THE OOLOGIST 



15 



tie drop brought things to a climax. 

 We so far forgot out dignity as to say 

 unkind things — sort of handled the 

 English language in comprehensive 

 terms emphasized as "rubbing it in." 

 We even doubted his ability to per- 

 form what he preached and put things 

 so strong and forcible that he had 

 either to give an exhibition of artistic 

 climbing or acknowledge disgrace. 

 When we started in he looked in- 

 tensely surprised, then pained and 

 finally his features took on an ex- 

 pression of supreme contempt. We 

 were so delighted when he commenc- 

 ed to slowly strap on the irons that 

 we tendered our services which were 

 coldly rejected. He glanced about 

 with critical eye and selected a syca- 

 more — one of those big fellows about 

 15 feet around the base with the first 

 limb up near the cloudland and 

 smcoth backed as a poker chip. In- 

 justice is not a part of our composition 

 and we suggested a near by elm. He 

 considered a moment and decided to 

 follow our advice. Stroke by stroke 

 he ascended. Six feet above the ground 

 was a large knot but he mastered this 

 with credible skill and higher and 

 liigher he went. He went away up to 

 almo::5t 12 feet above the ground, then 

 paused and looked down. Kind read- 

 er, did you ever look at an object 

 through a field glass and then view 

 it through the other end? He was 

 now getting the other end view of 

 height. We had read somewhere that 

 the cold increases with the distance 

 from the earth and believed it because 

 we had seen snow on mountain tops 

 in summer time but with the tempera- 

 ture at 85 degrees we were surprised 

 at the intensity of cold only twelve 

 feet up. He commenced to shake and 

 shook so hard that owing to the im- 

 mense size of the stately monarch he 

 bestrode it also shook to the topmost 

 branches fully 30 feet above his head. 



His pedestals wabbled like a man sup- 

 porting a small brewery and as he 

 gazed a combination of pathetic 

 yearning and forseen disaster beamed 

 from his eagle eye. The cold be- 

 numbed his fingers so that he could 

 no longer hang to the bark and he 

 gathered the tree in a tender embrace 

 and followed suite with his legs and 

 began to slide. All went well until 

 the knot was reached. Here he got 

 tangled up somehow but solved the 

 difficulty by finishing the descent 

 without any aid from the tree and 

 wrong end up. An ordinary skull 

 might have received injury but not so 

 his opaque dome. He sat up and rub- 

 bed it and gazed about at the dent 

 it had made in the ground and inef- 

 fable gratitude was depicted upon his 

 countenance. We approached and sug- 

 gested sycamores and with a look 

 more eloquent than words he arose 

 and started for home and has ever 

 since regarded us as the perpetrater 

 of some heinous crime. 



Moral — It is better to know too lit- 

 tle than too much. 



J. Claire Wood. 



A Correction on the Road Runner. 

 In the description of a Road Uun- 

 ner, page 182, November, 1915, number 

 of The Oologist, where I said their 

 feet were like Kingfishers. This is a 

 mistake. I meant to say their feet 

 were like most Woodpeckers. 



R. Graham. 



The March Issue, which we prom- 

 ised to devote largely to the prepara- 

 tion and arrangement of ornithologi- 

 cal and oological specimens "provid- 

 ed we could secure sufficient copy" is 

 still in the making; but we are dis- 

 tressed at the slowness of response to 

 calls for copy on these subjects. If it 

 is not up to standard, it will be be- 

 cause of this failure, and not be- 

 cause of any intent on our part. 



