OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN AND ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
One Year 25 CenLs Illinois Number Single Copy 3 Centos 
Published by the Wisconsin Audubon Society, at, Applet,on, Wisconsin. 
VOL. VII 
MAY, 1904 
No. 1 
BALLADE OF UNKNOWN BIRDS. 
Sweet is the Bob-o-link’s song— 
As he balances high on the grasses, 
And the Cat-bird trills all the day long 
Mocking each rival who passes. 
There’s a twitter of joy and of cheer 
To be heard, ’mid the sparrows grey flock, 
(But the birds which I most long to hear, 
Are the Phoenix—the Dodo—the Hoc.) 
Fine is the Grey Eagle’s flight— 
Or the dip of the Swallow at even, 
The Sea-gull’s my special delight 
As he circles ’twix ocean and Heaven. 
The Wild-geese spread far in a “V”— 
Swift whirrs the frightened Wood-cock—• 
(But the birds whose flight I long to see 
Are the Phoenix—the Dodo—the Hoc.) 
Red is the Tanager’s coat 
As he sings his low murmuring matin, 
Brilliant the Grosbeak’s soft throat, 
Gorgeous the Oriole’s satin. 
So gayly the Peacock is dressed 
.That the Quaker Wrens feel it a shock— 
(But finer I’m sure than the rest 
Were the Phoenix—the Dodo—the Roc.) 
Envoi. 
Audubon—every bird’s friend! 
Shall I find, in a Heavenly flock? 
(When my bird-hunting here’s at an end 
The Phoenix—the Dodo—the Roc.) 
— Anna Higgenson Spencer. 
Kenilworth, Ill. 
WINGS AND WINGS. 
My boy, if you have had to cut bushes on 
Saturdays to keep pasturage for the cows and 
sheep, you know very well that the sticky lit¬ 
tle pine and tough little birches never would 
have come up so far from their parent woods 
had there not been wings on the seeds from 
which they grew. You have wished there 
wasn’t a winged seed in the world, so that 
when you didn’t want bushes you wouldn’t be 
obliged to have them. But when winter comes 
round, you have to own up that but for the 
winged seeds, which have covered the earth 
with forests, you had better been born an 
esquimau. 
Many a time you have found pleasure in 
blowing the head off a gone-to-seed dandelion, 
and in watching the downy seeds float away 
on the air as if they were alive and flying. 
Your sister takes pleasure, too, in making 
fluffy white balls out of thistle blossoms, with 
which to decorate her room. She gathers pods 
of the milkweed, and out of the silken mass 
attached to the seeds, makes a pillow for the 
parlor sofa. These winged seeds of herbs suit 
her feminine purposes quite as well as they 
do those for which they were naturally in¬ 
tended—better, I fancy, to your thinking, when 
you are pulling the weeds they create in the 
garden. 
It is no wonder that plants with winged 
seeds are to be found wherever there is a spot 
fit for them to grow on. Perhaps you are 
thinking that when nature hit upon this ex¬ 
cellent plan of disseminating her plants, it is 
singular that she did not apply her bright 
idea to all vegetable creation. But if you look 
sharply, you will discover that nature has a 
world full of bright ideas for doing things. A 
forceful demonstration of her ability to de¬ 
vise is to be seen in the ways she employs 
wings. 
Many a nut carried by a hoarding jay or 
woodpecker has slipped to the ground and rear¬ 
ed a tree where one of its kind never grew 
before. 
How do you suppose water plants ever con¬ 
trived to travel up stream, as you must admit 
some of them have done ? Did you ever paddle 
