724 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Boys and Girls 
By Edward M. Tuttle 
Our Page is very interesting, for it seems as though we 
are talking together when we are all at our own homes. 
Drawn by Norman II., Connecticut, 1 / leans 
Memory Verse 
“My oriole, my glance of Summer fire, 
Is come at last, ami ever on the watch, 
Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly 
wound 
About the bough to help his housekeep¬ 
ing,— 
Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing 
his luck. 
Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, 
Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, 
Divines the providence that hides and 
helps. 
Heave, ho! heave, bo! he whistles as the 
twine 
Slackens its hold; once more, now ; and 
a flash 
Lightens across the sunlight to the elm 
Where his mate dangles at her cup of 
felt." 
—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
The bright, sunny morning In early 
May on which 1 am writing again to my 
boys and girls lias been made brighter by 
the first oriole songs of the year. This is 
the Baltimore oriole, a more common 
bird than its relative the Orchard oriole. 
Someone asked in a letter not long ago 
what is the difference between them. 
Who will tell us? The Baltimore orioles 
have been about for several days now, 
flitting among the peach blossoms, and 
giving their sharp call notes, but have 
not burst into song before. This morn- 
An Oxford Sheep and Her Triplets 
Picture sent by Marcella Loom is, New 
York , 15 Years 
ing the air is full of their rich, ringing 
notes, and 1 look out to see one of the 
brilliant orange ami black male birds 
only a rod or two from the window. 
Soon he and his duller colored mate will 
he building a home, and I shall know 
again the delight of supplying something 
for the nest, while repeating the verse 
from Lowell which I have just given you, 
and which tells the story so beautifully. 
Last, year three pairs of orioles built in 
trees close by my little home. Two of 
the nests were within 10 feet of the 
ground and gave good chance to watch 
the wonderful work of building the soft, 
gray, swinging basket, and later to sec 
the feeding of the young ones. 
Have you ever stopped to think what 
the world would be like if there were no 
birds? Of course, from the practical 
view, it would soon be impossible for the 
farmer to grow his crops and fruits and 
vegetables because of the insect pests 
that would overrun us, did the birds not 
hold them in check. But from the other 
standpoint—that <>f our pleasure and en¬ 
joyment in life—we should miss sadly the 
graceful flight, bright colors and cheery 
songs of our feathered friends. They 
are indeed companions, and I hope that 
the boys and girls who read Our Page are 
learning to know many of the different 
birds by name, to recognize their calls 
and songs, to study their habits, and to 
protect all those that are beneficial. 
There are only a few species that do 
more harm (linn good. 
Following is an interesting letter from 
one of our readers, written about a year 
ago: 
Our school closed May 19. We had a 
bird calendar at school to put down the 
names and dates of the birds when they 
came from the South. Now my brother 
and I are keeping track of the birds’ 
nests we can find. So far we have found 
77 altogether, 24 of which are robins, 23 
swallows, four pinches, three bluebirds, 
three orioles, five English sparrows, two 
crow blackbirds, one wren, one sand¬ 
piper, two song sparrows and one Which 
was in a hole in a tree. An old gentle¬ 
man told us it was a snipe robin. I 
never heard of such a bird. I>o you sup¬ 
pose it is another name for the flicker? 
That bird lias so many names. We 
haven't found the nests of the kingbird, 
catbird* bobolink, goldfinch, least, fly¬ 
catcher or humming bird. Don’t expect 
to find the last. Of course we don’t both¬ 
er the nests. But we like to know where 
they are and what the eggs look like. 
I have a garden. In it I have sweet 
corn. Lima beaus, onion sets, lettuce and 
parsley. We had some duck eggs set. 
The old hen did not set very good, but 
she hutched four ducks; two of them are 
yellow and the other two are black and 
yellow. They look very funny. 
Here is a little verse I thought would 
be n good one for Our Page: 
Winding through the meadows, 
Through the woodland, too, 
There’s a little brooklet 
Falling, calling yon. 
Lapping over pebbles, 
Rippling on its way, 
Laughingly the brooklet 
Falls to you today— 
“When your work is over, 
Come, oh come with tne 
Through the green, green meadows, 
Through the woodlands free." 
By MYRA A, JiPCK. 
I could write lots more but I am afraid 
this is too long now. From your little 
friend, g ra CK sa lto N, 11 y ea rs. 
New York. 
The suggestion that Grace makes of 
keeping a census of the birds’ nests on 
your farm or iu your locality is a very 
good one. It is an interesting thing to 
do, and at the same time it has value. 
Scientists are anxious to know how many 
birds there are actually nesting within 
selected areas. The Biological Survey of 
the United States Department of Agri¬ 
culture Is carrying on bind counting 
work. In a recent statement they say : 
Any interested persons who are famil¬ 
iar with the birds of their respective lo¬ 
calities can contribute data iu connection 
with this survey, which will extend over 
a number of years. Instructions for 
properly making a bird count will be sent, 
with report blanks, to anyone, upon ap¬ 
plication to the Bureau of Biological 
Survey. The height of the breeding sea¬ 
son should be chosen for this work. In 
the latitude of Washington, D. (’., Ibis 
comes about .May 30. Near Boston it is 
about a week later, and south of Wash¬ 
ington it. is earlier. In any locality the 
count should be made as soon as the birds 
arc well settled on their nesting grounds, 
but not until after the end of the migra¬ 
tion season. What is wanted is to learn 
bow many pairs of birds actually nest 
within the selected areas. Birds that visit 
the area only for feeding purposes must 
not be counted. The best time to make 
the count is early in the morning when 
male birds are usually in full song, and 
each may safely be taken to represent a 
breeding pair. A 40 to 80-acre tract 
should be selected, representing average 
farm conditions without an undue 
amount of woodland or orchard. Infor¬ 
mal ion is desired in detail as to the char¬ 
acter of the land surveyed. The bureau 
hopes that many persons interested in 
bird life will make one or more counts 
this season. 
So, in addition to taking a bird count 
for your own enjoyment, you may help, 
if yon like, with a large piece of work for 
the government. If you send for the 
blanks and undertake this work you will 
be sure lo do it faithfully and earnestly. 
Perhaps you can interest some older per¬ 
son to go with you on the survey trips. 
Grace’s letter makes the point that 
the nests are not to be disturbed, and, of 
course, that is only proper. It would 
be better not to make the survey than 
to upset the birds. But it is quite pos¬ 
sible to locate the nests and even to peep 
into some of them once without doing 
any harm. It would have been small 
loss, however, had Grace and her brother 
broken up the five English sparrow 
nests. It is just as well not to let these 
little pests raise too many of their big 
families. 
You will all enjoy the brooklet quota¬ 
tion in memory of last month’s page, 
when we had so much to say about 
brooks and streams of running water. 
Beekeeping 
T have read Our Page for a long time 
and I like it very much. Once I saw a 
picture of a swarm of bees on Our Page 
and 1 was interested. 1 live with my 
unde on a 200-aere farm. We keep 
about 54 swarms of bees and expect to 
have 100 soon. My uncle likes to work 
will) the bees, but I think I will have to 
admit that. 1 don’t, for fear of getting 
stung. 
Last year I had a swarm of my own 
and made enough money to pay for it 
myself and about $2 profit. If some of 
the readers of Our Page would like to 
know more about bees I will be glad to 
give them what information 1 can. Yours 
sincerely, EDWARD M VoumacK, 
Vermont. 13 years. 
I have always found apiculture (bee¬ 
keeping) interesting, and even more so 
this Spring when I attended a meeting of 
apiarists (beekeepers). There wen* about 
30 at the meeting. I have written a piece 
about bees and hope that you will find it. 
of use for Our Pago. 
THE RKES IN OITR HARDEN 
As long as I can remember there have 
been bees in our garden. At first there 
were the original black bees which were 
in a box hive. Then ns time passed we 
had a cross between the black and the 
Italian bees which gave ns the common 
hybrid bees. These were kept in a 10- 
frame hive, constructed on the plan of 
ihc Hoffman hi\**, but with n portico. 
Now we have the Italian bees which at 
first we kept in our 10-frame hives, but 
this past year we have made some eight- 
frame hives. The reason for the change 
is that we think that if a smaller hive is 
used the crop of comb honey will be 
larger. Your friend, HAZEL BARTON. 
New York. 
Some of you will be interested in these 
letters. It is not hard to learn to keep 
bees, and a start can he made with one 
colony without much cost.. Like all other 
pieces of work, if you really want to take 
hold of it. you will find plenty of infor¬ 
mation in books, in bulletins, jn farm 
papers, and in talking with your parents, 
friends and neighbors. Combine the 
knowledge you gain in this way with first 
band experience, dose study and atten¬ 
tion to business, and you will succeed in 
this or any other task. Each boy and 
girl should have some enterprise of his 
or her own—a garden, a little orchard, 
an animal to raise, poultry, bees, rab¬ 
May 27, 1922 
bits or the like. The main point is to do 
something each year, and do it well. We 
shall be glad to hear from others who 
keep bees. 
The Nature Puzzle 
It seems strange that so few sent the 
answer to the nature puzzle this month. 
Out on a JUrd Purvey 
Drawn by Dorothy DcWitt, Michigan 
Your editor thought that nearly all of our 
readers would know the Spring flower 
that Janet Elder described so well. No 
other plant has leaves of such a peculiar 
shape as those of the Ifrpatica or liver¬ 
wort. It is a happy plan that we have 
fallen into the last two months of hav¬ 
ing a drawing of the “What Is It?” 
Isabelle Doremus lias given us a good 
idea of how the Ilepnticn plant looks 
and she also tells some things of interest 
about it in her letter, as follows: 
I have always loved the study of flow¬ 
ers and I enjoy going out and finding 
them. As 1 have found some of the 
ones mentioned in the ‘What Is It?” I 
would like to answer. The name of them 
is liverwort, liverleaf, or Ilepatica. They 
are called liverwort because the leaves 
have a fancied resemblance to the shape 
oi the liver. They are found in the woods 
Who Pan Name this Pishf 
and sheltered places and as soon as the 
snow leaves the ground iu Spring. Of 
the same family are Clematis, Anemone, 
rue. buttercups, columbine, marsh mari¬ 
gold and larkspur. The only thing I 
differ with is that I have never found any 
or heard of any having pale pink (low¬ 
ers. There is also a pointed-leaf liver- 
A Clever Rider 
Picture Sent by Miss Jennie Young, New York 
