THE STARRY HEAVENS FOR MARCH 



343 



large telescope. During the past few 

 weeks the shading of its south polar re- 

 gions and the indefinite, reddish bands 

 about its ball have been unusually 

 prominent, while the shadow of the ball 

 on the most distance side of its rings is 

 now very easily seen. As this whole 

 great world is, however, doubtless still 

 but a ball of vapor, the shapes and ex- 

 tent of its surface markings are con- 

 tinually changing. 



Is Truly Missionary Work. 



BY PROFESSOR ERIC DOOLITTEE OF THE 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 



PHILADELPHIA, PENN. 



I am most glad that you plan to 

 add an astronomical telescope to your 

 equipment at ArcAdiA, — and I am 

 sure that the visitors will find the in- 

 finitely great fully as interesting and as 

 full of wonderful things as the infin- 

 itely little. It is indeed surprising how 

 very little the average person knows 

 about the things in the sky above us, — 

 though I see that you make frequent 

 reference to the fact that he knows 

 also but very little about any of the 

 interesting things of nature. Work 

 such as you plan is truly missionary 

 work, — and I wish you all success in it. 



A Psychological Problem ! 



$25 REWARD. — The above amount 

 will be paid for information which 

 will lead to the arrest and convic- 

 tion of the party or parties who cut 

 down and carried away an Austrian 

 pine, about twelve feet in height, 

 from the hill to the west of my farm- 

 house on the Westover Road. Prob- 

 ably taken for a Christmas tree. 

 Name of informant will not be re- 

 vealed to others. Every year when 

 I advertise a reward in connection 

 with the theft of my ornamental 

 trees, I find that neighbors seem to 

 know pretty well who the guilty 

 party is, but they are disinclined to 

 inform upon each other. This leaves 

 a number of people under suspicion, 

 and I hope they will allow me to 

 concentrate attention upon one. — 

 Robert T. Morris, Coscob, Conn." 



The above appeared as an advertise- 

 ment in "The Stamford Advocate." It 

 brings up several psychological prob- 



lems, and the more one studies the sit- 

 uation, the more puzzling it appears. 

 That one of these beautiful and very 

 expensive trees grown for scientific 

 purposes should have been so admired 

 that it was killed is, from the natural- 

 ist point of view, astonishingly sacri- 

 legious. Add to that the fact that the 

 tree was stolen to celebrate the birth 

 of Christ, and the problem becomes 

 stupendous ! 



Studies made for the German army 

 on the work involved in marching, 

 show that it actually requires more 

 work, up to nearly ten per cent., to 

 loiter languidly over the road, than to 

 cover the same distance at a sharp 

 pace. It also takes more work to walk 

 over-fast ; but if each one has a medium 

 gait, moderately fast, that is most 

 economical. 



Spring. 



The spring and rain and sun 



Are artificers old, 

 That change to fairy realm 



The brown earth, bare and cold. 



Far down in silent depths 



The miracle begins, 

 And, reaching toward the light, 



Persistently it wins. 



Upsprings a tiny shoot 



Of green in garden beds. 

 And straightway to the hills 



The transformation spreads. 



With beams of myriad tints, 



Comes spring to light the way; 

 The January world 



One would not know in May. 



— Emma Peirce. 



LITERARY NOTE 



Bird-Lore for February contains the results 

 of the Christmas Bird Census which this ma- 

 gazine inaugurated fifteen years ago as a 

 humane substitute for the old Christmas 'Side 

 Hunt.' 



From the Atlantic to Pacific, from the Gulf 

 of Mexico to Canada, observers go afield on 

 this day in keen and friendly rivalry, armed 

 not with guns, but with field-glasses. The 

 record 'bag' was made by W. Leon Dawson 

 at Santa Barbara, California. Mr. Dawson 

 recorded 107 species, doubtless a greater num- 

 ber of birds than have before been seen on a 

 single winter day in North America. 



A portrait of Mrs. Russell Sage with a note 

 on the aid she has given the cause of bird 

 protection, the second part of Robert Ridgway's 

 studies of bird-life in Southern Illinois, colored 

 plates by Fuertes and Brooks, and dozens of 

 photographs of birds in nature go to make up 

 this 90-page number. 



