THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. ' 9^ 



demonstrate the efficiency of similar elements on a vaster scale, in 

 pre-adamite days, to plane down the rugged hills and to prepare the 

 earth's surface as a dwelling place for intellectual beings. 



Since the violent windstorm, accompanied by a fall of 5 or 6 

 inches of snow, that prevailed last Thursday morning (Jan. 10, 1889) 

 large flocks of snow buntings have frequented our fields. And a 

 curious trait that I have never seen mentioned in the books, has 

 been again and again noticed in connection with these birds, namely, 

 their nocturnal habit of feeding. Last Thursday night a flock of 

 several hundred was seen by my son. The birds were passing just 

 above the rather weedy surface of one of our fields, in loose go-as- 

 you-please order, many of them occasionally alighting on grass pan- 

 icles or dried stems of clover just above the slight covering of 

 snow, the hour was about 10 p. m., moonlight but cloudy. Another 

 large flock was seen next night near by under nearly similar conditions. 

 Five or six years ago, I, one night, found myself in the midst of a 

 flock of these birds, which were in scattered order, feeding in their 

 normal way, although the hour was 7 p. m. in the month of Feb- 

 ruary. Have they acquired this habit during their supposed res- 

 idence in the twilight of the Arctic latitudes ? That they fly and feed 

 by night is now indisputable. 



Having, not many months ago, to undertake the work of exca- 

 vating a cellar under a portion of my dwelling house, I happened to 

 become aware of facts and circumstances that convinced me that 

 there is any amount of Philosophy connected with tree root devel- 

 opment. The substance, dug through to the depth of five feet, was 

 a very solid mass of reddish brown clay, very difificult to penetrate 

 even with a newly sharpened pick. Yet into this compact stuff" the 

 roots of an apple tree, that was growing at a distance of about ten 

 feet from the edge of the excavation, had thoroughly penetrated in 

 every direction. Many of these roots were nearly of the thickness 

 of an ordinary walking stick, and were ot a wavy or spiral form, 

 somewhat resembling one of the strands of a rope that has been un- 

 twisted. These roots must have insinuated themselves into the 

 hard clay when very small, mere hair-like fibres, and then by secre- 

 tion of vegetable sap reduced or dissolved and absorbed that portion 



