The Audubon Note Book. 



69 



THEY KNEW THEIR FRIEND. 



The following charming story comes to us from 

 Warner, Illinois: "Close to my office window, as I 

 write this, I see a wren's nest. Three years ago I 

 drove some nails in a sheltered corner; a pair of wrens 

 built their nest there, and each year they have raised 

 a family there. The old birds often come into my 

 office and sing. One of them has repeatedly alighted 

 on my desk as I have been writing, saying plainly by 

 his actions: 'You won't hurt me. We are friends. ' 

 A few years since, in a knothole in a dead tree near 

 a path from my office to my house, lived a family of 

 wrens, with whom I had formed a very intimate ac- 

 quaintance. One day while I was passing in a hurry 

 I heard the two old birds uttering cries of fear and 

 anger, and as I got past the tree one of the wrens 

 followed me, and by its peculiar motions and cries 

 induced me to turn back. I examined the nest and 

 found the young birds all right; looked into the tree's 

 branches, but saw no enemies there, and started 

 away. Both birds then followed me with renewed 

 cries, and when I was a few yards away they flew in 

 front of me, fluttered a moment, and then darted 

 back to the tree. Then one of them came back near 

 to me fluttering and crying, then darted from me 

 near to the ground under the tree. I looked and 

 there lay a rattlesnake, coiled ready to strike. I se- 

 cured a stick and killed him, the wrens looking on 

 from the tree, and the moment I did so they changed 

 their song to a lively happy one, seeming to say: 

 'Thank you,' in every note. — W. W. W." 



WINSCOMBE SKETCHES.* 



It would be difficult to find a truer or more 

 charming, if somewhat idealized, picture of English 

 rural life, than that portrayed in W^inscombe, by 

 Theodore Compton. This is no hasty sketch by a 

 traveling artist, but the finished picture of one to 

 whom Winscombe Vale among the Mendip Hills is 

 one of the fairest spots on earth, a spot hallowed by 

 tradition, and endeared by life-long associations, 

 which prompt the author to build himself into the 

 picture, and illumine foreground, middle distance 

 and the dim background of the unknown past, with 

 all the light of his soul. The author is not one of 

 those who in the seclusion of country life grow im- 

 patient of "the daily round, the common task," he is 

 in full sympathy with his surroundings, letting his 

 heart go out equally to "the swallow twittering in his 

 straw-built shed," and to the schoolboy who shies a 

 stone at him, "emulous of achievement." 



It is not a connected history, but rather a series 

 of glimpses of the salient events of which the Men- 



* Winscombe Sketches of Rural Life and Scenery anions; the 

 Mendip Hills. London: William Poole, i2.\ Paternoster RoiV. 



dip hills have been the theatre from the days when 

 its Celtic inhabitants traded their lead with the 

 Phoenicians, down through all the battlings between 

 Celt and Saxon, Saxon and Dane, to the apportion- 

 ment of English land among Norman William's 

 followers, thence downward through the dark nights 

 of the Middle Ages to nineteenth century enlighten- 

 ment,' with the lighting of Winscombe schoolhouse 

 by gas as its culminating point, the personality of 

 the author as philosopher and moralizer betraying 

 itself at every stage, and giving light to the dry 

 facts of history. 



But the great charm of the work to many of our 

 readers will be the chapter devoted to "Our Birds." 

 It is complete, embracing not only the local deni- 

 zens, but all the stray visitants from other climes of 

 which there is any record, and they are described by 

 one who writing of himself says: "I have been a 

 lover of birds all my life * * * i have enjoyed 

 watching sea and land birds, and tried in vain to 

 sketch the inimitable grace of their movements, but 

 never wished to kill one." 



The author delights in presenting evidence of the 

 value of birds to man, and cites numerous instances 

 of the indisputable testimony of stomach contents to 

 show that most valuable services are rendered by 

 birds which popular prejudice has classed as inimi- 

 cal to the farmers' interests. 



Quoting from the "Birds of Killingworth," he says; 

 "You call them thieves and pillagers, but know 

 They are the winged wardens of your farms, 

 Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foes, 

 And from your harvest keep a hundred harms." 



Winscombe Sketches is a work we can recommend 

 unhesitatingly as pure, wholesome and instructive 

 reading. 



"Byram and Ghopal," the opening chapter of 

 which will be found in the current number, is a tale 

 of two wandering Hindoo Faquirs, or religious men- 

 dicants, who enliven the way by disputes as to the 

 value of the lower creatures to man. Byram, the 

 wise, is a man not only of exceptional piety, which 

 leads him to believe that all the works of Brahma, 

 the Creator, are good, but, moreover, a man skilled 

 in the life history of birds and insects, and a close 

 observer of their habits, and consequently prepared 

 to defend his views by facts and arguments; while 

 Ghopal, although a shrewd and intelligent fellow, 

 has never thought of these creatures unless when 

 they have forced themselves upon his notice by their 

 petty depredations. The first chapter simply nar- 

 rates the causes which resulted in Ghopal's becom- 

 ing a Faquir, and affords no clue to the general plan 

 of the story, which we believe will be looked for 

 with interest in ensuing numbers. 



