THE NATURALIST AND COLLECTOR 
57 
There is a fair division of labor in 
his various parts. The digging imple¬ 
ments are the front organs, the legs 
furnish locomotion, and the tail is the 
lift; of course, while loading, they all 
lend a hand. He simply stands on his 
head while the legs pass the mud ball 
up to his tail, and then he goes tail 
foremost up the shaft. Occasionally 
he rests on top of the chimney to see 
how his cousins are progressing or if 
another locality offers a more hopeful 
field for his labors; usually the spirit 
of contentment prevails, and down he 
goes to his work. 
Harmony, perhaps dearly purchased, 
seems to exist—that kind of harmony 
which result in taking care of one’s 
self; for only one workman is ever en¬ 
gaged in one hole. This a person can 
readliy believe as one looks over the 
fields every square foot of which could 
boast of a new chimney. We must ask 
the naturalist to tell us why the craw¬ 
fish digs; I only know how he digs, 
and so do all who live in Crawfish 
Flats, Indiana.— Peterson’s Magazine. 
I NSECTS are considered by Prof. 
Riley as undoubtedly possessing 
the senses of sight, touch, taste, 
smell and hearing, that of touch be¬ 
ing perhaps the only sense strictly 
comparable with our own. Evidence 
of other sence organs, utterly unlike 
any we have, is not wanting. A male 
Japanese silkworm moth was liberated 
one night a mile and a half from a 
caged female of the same species, and 
in the morning was at the cage; and 
blind ants reduce wooden beams to 
mere shells without once gnawing 
through the surface. 
A brown coloring matter, which dyes 
linen and promises to be of value, is 
stated to have been extracted from the 
leaves of the vine, especially the aut¬ 
umn leaves. 
The Cerulean Warbler. 
T HIS pretty little warbler is one of 
the most abundant of its family. 
It makes its abode in the tall 
timber of the bottom land of the creek 
and river valleys, and here, keeping 
high in the trees, rarely descending to 
the underbrush, while it is compar¬ 
atively neumerous, often passes un¬ 
noticed by all except the more accurate 
observer. 
It is a bird of the woodland ex¬ 
clusively and its name is at once 
associated with the air of the tall 
forest. It is rarely found in the open 
woods of the pasture lands. In its 
flitting motions when in search of 
insects, and in its jerking flight, can 
readily be seen that it is a genuine 
wood warbler. Its song which is 
frequently heard during the long, hot 
sultry days of summer, sounds very 
much like the syllables, rheet , rlieet , 
rheet , rheet, ridi, rid/i, e-e-e-e-e-e. It 
begins with a soft warbling sound and 
ends in a prolonged, but musical 
squeak. Its song is so common as to 
be an inseparable characteristic of our 
woods. It has the sharp, chipping 
alarm note of the various representa¬ 
tives of this family and is very shy 
when startled from the nest. 
It builds its nest near the extremity 
of a horizontal limb in the top of some 
tall tree. Its nest is compact and very 
neatly built, being saddled on to the 
limb after the manner of other warb¬ 
lers. It is composed of strips of fine 
bark, stems of grasses, vegetable fibres, 
etc, woven into a strong rim, and lined 
with mosses, lichens, and pieces of 
hornets nests. The eggs are quite 
similar to those of the yellow warbler, 
but are, however, slightly smaller and 
with a ground color of greenish-white. 
It is thinly marked with minute 
spots of dark-reddish-brown, forming 
a ring of confluent blotches around the 
larger end. 
Chas. Reynolds. 
