CURIOUS NATURAL HISTORY. 1x7 



tree, seemingly without a sorrow, but they have their sorrows, too, 

 for they will go to seek food for their young birds and come back 

 and find them devoured by snakes or some other marauder. But 

 perhaps their greatest enemy is women, for whose adornment hun- 

 dreds of thousands are destroyed annually, especially of the heron, 

 an elegant bird whose female has two dainty hair-like feathers, or 

 aigrettes, which are miich used for hat trimming. — I\Tontreal Fam- 

 ily Herald. 



Curious Natural History. 



It is interesting to know that among some country folk the curi- 

 ous idea still prevails that with the master die the bees. Somebody 

 tells me that instances of this have been noticed of late. At a 

 sale of the humble effects of a villager lately dead, two or three 

 hives of bees in old straw skeps were disposed of ; but when they 

 came to be examined it was found that all the bees were dead. 



A coincidence of this kind will probably keep alive the supersti- 

 tion in that village for generations to come. 



Some curious specimens of folk-lore and natural history are con- 

 tained in a rare book, called "The Sportsman's Dictionary," to 

 which Mr. C. M. Woolsey has drawn my attention. This was pub- 

 lished 160 years ago. The author was evidently a Philistine among 

 Philistines in his attitude toward nature. 



Of the master musician, the blackbird, he says : " This bird is not 

 known to all persons and is better to be eaten than kept, being 

 much sweeter to the palate when dead and well roasted, than to 

 the ear while living. Sings about three months in the year, or 

 four at most, though his song is worth nothing ; but if he is taught 

 to whistle he is of some value, it being very loud, though coarse." 

 What an ear and mind ! 



And here is the story of the squirrel, with the ring in it of the 

 seventeenth even more than the eighteenth century. It reminds 

 one of the hares of Izaak Walton, that changed their sexes once a 

 year. 



" If what is reported of them be true, the admirable cunning of 

 the squirrel appears in her (where we commonly use 'his' when 

 the sex need not be specified, our ancestors often used 'her ') swim- 

 ming or passing over a river, for when she is constrained by hun- 

 ger so to do, she seeks out some rind or small bark of a tree, which 

 she sets upon the water, and then goes into it, and, holding up her 



