xylophone, nor yet so fine a fellow as 

 Billie. Soon she stopped her pretended 

 search for larvae under the loose bark 

 and made another inspection of the 

 house. She exemplified the maxim, "To 

 hesitate is to be lost," and soon she and 

 Billie were busy with their housekeep- 

 ing. The sparrows got no further 

 chance to occupy Billie's summer home. 

 A happy family was reared and educated 

 and in the autumn disappeared. 



As I write Billie has returned and is 

 beating a merry tune, while six or more 



sparrows sit around listening as if to 

 learn how. Mrs. Flicker has not yet re- 

 turned, but I believe the sparrows have 

 given up the idea of taking his house. I 

 am in doubt about Mrs. Flicker, but I 

 know Billie. He is larger and hand- 

 somer than ever. I have studied his 

 every beautiful feather. Sometimes I 

 think he jumps behind a limb just to 

 tease me, but I am fond of him and I 

 hope he may return for many years. 

 Rowland Watts. 



BEAUTIFUL VINES TO BE FOUND IN OUR WILD WOODS. 



II. 



A vine of great beauty in our autumn 

 woods, with its great masses of scarlet 

 berries, is the Celastrus scandens — 

 Climbing Bittersweet or Wax-work. 



It belongs to the order Celastraceae 

 — Staff tree family — to which family 

 belongs the wahoo or burning-bush, 

 with which we are all familiar, from 

 seeing its abundant red berries in the 

 autumn woods and in the parks. 



The flowers of the Celastrus or Bit- 

 tersweet are small, greenish and regu- 

 lar, growing in clusters at the end of the 

 branchlets, the staminate and pistillate 

 forms usually on separate plants, which 

 accounts for the fact that we often see a 

 beautiful vine that has bloomed profuse- 

 'ly bearing no flowers ; the flowers have 

 five distinct spreading petals, inserted 

 with the alternate stamens on the edge 

 of the disk that lines the base of the 

 calyx. Its five united sepals form a 

 cup-shaped calyx. It has five stamens, 

 one thick style and a three-celled ovary, 

 with three to six seeds. It can be found 

 in full blossom about the first of June. 



The leaves of the Bittersweet are 

 from two to three and a half inches in 

 length, simple alternate, slightly fine- 



toothed, and are found from egg shaped 

 and oblong to the reversed of egg 

 shaped, the apex always pointed, while 

 the base is sometimes pointed and some- 

 times rounded. The fruit of the Bitter- 

 sweet is about one-third of an inch in 

 diameter, round and a deep orange 

 color, three-celled with two seeds in 

 each cell; when it is ripe, it opens into 

 three parts, showing six bright scarlet 

 berries within. 



The Celastrus is a strong, woody 

 climber, twining upon itself in coils and 

 swirls, over fences and walls and bushes 

 to great distances, often to the top of 

 immensely high trees. 



It is immensely showy and beautiful 

 in the very late fall when its leaves are 

 all fallen off and its woody branches are 

 left thickly studded with its orange and 

 scarlet fruit. I remember especially one 

 Christmas eve, in Kentucky, that we 

 gathered great bunches of it; we found 

 it growing over an old stone ruin in 

 great masses and gathering it, with large 

 bunches of mistletoe, it made ideal dec- 

 orations for our Christmas festivities. 

 J. O. Cochran. 



186 



