476 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



the surrounding country to make' sure 

 the foe was utterly routed. 



I felt more than proud the day when 

 a dear little mother chipmunk brought 

 her two babies to me, at first very 

 fearfully, giving them many soft, ex- 

 cited admonitions, a sharp nip when 

 they came too close or standing di- 

 rectly over them pulling them back with 

 her little paws. Her bright eyes were 

 always on me to see that I meant no 

 harm, but as I sat very still on the floor 

 talking to her in low tones and hold- 

 ing some crumbs in my hand so that 

 she could see them, she seemed to 

 think it was all right and let them both 

 come up on my lap where they played 

 around while she ate the crumbs. 



But when the fall days came they no 

 longer came to me to be fed. The corn 

 was ripe in a nearby field. The acorns 

 were beginning to fall, and a large yel- 

 low fungi — which we had termed 

 toadstools — dotted the ground like 

 stars. Of these last the chipmunks 

 seemed to be particularly fond, though 

 seeming to prefer them dried. At first 

 I could not imagine how they got in 

 the corners of the porch rail and hang- 

 ing in the bushes, so I watched and 

 found that the chipmunks put them 

 there leaving them until well dried 

 when they were eaten by both chip- 

 munks and squirrels apparently with 

 great relish. 



Nina M. B. Russee. 



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Some Quartz Crystals from the 



Borough of the Bronx, New York 



City. 



BY EDWIN W. HUMPHREYS, NEW YORK 

 CITY. 



Though quartz is an exceedingly 

 common mineral and is to be met with 

 everywhere, good crystals are not so 

 common or so widely scattered. Still, 

 in some places even these latter are 

 common. Fortunately, or unfortu- 

 nately, according to one's point of view, 

 the Borough of the Bronx, New York 

 City, is not one of the places where 

 good crystals are to be picked up at 

 every turn. In my own collecting, 

 I have only occasionally found them, 

 and never have I found them to be 

 abundant. 



The first quartz crystals that I had 

 the good fortune to find in the Bronx 

 are some transparent and colorless 

 ones that I discovered, together with 

 some crystallized calcite, in an excava- 



tion in the limestone near the Ship 

 Canal at Kingsbridge. From the cut 

 for the canal itself, some amethystine 

 crystals were obtained, but I was not 

 fortunate enough to get any of them. 

 Though not coming from the Bronx, 

 it may be pertinent to mention some 

 smoky crystals which w r ere found in 

 the schist just across the Harlem 

 River, in Manhattan, north of Fort 

 George. These are a fairly good size, 

 the largest measuring about ten milli- 

 meters across the widest face of the 

 hexagon. Unfortunately, the crevice 

 in which it had crystallized w-as not 

 large enough to allow for its full devel- 

 opment. Looking through it, one may 

 see many bubble-like inclusions as well 

 as others that are apparently mica. 

 These inclusions are arranged in 

 planes that run diagonally across the 

 hexagonal crystal. 



The crystals last described were 

 found in the schist and are the only 



