36 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
Published on the tenth of each month except July and 
August. 
The official organ of the Wisconsin and Illinois Audu¬ 
bon Societies. 
Twenty-five cents per year. Single Copies 5 cents 
All communications should be sent to Thos. R. Moyle, 
Appleton, Wis. 
Dear Wayside Children: 
It is long since I have written you a 
letter, but this must not be, because of 
that, a long letter. 
What I want to say is just the same 
old story. Why don’t our Illinois child¬ 
ren send us more letters? I begin to 
think our schools don’t teach writing. 
Who is sure they do, and that they teach 
about birds, too? 
Another thing. This is a dark, cold 
day, and we begin to have fires in our 
homes and get warm clothes for winter, 
and we sometimes give a little shiver as 
we think of “the long dark nights and 
the snow.” Now I want you to do a 
little thinking about the birds ’ winter. 
All the “stoves” they have are the quick 
heart-beats of their little bodies, and 
their “wood and coal” are the food they 
eat. If they have nothing to eat the fire 
goes out and the poor little bodies freeze. 
Won’t you try and see that about } T our 
schools and homes the birds have a good 
“woodpile” in the shape of something to 
eat? Seeds and crumbs and suet and 
nuts are all good “sticks of wood” for the 
birds, and they need them most when 
the snow covers things up. Don’t forget! 
With good wishes for you and the 
birds, Marv Drummond. 
Bird Notes. 
Continued from page 32. 
published afterwards made no mention 
of the terrors of a two hundred and fifty 
mile journey back to civilization and the 
two-months siege of mountain fever 
which followed. 
On another occasion, while in the high 
Sierra’s following a rocky trail with eyes 
more alert for Clarke’s nutcracker, Sierra 
thrushes and white-headed woodpeckers, 
than the dangers of the trail, I found 
myself and horse rolling and plunging 
down a slide in a cloud of dust. This 
happened ten days travel from the near¬ 
est railroad town, but the broken arm 
and hand bone, while it confined obser¬ 
vations to the immediate vicinity of camp 
did not spoil an otherwise delightful six 
weeks mountain trip, and ten years later 
the journal is all the more readable for 
it. 
Sometimes the serio-comic occurs for 
I read of a camping friend who followed 
an elusive LeConte’s thrasher from a 
camp made late in the afternoon on a 
wild desert mesa in Arizona, where it is 
sometimes dangerous to meet the gaunt, 
half-starved thirsty cattle afoot; their 
curiosity often causing them to rush with 
uplifted tail at the solitary footman al¬ 
though they pay no attention to a horse¬ 
man. This particular friend was forced 
to climb a thorny desert bush which 
held him just above the horns of a men¬ 
acing bull, about half a mile from camp, 
where he spent a couple of hours, until 
dark, yelling to his companions at the 
wagon to come to his rescue with a horse. 
He could see them in camp adjusting 
the paraphernalia ready for night. Later 
the preparations for supper, and towards 
dusk, as they became uneasy on account 
of his absence, he could see the smoke of 
their guns which they fired at intervals 
to aid the lost one, but his loudest yell 
could not quite reach them. After dusk 
the bull decided to rejoin the herd, leav¬ 
ing the prisoner free, who soon strode 
into camp the maddest and most unrea¬ 
sonable bird-lover ever caught out after 
dark. It. however, did not prevent re¬ 
cording some very interesting notes on 
the LeConte’s thrasher. 
And all this leads to the observation 
that we must not let the present ten¬ 
dency to specialize deter us from record¬ 
ing not only the “bird notes” but the 
episodes as well .—Frank S. Daggett. 
