134 NATURE STUDY. 



fall upon the growing corn like the corn upon the altar — 

 so that men and birds and all living things would re- 

 joice." 



At this time, when kind-hearted white people are begin- 

 ning to think of the birds, and to feed them when the 

 snow covers the ground in our northern latitudes, it is in- 

 teresting to know that the Indians of the arid western 

 plains were accustomed to remember them and to pray for 

 them at their religious meetings long ago — for it is well 

 known that these rites of worship, or " dances," are verj^, 

 very old. 



Perhaps, also, the ladies of our Audubon and other so- 

 cieties will find a certain degree of satisfaction in the fact 

 that the representation of birds at the altar and the prayer 

 for them are not features of the men's " dances," They 

 are associated peculiarly and distinctively with the " bas- 

 ket-dance " of the women. 



A Meadow Lark in December. 



On December 4 one of the editors of Nature Study 

 saw a meadow lark in East Manchester in a locality much 

 frequented by this species in summer. The first real snow 

 storm of the season had covered the ground to the depth of 

 four or five inches and there was little in sight to attract a 

 ground-feeding bird. The lark seemed wild and flew wa- 

 rily from tree to tree, finally settling upon a low bush at a 

 distance. Frequent visits have failed to afford a sight of th^ 

 lonely left-over since that date. 



M. Yung, a French entomologist, has killed the ants in five hills 

 by means of a poisonous gas, and undertaken the prodigious labor 

 of counting the dead. The results, beginning from the smallest 

 hill, were, respectively, as follows : Seventeen thousand eight hun- 

 dred and twenty-eight, 19,333, 53>oi8, 64,470 and 93,964. The real 

 figures probably averaged 5,000 higher in each case, as no allow- 

 ance was made by M. Yung for absent and escaped ants. 



