594 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



visit to Cape Breton in midsummer, 1893, I kept close watch for 

 sapsuckers and humming birds. Of the latter not one came under 

 my eyes, although common testimony was that they frequented 

 the country. Of the sapsuckers I found one nourishing colony 

 among the alders which bordered the southwest Margaree at the 

 point where that swift stream emerges from Lake Ainslie. More 

 than a dozen alder trunks had been girdled with drills and a rich 

 orchard seemed to be in use. I had not long to wait at the spot, 

 but in the fifteen minutes which I could spare no humming birds 

 came to reward my silent watching. 



In some parts of the country sapsuckers are roughly treated 

 on account of their destruction of trees. It is unquestionably 

 true that each family of birds kills one or more vigorous trees 

 each year, but generally the trees are small and of trifling value 

 as timber. My sapsuckers are welcome to several forest trees a 

 year, so long as they continue to attract and feed humming birds, 

 and indirectly to draw thousands of insects within easy reach of 

 their own bills and the more active mandibles of flycatchers, war- 

 blers, and vireos. 



BARBERRIES: A STUDY OF USES AND ORIGINS. 



BY FEEDEEICK LE EOY SAEGENT. 



common barberry (Berberis vulgaris), being so abun- 

 dant over the greater part of Europe, native to the soil, 

 and at the same time both useful and beautiful, has naturally 

 come to hold an important place in popular esteem. As a con- 

 sequence it has received, in the course of centuries, a consider- 

 able variety of names in the different European languages, and 

 some of these names, as might be expected, have undergone rather 

 curious transformations. 



Our own name barberry is in England more commonly written 

 berberry. The variants barbary, barbery, and berbery were used 

 side by side in early modern English, as were barber e in still 

 earlier English and berbere in the French of that time. There 

 can be no doubt that these are descended from the mediaeval 

 Latin forms barberis and berberis, but further back than this the 

 pedigree is uncertain. 



In the change of the terminal from beris to berry we have, 

 doubtless, an example of one of those transformations which are 

 so apt to take place whenever the foreign name of a common 

 object becomes incorporated into the vernacular, and the sound 

 of the name suggests a common word in any way descriptive of 

 the object. Just as the ecrevisse (crevice-dweller) of the French 

 became the " crayfish " of the English, from its aquatic habits, 



