LITERARY AND BIOGRAPHICAL. 



339 



gulls they at once undertake home- 

 building" anew, though we will find 

 only one or occasionally two greenish- 

 gray eggs, with their brown splotches, 

 in the new nests, rather than the usual 

 compliment of two or three. 



The two sexes share the labor of 

 nest-building and incubating, the one 

 occupying the nest at night, the other 

 by day. 



This nest-strown expanse of many 

 acres, with its brooding wings which 

 have grown a bit tame, through pro- 

 tection, in the last two or three years, 

 is a sight worth seeing, by the bird- 

 lover, especially if he happens to look 

 upon it as evening deepens, and he sees 

 the little flocks, of from three to twenty, 

 wing out across the waters to spend 

 the night cradled upon the sea. 



Pupils in school-chapters, whose an- 

 nual League dues have formed a ma- 

 terial part of the fund for the pur- 

 chase of the island, where not only 

 gulls but meadow larks, ground spar- 

 rows, and other birds are now in pos- 

 session of a home of their own, will 



take pleasure in feeling a certain 

 amount of ownership in the poetic 

 wings sweeping joyously through the 

 air, which had it not been for a pro- 

 tecting hand, might today have stood 

 still and lifeless, as mistaken adorn- 

 ments for the persons of the vain and 

 thoughtless. 



"In August the grass is still verdant 

 on the hills and in the valleys ; the 

 foliage of the trees is as dense as ever 

 and as green ; the flowers gleam forth 

 in richer abundance along the margin 

 of the river and by the stone walls and 

 deep among the woods ; the days too, 

 are as fervid now as they were a month 

 ago ; and yet in every breath of wind 

 and in every beam of sunshine we hear 

 the whispered farewell and behold the 

 parting smile of a dear friend. Not a 

 breeze can stir but it thrills us with 

 the breath of autumn. — "B." 



In the letter from Alfred Kinsey, in 

 the November number, "God and na- 

 ture" should have read "God through 

 nature." — Ed. 



1 11 IT II II II II II II IL II TT II I II II i | | | 







IlTERARY 



BIOGRAPHICAL 



The British Journal Photographic Almanac 

 and Photographer's Daily Companion 



1910. Edited by George E. Brown, F. I. 

 C. New York: George Murphy Inc., Pa. 

 per 50c; postage 27c. Cloth $1.00; pos- 

 tage 37c. 



This is a huge volume of 1320 pages, and 

 contains a vast amount of material of in- 

 terest to the photographer. The formulae 

 and descriptions of new apparatus are espec- 

 ially helpful. 



The Fly-Aways and Other Seed Travelers. 



By Francis M. Fultz, A. M., Superinten- 

 dent of City Schools, Santa Barbara, 

 California. With illustrations from pho- 

 tographs by the author. Bloomington, 

 Illinois: Public-School Publishing Com- 

 pany. 



This is a book to be read by children. It 

 has the attractiveness of the most interest- 

 ing stories and the charm of the familiar 



out-of-doors. Yet it directs observations 

 and suggests classification in a way helpful 

 to scientific thought. It seems to us an ideal 

 nature reader for children in about the third 

 year of school, and for the youngest readers 

 of library books. 



Flying Plover, by G. E. Theodore Roberts; 

 125 pages; illustrated; Boston; L. C. 

 Page & Co., $1.00 



Flying Plover, and People of the Plains, 

 both deal with our Indians. In Flying 

 Plover, Theodore Roberts has written down 

 some of the stories which "Squat-by-the- 

 flre," little Flying Plover's grandmother, 

 told him in the long winter evenings. They 

 were legends of his tribe, which lives far 

 north in Labrador. "How Fire came to the 

 Mountaineers," "Why Old King Walrus 

 went away from the Mo'-tainous Coun- 

 try;" "The Adventures of King Bear," — to 

 these and many others the little Indian lad 

 listened breathlessly. 



