NATURE'S REALM. 37 
could not have jumped up. He was not born 
there, except he was borne on the wings of the 
wind. He could not be accounted for, except 
the storm picked him up over half a mile off at 
least, as neither the Little Miami or the Ohio 
River, with no creeks between them and us, 
were nearer than that distance, and carried 
him to the floor of the upper porch, when he 
hopped or was carried into the room by the 
storm before the windows were closed, which 
I learned was done after the fury of the storm 
had commenced. K. 
A MONGREL STORK’ OR HERON. 
The London Zoélogical Gardens have just 
received several specimens of the umbrette, 
which has not been exhibited since the year 
1884. It is, however, fairly common through- 
out the Cape colony and in other parts of Africa, 
and extends its range to Madagascar. It is 
one of those birds which has proved a difficulty 
to the systematist, for it does not fit accurately 
into any classificatory scheme. It is half a he- 
ron and half a stork, with a general appearance 
which is unlike that of either. On the whole, 
in its structure it comes nearer to the heron, 
and it has the rather melancholy demeanor of 
that bird. It lives upon fish and frogs. Curi- 
ously enough, it is looked upon by some of the 
natives of both Africa and Madagascar as a 
bird of evil augury. In Africa it is held to be 
sacred and to possess the power of witchcraft. 
There is something portentions and solemn 
about the behavior of all these herons and bit- 
terns which easily accounts for the origin of 
these legends. Occasionally the umbrette re- 
laxes the severity of its demeanor and executes 
a fantastic dance with outspread wings. It is 
also a bird of refined and esthetic tastes, which 
are not shared by its immediate kinsmen, the 
herons and storks. It adorns its nest with but- 
tons, fragments of pottery, bits of glass and any 
other bright-looking objects which come in its 
way. The nest itself is enormous—nearly six 
feet across—and its interior divided into three 
chambers. This is an unheard-of luxury, es- 
pecially as it only lays two eggs and does not 
take in any lodgers, such as cyuckoos, 
NATURE’s PERSEVERANCE. 
The following diagram is that of a cane 
which was cutin Pennsylvania about 
half a century ago, and is now in 
possession of my brother. It grew 
from a white oak acorn buried about 
three or four feet deep under a stone 
pile in an angle of a worm fence on 
the southeast 
edge ot a woods, 
on aspur of Edge 
hill ridge, in 
Montgomery 
County. 


















Point tap dsperrtcety 
The cane as 
given is with the 
bark off, and, 
though but the 
usual length of a 
cane, three feet, 
the total length is 
seven and a half feet. The curi- 
ous part is that Nature reversed 
herself, as the base of the trunk 
just where it was cut above ground, 
aiter removing the stone, is three- 
eighths of an inch in di- 
ameter; while three feet, 
perpendicular height up, 
it was only a sixteenth less 
than an inch. 
It will be observed that 
in its difficult passages through the 
dark crevices of the stone pile, it 
grew almost straight, with one small 
joint up fourteen inches, where it 
struck a flat surface; then followed a 
gallery at right angles five and a halt 
inches ; from h¢re 
it was obliged to 
trace its way di- 
rectly toward the 
earth, slanting to 
the left ten 
inches down 
where it 
filled up a space three inches acrass formed as 
the opening allawed, and then found its way afi 
to the right, slightly upward, and so on its (fs 
