NATURE'S CALENDAR 



dance of dormant insect life and insect 

 eggs, but the main part of its fare con- 

 sists of aphides. So says Professor Weed : 

 "Forty- one specimens [of chickadees] 

 were studied from November, 1897, to 

 March, 1898. Results show that this bird 

 feeds on a great variety of insects. The 

 •most striking kind of food was eggs of 

 aphides — twenty -one per cent, of the 

 whole. Insects, as a class, constituted 

 fifty-one percent.; spiders and their eggs, 

 five per cent.; vegetable matter, twenty- 

 eight per cent,; of this twenty per cent, 

 consisted of buds and bud-scales, intro- 

 duced accidentally with aphid eggs." 



These two are excellent examples of 

 winter bird-studies that maybe made by 

 any one. 



We have now followed the circle of the 

 year round to its calendar, beginning in 

 January, and have found that it all moves 

 together, the revival of vegetation under 

 the spring sun being the signal for the 

 awakening of animal life and the renewal 

 of its energies, and its progress from leaf 

 to flower, and then to fruit, being accom- 

 panied by the development of the various 

 creatures that depend upon it for food. 

 Each year is a grand illustration of the 

 interdependence of all nature ; of the ex- 

 act adjustment of each creature to the 

 other creatures of its locality and to their 

 surroundings, and of the uniformity of 

 law. 



December 28 



'December 29 



