THE ATLANTIC SLOPE NATURALIST. 



*3 



mountain chain, with its nestlings of 

 protected valleys along the eastern coast 

 of Mediterranean Sea — Syria and Pales- 

 tine. Between the desert and the deep 

 sea, the adjustment of conditions would 

 seem to offer a problem of no small diffi- 

 culty ; especially where man has dis- 

 turbed the balance by ruthlessly denud- 

 ing the hills of their timber, thereby de- 

 creasing the rainfall. 



And yet it is by the interchange of cour- 

 tesies among these seemingly irreconcila- 

 ble elements that the solution is formed. 

 The prevailing winds of winter are from 

 the west — all moisture-laden from the sea, 

 caught by the mountain ridge and de- 

 spoiled of their freight. So come the 

 rains (the "early and latter"). In sum- 

 mer the winds are from the north and 

 northwest, carrying less of moisture. The 

 "dry season" is on — for man intolerable, 

 for vegetation fatal, unless some adjust- 

 ment mitigate the rigor. 



But such adjustment is made. The 

 regularity of those winds is itself the sav- 

 ing element and is brought about by 

 those very mountains. Something like a 

 compensating pendulum is this device. 

 That poma lime stone heats, and likewise 

 chills, more rapidly than the sea, on the 

 one side, and the desert, on the other 

 side. This agency is sufficiently power- 

 ful to work by the simple process of con- 

 densation, expanding, contracting. So the 

 air currents are lured to the direction de- 

 sired ; so are they robbed of their moist- 

 ure, to produce the copious night mists 

 and early dews. So is nature's equipoise 

 produced not by chance, but by intelli- 

 gence. 



Oysters on Trees. 



By Morris Gibbs, M. D., Kalamazoo, Mich. 



Did you ever hear of oysters growing 

 on trees ? I have asked this question of 

 many observers, and unless they had 

 been in certain quarters in the South 

 they all thought that I was joking them. 

 But oysters do grow on trees, and I will 

 explain the peculiarity to your satisfac- 

 tion. 



Oysters are salt-water inhabitants, and 

 they like to find localities where they can 

 come to the surface and inspect the sur- 

 roundings. This is possible in the lagoons 

 or arms of the sea at the South where the 

 Mangrove trees line the banks and in- 

 fringe on the lagoons. These mangroves 

 are odd trees, and the common kind is 

 provided with long runners or descending 

 stems, which drop from the limbs above, 

 enter the water and then grow up again. 

 And this peculiar formation continues 

 until the whole section is a mass of stems 

 and trunks and makes a quarter where no 

 one but an Indian or very enthusiastic 

 collector will venture. The Mangrove is 

 small, but is much like that peculiar tree, 

 the banyan of the East. 



In many sections the Mangroves hang 

 their descending branches in the water 

 where the oysters thrive, and these curi- 

 ous bivalves grasp the branches when the 

 water is at high tide and hang on with 

 their clamp arrangement. Then when the 

 tide goes out and the lagoon is at what is 

 termed low-water, the oysters may be 

 seen for several hours hanging on trees, 

 or until the next tide returns to cover 

 them up. I have seen thousands of these 

 oysters of variable taste, hanging from 

 the branches in the salt-water lagoons in 

 Florida. It is not uncommon to pull 

 these oysters off the branches and use 

 them for bait when fishing, and therefore 

 the expression "pick oysters from trees" 

 is true. 



Folk-lore of the Albino Robin 



In the N. Y. Sun of May 14, Dr. D. S. 

 Kellogg, of Plattsburg, N. Y., after re- 

 cording an Albino robin, writes as follows: 



"Now comes an interesting bit of folk- 

 lore. This afternoon I was telling a gen- 

 tleman of this city about this bird, and he 

 said : 'If you see a white robin it is a sign 

 you will live to be a hundred years old.' 

 He had learned this from an old French- 

 Canadian here, who died some years ago, 

 at the old age of 103 years. This old 

 man had always claimed that he should 

 live a hundred years because he had seen 

 a white robin when he was a young man." 



