er them, from the golden West,
Wandered this troop of truant stars.

    – Cora A. Matson Dolson, in Lippincott’s Magazine.

SUGAR-CANE

(Saccharum officinarum Lin.)

Has God then given its sweetness to the cane,
Unless His laws be trampled on – in vain?

    – Cowper: Charity, 190.
This highly important plant belongs to the grass family. It is perennial, with thick, succulent, jointed rhizomes, having root tufts at the joints. The stems are numerous, erect, cylindrical, growing to a height of six to twelve feet. Like the rhizome, the stem is jointed, the internodes being, however, much shorter toward the base. The leaves are numerous toward the apex, being deciduous toward the base. The apical tuftlike inflorescence is quite characteristic. The individual flowers are small and unattractive in appearance. One of the remarkable things about the plant is that the fruit never matures. It must be remembered that the plant referred to is entirely distinct from the so-called sugar-cane of the Central States from which sorghum molasses is made.

It is very doubtful whether sugar-cane occurs anywhere in the wild state, at present. Authorities are quite unanimous in expressing it as their opinion that its original home was India. It is a plant that has been under cultivation for many centuries. Alexander the Great, in his invasions of India, found that the inhabitants of that country cultivated and used it extensively as a food article. Theophrastus mentions a “sweet salt” (sugar) which he obtained by evaporating the juice of an Indian reedlike plant, which was perhaps sugar-cane, though there is no conclusive evidence that the earlier Greeks and Romans were familiar with sugar; they employed honey quite universally. The “sweet cane” of Scripture is probably Andropogon calamus aromaticus, or sweet calamus, which was a native of India. It is presumed by some that the cane grown in China was originally native there. The cultivation of sugar-cane seems to have spread very rapidly. It early found its way to Persia and Arabia, and then from Arabia as a center has spread to the Mediterranean districts, Sicily, Cyprus, Spain and Italy. It found its way to Santo Domingo as early as 1494 and to Brazil early in the sixteenth century. At the present time cane is grown in nearly all tropical and sub-tropical countries, the Southern United States producing more than any other country.

There are many varieties recognized by cultivators, differing in color, texture and other minor characteristics.

Since cane does not ripen fruit, it is propagated by transplanting the rhizomes and top portions of stem, and after a field is once planted new crops are permitted to spring up from the old rhizomes, and this accounts for the awful tangle of the famous Southern canebrakes, which figured so extensively in the slave days, when these fields served as hiding places for the fugitive slaves. The ripe cane is cut close to the ground, the leaves stripped off and the tassel cut off. It is then carted to the cane mill and passed between large rollers, which express the juice, which is then clarified by means of lime, animal charcoal and blood. Heat further aids the purifying process by coagulating the albuminous matter, which, mixed with other impurities, rises to the surface as a scum and is removed by means of a special ladle. The lime combines with the free acid present and settles to the bottom. The juice is boiled until it acquires a proper tenacity, when it is passed into a cooler and allowed to crystallize. This sugar is then placed in large perforated casks and allowed to drain for two or three weeks, when it is packed into hogsheads and exported under the name of raw sugar or muscovado sugar. The drainings form molasses. Raw sugar is taken to the sugar refinery and purified by heating with water and bullocks’ blood, filtered through canvas bags and finally allowed to percolate very slowly through large cylinders containing freshly prepared, coarse-grained animal charcoal. The filtered liquor is then boiled by the aid of steam. When sufficiently tenacious it is poured into conical molds, and when solidified the stoppers are removed to allow the treacle to drain off. The loaves from the molds are then sugared, as it is called, by pouring over them a saturated sugar solution, which, by slowly percolating through them, carries with it coloring matter and other impurities without dissolving the sugar crystals. When a saturated aqueous solution of sugar is allowed to cool slowly it forms large, beautiful crystals known as sugar or rock candy. Caramel is burnt sugar; it has a peculiar odor and loses its sweet taste, becoming bitter. It is used largely as a coloring agent for coloring liquids.

Sugar has innumerable uses. As an article of food it is not surpassed, though it cannot support life alone, because it contains no nitrogen. It is the important ingredient in candies, pastries, sweetened drinks, etc. Molasses and treacle are much used and must not be confounded with the sorghum molasses made from the sugarcane of the Central States. Molasses and treacle sometimes have a peculiar and to many a very objectionable flavor, due to impurities present.

Molasses, as well as treacle, when fermented, gives rise to rum. The popular notion that sugar is injurious to teeth is without foundation. It has no action on teeth whatever. If anything it has anti-septic properties and preserves the teeth. It is, however, undoubtedly true that the excessive consumption of sweets, pastries in particular, is bad for the digestion, as externally manifested by a dirty complexion and skin eruptions. As a whole sugar by itself is not injurious; it is an excellent food, a heat producer and easily assimilated. Americans, especially the American youth, are the great sugar consumers of the world.