BY THE WAYSIDE. 
37 
SCHOOL BRANCH DEPARTMENT. 
Every Wisconsin School Branch is reqairedto subscribe for at least one of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters for this department should be written on 
only one side of the page, should give the name, age 
and address of writer, and should be mailed by the 
first of the month; Illinois Children sending to Miss 
Ethel E. Hooper, 541 N. State St., Chicago, Ill., and 
Wisconsin Children to Miss Ruth Marshall, Appleton 
Wisconsin. An honor badge will be awarded for 
each state every month, pre erence being given to 
letters about the bird study for the month (which is 
always on this page), and to original observations. 
Any child who wit. s the honor badge twice will re¬ 
ceive By The Wayside one year as a prize. 
The wren button, which is the badge of the Audu¬ 
bon Society, costs two cents, and may be bought 
from Miss Hooper or Miss Marshall. 
Any Wisconsin School Branch may, without ex¬ 
pense, have the use of the Gordon and Merrill Lib¬ 
raries of bird books, by applying to Miss Bossert, 
Librarian, 719 Franklin St., Milwaukee. 
A set of colored bird slides with a typewriter lee* 
ture may be rented front Prof. W. S. Marshall, 114 
E. Gorham Street, Madison, Wis. 
Illinois Schools may use, without expense, a libr¬ 
ary or a lecture with lantern slides, by applying to 
Mrs. Ruthven Deane, 504 N. State St., Chicago. 
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET. 
* 
Crown with partly concealed crest of bright red; 
rest of upper parts grayish olive green, brighter on 
the rump; wings and tail fuscous, edged with olive 
green; two whitish wing bars; tail slightly forked, 
the middle feathers shortest; under part soiled whit-- 
ish, more or less tinged with buffy. Female without 
the red crown patch. 
When the leaves begin to turn you will no¬ 
tice numerous very small olive gree birds flit¬ 
ting about the' terminal twigs of trees and low¬ 
er growth in the woods, orchards and hedge¬ 
rows. They resemble warblers but are much 
tamer, and have a habit of nervously flitting 
their wings every few seconds. 
You will not hear them sing much at this 
season, and there is little in their voice or ap¬ 
pearance to tell you that they are among the 
most famous of the feathered songsters. 
The May morning when first I heard this 
kinglet’s song is among the most memorable of 
my early ornithological experiences. The bird 
was in the tree tops in the most impassable bit 
of woods near my home. The longer and more 
eagerly I followed the unseen singer the great¬ 
er the mystery became. It sounds impossible 
that a bird which I supposed was 
at least as large as a blue bird 
could escape observation in the partly 
leaved trees. The song was mellow and flute 
like and loud enough to be heard several hun¬ 
dred yards; an intricate warble past imitation 
or description, and rendered so admirably that 
I never hear it now without feeling an im¬ 
pulse to applaud. The bird is so small, the 
sound sorich and full, that one is reminded of a 
chorister with the voice of an adult soprano. 
( Chapman , Hand Book of Birds.) 
Letters about the Ruby-Crowi ed Kinglet 
should be sent to the secreteries before Dec. 10. 
PRIZES AND BADGES. 
The Illinois prize letter for the month is 
Lowell Gildner’s. The Wisconsin badge goes to 
Bessie Armstrong. 
THE ILLINOIS SECRETARY’S LETTER. 
My Dear Wayside Children: — 
When you read this letter November will be 
with us and the summer birds will be gone. All 
but their memories, and I am sure you all 
have pleasant things to remember and tell us 
about. 
I want to tell you of my trips to Great Duck 
Island, off the coast of Maine, where a large 
colony of herring gulls breeds every year. 
Once I went in a sail boat and though we 
started early we didn’t have much time to see 
the gulls. You know how “time and tide wait 
for no man” and so, you see, the winds and 
tides don’t care one bit h'ow much you want 
to see herring gulls and their nests. They blow 
if they are winds and ebb and flow if they are 
tides without the least consideration for your 
feeling. So, just as we were getting a good 
look at the gulls, the call came from our good 
Captain Robinson and we had to set sail for 
home; but not before we had seen the lovely 
creatures in their dress of soft gray and white, 
flying and swimming by the hundreds. One 
pretty sight I must tell you of. We were eat¬ 
ing our lunch in such a desolate place—all 
rocks and sand and seaweed—with th’e sea all 
about us, when right down amongst us flew a 
little humming bird. Such a tiny, tropical 
creature the dainty little atom seemed, and 
it was wonderful to think of the long journey 
he had taken to get there. Our Captain Rob¬ 
inson is a good skipper and knows how to sail 
his boat well, but the little humming bird has 
a better compass than any sailor and has 
rules we know nothing about. Here are some 
lines Captain Robinson gave me to tell you how 
to steer your boat. What do you think the 
humming bird would say to them? 
“If you make two lights ahead, 
Port your wheel and show your red. 
