156 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



Singularly enough, as I closed the 

 above sentence, I caught sight of a 

 friend in grey fur eating the green 

 fruit from a mulberry tree. I then be- 

 thought me that cherries will soon be 

 ripe and later the various kinds of wild 

 cherries, and the cherry stones may 

 pass for nuts. 



A little sheet of water in Prospect 

 Park, Brooklyn, is nearly surrounded 

 by shrubs and trees. On May 16th of 



this year I heard a loud splash as 

 though a brick, perhaps, had fallen 

 into this little pond. By the time I 

 could get from behind a tree trunk 

 which obstructed my vision, a fish 

 hawk or American osprey was just 

 rising from the surface of the water 

 with a large goldfish in his talons. He 

 flew heavily away over the trees, his 

 brilliant prey gleaming in the sun- 



shine. 



Caroline M. Hartwell. 



AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION' 



Personal Explanatory Note:— Only the adult interests in nature and the business details of organizing; Chap- 

 ters are represented by this department. Original observations and inquiries from young folks (under eighteen years 

 of age) are referred to' my department ("Nature and Seienee") in the "St, Nicholas" magazine, published by The Cen- 

 tury Company, New York City.— Edward F. Bigelow. 



A Field Day. 



REPORT OF CHAPTER 587, CONCORD, NEW 

 HAMPSHIRE. 



A cloudy day in May, a ravine, only 

 a cow path on a steep hillside, bushes, 

 homes of the brown tails not yet dis- 

 possessed, past the yard of an un- 

 kempt farmhouse. As we walked on 

 shut in by the hills an almost uncanny 

 feeling stole over us. One called at- 

 tention to the purple glow of the sweet 

 fern that made the place beautiful ; 

 another showed us the fertile bud near 

 the tip, longer and unlike the others ; 

 only the crow for birds whose, "Caw, 

 caw," seemed a part of the lonely 

 place. 



While the others scrambled up the 

 hill to see a bird, I zigzagged down 

 under some scraggy, stunted pines and 

 found what made the day a red letter 

 one to me (by first find), a group of 

 earthstar mushrooms. Its history is 

 interesting. It is first deep in earth 

 in a nest of thread-like mycelium. 

 The ball is covered with a double coat ; 

 the outer, thick and leathery, covers 

 the inner closely like a coat of mail, 

 but separate from it at maturity it 

 bursts from the thread-like mycelium, 

 breaks into separate lobes which lift 

 it from the ball from the ground, to 



the air. There were several ; they 

 seemed to be arranged sociably in 

 groups. 



Disseminating AA Interests. 



FROM ANNUAL REPORT, FOR I908,, OF EL- 

 MER WALTER, CORRESPONDING MEMBER, 

 NO. 2002, PERU, INDIANA. 



For more than a year I have been 

 maintaining a "Young Folks' ' ,de- 

 partment in a Missouri local newspaper. 

 It has been the aim to make natural 

 science the leading feature of this de- 

 partment and to make the readers ac- 

 quainted with the Agassiz Associa- 

 tion. In this connection I have sought 

 correspondence with the readers inter- 

 ested in nature study. 



During the year 1908 I have fur- 

 nished the newspaper about twelve 

 columns of copy, and written or sent 

 AA literature to nine different per- 

 sons and with some of these have since 

 maintained a regular correspondence. 

 Four of the number have contributed 

 articles for our department and three 

 of these seem to be steadfast friends of 

 the idea and appreciative students of 

 nature. We seek to establish a "Home 

 Newspaper Legion" of young folks for 

 mutual improvement by correspond- 

 ence and especially to promote nature 



