Kitabı oku: «Birds and all Nature Vol VII, No. 3, March 1900», sayfa 2
THE WILLOW PTARMIGAN
(Lagopus lagopus.)
C. C. M
IT has been claimed by some ornithologists that this species of grouse is not to be found in this country, but it is now well established that it may be found in northern portions of New Hampshire and northern New York. In summer it is distributed throughout Arctic America. It breeds abundantly in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains on the Barren Grounds and along the Arctic coasts. Davie, who is probably the best authority we have, says that the winter dress of this beautiful bird is snow white, with the central tail feathers black, tipped with white. In summer the head and neck are yellowish red, back black, barred rather finely with yellowish brown and chestnut, although the most of the wings and under parts remain white as in winter. Large numbers of the willow ptarmigan are said in the winter to shelter in willow thickets and dwarf birches on the banks of lakes and rivers, where they feed on the buds of the smaller shrubs which form their principal food at that season. Their favorite resorts in day time are barren, sandy tracts of land, but they pass the nights in holes in the snow. When pursued by sportsmen or birds of prey they dive in the loose snow and work their way beneath its surface.
Nests of this species have been found in the Anderson River region early in June and as late as June 24. Others have been found on the banks of the Swan River as late as June 27. One nest was observed July 10 which contained ten perfectly fresh eggs, and another set of eggs was examined July 22, the contents of which were slightly developed. The nests were mere depressions in the ground, lined with leaves, hay, and a few feathers from the birds themselves. These birds often occupy the same nest in successive seasons. Ten eggs are usually laid, though the female is said to lay as many as sixteen. The eggs have a ground color varying from yellowish buff to deep chestnut-brown, more or less sprinkled, speckled, spotted, or marbled with rich brown or black. The average size is 1.78 by 1.25.
Hallock says that the various species of ptarmigan are all Alpine birds, and are only found in the North and on the highest mountain ranges. They are to be distinguished from all other members of the grouse family by the dense feathering of the tarsus and toes, by turning white in winter and by the possession of only fourteen tail feathers. The bill is very stout and the tail always black. The length of the ptarmigan is about sixteen inches. It is a most delicious article of food, whether roasted, stewed, or in white soups. It is said that visitors to Newfoundland assert that the flavor of a plump partridge, well cooked, is unsurpassed in richness and delicacy. A brace of them in season weigh from three to three and a half pounds. On the first of September they are in prime condition, after feeding on the wild partridge berry and cranberry, their favorite food.
When on the wing it is said the scarlet tips over the eyes of the male bird glisten like rubies. The cock exposes himself fearlessly, when in danger, to save the lives of his offspring. He tumbles along the ground a few yards in advance of the dogs, rolling there in order to decoy the sportsman from the brood which the hen is anxiously calling into the thicket. No more touching instance of paternal affection could be witnessed, or more touching proof among the lower creation of self-sacrifice, prompted by love. The poor, feeble bird would almost attack dogs and men in his efforts to save his children.
At times, in some districts, the ptarmigan is so tame that it can be killed with a stick, and at others so wild that it will not allow the sportsman to approach within gun shot.
ANIMAL PETS IN SCHOOL
A WISE old man down in Boston says animal pets should be kept in public schools to teach children kindness to the weak. The jokesters are already at work deriding one of the best thoughts anybody has had about education for a long time because it seems, and possibly is, impracticable. They call it a reversal of the Mary's lamb doctrine, and suggest the propriety of letting the children throw paper wads to teach them accuracy and precision.
Despite both its doubtful practicability and the jester's little fling, Dr. Edward Everett Hale's proposition is not only founded on a right theory, but reflects the very way in which nature, says the Chicago Journal, first taught the great lesson of altruism and love.
Most of our scientists and some of our religious teachers nowadays believe that man ascended from the beasts. If he did, the first kindness, the first unselfishness, the first compassion for the helpless, and gentleness toward the weak, that were ever in the world, the first things that ever differentiated man from brute, were taught to the parents of the race in exactly the way Dr. Hale would have them taught to its children.
There never was any human love until there was human helplessness. There never was any mother-love or father-love until children began to be born that were feeble.
In some of the lower orders of life the young can take care of themselves as soon as they are born. There is no reason why anything should "care for" them, so nothing does. There is no affection for them nor from them nor among them.
Love was first excited by something that needed care and kindness. A couple of shaggy savages, animals that didn't know enough to love each other yet, felt something "akin to pity" for an ugly baby with a gorilla chin and no forehead, and resolved to do something not for themselves, but for the hideous infant, and not because they were proud of its prettiness and wanted to keep it for a plaything, but because it so obviously needed to have something done for it.
That, the scientists tell us, was the beginning of unselfishness, the beginning of care for others, the origin of affection and altruism, the genesis of humanity, the promise of the destiny of man. The baby was the animal pet that got into the schoolhouse with the children of the early world and taught the first lesson of love. On its mighty weakness hung most of those powerful and wonderful forces that have lifted brutehood into manhood.
Heredity does a great deal, but most of the lesson has to be taught over to every individual, and it is a more important one than geography or grammar. Humanity's happiness and further progress depend on the thoroughness with which it learns the lesson, not of arithmetic or spelling, but of altruism.
Children are cruel. But they have hereditary instincts of kindness for the weak that would develop the sooner into love for their fellows if they had something helpless to exercise them on. When a big, hulking, selfish boy begins to take a protecting interest in a little yellow dog he is unconsciously teaching himself the greatest lesson he can ever learn. Trotting around in that woolly hide, dodging stones, fleeing to him for protection from the poundman, getting lost, and kicked, starved, and hurt, is the beginning of the boy's unselfishness and the man's altruism, and it is not funny, but sad, that the schoolhouse door must shut it out so that the reluctant master may the better give his attention to the mysteries of commercial arithmetic and the art of skinning his fellow-man by means of "brokerage," "discount," and "compound interest."
Dr. Hale may never see animal pets in the schools, but he has been in the world a long time, and knows what humanity needs.
BAILEY'S DICTIONARY
C. C. MARBLE
THIS may be called the age of dictionary making. All philological scholarship seems to culminate in historic derivation. Without referring invidiously to cultivated foreign languages, each of which has many such monuments of elaborate, accurate, and patient research, it may be said with confidence that the English language is unrivaled in its lexicographers, who at the close of the nineteenth century have completed works which only a few decades ago were not thought of as possible. Dr. Johnson prepared his unabridged dictionary in seven years "with little assistance from the great," an achievement which at the time excited wonder and admiration, though insignificant indeed in comparison with present performances. And yet there may be some doubt about the comparatively greater usefulness to the general reader of the bulky volumes of the modern publishers. In illustration the reader might find an analysis of one of the oldest English dictionaries an interesting example.
For several years I have had at hand "An Universal Etymological English Dictionary and Interpreter of Hard Words," by N. Bailey, 1747. On almost all occasions when I have needed to consult a dictionary I have found it satisfactory, some of its learning, on account of its very quaintnesses and contemporaneous character, being better adapted to a particular definition than modern directness. Perhaps its greatest defect is the absence from it of scientific terms, of which, however, there were very few at that time.
The introduction is exceedingly learned and the causes of change in language are discussed with much ingenuity. Many examples of Saxon antiquities are given, one of which, the Lord's prayer, written about A. D. 900, by Alfred, Bishop of Durham, we may quote, from which "it doth appear," says Bailey, "that the English Saxon Language, of which the Normans despoiled us in great Part, had its beauties, was significant and emphatical, and preferable to what they imposed upon us." Here is the prayer:
"Our Father which art in Heavens, be hallowed thine name; come thine Kingdom; be thy will so as in Heavens and in Earth. Our Loaf supersubstantial give us to-day, and forgive us Debts our so we forgive Debts ours, and do not lead us into Temptation, but deliver us from Evil."
The introduction is in Latin. Greek, Hebrew, and Saxon characters are used in the definitions. Bailey defines the meanings of proverbs with far more particularity than is necessary, perhaps, and yet a small volume could be made up of these curious "common or old pithy sayings," as he defines them, many of which are obsolete or unknown to the readers of the present day. Instance:
"As sure as God's in Gloucestershire." This proverb is said to have its rise, on account that there were more rich and mitred abbeys in that than in any two shires of England beside; but some, from William of Malmsbury, refer it to the fruitfulness of it in religion, in that it is said to have returned the seed of the gospel with the increase of an hundred fold. And "Good wine needs no bush." This proverb intimates that virtue is valuable for itself, and that internal goodness stands in need of no external flourishes or ornaments; and so we say "A good face needs no band."
One other, a short one: "All goes down gutter lane." This is applied to those who spend all in drunkenness and gluttony, alluding to the Latin word gutter, which signifies the throat.
Not a few of these proverbs, with their explanations, occupy whole pages of the dictionary, and where they are traced to the Greeks or the Hebrews the original characters are brought into use as incontestable evidence of their authenticity. Definitions are numerous of words which, while perfectly legitimate and of Saxon origin and of common usage in the age of Elizabeth, are omitted at the present day from lexicons in deference to the prevalence of a more delicate taste.
The book contains about one thousand pages, is printed in a style little dissimilar to present unabridged dictionaries, and must have been of prodigious assistance to the author's successors. He does not deprecate the labors of his predecessors, whom he acknowledges to have saved him much trouble, but he claims to have omitted their redundancies in order to make room to supply their deficiencies to the extent of several thousand words, "in no English dictionary before extant," and that he is the first who attempted an etymological part.
This very important contribution to English literature – far more important then than any similar performance could be now – is, strange to say, nowhere mentioned in what is regarded as the best history of English literature. And just here the remark might be appropriately made that omissions of this kind in standard literary histories and cyclopædias go far to call in question the qualifications of the editors. A word may be overlooked or forgotten, but a scholar who has contributed substantially to the growth and enrichment of a great language deserves a better fate.
STELLER'S JAY
(Cyanocitta stelleri.)
The jay is a jovial bird – Heigh-ho!
He chatters all day
In a frolicsome way
With the murmuring breezes that blow – Heigh-ho!
Hear him noisily call
From the redwood tree tall
To his mate in the opposite tree – Heigh-ho!
Saying, "How do you do?"
As his topknot of blue
Is raised as polite as can be – Heigh-ho!
Oh, impudent jay,
With your plumage so gay,
And your manners so jaunty and free – Heigh-ho!
How little you guessed,
When you robbed the wren's nest,
That any stray fellow would see – Heigh-ho!
THIS is an abundant and interesting cousin of the bluejay and is found along the Pacific coast from northern California northward. It is a very common resident of Oregon, is noisy, bold, and dashing. The nest of this bird is built in firs and other trees and in bushes, ten to twenty feet from the ground. It is bulky and made of large sticks and twigs, generally put together with mud, and lined with fine, dry grasses and hair. The eggs are three to five, pale green or bluish green, speckled with olive-brown, with an average size of 1.28×.85. There seems no doubt that many jays have been observed robbing nests of other birds, but thousands have been seen that were not so engaged. It has been shown that animal matter comprises only about twenty-five per cent. of the bird's diet.
