156 NATURE STUDY. 



A Phenomenon of the Wind. 



A frequent phenomenon in winter is the dying down of 

 the wind at sunset after a windy day, followed by its rise 

 again with the rising sun in the morning. A theory that 

 has been advanced to account for this is that with the 

 cooling of the atmo.sphere at night a stratum of cold and 

 therefore heavy air settles to earth, preventing the winds 

 that still blow from reaching the ground. In the morning 

 the rising sun warms the air in this lowest stratum, it rises 

 and the winds drop to the surface of the earth again. The 

 comparatively common exceptions to this might be ex- 

 plained in two ways. T^he wind might at times be so 

 strong as to move this lower stratum, or the atmosphere 

 might be so uniformly cold that there would be no distinct 

 lower stratum. 



Kingbird and Oriole. 



The difference iu the nature of kingbird and oriole is strikingly 

 exhibited in the style of their nests. The kingbird hasn't a parti- 

 cle of imagination, not an atom of the artistic. His shape, dress 

 and voice declare it. He is hard headed, straightforward and se- 

 rious, somewhat overbearing, perhaps, and testy, but bvisinesslike 

 and refined in all his tastes. His nest is himself over again — 

 strong, plain, adequate, but like its builder, refined. Contrast the 

 oriole's. Romance, poetry and that indescribabe touch— the light, 

 easy, negligent touch of the artist — in every line of it ! Why, the 

 thing was actually woven of new mown hay — as if one should build 

 his house of sandalwood — with all the scent of the hay field about 

 it. I put my nose near and took a deep, delicious breath. The 

 birds had selected" and cut the grass themselves and worked it in 

 while green. Some of it was uncured, still soft and sweet with sap. 

 One side, exposed to the sun through a leaf rift, had gone a gold- 

 en yellow, but the other side, deeply shaded the day through, was 

 yet green and making more slowly under the leaves. And this 

 nest was woven, not built up like the kingbird's ; it was hung, not 

 saddled upon the limb, suspended from the slenderest of forks so 

 that every little breeze woiild rock it. And so loosely woven, so 

 deftlj^ slightly tied \^Natio}ia/ Magazine. 



