air."

At the stroke of midnight I have been halted in my hurried walk by these
notes. They are a bit of the wild north which may even enter within a
city, and three years ago I trapped a fine gander and a half a dozen of
his flock in the New York Zoological Park, where they have lived ever
since and reared their golden-hued goslings, which otherwise would have
broken their shells on some Arctic waste, with only the snowbirds to
admire, and to be watched with greedy eyes by the Arctic owls.

A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite tender sky,
The ripe, rich tints of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And ever on upland and lowland,
The charm of the goldenrod--
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
W. H. Carruth.

A PLEA FOR THE SKUNK

In spite of constant persecution the skunk is without doubt the tamest of
all of our wild animals, and shares with the weasel and mink the honour of
being one of the most abundant of the carnivores, or flesh-eaters, near
our homes. This is a great achievement for the skunk,--to have thus held
its own in the face of ever advancing and destroying civilisation. But the
same characteristics which enable it to hold its ground are also those
which emancipate it from its wild kindred and give it a unique position
among animals. Its first cousins, the minks and weasels, all secrete
pungent odours, which are unpleasant enough at close range, but in the
skunk the great development of these glands has caused a radical change in
its habits of life and even in its physical make-up.

Watch a mink creeping on its sinuous way,--every action and glance full of
fierce wildness, each step telling of insatiable seeking after living,
active prey. The boldest rat flees in frantic terror at the hint of this
animal's presence; but let man show himself, and with a demoniacal grin of
hatred the mink slinks into covert.

Now follow a skunk in its wanderings as it comes out of its hole in early
evening, slowly stretches and yawns, and with hesitating, rolling gait
ambles along, now and then sniffing in the grass and seizing some sluggish
grasshopper or cricket. Fearlessness and confidence are what its gait and
manner spell. The world is its debtor, and all creatures in its path are
left unmolested, o