158 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



near where it seemingly had been 

 dining" on the remains of a turkey that 

 had met its death under the wheels. 

 Whether these incidents pertain to one 

 or more individual animals, I can only 

 conjecture. 



The latter incident calls attention 

 to the numerous tragedies among the 

 lower animals as a result of their get- 

 ting in the way of railroad trains. Dur- 

 ing the year I noted as other victims 

 a "rain-crow" (a bird I think to be of 

 the cuckoo family), a screech owl, and 

 a number of rabbits. One evening I 

 met a freight train. After it had 

 passed I resumed the right-of-way and 

 had walked only a few steps when, in 

 the dim twilight, I saw a rabbit floun- 

 dering against the wire fence along- 

 side the railroad. In its confusion I 

 succeeded in picking up the little ani- 

 mal. I expected to find it badly muti- 

 lated ; but only one hind foot had been 

 cut off by the cars. Goldfinches, 

 chickens, ducks, cats, muskrats, frogs, 

 turtles, etc., I have observed as the 

 victims in former casualties. 



As another menace to bird life, tele- 

 phone and telegraph lines and wire 

 fences play a prominent part. I saw 

 a golden-winged woodpecker fly 

 against the wire poultry netting en- 

 closing a chicken-park. The bird was 

 stunned, but managed to fly into a 

 nearby basswood tree, where it sat 

 moping, with its beak open and its 

 tongue lolling out. After a while it 

 seemed to revive and, I hope, finally 

 recovered. My recollection is that on 

 a former occasion the body of a dove 

 was found that had been killed by fly- 

 ing against this same fence. 



I saw an interesting example of pro- 

 tective mimicry in a caterpillar on a 

 raspberry bush. Clinging by its hind 

 feet, it stood out motionless at an 

 angle, for all the world like one of the 

 green twigs or branches. Its coloring 

 was greenish, mottled with spots, that 

 added to the resemblance and made it 

 more difficult to distinguish the crea- 

 ture from the parts of the host plant it 

 was mimicking - . 



I was witness to a part of the pro- 

 cess of metamorphosis of an insect 

 from the pupa to the imago stage. If 

 was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon of 

 a warm day that I saw the insect sit- 



ting on a nail partly driven into the 

 door-frame of a summer kitchen or 

 out-building. When first observed, 

 the developing wings were crumpled 

 up into little triangular projections on 

 the creature's body. I placed it on a 

 leaf and w r as examining it with a mag- 

 nifying glass. There was one moult- 

 ing or sloughing off of the outer skin 

 while I watched it. In about an hour's 

 time the wings had developed and un- 

 folded almost enough for the insect to 

 fly. Not being well enough versed in 

 entomology, 1 am not positive as to 

 its identity, but think it was some sort 

 of "May-fly." It had prominent eyes 

 of a bronze metallic color; filament- 

 like antennae ; body greenish ; wings 

 thin, gauzy and finely veined. 

 METEOROLOGY. 



I observed an aurora appearing as 

 an arch of light in the north at 10 

 o'clock p. m. 



An aurora w r as seen as a soft yellow- 

 ish-white light in the north, somewhat 

 as an arch across the horizon and with 

 occasional faint vertical streamers; 

 about 8 o'clock p. m. 



I observed a sun halo. The condi- 

 tion of the weather was a temperature 

 somewhere above freezing, probably 

 at 38 or 40 Fahr. A cloudy haze 

 came over the sky from the southwest. 

 The halo consisted of an inner circle 

 whose radius was about the same as 

 the distance of the sun above the hori- 

 zon. About equally distant outside of 

 this was dimly visible the right arc 

 of a larger circle, extending from above 

 the sun to the horizon north of it. The 

 haze did not extend far enough south 

 to form the left arc of this outer circle. 

 The inner circle was intersected over- 

 head by an arc, forming a bright spot 

 or parhelion just above the sun. The 

 limbs of this arc extended only about 

 half way toward the outer circle. This 

 halo was not to say extremely bril- 

 liant, but the prismatic colors were 

 dimly perceptible. It differed from the 

 halo described in the April Guide to 

 Nature, in that there were only the 

 two circles, or parts of circles, and 

 the arc instead of being on the outer 

 circle was on the inner circle. A rain 

 set in at dusk, followed by clear, cold 

 and windy weather and a cold wave 

 the succeeding night. 



