Thoughts About Nests 269
Lessons From An English Sparrow 275
The Personality Of Trees 281
An Owl Of The North 297

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A fiery mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell;
A jelly fish and a saurian,
And the caves where the cave men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod,
Some call it evolution,
And others call it God.
W. H. Carruth.

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JANUARY

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BIRDS OF THE SNOW

No fact of natural history is more interesting, or more significant of the
poetry of evolution, than the distribution of birds over the entire
surface of the world. They have overcome countless obstacles, and adapted
themselves to all conditions. The last faltering glance which the Arctic
explorer sends toward his coveted goal, ere he admits defeat, shows flocks
of snow buntings active with warm life; the storm-tossed mariner in the
midst of the sea, is followed, encircled, by the steady, tireless flight
of the albatross; the fever-stricken wanderer in tropical jungles listens
to the sweet notes of birds amid the stagnant pools; while the thirsty
traveller in the desert is ever watched by the distant buzzards. Finally
when the intrepid climber, at the risk of life and limb, has painfully
made his way to the summit of the most lofty peak, far, far above him, in
the blue expanse of thin air, he can distinguish the form of a majestic
eagle or condor.

At the approach of winter the flowers and insects about us die, but most
of the birds take wing and fly to a more temperate climate, while their
place is filled with others which have spent the summer farther to the
north. Thus without stirring from our doorway we may become acquainted
with many species whose summer homes are hundreds of miles away.

No time is more propitious or advisable for the amateur bird lover to
begin his studies than the first of the year. Bird life is now reduced to
its simplest terms in numbers and species, and the absence of concealing
foliage, together with the usual tameness of winter birds, makes
ident