Birds and nature (1899) (14748518955)

Identifier: birdsnature541899chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries



Text Appearing Before Image:
are poetic enough to viewit in the same way. Birds sing most inthe spring and the early summer, thosehappiest seasons of the year, while em-ployed in nest-building and in rearingtheir young. Many of our musical sing-ers are silent all the rest of the year; atleast they utter only low chirpings. Outside of what are properly classedas song birds there are many speciesthat never pretend to sing; in fact,these far outnumber the musicians.They include the water birds of everykind, both swimmers and waders; allthe birds of prey, eagles, hawks, owls,and vultures; and all the gallinaceoustribes, comprising pheasants, partridges,turkeys, and chickens. The gobble ofthe turkey cock, the defiant crow of thebob-white, are none of them truesinging; yet it is quite probable that allof these sounds are uttered with pre-cisely similar motives to those that in-spire the sweet warbling of the song-sparrow, the clear whistle of the robin,or the thrilling music of the wood-thrush .—Philadelphia Tijues.
Text Appearing After Image:
HiCAGO COLORTVPE CO., CHIC. 4 NEW YO Life-size. COPYHIbHT 1899,NATURE STUDY PUB. CO.. CHICAGO. THE HYACINTH. I sometimes think that never blows so redThe rose as where some buried Ciesar bled;That every hyacinth the garden wearsDropt in her lap from some once lovely head. ■0)nar Khayyam. ttYACINTH, also called Jacinth,is said to be supreme amongstthe flowers of spring. It wasin cultivation before 1597, andis therefore not a new favorite. Gerard,at the above date, records the existenceof six varieties. Rea, in 1676, mentionsseveral single and double varieties asbeing then in English gardens, and Jus-tice, in 1754, describes upwards of fiftysingle-flowered varieties, and nearl)-one hundred double-flowered ones, as aselection of the best from the cata-logues of two then celebrated Dutchgrowers. One of the Dutch sorts, calledLa Rci?ie de Femmes, is said to have pro-duced from thirty-four to thirty-eightflowers in a spike, and on its first ap-pearance to have sold for fifty guildersa bul