146 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[October, 



quality of his machinery, what is to prevent 

 the stockman from exhibiting the qualities of 

 his stock, whatever it may be ? And as dis- 

 criminating between stock, shall cattle, sheep, 

 and swine be admitted, and horses be inter- 

 , dieted ? If it is legitimate, and even praise- 

 worthy, for a locomotive to make its mile, oi- 

 its ten miles, in the shortest tenure of time 

 why may not a horse do the same, seeing that 

 there are proportionally as many necks broken 

 by the one as by the other ? These are the 

 questions that must first be satisfactorily set- 

 tled in Lancaster county before she can have 

 a successful home-fair ; until then, she may 

 expect to be "bled" by foreign enterprises. 



LITERARY PIRACY. 



For a pure and unadulterated article of 

 cheek, weare willing to award the persimmou 

 to the scissor editor of the Lancaster (Pa.) 

 Farmer, who, in his issue for September, 

 transfers our "Horticultural Department," 

 of September 8, without a change or a word 

 of credit, to his columns as original. We em- 

 ploy and pay Mr. Meehan, a skilled horticul- 

 turist, to edit our department, and Dr. S. S. 

 Kathvon, or whoever else is responsible, is 

 guilty of an act of piracy unworthy the paper 

 he is supposed to edit. All we desire is 

 proper credit for what costs us mouey and 

 time. We credit every paragraph from other 

 papers, and if we are not treated with like 

 courtesy, we will show up the journalistic 

 pirate who takes our matter. A single arti- 

 cle might be clipped unthinkingly, but when 

 a whole column is taken without credit it is 

 simply theft.— October 6, 1883. 



The above savage paragraph, from the Ger- 

 mantmcn Independent, was sent to us by mail, 

 and we exceedingly regret that there was a 

 seeming necessity to write in such a strain. 

 Knowing how a man feels under such a casti- 

 gation, we thank God that we have never 

 written such a paragraph, although we have 

 frequently had provocation to do so ; but we 

 argued that the articles must have had some 

 merit or they would not have been appro- 

 priated, and knowing that the result would 

 only be a wider diffusion, we have always 

 been content. 



In our September number we reprinted ar- 

 ticles credited to the Germantown Telegraph, 

 Breeders Gazette, Western Bural, Philadelphia 

 Ledger, Live Stock Journal, Country Gentle- 

 man, Farm and Fireside, Indiana Farmer, 

 Virginia Enterprise, London Garden, Nature. 

 TJ. S. Consid Allen and others, not one of 

 which, perhaps, was taken from the papers in 

 which they originally appeared, and by the 

 same process we also frequently appropriate 

 articles that are not credited to any journal. 

 And in pursuance of this we have been 

 subsequently reminded that we omitted to 

 credit them to their proper sources— sources 

 that we never knew. We cannot say how it 

 occurred that the Independents excellent 

 Horticultural articles were in.serted without 

 due credit being given. We acknowledge 

 that we " scissor" all, or nearly all, that goes 

 into the columns of the Paembr, and we en- 

 deavor to be careful to give every one the 

 credit due them ; but, we are an Editor, as it 

 were, by our own sufferance, our sanctum, 

 where all our literary and scientific labor is 

 performed by the " midnight lamp," is a mile 

 from the printing office, and very often we 

 have time to read no proof but that of our own 

 articles ; and yet, we would scorn to resort to 



any subterfuge through which the responsi- 

 bility for these omissions would be imposed 

 upon the printers. 



If we know the intents and purposes of our 

 own heart, we are not, and never have been, 

 a "literary pirate." If any thing in our 

 course and conduct has such a seeming, it is 

 so inadvertently, nor do we believe that those 

 who know us will accord to us any remarkable 

 degree of "cheek." If editing an Agricul- 

 tural paper were our special avocation, and 

 we had nothing else to do but that, we, per- 

 haps, might avoid these errors and omissions, 

 but it is far otherwise with us, nevertheless 

 we do not claim any special indulgence on 

 that account and are willing to bear the re- 

 sponsibilit}'. 



We insert the above paragraph, and the 

 purloined articles may be found on page 142 

 (September number) of the Farmer, willing 

 that the whole may be transmitted to posterity 

 just as they occurred ; and we do so without 

 the least hesitation or misgiving ; because, so 

 far as we are concerned the act was uninten- 

 tional, and also because we wish the impar- 

 tial reader to judge whether such an offense, 

 under all the circumstances, deserved such a 

 punishment. And, to make the thing still 

 more explicit, the articles in our Horticul- 

 tural department entitled "Cornell's Fancy 

 Apple," "Calla Lilies," "Native Lilies," 

 " Moore's Grajje," " Honeysuckles," and per- 

 haps others, were written by Mr. Meehan, for 

 which he was paid, and were inadvertantly 

 copied from the Germantoum, Independent, 

 without credit, by the Lancaster Farsler. 

 We don't wish anything to anpear in the col- 

 umns of the Farmer, as "original," that is 

 not original, nor does the bare fact that they 

 are found in our Horticultural columns assert 

 any such claim. It is not for us to say whether 

 the Lidcpendent has done right or wrong in 

 handling us so roughly, it all depends upon 

 which foot the boot is on, or whose ox is gored ; 

 but, to us, it would have been more agreeable if 

 reproof had come in a different form. Doubt- 

 less, per sc, there is too much literary theft in 

 these United States, to be morally healthful 

 or honorable, but there surely must be some 

 difference between an intentional and willful 

 theft, and one that is unintentional, or tlie re- 

 sult of accident Professional editors, how- 

 ever, look at these things differently. On one 

 occasion we were answered tliusly : "Oh, 

 well, your article must have had merit, or iP^ 

 would not have been copied without credit, 

 and that ought to be a sufficient compensa- 

 tion." 



"DO HUMMING-BIRDS FLY BACK- 

 WARDS.'" 



[From Science for September, 188.3,] 



The Duke of Argyll, in his Reign of Law 

 (p. 145), lays it down in italics that " Wo bird 

 can ever fly hack.wards.'''' He mentions the 

 humming-bird as appearing to do so, but 

 maintains that in reality tlie bird falls, rather 

 than flies, when, for instance, he comes out 

 of a tubular flower. But this morning, while 

 watching the motions of a liumming bii'd 

 (Trovhihis colubris), it occurred to me to test 

 this dictum of the Duke ; and, unless ray eyes 

 were altogether at fault, the bird did actually 

 fly backwards. He was probing one after 

 another the blossoms of a Petunia bed, and 

 more than once, when the flower liappened to 

 be low down, he plainly rose, rather than fell, 

 as he backed out of and away from it. I 



stood within a yard or two of him, and do not 

 believe that I was deceived. 



It may not be amiss to add that the Duke 

 of Argyll's objections seem to he purely theo- 

 retical, since the "Reign of Law" was pub- 

 lished in 1S66, and it was not till 1879 that 

 the author came to America and saw the first 

 living humming-bird.— i?rad/ord Torry, Bos- 

 ton, September 14, 1S83. 



Of course this has little or nothing to do 

 with the advance of improved agricultural 

 ideas, but it is nevertheless interesting in 

 point of historical fact, or what has a strong 

 seeming in that direction. We could say, also, 

 if our eyes did not deceive us, that we could 

 not only corroborate Mr. Torry 's observa- 

 tions, but we could go a little farther and 

 suggest that the humming-bird can not only 

 fly backwards, but it can also fly sidewards. 

 It diies not actually drop out, or back out of a 

 flower, for the simple reason that it never gets 

 -into one any farther than the whirring motion 

 of its wings will allow— and that is with the 

 tongue, the bill, or the front portion of the 

 head, according to the size of the flower. On 

 several occasions last summer we noticed 

 humming-birds visiting low flowers, such as 

 petunias,;pansies, verbeneas, and on one occa- 

 sion one of these birds approached so near to 

 us that we might have nearly or quite reached 

 it by the extension of our arm. We were on 

 the spot when it came, and as we stood "stalk 

 still" it probably took us for a statue ; at all 

 events it left without a consciousness of a liv- 

 ing presence. 



We also observed that this bird did not 

 always approach the flower with the body in a 

 horizontal position, as they are usually repre- 

 sented ; especially not when they visited low 

 flowers. The body had a sort of oscillating 

 motion, between a horizontal and a vertical 

 plane, with the tail drawn well under, and 

 the head and bill at a right angle from the 

 body ; these positions were, however, rapidly 

 changed while the bird was poised on the 

 wing ; and in these positions it moved for- 

 wards, backwards and sidewards without any 

 motion that looked like dropping. In higher 

 and larger flowers, and where there were a 

 number on the same horizontal plane, the 

 bird backed away from one and entered an- 

 other, evidently flying backward, forward 

 and sideward, aud when at length it flew 

 away the wings seemed to cease their rapid, 

 bee-like motion, and it glided off in an ordi- 

 nary bird flight, but much swifter. Whilst 

 this was so, or seemed to be so, yet when the 

 opening of the flower hung much downward 

 the bird did seem to drop, aud there was the 

 faintest and most momentary sessation of the 

 vibrating motion of the wings, but this does 

 not militate against the fact that the bird 

 can back outward and upward when it has 

 occasion to enter flowers above. 



The humming-bird, however, is not the 

 only animal that possesses this power, al- 

 though it may be the only one among the 

 feathered tribes. Certain species of insects 

 possess it, and especially among the Neruop- 

 TERA and DiPTERA. The Lihellulido!:, or 

 Dragon-flies, for instance, will poise them- 

 selves in mid-air, darting backward, forward, 

 or sideward, eluding the attacks of their 

 enemies, or in pursuit of their prey. Some 

 of the two-winged flies will poise themselves 

 in a similar manner for hours, darting after and 



