HARDWICKE'S SCTENCE-GOSSIT, 



225 



present, and so it is upon Egyptian monuments that 

 we now find the desired and striking clue. 



In the pages of Cassell's " Bible Dictionary " may 

 be seen an illustration of an ancient Egyptian wine- 

 press, and clearly we have here the origin of the 

 Matapi of Guiana, and this, coupled with the remark- 

 able use of the Greek, or rather shall we say the 



Fig. i$9.— Egyptian Grape-press. 



Egyptian key device, sets the mind pondering over 

 time and space to discover, if it can, how is it that 

 these modes of earliest decorations and manufacture by 

 old-world African civilisation, have reached and still 

 retain their hold in darkest regions, and after the lapse 

 of centuries reappear upon modern civilization out 

 from the very depths of the forests in the South 

 American new world. 



George S. Parkinson. 



THE ORCHARD ORIOLE OF THE UNITED 

 STATES. 



BEHIND the old farmhouse, stretching from the 

 barn on one side to the lane which leads back 

 to the hill-wood lot on the other, stands the ancient 

 orchard. It was planted, perhaps, a century ago, 

 when this old farm was one of the frontier settlements 

 of civilisation, and owes its origin to seeds brought 

 from Rhode Island or Vermont, or possibly from 

 England itself. The trees have grown to their full 

 stature, and their interlocking boughs present a 

 continuous canopy of shade, except here and there 

 one has fallen under some fierce blast, and has been 

 removed for fuel. The stumps of these unfortunates 

 soon became nuclei for thickets of briers sown by the 

 winds from the raspberry and blackberry vines along 

 the fence ; their rotting roots were quickly honey- 

 combed by the galleries of the ants, and their dense 

 coverts formed a place of refuge for the grass-snakes, 

 and the occasional blacksnake or two that crept up 

 from the brook. Only the wood-pile, the vegetable 

 patch, and a line of currant and gooseberry bushes 

 inten-enes between the back porch and the firm turf 

 over which you walk between the gnarled and lean- 

 ing trunk?. 



No part of the farm is more delightful, it is the first 

 attraction of the city visitor, and the loved lounging- 

 place of the rustic in his idle moments. In April 

 he watches the earliest opening of the foliage, greets 

 the first reddening flower-buds, and gazes with admira- 

 tion upon the whitening blossoms making a vast 

 bouquet of each aged tree, and rejuvenating it. 

 Then as the flowers carpet the sward with their rosy 

 petals, and the tiny calyces grow larger and greener 

 day by day, he observes with interest the fattening of 

 the little apples, speculates on the prospect of a good 

 yield, and by August tries his teeth on a yellowish 

 one that has fallen, perhaps finding a single palatable 

 bit on that side of it which has been next to the sun. 

 Then the harvest : — 



" But shake your fruit from the orchard-tree 



To the tune of the brook and the hum of the bee, 



And the chipmunks chirping every minute, 



And the clear, sweet note ot the gay little linnet, 



And the grass and the flowers. 



And the long summer hours, 

 And the flavour of sun and breeze are in it." 



How the red and yellow and russet apples lie in 

 bright heaps on the grass, forming great circles 

 about each trunk, reflecting the ruddy afternoon sun, 

 as it glints among the branches, and shimmers through 

 the September haze in a soft golden tlory, while dim 

 in the dusk the veery carols on the tree-top, and from 

 the fence down by the brook, a thrasher whistles his 

 happy " Good-night ! " 



The orchard is beloved of all the birds, but with 

 some it is a chosen and constant home, so that you will 

 find them almost nowhere else. So manifest is this 

 preference that one bird at least takes its name from 

 the circumstance ; I speak of the orchard oriole 

 {Icterus spnriiis, Linn.), which is well known every- 

 where outside of New England, as far west as the 

 Great Plains. 



Although by no means a dandy like the Baltimore 

 oriole, he is every inch a gentleman, and wears his 

 neat dress of crimson and black with an aristocratic 

 air. Yet he is not above work. No bird is more 

 carelessly active, and none is a better friend of the 

 agriculturist, for from his first arrival in May until he 

 joins small companies of his fellows for the southward 

 journey in October, he is untiring in his pursuit of 

 just those insects which the orchardist most dreads. 

 A quarter of an hour's watching ofone will satisfy any- 

 body of his claim to our admiration and thanks. 

 He flies to a branch, moves his head from side to 

 side, spies a canker-worm trusting — vain hope ! — to its 

 colour to hide it on the green surface of a leaf, and 

 pounces upon it in an instant ; then a nest of tent- 

 caterpillars catches his eye, and he attacks it 

 furiously, ramming down the shreds of silk, and 

 greedily eating every one of the writhing and horrid 

 mass of hairy worms, a meal few other birds will 

 undertake. Even that does not satiate him, and he 

 restlessly renews the search for those creeping larvre 

 of insects so desirable to him and his family, and so 

 hateful to the farmer. He seems to revel in his work. 



