58 SCENIC. 
found in the snow and with the filaments and crumbs of 
pumice from the ship J. E. Ridgeway. 
After separating from these dusts the large proportion 
which was attracted by the magnet, the remnant showed 
in each case many vitreous particles ; that from the iron 
furnace largely spheroidal or globular, with a few fila- 
ments ; that from the steel works partly minute rounded 
particles, but containing many filaments of great tenuity. 
Neither contained such clear vitreous plates and aggrega- 
tions as abounded in the snow-dust, while the filaments in 
both cases were of dark color, and smooth, straight form, 
distinctly different from the colorless and frequently con- 
torted filaments of the snow-dust. 
It is difficult to resist the conclusions (1) that the 
vitreous dust found in the snow-fall of Jan. 20, 1884, was 
not derived from iron or steel furnaces, (2) thatit was of 
similar origin to the floating pumice found by the ship J. 
E. Ridgeway, (3) that it was ejected by the huge volcanic 
explosions of Krakatoa. 
To meet the objection which might be urged, that this 
account Cannot be regarded as accurate because written so 
long after the occurrences, I add that it is simply con- 
densed from three successive articles contributed at the 
time to the Public Ledger, of Philadelphia, describing 
respectively the finding of the vitreous dust in the snow- 
fall, the examination of pumice from the ship Ridgeway, 
and the scrutiny of furnace dusts. 
FAMILIARITY OF CERTAIN WOOD BIRDS. 
BY MARY HYATT, SFANFORDVILLE, N. Y. 
Some of our wood birds depart occasionally from the 
prescribed course laid down for them by ornithologists, 
and come to our orchards and lawns, instead of haunting 
deepest woods and distant solitudes, as the authorities 
say they should. 
A certain lawn surrounding a dwelling in Dutchess 
County is often favored with the presence of various wood 
birds—not transient visitors only, but birds that make 
themselves thoroughly at home in the garden and yard, 
sometimes building nests quite near the house. Beyond 
the garden there is a ledge of rocks, around and over 
which bushes and trees are allowed to grow, forming an 
attractive spot to these fugitives from the forest. 
One summer a pair of wood pewees (Contopus virens) 
nested in a towering honey locust that stood five feet 
from the piazza. ‘The trunk of the tree was crusted with 
gray lichens, with which the pewee coats the outside of 
its nest, the inside being usually composed of scraps of 
wool and inner fibres of decaying bark. The domicile of 
these sociable pewees was saddled upon a horizontal limb 
of the honey locust about thirty feet from the ground. By 
looking from the top-floor windows, one could just see the 
heads of the young projecting from the top of the nest. 
Now and then a parent bird appeared with a moth or 
some such delicacy for the little ones. The old birds 
spent much time on a wire fence between the garden and 
meadow. From there they made frequent dashes after 
insects, returning to their wire perch, where they re- 
mained for hours each day, quietly indifferent to all 
passers. The pewees seemed to have great confidence in 
their human neighbors. One day, as an occupant of the 
dwelling was walking leisurely along near the fence, one 
of the pewees darted down and snatched a little insect 
from the shoe of the passer, then flew serenely back to 
the wire again. 
The redstart is another frequenter of this yard and 
orchard. Its nest has not been found, but it is more 
than probable that it has nested somewhere about the 
Vol. XXIII. No. 574 
yard, which is well supplied with trees and shrubbery. 
The redstarts have been seen feeding young birds near 
the door, but they dart about so swiftly that it is no easy 
matter to find their nesting places. They often came 
about the door, sometimes hopping tamely on the ground, 
and once a redstart flew inthe open doorway, picking up , 
a crumb from the floor and departing as suddenly as he 
came. 
A pair of wood thrushes started house-keeping one 
summer in a plum-tree by the driveway. The nest was 
built, and the eggs were laid when Madam Thrush met 
with untimely death. She was found gasping on the 
door-stone one morning, and in a few moments the bird 
was dead. It was supposed that she had dashed against 
a window, thinking to fly through. The mate of the 
dead bird lingered a couple of days .in the vicinity of the 
nest, and then departed from the premises, returning no 
more to his favorite lawn, where he had explored the 
-flower-beds for many a day, sometimes singing on the 
very door-stones. : 
The crested flycatcher (AQjiarchus crinitus) occasionally 
makes himself quite prominent about the grounds. One 
year there were several of these saucy fellows calling so 
constantly and noisily through the yard for two or three 
weeks in May that they attracted much attention. 
The oven bird is one who delights in parading the 
flower-beds or walking the garden wall when he thinks no 
one is looking. Upon one occasion we caught him 
promenading the piazza, walking briskly up and down un- 
til his curiosity was satisfied, when he darted away, sound- 
ing a lively crescendo from behind the trees. 
—The latest number of the American Journal of Psy- 
chology (edited by G. Stanley Hall, Clark University, 
Worcester, Mass.) opens with an extensive article (pp. 
145-238) by T. L. Bolton, on ‘‘ Rhythm,” in which the 
author discusses interestingly the almost untouched field 
of the psychology of rhythmic phenomena,—treating of 
physiological rhythms, attention and periodicity, rhythmic 
speech, time relations, intensity of sounds, qualities of 
sounds, emotional effects of rhythm upon savages and 
children, rhythmic, music and poetry. The main bulk of 
Mr. Bolton’s paper is taken up, however, with the tabula- 
tion and explanation of the results of many valuable ex- 
periments on rhythm carried out in the Psychological 
Laboratory of Clark University. ‘‘ Minor Studies from 
the Psychological Laboratory of Cornell University,” 
‘‘ Mediate Association,” by H. E. Howe, and ‘‘ Sensorial 
and Muscular Reactions,” by A. R. Hill and R. Watan- 
abe, are communicated by Prof. E. B. Titchener. . Mr. 
Howe’s experiments seem to controvert Scripture’s 
“Mediate Association.” Mr. J. A. Bergstrém contrib- 
utes a careful ‘‘ Experimental Study of Some of the 
Conditions of Mental Activity.” The experimental work 
_upon which the paper is based was done in the laboratory 
of Clark University in the last two years. ‘The questions 
treated of are chiefly ‘‘ Natural Rhythm of Mental 
Activity” and physiological memory. Mr. F. B. Dresslar 
publishes ‘‘ A New Illusion for Touch, and an Explanation 
for the Illusion Displacement of Certain Cross Lines in 
Vision,” besides a ‘‘ New and Simple Method for Com- 
paring the Perception of Rate of Movements in the 
Direct and Indirect Field of Vision,” two interesting 
additions to the stock of laboratory experiments. Mr. 
J. S. Lemon has a brief paper on the ‘‘ Psychical Effects 
of the Weather,” a subject with which he promises to deal 
more in detail on a future occasion. The number con- 
cludes with the usual extensive review of the literature of 
anthropological psychology, nemology, morbid psychol- 
ogy, instinct and experimental psychology. 
x 
