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 The King remaining for this cauſe one whole day at Argenton, departed thence vpon Sundaye the one and thirtieth of December, for to goe to the ſiege of Faleſe, the Caſtle whereof is verie ſtrong, & eſteemed to be the beſt place in baſe Normandie, next vnto the Caſtle of Caen, and therefore the Counte of Briſac put himſelfe into it, with the Cheualier Picard and his Regiment, hauing wonne vnto them manie Gentlemen and Souldiers of the Countrey, vaunting that they would repay the honour of their companions, who had yeelded and loſt all the other Townes, and that at this place, all the ſpoyles that had been gotten, ſhould be ſurrendred.

His Maieſtie the night before, had ſent the Baron of Byron to inuiron it, with certaine Troupes of men of warre, aſwell foote as horſe, who came thether ſo happely, that he found the Conte of Briſac come out of the Towne, purpoſing to burne the Towne of Guibray, which is as it were one of the Suburbes of Faleze. Who perceiuing the ſaid Troupes, the fier he brought with him was not anye waye able to heate him ſo much as to make him abide them, but returning with all ſpeede into the Towne, hee lefte Guibray whole: and the ſaid Baron de Byron did not onely ceaze vpon it to lodge his Maieſtie, but alſo at the ſame inſtant did make them runne away out of the Suburbes of the Towne, ioyning euen to the gate, part whereof they themſelues had burned a litle before.

His Maieſtie beeing arriued, went preſently with the Mareſhall of Byron to viewe the Towne and Caſtle, which are both ſtrong; the ſaid Towne beeing


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license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 his five children three have moved to the city. "Minnie married a drummer. Joe is pilot of a street car and Jennie is a manicurist on her own hook. Fred and John work the home place. Each one of the five children have a $2000.00 equity in the farm. Fred and John, the two farmers, borrow $6000.00 to bay off the three children in the city. To do this they place a mortgage on the home place. And now commences a heart breaking struggle for the two young farmers. The interest amounts to $360.00 per year at 6 per cent interstinterest [sic]. Taxes on a $10,000.00 farm are not less than $200.00 per annum. Before these two boys can have a dollar for themselves, they must raise $560.00 for the banker and the politician. If everything goes well they may be able to pay off that mortgage by the time they are old and gray, after having paid interest alone three times the value of the place.

But if things go wrong, and they happen to go wrong oftener than they go right, those two boys will have a mortgage foreclosed, and next year they make a share crop on the old homestead.

Half the homes in our towns are built with money scratched out of the soil by the children who remain on the farm, and most of the small merchants buy their first stock of goods with their share of dad's estate. That this share is also scratched out of the soil by Fred and John, the farmers, does not seem to interest anybody in particular. Rising land values and the laws of inheritance are great factors in the transformation of the land-owning farmers into renters.

There are other factors that help along, but this is not an encyclopedia, but a pamphlet, consequently somethings must be left out. I have only touched upon the effect of high land values on the farmer to induce him to shake the capitalist out of his brain tank.

Landlordism is rapidly increasing in the United States since Uncle Sam hasn't any more land to spend, and the best government on earth, while doing nothing against the coming slavery, is at least kind enough to tell us of the progress we aremaking. Here are a few census figures:


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 MALAYSIAN MARITIME ENFORCEMENT AGENCY ACT 2004


text: A Wave of Horror

title: A Wave of Horror


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2 {|style="margin: auto;" Publisher’s Copyright ©
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PERCETAKAN NASIONAL MALAYSIA BERHAD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without the prior permission of Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Berhad

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,.

London:

F. KING AND CO. (LIMITED), 44, ST. MARTIN'S LANE. CHARING CROSS, W.C.

1910.

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animal story of to-day is as much a product of evolution as was the steam engine or the wireless telegraph, and it came in answer to a need.

With music and art made alluring in the public schools and many of the simpler studies taught by means of exciting games, woodcraft had to be put in a form that should appeal to the imagination of children.

Thus it was that Charles G. D. Roberts, Clarence Hawkes, and others came to the front, with their stories of wild life. Stories just as faithful to the facts as the nature essay, and much more interesting to the youthful mind. The result has been of general benefit, for where one person was reading nature books twenty-five years ago, a dozen are reading them now. Not only the animal story, but the nature essay, and even more scientific works are profiting by the increase of interest. So

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 at the present time, children ten or twelve years of age know very much more about nature, the coming of the seasons, the wild flowers, and the migrations of the birds, than do their parents.

That about twenty volumes of these animal stories recently published should have come from the pen of one without eyesight seems at first thought a contradiction of facts, but with the reading of Clarence Hawkes' autobiography, "Hitting the Dark Trail," which has just found its way into French, this marvel is made plain.

Beethoven produced some of his best symphonies after he lost his sense of hearing. He was able to do this because the laws of music and harmony were firmly established in his soul while he could still hear. So it was with Clarence Hawkes.

For the first fourteen years of his life he not only was possessed of a pair of very keen eyes, that took in everything about him in the field and woods, but he also had the gift of remembering and correlating the things he saw. So

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 minute and faithful were these boyhood observations that they furnished material for his first eight nature books.

Hunting, fishing, camping, tramping were his chief delight, and these early pictures of the out-of-doors were to stand him in good stead in after years.

I have read many of Clarence Hawkes' books and have always found them true to nature, and of gripping interest. Books that it would be safe and profitable to put in the hands of any young reader whom you wished to introduce to the denizens of field and forest. "Shaggycoat," "Shovelhorns," "A Wilderness Dog," and others are books that will give you the known facts about these animals, in a manner that will both entertain and instruct. While if you wish to know more of this author's life and struggles, read "Hitting the Dark Trail," which has been such an inspiration to the blinded soldiers of the United States, England and France.

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winding way is a pleasant way and this is partly because it is winding. The straight way on the other hand has no surprises because one can see so far ahead. But with the winding way it is different.

It is like Life full of surprises. One cannot tell what new thing he will stumble upon at the very next turn only a few yards ahead.

There are many kinds of winding ways, but all are interesting. The first winding way that the good people of Boston knew was a cow path, upon which they finally builded their main street. It is rather amusing to think that perhaps a frisky calf may have struck out the first thoroughfare of the great city.

The winding way may be also an old wood road running far back into the timber land. I know many such and they are all interesting. This is because they go twisting and winding

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 in and out to accommodate themselves to the timber and the unevenness of the ground. Then in the early days there were Indian trails and deer paths in our northern country. The Indian trails were finally used by the settlers for bridle paths and the cows often followed old deer paths to the best water-holes. Many of the great streets of the world's greatest cities were formerly but stage-coach approaches to a small trading post. Such was one of the great avenues of New York in the days when the first John Jacob Astor brought down beaver pelts from Albany on his back and traded with the Indians for the first few dollars of the Astor fortune.

Almost no railroad has ever climbed a high mountain chain but what the adventuresome traveler was there before the railroad riding a faithful pony up a steep bridle path. The prairie schooners of the early days marked the way for the mighty transcontinental railroads which to-day connect the Atlantic and the Pacific seaboards. But when the railroad and the smooth straight macadam road take the

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 place of the winding way, they spoil it for the nature lover. This is because they straighten all its crooks, go round its steepest climbs, and despoil much of the adjacent landscape in so doing. There is no great gain in this old world that is wholly without loss. So all the improvements which man seeks to perpetrate on nature take away something from her primitive beauty. Of course we all appreciate the telephone and the telegraph, but a telephone pole always looks out of place along a country road.

So to-day for your winding way, you will have to go back away from the beaten tracks to the less cultivated or civilized country, country that is too poor or too out of the way for the invasions of civilization. There you will still find many a cow path and old wood road, twisting and winding on its devious way. It will not matter much what season of the year you go, there will always be something interesting.

If it is springtime the arbutus will arrest you with its fragrance even before you find its vine deep hidden in the grass and dead leaves.

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 If you are not so fortunate as to discover this rare wild flower, then the hepatica, the anemone, the bloodroot, or perhaps a shadbush will make the pathway glad. The first birds will be singing and nesting. The squirrels scolding and frisking and all the woods glad and glorious in the scant illusive dress of springtime.

If it is summer the path will riot with beauty and glory. Flowers and fruit will be ready for the picking, berries that the birds planted and flowers that were sown by the winds of heaven.

If it is autumn you will have to vie with the squirrels in a mad scramble for nuts. On every hand you will see the promises of summer fully redeemed, for nature pays all her notes. A carpet of brown, russet and gold will rustle beneath your feet, while the campfires of autumn will burn brightly along the watercourses, on soft maple, and stag-horn sumac.

Even in winter this winding way will be beautiful. The new snow will gem all its trees and weeds with ridges of pearl. The plumes

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 of the evergreens will look like white caps and flowing gowns. Blue shadows will steal from behind the trees, perhaps to accent a very red sunset.

So the winding way is beautiful and wonderful in all seasons. I advise each of my readers to seek it as often as possible. It will rest your tired nerves more than sleep and its bracing air is the very best tonic.

Breathe deep breaths of pine and balsam, or the fragrance of new-mown hay. These are primitive scents full of healing and comfort.

Lay your own tired heart close to the great beating heart of Mother Nature and rest. Rest and be glad. Forget time and the city life and its hustle and bustle. Just let the wonder and the peace of the winding way steal into your soul and make you a child again. The simplest and the best of all children, a child of nature.

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story of Bluie is one of the strangest of all the bird chronicles that has ever come under my observation, during thirty years of study of the ways of our little furred and feathered friends. I will tell it to you just as it happened, without any embellishments, so that you may be absolutely sure that you are reading a real story about a real bird.

To my mind it is just another one of those strange happenings in nature which shows that the wild creatures, especially the birds and squirrels, often long for human companionship and friendship.

This is why the song-birds flock into our country villages and even frequent great cities. Thus they may be on the outskirts of civiliza-

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 tion, and watch men and women come and go. There is a wonderful companionship for us with the song-birds. It is a great compliment to man to have the swallows build in the eaves of his buildings and the robins and orioles plan their nests in his very dooryard. They teach us many valuable lessons. Their friendship should be cultivated as a priceless thing, and children should be taught at every opportunity to befriend them.

Bluie, as you may have guessed, was a bluebird. He came to us as the result of a tragedy in birdland—just one more of those tragedies which are always occurring. If it is not the cat, or some larger bird that preys upon the weaker, then it is the elements.

For several years a pair of bluebirds had made their home in a deserted woodpecker's nest in an old sweet-apple tree in the back yard. We were sure that this was the same pair of bluebirds that came to us year after year, because they did the same things each year. They were just as familiar with the place the day that they returned in the spring as they

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 were the day that they flew away to the South. As soon as they arrived they would always look for food in the places where we had left it the year before, and also for material with which to patch up last year's nest. So they were our old friends without a doubt.

The year in question they had come as usual and repaired the nest. There had seemed to be some doubt in their minds as to whether to use the old home again. They had prospected about for a while house-hunting, but had finally come back to the old home.

The nest had been rebuilt as usual, the eggs laid and the fledglings hatched, when the tragedy occurred. It happened when the fledglings were two or three weeks old. They were fully feathered out and would have been able to fly in another week. As some of my readers doubtless know a small bluebird is not blue at all, but black as a young crow. It is not until some months later that the young birds put on the markings of their elders.

One afternoon late in May a violent thunder and wind storm came up. The rains fell in

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 torrents and the wind blew a hurricane. When it finally cleared up and we looked outside, we found that the old sweet-apple tree had been laid low. Our first thought was not of the loss of the tree, but of the bluebirds' nest.

We found that the tree had split open in its fall and the nest lay upon the ground. The two young bluebirds were still in it, but they had received a bad shaking up. The old birds had evidently thought that the end of the world had come, for we never saw them again. If they did come back to look for their nest, we did not know it.

We set the nest with the fledglings in it upon the piazza, in a conspicuous place, in hopes that if the old birds returned they would see it. By nightfall, as they had not discovered the nest, we brought it into the house. One of the small birds died the first night, but Bluie survived and thrived from the very first.

We were full of misgivings as to our ability to raise him, but he surprised us at every turn. In fact he fitted into our life so well that one

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 might have thought that we too had sometime been bluebirds.

At first we fed him on crackers and milk, but I finally concluded that he ought to have a worm diet as well, so I spent half an hour each day looking up small worms for him. These he ate out of my hands with great relish and much greed.

A bird will eat several times as much food, for its size, as any other creature. It is said on good authority that a young robin in the nest will eat fourteen feet of angleworms per day. I presume this is true, as I have seen the old birds carry worms to their nest nearly all day long. At night the young mouths would be stretched up as eagerly as in the morning.

In two weeks after we adopted him, Bluie was flying about the kitchen. He accomplished this by degrees. One day the mistress started to go into the living-room and just for a joke as she passed through the door, she turned and said, "Want to come in here, Bluie?" To her great astonishment the little

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 fellow flew down on her shoulder from the top of a door and rode into the living-room. Here he flew about for half an hour having a fine time investigating.

When the cuckoo clock struck, it gave him quite a fright as he happened to be sitting on it at the time. But he soon got used to it; in fact this became his favorite perch in the living-room.

The following day as the mistress started to go up-stairs to do the chamber work, Bluie fluttered down to her shoulder and rode up-stairs.

After that he had the entire range of the house. Whenever he saw the mistress open a door, he knew that it meant an excursion to unknown parts, so he would fly upon her shoulder and ride away with great delight. In this manner he even made trips to the neighboring houses. But we were rather careful where we took him, fearing that he might be frightened.

At first we did not dare let him go outside, for fear that we would lose him, but he seemed

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 to be bound to us by a golden cord, the golden cord of love. We were his father and mother and the big house was his nest, and he loved us accordingly.

We could call him from the trees or even from a distant lot simply by whistling to him. Each night when I came home from work I would whistle as soon as I came into the yard. If the little fellow was anywhere in hearing, he would fly and light upon my finger and ride into the house in state.

Bluie was a marvel to all our friends. Each week we thought he would grow tired of his half civilized life and fly away with his free fellows, but he stuck by us until autumn.

By that time he had put on the full livery of a male bluebird, with the pretty red ruffs. Then a call came to him, which his kind had obeyed from time immemorial, a call that was stronger than his love for his foster parents. It was not without a struggle, though, that we lost him.

One bright day about the last of October we saw him in a distant lot with several other blue-

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 birds. I went into the house and reported to the mistress. "The bluebirds are flocking," I said, "and Bluie is with them. It is the call of nature. I am very much afraid we will lose him."

Together we went out into the field and I whistled for him. He answered with his shrill sweet little Cheerily, Cheerily, but would not come to me. Again and again I whistled. Each time he would answer, but would not come. Several times that evening I went out and tried to coax him into the house. He was still good friends with me, but mightily interested in his own kin. Perhaps a lady bluebird had already begun to flirt with him, although he was not of the courting age.

For two or three days the flock of bluebirds lingered in the field. Each day I went out and whistled for Bluie. Each time he answered me, but he would not light on my shoulder or even come near me.

"I see you, master," he seemed to be saying. "We are still good friends. You are all right. The house is a fine place, but the fields and the

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 blue sky are better. I have found my own. It is great to be a real bluebird."

One bright morning, just as I came out to take the car for work, the flock of bluebirds whirred up out of the field and skimmed away southward. I watched them until they were mere specks in the distance, then sorrowfully said, "Good-bye, Bluie. You were a wonderful little fellow. We loved you strangely, but we gladly give you back to nature where you belong. Good luck, little chap, but we will miss you."

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blue fox is first cousin to the red fox, which is so well known in the United States. He is also cousin to all the foxes, for the fox family is very closely interwoven, as far as breeding is concerned. The blue fox, the white Alaskan fox, the red fox, the silver gray, or black fox are all members of the same family, and no one can tell when one or the other of the rare specimens will appear in even a vulgar fox family. That is what makes fox breeding so difficult. The black and the blue foxes will not stay blue or black.

Old fox hunters say that they have rarely seen two foxes identically alike in color and markings, so every fox is a sort of species unto himself.

One thing is certain, all the members of the numerous fox family have definite character-

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 istics, which always appear, no matter what the color.

They always have the sharp muzzle and that shape of the head which is called foxy, although the blue fox is not so snipey as some of the others.

The general public have some very erroneous ideas as to the size and weight of a fox, once he is stripped of his beautiful coat. The fact is, the slimmest grayhound looks fat and stocky beside a fox when he is minus his coat. His fleet legs, which will carry him all day before the fastest hounds, are as slight as a lead pencil, while his girth is no larger than a man's wrist.

I have known many fox hunters and the largest dog fox they ever saw weighed fourteen pounds, while the female fox often does not weigh more than seven or eight.

Having considered the fox family as a whole, I will tell you of Blue Fox's hunting trip which I started out to describe.

Blue Fox was stockier and had a squarer head than most of the fox family, but his skull

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 contained the same fox wits, notwithstanding its shape.

He was making his way across the barrens which stretched from a mountain peak, down to the sheer cliffs which skirted the desolate Behring Sea. This barren land was covered with wild wheat and creeping willow, and was gay with wild poppies which everywhere abound in Alaska.

Midway in the barrens, a foaming stream ran cold from the glacier which crept down the distant peak. Its snow water was white as milk. Although this was Alaska, yet there was such a wealth of gay flora along the banks of this stream as would have astonished the stranger in this strange land. We think of Alaska as the land of ice and snow, yet her summers are a marvel and a delight.

Along the stream which Blue Fox was skirting, grew great masses of larkspur of every rose tint known to fashion. Gentians bluer than the blue heavens were there in wild profusion. Forget-me-nots that would have gladdened the heart of a hothouse keeper bloomed

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 by the millions to be had merely for the picking. Wild phlox lifted its gay head everywhere, while the wild poppies splashed the scene with gay patches of splendid color. This magic of the arctic sun is the wonder of the floral world. So it was a gay and beautiful country that Blue Fox traveled as he went hunting on this summer morning.

When Blue Fox had crossed the barrens (which are called tundra in the old world), he came to the top of a series of precipitate cliffs leading down to the sandpits which fringed the waters of the Behring Sea.

Down these cliffs by devious paths he picked his way, often climbing down sheer cliffs where the footing would have troubled a Rocky Mountain goat. Yet he went with ease and balanced himself where there was no apparent footing.

Arrived at the water's edge, he was rewarded for his pains, for he found the clams plenty where the receding tide had left them high and dry. He selected several and with infinite pains broke their hinges with his

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 crunching jaws and deliberately ate out the inside.

But this was only the beginning of his breakfast, for he was an epicurean.

He skirted the shore for half a mile until he came to a favorite rookery for the sea birds, then he began a slow and arduous ascent of the cliffs. Half-way up, there were hundreds of the nests of sea-gulls, or shags, as the sailors call them. Although the angry birds swooped and screamed at the robber, yet he kept doggedly on his way. Finally he discovered a nest within his reach which the frightened mother shag had left. He lifted the egg gently in his mouth and continued his desperate climb to the top of the cliff. When he had scaled the last breathless twenty feet, he lay down upon a rock and, breaking a small hole in the large end of the egg, deliberately sucked it to the last drop.

He paid no more attention to the screaming gulls, auks and kittywinks, than he would have to flies.

But when he had finished his egg, he had to

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 think of Mrs. Blue Fox and the four kit foxes in the burrow half a mile away. The kit foxes were pulling on the dam and he had to keep her nourished. She must have something besides egg, so he set his wits to work for his family.

Very leisurely, Mr. Blue Fox proceeded along the cliff. Occasionally he stopped to sniff at a rock, or to stretch himself, or to yawn, he was a very innocent looking chap, intent merely on a morning walk along the cliff. Presently he came to a rock which suited his purpose.

It was large and flat, just the sort of a rock to take a sun bath on. So he climbed upon it and lay down, stretching and yawning. He really looked tired to death, just ready for a long morning nap. He curled himself up into a round ball, his tail streaming out on the rock behind him.

The gulls, kittywinks, and auks circled nearer. They had really never had a good look at a sleeping fox. Mr. Blue Fox was usually so wide awake and energetic that his sleepiness interested them. Nearer and nearer

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 they circled. Finally the crafty hunter lifted his fine brush slowly and then let it fall. The excitement among the circling birds increased. Again he tried the experiment.

Curiosity is the most dangerous quality that the wild creatures possess; for instance wigwagging deer is a favorite method of shooting them. Mr. Fox was wigwagging gulls.

Again he repeated the interesting experiment. In an unguarded moment, a curious shag circled not four feet above him. Then something happened that was not on the gull's program. With a motion as sudden as though propelled by gunpowder, Mr. Fox shot into the air and his powerful jaws closed upon the unfortunate gull's neck. He brought the shag flapping to the rock and with one turn of his head broke his neck. Thus Mrs. Fox and the kit foxes had their breakfast.

Then he deliberately threw the dead bird over his shoulder and trotted away, a very successful hunter.

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is very apt to get puffed up and full of vanity when he considers his discoveries and his achievements in many ways. But there is very little that he knows or has discovered but what was used by either animals, birds or insects, even before man appeared in the world. All of the secrets of nature are as old as the world itself, and the wonder is that man has not discovered more of them sooner.

Man considers himself a great builder. He is proud of his houses, his dams, his bridges and tunnels. Yet the animals, birds, insects and some fishes have in a degree known the art of house-building. The beaver is a better dam builder than man when we consider his size. The spider is a better bridge builder, and the mole can make a more scientific tunnel. So why should man be puffed up?

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 Did you ever go out on a summer morning, when there had been a heavy dew the night before and see an entire field literally covered with a wonderful fine mesh, that sparkled and glistened in the sunlight until it looked like fairy-land? Many of the tops of the taller grasses were bound together, ever so delicately, by a wonderful shimmering something, which you children called cobwebs. In the summer-time you will see these delicate shimmering garments on the tall weeds, and on the walls along the roadside.

Did you ever stop to think that this is all the work of the spiders and the fields are beautiful this morning because a million spiders wanted to travel, catch flies, or amuse themselves?

Yet this is the case. The spider is the original balloonist. He also knows the use of the parachute and he can disport himself in the air more gracefully than any bird, and as airily as thistle-down. In fact his ballooning is a sort of thistle-down performance. For he has discovered the secret of all the lighter than air flying machines.

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 Place a spider on a block of wood in the middle of a dish of water and see what will happen. He will first run about the wood till he sees that in every direction is water. Then he will rear upon his hind legs and begin spinning a thread. This is made by his spitting out a liquid which is contained in his long bottle-shaped abdomen. As soon as this liquid reaches the air, it becomes the very delicate solid which we know as web, or gossamer. Perhaps he made the gossamer too heavy the first time, so it sinks in the water. If so he will try again. Presently you will see the tiny thread float across to the side of the dish. When it has become strong enough to hold him, Mr. Spider will walk across on his suspension bridge and climb up the side of the dish, laughing at you all the time.

One of the favorite pastimes of the spider is ballooning or parachuting, whichever suits him at the time.

He will climb upon a wall or fence where there is a current of air and free space for his flying performance. He will stand upon his

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 hind legs and spin out a long glistening thread. If he has made the thread right and there is enough air to carry it you will see it floating away in the air, and balancing. When Mr. Spider thinks it is long enough to hold his weight, he will slide on to the end coming from his mouth and float away as gracefully as a parachute man.

But this parachute act is not so interesting as his ballooning which calls for more spinning. This time he will climb up as before for the flight. He will weave much more gossamer than he did for the parachute. This he will weave into a cradle or basket, shaping it with his hind feet. When the basket is ready he will spin more long threads to act as stays for his basket, and to buoy it up. When all is ready and there comes a strong gust of air he launches his tiny cradle in air and goes sailing away just as skillfully as any other balloonist. But like man he has no power to control the direction which he will travel, and has to go where the air takes him.

The cunning old spider who weaves a skill-

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 ful web and hides in one corner and watches for flies is also a very wise fellow if he is something of a cannibal. But so long as he hunts mere flies we do not care.

So the reason why the fields and fences are so beautiful on summer mornings when they sparkle and glisten is because the spiders wanted to go somewhere and so built bridges, or launched parachutes and sailed balloons. Then the dewdrop people came and gemmed these shimmering gossamers with diamonds, making a fairy-land of beauty and wonder.

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spring when Cock Robin and My Lady came north they decided that they would seek an entirely new nesting place. They had been having rather poor luck with their babies for several years so they thought they would find a new place for the house.

For the past three years they had built in an apple tree in a farmer's dooryard. This had been a fine place for the nest and they had enjoyed the farmer and his wife. The children were also very friendly, but there were other drawbacks. The farmer kept a lot of cats. So each time they knocked the new brood out of the nest they were sure to lose some of the fledglings.

The starlings also troubled them. The grackles were likewise not on good terms with the robin family. But worst of all a villainous black crow had found the nest one morning

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 very early, before the farmer was up, and had robbed it of every small bird. If the farmer had been up he would have spoken to Mr. Crow with his bangstick, but the crow was too early for the farmer and the murder had gone unpunished.

So for all these reasons the robins decided to seek a new home. They prospected about for a long time. Finding a really fine place for a nest is a task that takes patience. So many things have to be considered. They investigated orchards and barns and many other outbuildings before they finally made a decision. The place that they finally decided upon pleased them both exceedingly, but what it was or what it was used for they did not know.

It was not far from a railroad depot, the terminal of a small country line. There was only one train a day and that went to the city in the morning and returned at night.

There were a lot of iron beams and cross-beams and the place was rather dark and secluded. Cock Robin felt sure that cats never

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 came there. They discovered this spot about nine o'clock in the morning; the train had gone to the city two hours before and the yard was quiet. In fact it was nearly always quiet, except at morning and evening. They had wasted so much time searching that they went to work diligently and by night they had the nest partly built. Mud and straw had been plenty and they had never before made such progress. They roosted in a tree near by that night feeling very happy over the day's work.

You can well imagine their astonishment and disgust on the following morning to find the nest gone. They did not go to see it until after the train had gone and the yard was quiet. The beam where they had placed it was there but no nest. Neither were there any signs of their labors. When a nest is blown down there is usually some mud left clinging to the place, but this beam was quite clean. They were much puzzled, but set to work again with a will. The birds and the wild creatures have a patience that puts to shame the best efforts of man. If they do not succeed at first they try

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 again. So they worked very hard all day and by night had the nest half done again.

Cock Robin was the first to investigate the nest on the following morning and he hastened to report to My Lady. The new nest that they had worked on the day before was gone, but the old one was back. He could tell it because it was shaped slightly differently. They had also used more straw in it. My Lady laughed at him, but he stuck to it that it was the nest they had worked on two days before.

"Well," said My Lady, "I am just as well suited with this one. Let's finish it." So they went to work, and by night it was nearly completed. It only needed a few finishing touches and some shaping which My Lady always did herself. The robins went to roost that night feeling, very jubilant. Cock Robin prolonged his evening song on account of the nearly finished nest.

When he flew to the nest in the morning with his beak full of straw, he dropped the straw at the first sight of the nest and flew away to tell his wife.

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 The nest which had been so nearly completed was gone, and the half built nest was back in its place. They were much troubled and flew back and forth "quitting" and "quitting." Some one was playing them a mean trick. But Mrs. Robin finally persuaded her husband that this nest was almost as good as the other and if they hurried they might even finish it that day. So they worked with a will and by night it was done.

It was a very happy pair of robins that went to roost that night. On the morrow there would be a blue robin's egg in the nest.

Mrs. Robin was the first to inspect the nest in the morning. In fact she went to lay the first egg of the set. But she soon came flying to Cock Robin with strange news. The completed nest was gone and in its place was the nearly completed one.

But Cock Robin could not explain it. He could only "quit" and fly about.

But finally he and Mrs. Robin together finished the nest in the forenoon and in the afternoon Mrs. Robin laid the first egg. This

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 egg was very large for a robin's egg, and of a heavenly blue, and she was quite proud of it.

As soon as the train had gone on the following morning she flew to the nest. She would lay another egg that day. She was very happy.

You can perhaps imagine her astonishment to And that the nest with the egg in it was not there, but the other nest that they had finished two days before was back and there was of course no egg in it.

Although Mrs. Robin was astonished beyond bird expression, yet she set to work to repair the damage by laying a second egg. But this egg was not so large, and not quite so deep a blue as the other.

Cock Robin himself went to inspect the nest on the following morning. To tell the truth this sudden disappearance of the nests was getting on his nerves. He came back with a strange report. The nest containing the large blue egg was back, but the other nest was gone.

"Well," said My Lady, "I don't like it,

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 but as long as we have a nest with one egg in it, let's be satisfied."

"But," said Cock Robin, "we have got two nests and each one has an egg in it."

But Mrs. Robin was so interested laying her eggs that she did not trouble her head about it, but laid a second egg in the nest with the small egg.

But wonder of wonders, on the morrow, the nest with two eggs in it was gone and the nest with the large egg in it was back. This really alarmed Cock Robin. But Mrs. Robin laid another egg beside the large egg and they had two nests with two eggs in each.

That night after Mrs. Robin was asleep on the roost, for she had been so disturbed that she had not dared to stay on the nest, brave Cock Robin decided he would guard the nest and find out what it was that stole the home away each day, so he sat upon the eggs all night.

In the morning the train came in, made up as usual, and went away to the city. But it had barely left the station when a very excited

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 Cock Robin flew away to find Mrs. Robin and tell her the wonderful story. It had been a terrible ordeal for the brave little bird, but he had solved the mystery. He knew where their extra nest went each day.

Cock Robin had been very comfortable on the nest all night and he had begun to think that it was not going to leave them that day when they started to make up the train in the yard. But presently the Great Thunderer, as the robins called the locomotive, was detached from the train and came roaring and hissing along the shiny rails toward the place where poor little Cock Robin was sitting on his nest. He was terribly frightened and was about to fly away when it passed above him, and he could not fly out, or he was too scared to.

Then there was the talk of the men above and the beams, the cross-beams, and Cock Robin and his nest began slowly moving. They swung around further and further and then finally stood still. Then the Great Thunderer rolled away snorting and thundering.

Cock Robin, frightened nearly to death, flew

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 out from under the turntable and went to tell his wife.

The trainmen saw him go and soon discovered the nest. They also found the second nest at the other end of the turntable.

"Plucky little fellows, aren't they?" said one man. "Let's watch them and see how they make it go. It must seem strange to them to have their two houses shifted about each day."

In a very few seconds both robins came back and Cock Robin proudly showed his wife the second nest only twenty feet away and quite as secure as its fellow.

But My Lady was very much disturbed, and not much elated over her mate's discovery.

"I can't sit on the eggs in both nests at once. What can I do? Half of the eggs will spoil."

"Well, we will see," said her mate, who was fco tickled with himself for being so clever that he did not worry about the second nest. But he did get excited when his mate announced her plan. In fact, he was very angry at the suggestion.

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 "You have got to sit on the eggs in the second nest. That is the only way," announced Mrs. Robin. "I am not going to lay eggs for nothing."

Cock Robin protested that he would spoil his plumage and also made many other excuses, but his wife had her own way (just as the ladies usually do). So poor Cock Robin sat on the extra eggs and they hatched two broods of young robins.

The trainmen watched them all through the process. They were so impressed with their pluck that they helped feed the young birds and that gave their parents a great help.

Finally when it was time for the two broods to be shoved out of the nest, the trainmen picked them up under the turntable and placed them in trees near by, so that all survived.

But when Cock Robin proposed that they raise another brood on one nest this time, My Lady struck. She said that two broods were enough for that year and that she wasn't going to live under the Great Thunderer any longer. So they took their double family to a near-

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 by orchard and spent a very pleasant summer.

This is a strange romance in birdland, but the trainmen who gave me the main incident say that "it is true," and I give it to you just as I received it.

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all the wild pets that I have ever had any experience with, the raccoon is the most satisfactory. The raccoon is sometimes called the Little Brother to the Bear, and really belongs to the bear, or plantigrade family. Like the bear, he is very good natured and he also has some of the bear's drollery and his mischievousness as well. Many of the wild creatures such as the fox are so wild by nature that they really never become wholly tame. You may take a kit fox from the den when he is a month old and rear him by hand, but he will always have his fox suspicion of you. No matter how much you may pet him, his jaws will always come up to meet your hand. Although he may not bite you, he is always on the watch and always suspicious.

The raccoon, on the other hand, is a very

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 lovable fellow and soon learns to like his boy master after a fashion.

When I was a small boy, we captured a couple of coon cubs and kept them as long as possible. Their pranks and the mischief that they got into made our place very lively most of the time. We caught them in May while mending fences. A small fox hound that always followed wherever I went on the farm treed something in an old birch stub and the hired man and I went to investigate. As the stub seemed rather rotten, we both put our shoulders against it and to our great surprise it went over. This surprised a family of raccoons as well. The two old raccoons fled with a great snarling as did the cubs. The hound caught one of the cubs and killed it, while the hired man and myself each caught a cub alive. The rest of the family escaped, but where they went I never knew, for they disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed them, but I presume they were just hiding near by in a tree.

The two cubs that we captured were very

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 lively. At first they tried to bite and scratch, but seeing we did not intend to hurt them, they became quite docile. I took them home in a grain sack in which we had brought the horses' noon feed and later on made a cage for them with a small wire netting yard. Here they lived for a month, but they grew so rapidly and seemed so active that I finally decided that these quarters were too confining for them. In the front yard there was a small ash tree, tall and slender, so I built a chicken wire fence ten feet from its base which entirely encircled the tree. In this yard I put the raccoons' house and left them free to climb the tree at their own sweet will. This pleased them greatly and they chased each other up and down the tree with great glee. They often slept in the tree and really lived in it far more than they did on the ground.

I finally named the raccoons Tobius and Cochunko and we called them Toby and Chunk for short. All the boys and girls in the neighborhood came to see them, and they were often let out of their tree pen so that they might get

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 a better acquaintance with them. Sometimes after they had been out of the pen for several hours at a time, it was hard to catch them. I always went to see that they were safe in the pen for the night.

They were as much alike as too peas, although Tobius was always a little larger, but each had the ringed tail, the black spectacles about the eyes and the ring about the nose. Their coats were thick and soft and they were always fat as butter.

They were not particular about their diet, but they were very careful to wash everything they ate, so we kept a wooden trough in their pen for that purpose. I suppose this is because of the raccoon's habit of washing fish as soon as he catches them.

Whenever I went fishing, I always saved the dace and suckers for the raccoons. Also when I dressed the fish, the heads were likewise saved.

In fact, the two usually stood by me while I dressed my catch and took the heads as fast as they came off.

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 One day when they were left outside, the pair visited a fish-pond kept by a neighbor a score of rods away and each caught a large trout. I suppose they had become tired of fish heads and suckers and wanted a taste of trout.

The last of July my grandfather, who kept the garden, complained that the woodchucks were eating the summer squashes. Some of them they ate, while they merely scooped out the seeds and left the shell of others.

A week or two later, grandfather said that something was bending down the sweet corn and then stripping off the ears. In fact, most of our first planting of sweet corn disappeared before we discovered the thieves. One day I caught them in the act. The thieves were Tobius and Cochunko. They would bend a stalk of corn down under the fore leg and then strip off the ear and eat it at their leisure.

They also visited the sweet-apple trees and ate many apples, but spoiled more than they ate. They finally became so destructive that we were obliged to place them again in the tree

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 pen and only let them out for short plays when we could watch them.

After the fruit was picked and the vegetables gathered in the autumn we again let them loose. In fact they roamed about the place much as they liked. I merely saw that they were safe in the pen for the night.

About this time one of our chicken coops was raided and two pullets killed. One was partly eaten, but the other was left.

We at once decided that it was the work of a fox, but wondered why he did not carry off the dead pullet. So I set a trap that night and awaited developments.

To my great surprise, in the morning I found a rather small raccoon in my trap. The culprit looked like Cochunko, but it could not be he, for both of my pets were safe in the tree pen. I went to investigate and saw that Tobius was the only occupant of the pen, so it was really Cochunko.

He was merely caught by the toes and was not much injured, but his feelings were evidently badly hurt, for when I pressed down the

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 trap and released him he made for the woods at his best pace. I followed after him calling and trying to regain his confidence, but he would have none of me. So I was obliged to let him go back to the wild.

So far as I know, Tobius never took any of our chickens although we lost others that fall. In the late autumn, we let him come and go just as he pleased. Finally about the first of December he also disappeared and I thought we had lost him for good, but I finally discovered him one day up in the sugar-house where he had taken refuge in a sap hogshead.

The hogshead was partly filled with leaves and he had a fine warm nest where he was sleeping away the winter. As I hated to lose him, I brought him to the house and chained him in a warm place under the shed. I put an old dog collar on him so that I was sure that he could not get away.

He did not eat as much as he had in the autumn and was rather sleepy, but occasionally aroused and came out to see us. In the early spring, one day when I went to see him, I

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 pulled out the chain as usual but found no raccoon at the end of it. The chain had been broken close to the collar and Tobius had gone after his brother back to the wild.

I did not see him again until the middle of the summer. Then one day while I was hoeing corn, I discovered my pet coming slowly toward me. He was evidently half afraid, yet he wanted to see me for some reason. He would advance and then retreat and was quite uncertain what to do. So I sat down and waited, keeping very still. When he got close to me, I began talking to him just as I had been in the habit of doing.

I called him old Toby and said that he was a good chap, if he had run away. Finally he came up close enough for me to put my hand on him, but he soon retreated. Then he sat down and looked at me, I thought reproachfully. Finally he came up close and stood looking at me with a grieved, injured air. I wondered what was the matter with him.

I had often seen a dog act like that when he wanted something, but never a raccoon.

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 Finally I remembered his collar and stooped down to see if he still had it on. I found it deeply imbedded in his fur and very tight. Here was the secret of his friendliness. The collar was choking him. I had put it on, and he thought I could fix it. So I carefully unbuckled it, and put it in my pocket. As he felt the collar slip from his neck, the ring-tailed culprit turned and scuttled for the woods without even stopping to say thank you. Once a dozen rods away he turned and looked back at me. I thought he was trying to make up his mind whether to return or to go back to the woods, but the call of his kind and the forest was too much for him, so he finally turned and disappeared in the woods.

This was the last that I ever saw of Tobius or Cochunko. They had gone the way of most of my wild pets, so I was not surprised. We had enjoyed them while they were with us and now missed them, but it was the way of nature.

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you ever stop to think what a cheerless old world this would be if there were no bird songs, and how much these simple songs do to cheer us and make us glad? Especially is this true of the country. I do not think the country would really be country at all without them.

How could Mother Nature ever call up the wild flowers, had not Bluebird announced springtime from the top of the elm tree several weeks before spring showed the faintest signs of coming? How could the first touch of green appear upon the lawn, and the first dandelion lift its golden head, had not the robin announced such events, and the meadow-lark been singing, "Spring o' the year, Spring o' the year" for days down in the meadow? How could the cowslips lift their bright yellow

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 blossoms along the brookside had not the red winged blackbird made the meadow glad with his cheerful call, so full of the very ecstasy of spring?

I am sure that the buds could not unfold, or the blossoms appear in the fruit trees, did they not know that the birds were building in their branches, and that they needed the leafy fastnesses to hide their nests.

I lie awake several mornings in late March in order that I may not miss the robin's first morning song. He is the chorister for the birds' matin song. No one dares to sing until he gives the cry.

His call to awake, arise and sing always comes suddenly, or it sounds sudden. "Quit, quit, quit, wake up and be glad," he cries. From a distant tree, another robin responds with the morning matin song and the chorister himself joins in the glad refrain. "Cheery cheerup, cheery cheerup." It is certainly a good way to begin the day, with cheery cheerup. If you keep this song in your heart all day long, things will not go badly with you,

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 or if they do for a while, you will cheer up and overcome them.

To my mind, the bird songs are the most true and tender expressions of gratitude to God that this old earth ever hears. They make man's petitions seem stale and incomplete. To hear the robins singing in the rain, their coats drabbled with wet and their toes perhaps numb with cold, is both an inspiration and a rebuke. If the robins sing when it rains, why not we?

There are many birds that are so glad that they sing on the wing.

To them winging is singing, and singing means winging. Conspicuous in this last are: The bobolink, the meadow-lark, the oriole, the wild canary, the vesper sparrow, the oven bird, and several others whose songs are not so beautiful. To me, the wild canary when he flies always seems to be saying, "O see us go; O see us go; O see us go," over and over.

The song of the woodcock on the wing is wonderful and many naturalists have never heard it. Even Mr. Burroughs was nearly

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 sixty when he first heard the woodcock sing on the wing.

The woodcock is one of the first arrivals in the springtime. You will hear his hoarse glad cry along the brookside, a note which is identical with the hoarse cry made by the nighthawk as he sails through the summer skies a few weeks later. If you have good eyes and you know what this cry prefaces, presently you will see Mr. Woodcock go sailing up into the spring sky. He zigzags up, as he is not a strong flyer.

When he is well up, he will fly about for a while, in perfect silence, then he will come zigzagging down, pivoting and wheeling, and pouring out his liquid song, which sounds like about a dozen canaries all singing at once.

There are many songs so simple and so characteristic that any one can tell them. Such songs as that of the cuckoo, which, when he is very busy eating tent-caterpillars, is shortened to simply the second syllable coo. The wild weird cry of the whippoorwill cannot be mistaken.

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 Nor can the song of the ring-dove, or that of the mourning dove; the latter is so slight in sound that it would not be heard at all were it not so perfectly given. This song is often heard before a storm. There are other good weather prophets who warn us of coming storms. The robin sings a sad, sweet song before the rain. The cuckoo, the bob-white and others give us warning of approaching storms, as do certain owls.

The notes of alarm which the birds use are quite different from their songs. They are always given with a rising inflection and there is a harassed, pathetic quality to those notes. One day I stepped to my front door with a couple of small sparrow-hawks balanced on my finger. They were too small to fly and perfectly harmless, but what happened?

In less than a minute's time, there were at least fifty birds of probably a dozen different species, crying and quitting at the top of their voices, protesting in no uncertain language that I, the friend of birds, had dared bring these robbers and murderers to my front door.

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 The birds made such a fuss that I was obliged to carry the young hawks into the house.

It is very pleasant on an autumn night when hundreds of sparrows and other birds have gone to roost in the vines that run the entire length of my house, to hear the birds cheeping and twittering to one another softly before they tuck their heads under their wings and go to sleep. Perhaps they are saying good-night, and wishing each other pleasant dreams.

The same soft notes come from the fledglings each night as the twilight settles and they prepare to sleep.

When I am not too busy, I always go to the piazza to hear the vesper song of the birds. It is a most tender and beautiful way in which to close the day, a sort of benediction that lingers long in my heart.

First the robin will begin his evening song. Another will answer from a distant tree-top, for all the world like an echo. If I happen to be at the little cottage where I sometimes go in the springtime, then the veery will trill from a near-by thicket his remarkable de-

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 scending spiral song, wild and weird, like the very spirit of the woods, yet wonderfully tender. Then the wood-thrush, which Mr. Burroughs considers the finest of all our song-birds, will fill in the silence with his flute-like song, liquid as molten silver falling into a crucible of gold. Soon the whippoorwills will call from a distance, the minor note of the woods. Perhaps the hermit thrush will close the concert with a song so tender and beautiful that I am left breathless and entranced.

As the vesper songs of the birds grow fainter and fainter, the cricket takes up the refrain from the grass near by. "Cheep cheep cheep. I am glad too. I am not much of a singer, but hear me. Cheep cheep."

Then the spring fragrance fills the air, the twilight deepens, the stars appear, and I go into the house. I have been hearing the birds praise God for His goodness and say all their other prayers as well. Instinctively my own heart swells with gratitude, because of the birds' vesper song, and their devotion to the ways of nature and the haunts of man.

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Red Rogue was a rogue, not because he was red, but because he comes from a roguish and a rascally family, so perhaps it was not so much his fault. If one's forebears have been bad for untold generations it is hard to break away from the habit, so I do not condemn him altogether.

Besides, his badness was only of the mischievous order, with one exception which I will mention later.

I had owned many red squirrels when I was a boy. All of these I caught in a box trap. They were always kept in a cage. Sometimes they died after a long season of captivity, but more frequently I let them go when I had become tired of watching their antics.

But the Red Rogue came to me in quite a different manner. I simply stooped down

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 under a walnut tree one July afternoon and picked him up in my hand. I took the precaution, however, to put my handkerchief over his head. Many severe nips that I had received in boyhood taught me that precaution.

The Rogue was a half-grown red squirrel. Just what was the matter with him I never determined. Possibly he had fallen and injured himself, or been stunned, for he was rather quiet for a day or two.

A squirrel under normal conditions rarely falls or hurts himself while running and jumping in the tree-tops. They will jump from incredible heights without injuring themselves. I once saw a red squirrel jump from the top of a maple which we estimated was a hundred feet high. He jumped to the top of the farmhouse where I lived when a boy. It was a good seventy-foot jump, but he floated down as gracefully as a dead leaf in autumn.

When a squirrel jumps from a great height he spreads his legs out, and flattens out his body so as to present as much surface as possible to the air. He also seems to fluff up his

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 fur. His tail he spreads out behind and uses it as a rudder while he falls slowly and gracefully.

Once when John Burroughs was traveling in Mexico he was much impressed with the stories that the natives told him about the ability of the black Mexican squirrel to jump from a great height. The naturalist scoffed at the natives so much that they finally tried an experiment for his benefit. A black squirrel was caught and taken in a bag to the top of a cliff which fell sheer for five hundred feet. They opened the mouth of the bag, while a man stood on either side of it to prevent the squirrel's escape in any way but by jumping. The squirrel looked first at one of his captors and then at the other, and then over the side of the cliff. Without a second's hesitation he took the leap. He was six or eight seconds making the descent, striking gracefully upon a rock. He did not seem to be in the slightest degree injured by his long jump. Any other quadruped, with the exception of the flying squirrel, would have been pounded to jelly.

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 After examining the Red Rogue carefully to see if I could determine what made him so lifeless, I wrapped him in my handkerchief, put him in my pocket, and took him home.

We had no cat at the time, so he was given the full run of the house, or rather, he took it, for after two or three days he made himself very much at home. His dazed, half-paralyzed condition gave way very shortly to antics and capers, which made the house very lively whenever he was taken with a playful mood.

His principal articles of diet were popcorn, walnuts, peanuts, hard breadcrusts, and several kinds of cereals, such as puffed rice, grape-nuts and the like. We always fed him on top of the old bureau but he often preferred to eat elsewhere, and he would take his breakfast to most unexpected places. We were constantly brushing up his chankings in every part of the house.

It was very pleasant though to see him sit on top of the old bureau and gnaw his way to the heart of a walnut. He always prospected about before attacking a nut, and gnawed into

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 the meat where the shell was thinnest. How he knew where the shell was the thinnest I do not know. But I have often noticed this fact when examining nuts in the woods that had been partly eaten by squirrels.

I loved best to see him sit on his haunches, his tail cocked saucily over his shoulder, his bright eyes watching my every motion while he scolded and barked away for dear life. I used to imitate his own scolding and barking by putting my lips to the back of my hand and blowing and sucking. This was the way that I had called squirrels when I was a boy.

When I began scolding and barking he would stop for a time and watch me narrowly. Presently he would seem to detect a false note in my performance, then he would set up a great racket, showing me just how it was done.

One of his bad habits was taking all sorts of small articles which he should have let alone and hiding them in most unexpected places. Thus he would gradually scatter the contents of his mistress's work-basket all over the house. If she wanted a ball of darning-cotton, it was

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 just as apt to be in a pigeonhole in my desk as anywhere else. One day he discovered the button-box and hid its contents in every part of the house. But it was on my desk that he made his worst attacks. I am usually very particular about my desk and do not want things disturbed there, so I often wonder how I ever put up with this small red imp so long. Rubber erasers were his special delight. He did not gnaw them, but he would carry them off and hide them by the half dozen. At least, I had to purchase a whole dozen before I hit upon the scheme of putting them in a drawer that he could not open. Pencils, penholders and other small articles he also tumbled about. It was most annoying to have the contents of a pigeonhole pulled out and scattered about in order that a red rascal might crawl into the small enclosure and go to sleep, but he looked so cute when I discovered him there that I forgave him.

Nor was his mischief confined to the house. Many an unripe butternut he dropped down from the old tree, and one day when he at-

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 tacked my pear tree and dropped down half a bushel of green pears, I was quite furious, but when I plugged him with some of the green pears, he scampered down the tree and ran up to me to see what it was all about.

Had not his misdemeanors passed from the mischief state to that of a real crime I do not know how long we might have been bothered with him, but his last offense I could not condone, although I had made many excuses for him. This last offense was nothing short of murder.

It was about the first of August. The pair of robins that had builded in an old apple-tree near the house had been very prolific, and had hatched their third brood about a week before. Knowing the murderous tendencies of the red squirrel I had hoped that our pet would not discover them, but I had reckoned wrongly, for his bright eyes seemed to see everything.

One forenoon when I was trying to write, I noticed a great commotion from the robins in the old tree. I at once went to their assistance, thinking that perhaps the grackles or the star-

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 lings were troubling them, but imagine my disgust to find the Red Rogue sitting on the edge of the nest, deliberately cracking the skulls of the young robins and then dropping the dead fledglings to the ground.

I was angry enough to have had him shot, but I could not bring myself to do that. I had watched him too long, and he had too strong a hold on my affections, so I merely frightened him away and when he was once more in the house I caught him and put him in the cage, where he should have been kept from the first. Such rogues as he should always be behind bars.

He scolded and barked and was very indignant. To his mind we had played a mean trick on him. He had been good as red squirrels go, and we had locked him up like a common criminal.

After this, whenever I looked at him, or whenever I heard him barking or scolding, I plotted to get rid of him. My opportunity came sooner than I had anticipated. A day or two after the Rogue's last offense, I discovered

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 another red squirrel barking in a distant orchard. I at once took the cage under my arm and set off in the direction of the orchard. I soon discovered the other squirrel. From the dull color of the coat and the shape of the head, I concluded that it was a young female red squirrel. The fates were good to me. Here was a Delilah for my Samson. So I set the cage on the stone wall and let the Rogue listen to the chatter of this, his wild kindred. He was much interested. I presume he had thought he was the only squirrel in the world. Soon he began to chatter himself, and the wild squirrel stopped and listened. Presently the other squirrel started running toward the cage. Then it was that I opened the door and said good-bye to the Red Rogue, not without regret, angry as I was with him. I walked away for a hundred feet and watched to see what would happen.

The Rogue and the stranger ran toward each other until they were about four feet apart then stopped and sat up on their haunches and viewed one another critically. Then the

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 stranger started slowly along the wall and the Rogue followed. Slowly at first, then faster and faster.

Finally both jumped from the wall and ran up a tree. Back and forth on the branches they raced, having the finest sort of a game of tag. I watched them for half an hour and finally saw them come down the tree. I had expected this, but my interest was in their next move. The stranger was the first to mount the wall. The Red Rogue followed close, and without a second's hesitation she led the way along the stone wall toward the distant woods. The Red Rogue looked back at his empty cage on the wall for a second, then followed. I watched until they were out of sight, then took the empty cage home. I have never seen the Rogue since that day, but I suppose he is living the life of a wild red squirrel. Very improvident, very mischievous, and rather scatterbrained, I presume he occasionally robs birds' nests in the season of fledglings, but as long as I am not responsible for it I do not care so much. Of course I would rather he would be

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 a respectable citizen of the woods, but he is not wholly bad, so I have forgiven him and remember only his pranks and capers, which certainly made him a most amusing fellow.

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the most wonderful little people in all nature are the ants. The bees are also wonderful, but I think that the ants are still more interesting. It takes a great deal of study, however, to understand the ants, and to know all their ways. So in this story I will simply tell a very little about them.

My first close acquaintance with a large colony of ants was not pleasant. It was an experience that I long remembered. I was a small boy at the time and had gone to the pasture to pick raspberries. My mother had promised me a quarter of a dollar if I filled my pail, so I was very intent on the berry-picking. This being the case I was not looking out for any ant hills.

I am sure that a city of human beings would

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 not like to have a great giant, miles tall, come walking upon the very top of their city. Neither did the ants.

I was very intent on reaching some tempting berries which were very large and highly colored. There was a friendly little hillock that would help me to reach them, so I stepped upon it. It was the front gate of the ants' citadel. I presume I broke down the gate and perhaps crushed in the entrance of the central chamber. Anyhow several hundred ant soldiers rushed out to punish me. The ants really do have soldiers trained and very efficient. They certainly were efficient on my legs. A score or two ran up each of my pants legs and began stinging and biting me. With a howl of pain I fled for the brook, which luckily was near by. Here I thrust my legs into a pool and drowned all the attacking army. When I went back for my berry-pail I found that several regiments of ants were drawn up about the gate of their citadel ready to defend it. But I had had enough, so I meekly took my berry-pail to another clump of bushes.

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 Not only do the ants have soldiers which war upon other ants and bring back captives of which they make slaves, just as the Romans used to do in olden times, but they also have worker ants which do all the work. They build the underground tunnels, bring the food, feed the young and do all sorts of menial work. And speaking of food I must not forget to tell you of two very strange things concerning the ants' food. We all know that the ants' underground tunnels and granaries are all well supplied when the winter comes, but I do not think that many of you know that certain ants are bakers and that they make bread.

They gather a certain seed which is their favorite food. Then the slaves grind it up fine by chewing it. Finally it is kneaded into dough and formed into small cakes and placed in the sun to bake. When it is sufficiently baked it is put away in the underground storehouse for use in the winter. Other seeds are also stored away without baking them. But some of these seeds would sprout and that would spoil them for food were not the ant wise

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 enough to prevent the seeds from sprouting. This they do in two ways. The first is to bite off the germ so that the seed cannot sprout. Or they will squirt a strong acid into the germ and that kills it. Thus the seed is kept nicely until they are ready to eat it.

Not only do the ants have soldiers and slaves, but they also have guests in their large underground houses. These are certain small crickets which they invite into their tunnels. They feed the crickets, wait upon them and give them the best that they have. They also sometimes invite small beetles to come and live with them. These guests they likewise treat with great dignity. Perhaps the principal reason why the ants love to entertain the beetle is that he gives off a pleasant perfume which they enjoy. So when the ant tunnel gets musty and does not smell sweet, one of the ants will go up to Mr. Beetle and gently stroke his head and he will at once take out the stopper of his scent bottle and the chamber is filled with the sweet perfume.

Still another very strange thing is the fact

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 that the ants are herdsmen and that they keep cows. Or at least they keep little creatures which give them a sort of milk. These are the green flies known as Aphids.

The ants will catch these little flies and herd them in one of their ant pastures. Whenever the ant wants some milk he will tickle the fly and it at once gives up a sweet sticky milk of which the ant is very fond. In the autumn the ants will drive large droves of these cows into their underground stables where they will keep them and milk them all winter long. I have never heard of their making butter or cheese, but they certainly use the milk and it is an important part of their winter diet.

It is the red ants which make slaves of the black ants. The red ants are more warlike, so they get the best of the black ants.

A red queen who has been fertilized will go into a black ant colony. Here she will live in her cradle and lay a great many eggs. These will of course all hatch red ants. She will make the black ants take care of her eggs and also feed the young red ants until there are a

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 lot of red ants in the black ant hill. Then the red ants will take charge and make slaves of all the black ants. They will send the black ant army away on the war path and it will come back with scores of black ant prisoners which will all be added to the slaves and workers of the red ant hill. Thus this hill which was originally a black ant hill will in time become a red ant hill or nest, and the black ants will all disappear. All of which illustrates the fact that we should be very careful as to whom we admit to our houses or we may let in the wolf.

These are a very few of the interesting facts about ants. Most of the facts are too technical to be treated in a short story like this. But with their armies and soldiers and slaves, their cows and their select guests, their wonderful building skill and their diligence I claim that the ants are the most interesting little people in the world.

My parting word to you is, "go to the ant, thou sluggard," and learn more of her wonderful ways. The ants certainly put to shame

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 the efforts of man in almost any direction, when we consider how small they are and what they accomplish.

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was a half-grown cottontail. He was a grayish brown, although when he was fully grown and the snows of winter had come, he would he entirely white. Mother Nature is very wise in the way she guards her wilderness children. Those who cannot fight she protects in other ways.

So the rabbit, who is the most hunted little creature in the great woods, she colors according to the season. When it is summer and autumn she gives him a brown coat that will fit in well with the brown earth and dead leaves, but when the winter comes and all the earth is white his brown coat will not do at all, for then all his enemies would see it against the white snow, so she changes his coat to white.

Bunnyboy was lying asleep in a clump of bushes. His mother had gone to a distant field

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 where she knew there were some early cabbages. She had promised the children that if they were good while she was gone she would bring them some cabbage leaves. They had become tired of the leaves and bark that they could find along the edge of the woods, so she had gone to get them something different.

Bunnyboy's brothers and sisters were all asleep in the burrow.

Bunnyboy had wanted to go with his mother but she had not dared to take him.

The farm dog might discover them up in the field, he was always prowling about watching for woodchucks. The wise old rabbit knew that Bunnyboy could not run fast enough to get away from him if he discovered them, so she had left the young rabbit in the woods.

Bunnyboy was her favorite of all the little ones and he wanted to go so badly that she had finally told him he might come outside and hide in a clump of bushes near the burrow while she was gone. This would be almost as good as going with her. So she had found a

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 thick clump of bushes and after seeing him cuddle up into a brown ball, had left him.

He had slept for a while, but he was a very lively young rabbit, so he finally awoke. He sat up and yawned and wished that his mother had seen fit to take him. He was certainly large enough to go with her.

Why, he could run almost as fast as she could; and as for jumping, he was the greatest jumper in the whole litter. He did not think his mother really knew what a large rabbit he had become, or how well able he was to take care of himself.

He sat very still at the centre of the clump of bushes for a long time.

But it was stupid in there and the outside world was calling to him. So he finally crept very carefully to the outside of the clump of bushes. Then he sat up on his haunches and looked about.

As he sat there with a patch of sunlight falling on his head and shoulders, he was the most beautiful little creature in the whole great woods. His long trumpet-like ears were erect

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 and listening. When he thought he heard a sound they would twitch this way and that trying to locate it. His eyes were large and very br ight. He peered this way and that looking about at all the wonderful things. His pink nose twitched trying to smell out the different scents of the woods.

His mother had given him and the rest of the family many lessons on the danger of the woods. She had taught him to listen and to look and also to smell. So he had these three ways of guarding himself, listening, looking, and smelling.

The woods were very quiet. He was sure that none of his enemies were about. There was no hawk or owl, or fox or weasel in the whole woods.

The forest carpet was fresh and green and he wanted so much to run and frolic. So he took a few hops away from the bush.

Something said to him just as plainly as though his mother had spoken, "Go back, go back!" At first he listened to the voice and went back, but he soon yielded to the lure

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 of the green woods again and went hopping from point to point. He soon became so in terested in the wonderful things about him that he ceased to hear the warning voice.

He hopped upon an old log and ran the length of it, then he jumped into a wonderful clump of green ferns. They were so fresh and green that they intoxicated him. Soon all precaution was forgotten and he was frisking, jumping, and running from place to place and having the very best time that he had ever had in his whole life.

But just in the middle of his most lively frolic a strange scent greeted his nose. It was not like anything that he had ever smelled before. It was not fox or raccoon, or anything that he knew in the woods, so he froze and waited. Freezing is one of the ways in which the wild kindred hide. It means to squat and stay perfectly still. If a rabbit is motionless, it is very hard to distinguish him from the ferns and leaves about. So he froze and waited.

Presently lie saw the strangest animal that

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 he had ever seen coming slowly through the woods. He was a clumsy looking fellow and completely covered with quills. It was Mr. Porcupine, but as Bunnyboy's mother had never happened to be able to show her children a porcupine, he did not know the queer stranger.

Mr. Porcupine did not seem to be looking for young rabbits, in fact he was not looking for anything in particular. He was just rambling through the woods as is his wont.

Bunnyboy kept so still that Mr. Porcupine passed within ten feet of him and did not even see him, but the young rabbit was scared nearly to death. His heart beat so hard that he was afraid the queer fellow would hear it. Finally Mr. Porcupine passed from sight and Bunnyboy was very glad, as he had been terribly frightened. He was so badly scared, in fact, that he decided to go back to his bush at once. He started in the direction that he thought it was, but it was not there. This frightened him so he ran faster and faster, giving great jumps that would have astonished his mother if she

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 had seen him. He forgot to go carefully as he had been taught, and ran like a jack-rabbit. But the more he ran the further away the bush seemed.

Finally he sat down in a clump of bushes to think. How had he come? What had he seen by the way? Where was the bush? His mother must have returned by this time. She would be very angry with him for running away. What a bad little rabbit he had been. He wished with all his heart that he was back in the burrow with the rest of the litter.

Just at this point in his thoughts he noted a large white round ball sticking to the side of an old log. He had never seen such a ball as that. It was very strange; he would see what it was. His mother had told the rabbit family that whenever they saw anything that was strange to be very cautious in approaching it, or even better to let it alone.

But the spirit of mischief was on Bunnyboy this morning or else he would never have run away. So he approached the ball slowly, stopping to sniff the air and to listen. There was

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 a strange buzzing sound which came from the ball. He could just hear it. It sounded like flies. He had often amused himself with catching flies. Why, here was a ballful of flies. He would have a fine time. So he went up and sniffed the ball.

At the very first sniff he leaped into the air as though he had been trying to jump a high fence. When he came down he landed upon the ball and this made matters much worse. For the ball was a hornets' nest, and hornets do not like to have rabbits tumbling about their nest, so they swarmed out to punish the intruder. They stung him in the nose and about the eyes. They stung his ears and even his shoulders and back. He ran wildly this way and that with the hornets still stinging him. He plunged into the thickest ferns and rolled and tumbled and finally rubbed them all off, but it was not until he had been stung in half a dozen places. He had been stung once before in his short life, so he knew what it was. His nose, eyes, and ears smarted and burned as though they were afire. He cried and rubbed

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 them with his paw, but the more he rubbed the worse they got. Finally it began swelling around his eyes and the lids began slowly closing.

This frightened Bunnyboy terribly, and he started running harder than ever. If he could only find his mother and get home before his eyes closed entirely. But he could not find his mother, though he ran until he was ready to drop. Finally his eyes were so nearly closed that he could not see to run.

He scratched his face in the brambles and at last he sat down, entirely lost. His eyelids were now completely closed, and it was all dark around.

Then an awful thought came to him. Now he could not see, all his enemies could get him. The fox could creep up on him. The owl could swoop down upon him. Every sound that he heard filled him with terror. Every time the wind blew in his face he thought it was the wings of the great horned owl. Finally he crawled into a clump of bushes and hid the best he could and lay there trembling and throb-

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 bing, the most wretched little bunny in the whole world.

He did not know how long he lay there. It seemed like days to him. He did not know whether it was really night or not. It was all dark to him. At last he heard a slight noise. He could still listen, and he was listening with all his might, his long ears twitching this way and that.

The sound was very slight. It was coming toward him. Was it an enemy or a friend? It sounded like a rabbit hopping along the path, but it might be a fox. Bunnyboy listened so hard that he thought he would split his ears. If it was a friend, he did not want to let the sound go by. If it was an enemy, if he made any noise he might be eaten for his pains.

The sounds came very close to him but passed by. He was almost sure that it was a rabbit hopping slowly along the path. But supposing it was a fox? Well, it did not matter much. To be eaten would not be much worse than having his face ache so. So he

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 cried out, a queer little cry like the cry of the doll that you punch in the stomach.

Then Bunnyboy's mother came bounding along the path toward him. She had almost passed by and missed him; but now, thanks to the wood Nymph who guards all the wood folks, she had found him.

When she saw how terribly he had been punished for his disobedience she did not scold him. He had learned his lesson. She would keep still and let it sink in. So she led him gently down to the brook. She did not lead him as one child leads another, but she went by his side and pushed him this way and that. When he was by the brookside, she made him plunge his face in the cool waters and then rub his nose and face in the mud until they were plastered. She also helped to smear his face with mud. She told him to keep his eyes shut and that tomorrow they would come to the brook and wash the mud off.

When she at last got Bunnyboy back to the burrow he was so muddy and his face so swollen that even his own brothers and sisters did

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 not know him. But they made a comfortable place for him in the burrow and were very subdued all the rest of the day. All the wise old rabbit said was, "You see, my children, how Bunnyboy's disobedience has been punished. Let it be a warning to you all. Now the rest of you may go out to play."

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animals and birds and even fishes and seals seem to have a sort of sixth sense which man does not possess. The scientific name for this sense is orientation. This means a sense of direction. These animals have a sort of compass in their heads which, no matter how far they may travel, always points toward home. This is a very fortunate sense, for it prevents their getting lost.

Were you ever lost in the woods? If so, you know what a terrible sensation it is. You rush about frantically trying to find the way out, and the more you rush the more hopelessly you get lost. If you would only sit down quietly and think, or observe, you might find your way out.

Here is a very simple way to get out of the woods when you are lost.

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