POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



137 



acknowledged to be one of the most stimu- 

 lating and suggestive treatises on education 

 in the language ; and those of the lecturers 

 who have made the book a theme for com- 

 ment, and occasionally for adverse criticism, 

 speak in the strongest terms of the value of 

 that intellectual discipline which is to be 

 had in discussing both its shortcomings and 

 its many merits." That its alleged imperfec- 

 tions were not deemed very serious even by 

 their discoverers is shown by the fact that, 

 although Locke's Thoughts on Education 

 was permitted as an alternative, Spencer's 

 book was chosen, in 1891, by all but the two 

 Catholic colleges and one other out of twenty- 

 six. Mr. Wilde, one of the inspectors of 

 colleges for schoolmasters, reports that the 

 students " had in all the colleges given to me 

 invariably taken this book." Mr. Byrne, 

 another inspector, speaking of the general 

 influence of the book, says : " Mr. Spencer's 

 little work on education is doing an incal- 

 culable amount of good to the elementary 

 teachers of the rising generations. The ob- 

 ligation now imposed on them to study it is 

 bearing fruit by awakening in them an in- 

 terest in the proper ends and methods of 

 education and instruction which they had 

 never possessed before. That their occupa- 

 tion is an art, and does not consist in obedi- 

 ence to a number of arbitrarily devised rules, 

 is something to have learned." 



Pennsylvania Folk Lore. Dr. D. G. 



Brinton's account of the folk lore of his early 

 home in Chester County, Pennsylvania, has 

 little that is peculiar, but in most of its 

 traits recalls familiar English customs. The 

 usual superstitions about the moon were in 

 vogue, and there was a mysterious buried 

 treasure of blood money with a legend at- 

 tached. Some mythical animals were be- 

 lieved in ; among them a descendant of the 

 were wolf of the middle ages a big black 

 dog with fiery eyes, which never appeared 

 except at night, and was an object of terror 

 to those who heard him. He was supposed 

 to haunt a certain valley which people 

 avoided. Another animal of this class was 

 the hoop snake, which was said to form it- 

 self into a ring with its tail in its mouth, 

 and to revolve like a wheel, faster than a 

 horse could trot. Dragon flies, as " snake 

 servants," were supposed to warn snakes of 



approaching danger, and as " snake-feed- 

 ers," to seek out food and notify the snakes 

 where it could be found. Cats were un- 

 canny ; many animals could predict the 

 weather ; and " conjuring " was held respon- 

 sible for many ills, while charms were cher- 

 ished as competent to remove them. Ghosts 

 were familiar in popular belief, and were in 

 many cases associated with spots connected 

 with scenes of the Revolution. The author 

 was himself somewhat of a ghost-seer in his 

 early days a faculty which he regrets hav- 

 ing lost as he advanced in years. Having 

 such evidence of his own, he was quite pre- 

 pared to accept without question the state- 

 ments of others on such points. The later 

 influx of Irish laborers has introduced a mass 

 of folk lore and superstitious notions that 

 did not exist in the region in the author's 

 boyhood. For instance, he never heard that 

 Friday was an unlucky day, or that the 

 number thirteen at dinner was ominous, or 

 that one should stroke himself to avoid the 

 influence of a bad sign. 



Animal Life in the Death-Valley Region. 



A pointed illustration of the effect of 

 change of environment on the life of a region 

 is given in Dr. A. K. Fisher's report of the 

 birds observed in the course of the examina- 

 tion of the Death-Valley region, California, 

 undertaken by Prof. C. Hart Merriam, under 

 the direction of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture. While the bird life of any region is 

 affected by various agencies, such as the 

 results of the destruction of forests, the dry- 

 ing of springs and watercourses, etc., in the 

 high Sierra the sheep industry is doing more 

 than any other cause to make that region un- 

 inhabitable. During the summer the sheep 

 destroy all the smaller plants and shrubs to 

 such an extent that they do not grow again 

 till the following spring. The author has 

 walked for miles along the hillsides where 

 sheep had recently grazed without seeing 

 any plants except the larger woody shrubs. 

 That this destruction is a potent cause of 

 the scarcity of ground-inhabiting birds is evi- 

 dent by contrast to any one visiting the na- 

 tional parks, where no sheep are allowed to 

 graze, and where vegetation is consequently 

 uninjured and many species of birds abound. 

 Yet two hundred and ninety species and sub- 

 species of birds were found in this region, 



