30 
BY THE WAYSIDE. 
dred miles away: and that she has returned 
again at the same season, on nearly the same 
calendar day, to the same locality, neighbor* 
hood, to the identical spot where she raised 
her broods last year. What surprising conclu¬ 
sions follow upon this chance observation. It 
seems to me very likely that this particular 
bird was hatched from the egg in a nest in 
our own door-yard and that so long as she 
lives she will return each year to this nest¬ 
ing-place. 
this robin has allowed me to see many 
matters of domestic life which I had never seen 
before. I have seen that the female does all 
the work of nest-buikling; I have seen how 
she tramps down the mud and straw to a 
hard platform, and how she molds the walls 
of the cup-shaped nest upon her own red 
breast; I have seen that the duties of the 
male bird begin when the eggs are hatched, 
and 1 think that he has the care of the young¬ 
sters when they are quite grown and the fe¬ 
male has begun a new nest for her second 
family. 
The Professor and the White Violet. 
The Professor. 
Tell me, little violet white, 
If you will be so polite, 
Tell me how it came that you 
Lost your pretty purple hue? 
Were you blanched with sudden fears? 
Were you bleached with fairies’ tears? 
Or was Dame Nature out of blue, 
Violet, when she came to you? 
The Violet. 
Tell me, silly mortal, first. 
Ere I satisfy your thirst 
For the truth concerning me, 
Why you are not like a tree? 
Tell me why you move around 
Trying different kinds of ground, 
With your funny legs and boots 
In the place of proper roots? 
Tell me, mortal, why your head, 
Where green branches ought to 
spread, 
Is as shiny smooth as glass 
V r ith just a fringe of frosty grass? 
Tell me—why lie’s gone away! 
Wonder why he wouldn’t stay? 
Can he be—well, I declare— 
Sensitive about his hair? 
—.From St. Nicholas, 
Tommy in Spiderland. 
Not so very long ago I used to think that 
I knew all about spiders. I thought they 
were little gray things that made webs in 
the corners of the porch. I have learned a 
thing or two since then. When I came out to 
Delafield to visit Aunt Sally and she told me 
that there was one part of her garden that 
stie called “Spiderland,” it didn’t sound very 
pleasant to me, but now I like to go there, 
though I suppose no girl would dare to, girls ' 
are so awfully afraid of spiders. Aunt Sally 
has brought in a lot of different kinds that 
make webs, some round, and some flat, and 
they have settled down and live among the 
bushes. The biggest one is Argiope riparia. 
(It’s funny that every spider has two names, 
just like a child.) She is just enormous, black 
and yellow, and she hangs in her web with her 
head down. I guess any girl would be scared 
stiff to see her, she looks so big and poisonous 
—at least that’s what I thought at first, but 
now I don’t mind her a bit. Aunt Sally says 
that the biggest spider in Wisconsin can’t bite 
as hard as any common mosquito. Argiope’s 
web is very large and round and has some 
white darning up and down the middle to make 
it strong. There are long threads running out 
to the grass in front of it and when you 
come near and touch one of these she shakes 
herself back and forth so fast that she dis¬ 
appears entirely. I think that this is very 
smart of her, for it protects her from enemies, 
such as birds. Her mate is a tiny little black 
spider who lives up in a corner of the web 
and when they talk they/do it by telegraphing 
on the lines. I’ve seen them. Aunt Sally 
savs that in August we shall see her make her 
cocoon, and that she will lay about 2.000 eggs 
in it! You would think they would be pretty 
thick at that rate, but when they are little the 
wasps catch them by dozens. Once I opened 
one of these mud nests that that pretty blue 
wasp, that is always hanging around the pump, 
makes up in the barn, and it was crammed full 
of little spiders with a wasp egg on top. 
The very prettiest web in the garden belongs 
to a little black and white spider named. Linv- 
phia. (We call her by her first name for 
short.) It is something like the shape of a 
bowl upside down, made of millions of lines, 
and when the sun shines on it it is just ex¬ 
actly like a soap bubble covered with rain¬ 
bows. It is mighty pretty, too, when the dew 
is on it, Jt>ut when there is no dew and no 
