BY THE WAYSIDE 
15 
west and south catching birds and paint¬ 
ing pictures of them. 
In 1826 he went to England and pub¬ 
lished a work called “The Birds of 
America,” which contained pictures of 
more than a thousand birds, all of life 
size and in their natural colors. 
This was followed by another great 
work on the habits of the birds of the 
United States, and after that he began a 
book of the “Quadrupeds of America,” 
but he died before it was done and it was 
finished bv his sons. Audubon died in 
New York, seventy-one years of age, 
January 27, 1851. His works brought 
him very much fame. 
Andre Fisher. 
About Trees. 
Our nature lessons now are about trees. 
We have learned a lot of their names. 
There are the red, hard, and ash-leat 
maples, the cottonwood and the locust 
with its two little guards for each leaf. 
The buckeye is another, the'u there are 
tbe beautiful beech and elm. 
r M iss M h is all these trees represented 
by twigs. She has us put them in two 
different piles, the ones with alternate 
buds in one pile and the ones with 
opposite buds in the other. 
The little round scar below the bud is 
called the leaf scar; it is where the last 
leaf grew and dropped off*. 
People can almost teach themselves 
nature if they only notice things and 
know their names. I have found this 
true. 
Angeline Freeman. 
LaCrosse, Wis.. April 19, 1906. 
' Dear Wayside: 
The Meadow Lark is a beautiful bird. 
It lives on the ground eating bugs and 
worms, and does not destroy crops. It 
has a very beautiful song. I have gone 
out several times just to see a meadow 
lark, but was not lucky enough to see it. 
I have heard it sing several times and 
thought I saw it, but it would always 
be a flicker eating worms out of the 
ground. 
The Prairie Horned Lark is quite 
common now. Almost every time I 
cross the prairie I see one. 
The Meadow Lark is about eleven 
inches long and belongs to the blackbird 
family. The back and sides are brown 
and chestnut striped with black. The 
top of the head is brown and black with 
a light colored line running through the 
center. The throat is yellow with a large 
black crescent on the breast. Under¬ 
neath it is yellow fading into dark brown. 
The nest is built on the ground and is 
very hard to find. Last year I saw sev- 
Meadow Larks out near the bluffs. 
The other day I found a towhee’s nest 
in a yard on Eleventh street and a 
phoebe’s nest under a bridge near the 
bluff. I hope no boys destroy the nests, 
for I would like to watch the young 
ones. Last year I found a mourning 
dove’s nest and I watched the voung 
ones until they flew away. It wasn’t 
much of a nest, there were two eggs on a 
stump and a mourning dove flew up 
when I came near, so I knew it was a 
mourning dove’s nest. 
Yours truly, 
Russell Pope. 
The Dotfny Woodpecker. 
One evening, while going home from 
school, my friend, and I heard a sharp 
“peek” coming.from an orchard which we 
were passing. The call wasn’t quite so 
loud as that given by the Hairy Wood¬ 
pecker but we decided that the bird was 
