io8 Bird - Lore 



The quotation from Emerson's lines emphasizes again the value which poets attach 

 to Nature's treasures. In her quaint, delicate way, Emily Dickinson, too, warns the 

 ruthless trespasser who plucks every flower, especially the rarest, and who asserts his 

 supposed right to trample upon or destroy anything which comes to his notice: 



"Who robbed the woods, 

 The trusting woods? 

 The unsuspecting trees 

 Brought out their burrs and mosses 

 His fantasy to please. 

 He scanned their trinkets, curious. 

 He grasped, he bore away. 

 What will the solemn hemlock. 

 What will the fir-tree say'"' 



If Bird and Arbor Day teaches anything, it is this lesson of the right use and enjoy- 

 ment of Nature. The playlet given above was written by Eva Marian Provost in the 

 interest of the Audubon Society and presented at School, No. 167, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

 "As a result of the enthusiasm it awakened," twelve Junior Audubon Societies were 

 formed during the year. — A. H. W.] 



THE SKYLARK AT HOME 



Dorking, Surrey, England, July 9, 1905. 

 Took a walk after breakfast. There was a continuous singing of Larks, soft 

 and low, all over the fields of standing grain, and once in a while a bird would 

 rise, ascend higher than the trees, and hover in the air, pouring out liquid trills, 

 and after a minute would drop to the ground. I was enchanted at this, for I 

 had feared it was getting too late in the summer to hear a Skylark. The best 

 was to come, however. One started up, singing, and continued soaring around 

 and gradually rising higher and higher, up and up, until it was a tiny speck 

 which it was hard to keep in sight in the bright sky. Leaning against a fence- 

 post, I tipped my umbrella toward the sun to protect my eyes from the glare, 

 so that I could watch the singer, which was almost in the zenith. Once I 

 lost it, but knew it was there, for the sweet, unceasing trilling music still 

 floated down. The bird kept in the sky fully five minutes, perhaps longer. 

 Then it descended slowly, growing larger to the sight, and, just at the last, 

 stopping its circling, it came down in a straight line, still keeping up its sing- 

 ing until it alighted. It was worth crossing the ocean to hear that Skylark 

 sing. — Miss Lucy Upton, Providence, R. I. 



[The writer of the above, an invalid who now is able to observe birds only occa- 

 sionally from her room, which overlooks a few trees in a somewhat open corner of a 

 city street, has so fine an appreciation of nature that her words, not originally intended 

 for publication, will appeal to us all, expressing as they do the result of keen observa- 

 tion and sympathetic understanding. 



She says: "I have been trying to analyze the fascination of bird-study, as compared 

 with other lines of nature-study. It does appeal more to me. My recreation hobby for 

 years was botany, and it gave me much pleasure. I was nearly fifty before I began to 

 pay any attention to birds and I have often regretted that I had no interest in them 



