BY THE WAYSIDE 
o 
round a sharp bend in a river and frighten a 
heron half out of his wits? Ever observe him 
stop to wash his feet before setting out to look 
for solitude farther up? It is quite possible 
that, stuck in the mud between his toes, there 
was a seed or two which were finally dislodged 
miles away in a place as well suited to their 
development as that on which they grew. It 
is not to be doubted that seeds are sometimes 
transported in this way—but wings must have 
the credit. 
Did it ever occur to you to wonder how it 
happens that most of the blackberry and rasp¬ 
berry bushes you come across are along the 
fences or bordering woodlands? Did you ever 
stop to consider why wild gooseberry bushes 
are oftenest beside boulders or other obstacles, 
or why wild cherry trees spring up in such sit¬ 
uations also? Did you ever ponder on the 
fact that when a timber lot has been cleared, 
and sunshine gets a chance to warm the soil, 
unnumbered thousands of many kinds of 
fruit-bearing plants spring up to cover the 
ground and make a place of delight for us ? 
We know how the robins live in summer 
and fall when a host of wild small-fruits are 
ripening every day. They just hang around 
the cherry trees and berry patches and stuff 
themselves from morning till night. So do the 
cedar-birds and flickers and many other birds. 
They dine dozens of times a day. Between 
meals we may find them perched on a stone 
or a stump or a fence or up in a tree. Birds 
are made on a plan so different from ours that 
we do not realize how busy they are while they 
seem so lazily perching. When we think they 
are eating, they are only filling their gullets. 
When they appear to be resting, in reality they 
are very busy chewing their food. Whether 
they fear appendicitis or whether their union 
gizzards have a by-law forbidding the passage 
of coarse particles is not certainly known, but 
at all event, sherry stones and other large seeds 
are usually regurgitated, after they have been 
cleaned and dropped in the various retreats 
occupied between meals, there to be covered 
by the autumn leaves, and in due season to 
produce fruit to regale another generation of 
birds—and us. Smaller seeds are not always 
regurgitated but digestion does not appear to 
destroy their vitality, and their distribution 
is similar to that of larger fruit seeds. 
When we plant things, we think all the crop 
.belongs to us. What about Old Rob who sow¬ 
ed the seeds beside the roadside fence and 
planted the lot where the timber grew? Shall 
we shoot him for tasting our currants and 
cherries ? 
Between wings of seeds and wings of birds, 
the earth has come by much of its greenness. 
Ned Dearborn. 
Columbian Museum, Chicago. 
THE WIDOW AND THE FATHERLESS. 
About the 13th of last March, 1903, a pair 
of robins that had kept house in a hickory 
tree a few feet from our porch the previous 
summer, came back and looked the site over 
and apparently found it as desirable as it had 
been the year before, for they seemed to look 
no further, but gave themselves up to enjoying 
a good vacation before settling down to 
houskeeping. 
On the 18th of April they stopped their play 
and went to work thoroughly to repair their 
old house. The next morning the work -was 
finished and Mrs. Robin established herself 
in her nest while Mr. Robin fetched and carried 
for her, or from some vantage ground warned 
intruders off the hickory tree. 
Then a sad thing happened—no one knows 
exactly what or how, only that Mr. Robin 
was gone, and a pitiful little heap of feathers 
under the home tree w 7 as the only clue to the 
tragedy. 
The little w r ife did not seem much concerned 
the first day, but for several days succeeding 
that first one, her cries were ear-splitting and 
heart-rending. She would sit on a tall tree 
commanding a w ide view 7 , and call till it seem¬ 
ed that her throat must burst. She kept that 
up for several days then she began searching 
for a new 7 mate. I saw 7 her bring tw 7 o or three 
birds to look at her nest. She chattered and 
fluttered in a most insistent fashion, but ev¬ 
ery one of them appeared to urge a previous 
engagement for no one stayed. At last she 
gave it up and resigned herself to her lonely 
life. It was a most pathetic sight to see the 
little thing sitting in her nest wdiicli w T as quite 
unsheltered, as the tree is very late in leafing 
out. I could not tell whether there were any 
eirirs in the nest, but was sure they w 7 ould nev- 
er hatch if there were, for the bird would leave 
them for such long times, which shows that 
a little mother robin knows a heap more about 
hatching eggs than I do. For on the 7th of May 
a pair of sharp eyes espied a tiny bit of blue 
