BY THE WAYSIDE. 
44 
When he wanted to fly away with it, the 
blue jay darted at him again and stole the 
worm. In this fight the bluejay broke the 
robin’s wing. The robin fell to the ground 
and I surely thought he was going to die. I 
took the wounded robin and put him in a 
manner which was lined with soft hay and 
the robin nestled on this. The hired man, not 
knowing this, tied my ponies in front of the 
manger and fed them with oats and corn. 1 
was afraid my ponies had killed the robin. I 
looked, my robin was eating corn with my 
ponies. I was very glad that my pets had 
made such good friends. 
Victor Wittenbijrg, age 10 years. 
The Story of a Robin. 
The robin is a great favorite wherever he 
goes. When the ground is mellow with moist¬ 
ure and the angle worms have worked their 
way to the top, leaving little loose hillocks 
all about the yard, then we may look for a 
visit from the robin. The robin does not harm 
other birds’ nests. 
Laura Simon, age 9. 
Boardman.- 
Billy is a small boy of four. Dr. Ogden is a 
friend of the family who takes an active in¬ 
terest in living things. 
Billy’s mother saw him approaching with a 
garter snake dangling from his hand. 
“Why, Billy, what are you going to do with 
that?” 
“Going to send it to Dr. Ogden. We nat¬ 
uralists exchange specimens!” 
The Migration of Birds. 
It is difficult to ascertain the time occupied 
by migrant birds in performing their journeys 
and the pace at which they fly. Indeed, as to 
their speed we have scarcely any positive evi¬ 
dence. There are several instances reported, 
supported by good testimony, of enormous 
distances being traversed by birds in a 
single flight; and, did we know how long 
birds can exist on the wing without alighting, 
we should be able at all events to estimate 
approximately the time occupied in these 
flights. The American golden plovers, for ex¬ 
ample, seem to accomplish at a single flight the 
enormous distance of one thousand seven hun¬ 
dred miles. The birds breed in the Arctic reg¬ 
ions between Alaska and Greenland, and when 
autumn comes they pass through Nova Scotia 
and strike boldly out to sea on the way to their 
winter quarters to the West Indies. A glance 
at the map will show that the Bermudas form 
the only land on which they could alight; but 
they are only seen there occasionally during un¬ 
favorable weather, and many witnesses have de¬ 
clared that they have seen flocks of these birds 
flying southwards many hundred miles to the 
east of the Bermudas. It seems incontestable, 
therefore, that the American golden plover usu¬ 
ally covers the distance in a single flight. 
From Chamber’s Journal. 
Glimpses of wild life in the city are not 
infrequent, so any summer day nighthawks 
and swifts may be seen circling high above 
the streets; nighthawks sometimes lay then- 
eggs on the flat roofs of city homes. Ducks 
and geese pass over cities when migiating; 
and one winter day I saw a little band of 
ducks, storm-bound, resting on the river, where 
city and bridges and steamboats hemmed them 
in on every side. I have a red-tailed hawk, 
too, q bluebird, and a pair of bluejays on my 
list of city birds. No animal is more shy 
than the fox; yet I know of a wild fox which 
made its den in a rubbish pile behind a ware¬ 
house in the heart of town, where he was 
discovered and killed—and a poor, sooty fox 
he proved to be. 
One bright day in March, when the first 
softness of spring was in the air, a city florist 
placed his potted hyacinths and tulips in rows 
along the sunny pavement; the sweet odor of 
the Easter flowers filled the air. As I passed, 
I saw honey bees, not one or two, but twenty 
of them, humming from flower to flower. 
Where had the bees come from, and what had 
guided them here? How many blossoms may 
one find in the town in March? 
In the Country. 
Sunshine for the robin’s song, 
Night for the whippoorwill’s; 
The morning hours 
For the scent of flowers 
And joyous chirps and trills; 
And all the day from dawn till night 
For warbling birds and flowers bright. 
Dark hours for the whippoorwill, 
Light for the robin’s voice; 
And all the time 
For lilting rhyme 
That makes the woods rejoice; 
And all the time and all the hours 
For song of birds and bloom of flowers. 
—From St. Nicholas. 
