THE O0LO(;:ST. 



As boreal spirit, of the Hesperides, 



Is thy home far beyond trackless, untraveled 

 seas? 



And do the blasts of the North thus drive you 

 astray ? 



Are thy bright tinted vestments Auroras dis- 

 play? 



"What meaneth the darkness in thy vesture of 

 gold? 



The immaculate setting thy pinions enfold? 



stay I return not yet to thy far northern 



home 

 'Till thou givest me tidings not found in a 

 tome; 



1 read, "vespertina.'''' thy name, "life little 



known." 

 Mysterious bird, thy guai'ded secrets thy own, 

 For, weird, silent, and brooding, thou shrouded 



remain 

 In the mystical glamour that palls thy domain, 

 Just for a brief season and the sun brings the 



day 

 When thou wilt spread thy dark pinions— van- 

 ish away. 



By the time Boreas is nearly ready to 

 withdraw and let the gentle south wind 

 unchain rivers and lakes, and loose the 

 fastenings that the buds may burst 

 forth on the trees and quietly hfht at 

 the approaching vernal season, the 

 Evening Grosbeak, on sable pinions set 

 with white, flits silently by, like some 

 strange thing of inauspicious omen, re- 

 turning to its northern fastnesses and, 

 I suppose, domestic felicity. 



Leslie O. Dakt, 

 Litchfield, Minn. 



My Friend, Hairy. 



While walking through a strip of 

 woods on a beautiful Sunday afternoon 

 in the latter part of May, 1890, my at- 

 tention was called to a Hairy Wood- 

 pecker, whose actions showed it to be 

 laboring under great excitement. In a 

 few minutes I found out the cause— it 

 was my too close proximity to a dead 

 poplar, near the top of which was a 

 hole. 



The tree was a bad one to go up with 



its loose, decaying, dirty bark, with a 



nest of black ants inside, and the hole 



, looked small, uiuch too small for a 



Hairy Woodpecker to get into, and 

 worst of all I had on a new pair of Sun- 

 day pants. 



To climb, or not to climb, that was 

 the question, but the Hairy was getting 

 more excited than ever, so I climl^ed — 

 up through the nest of crawling ants 

 and falling dirt, up to the hole, thirty 

 feet up, or so; then stopped to rest, but 

 a moment later, slid wearily back to 

 earth again for I heard the young peep- 

 ing in the hole. 



After emptying the dirt from my 

 clothes and trying in vain to make my 

 pants look as fresh as formerly, I turned 

 homeward, not feeling particularly 

 pleased with my ramble. But at least 

 I had seen how the Hairy built and had 

 found out the time of breeding. 



I kept the remembrance in my mind, 

 and the sixth of May, of the following 

 year found me again in the same strip 

 of woods, and soon standing by the tree 

 I had climbed the year before. A limb 

 cracked under my foot, and out of the 

 Hairy's hole, which had been enlarged, 

 dashed a Yellow-shafted Flicker. But 

 I was not after Flicker's eggs, and be- 

 sides it was too early to expect any, so 

 I moved on. Back and forth I walked 

 through the strip of woods, seeing plen- 

 ty of signs but no "good" hole until I 

 ari'ived at a clump of dead poplars, and 

 in one of them, about twenty feet from 

 the ground, I saw a hole. 



The ground was strewn with fresh 

 chips, which had been thrown from the 

 hole. A rap on the tree brought out 

 the female Hairy. The tree was not 

 over six inches in diameter and was too 

 shaky to climb. This difficulty was 

 soon overcome, for near by grew an ash 

 sapling. I was soon in the top branch- 

 es of the sapling, and my weight bent 

 it over against the stub. It seemed as 

 if evei'ything had been planned for my 

 convenience, for at the top of the sap- 

 ling was a crotch which fitted around 

 the stub and kept me from swaying, a 

 dead limb kept the sapling from sliding 



