JUNE, 1917 
FOREST AND STREAM 
263 
NATURE’S LITTLE PEACE PIPES 
DESPITE WAR’S ALARUMS, THEY FLOURISH 
STILL. A SYMBOL PERHAPS TO THE NATIONS 
By MARY EARLE HARDY 
B ESIDE the old Marquette trail along 
the northern shore of Lake Michigan 
I came upon these little peace pipes. 
They were as white as if just dropped 
from heavenly workshops, from the holy 
hands that fashioned them. 
Man, slow to understand the gospel of 
forest and stream, has given to these ex¬ 
quisite little plants such names as pleased 
his fancy. Science with a kind of blind 
reference to their leaning to one side has 
called them monotropae. But ordinary 
folk, remembering perhaps that our abo¬ 
rigines so lately trod these forest paths, 
called the daintily carven calumets “In¬ 
dian pipes,” and indeed to the imaginative 
it would scarcely be a surprise to see a 
faint wraith-wreath of smoke curl away 
from their little pipe-like bowls. 
The American Indians themselves re¬ 
garded the strange plants with awe and 
reverence, believing the Great Spirit sent 
them from the unseen world endowed 
with healing virtues and with power to 
restore sight to failing eyes. So to them 
they were “ghost flowers” or “spirit flow¬ 
ers.” 
Still others, who noted the clammy white¬ 
ness of the plants, called them “corpse 
flowers.” We wish we might know what 
Nature calls them,—what they call them¬ 
selves. 
The monotropa is a parasite. Because 
it draws its life in a sort of uncanny fash¬ 
ion from decaying substances, and is thus 
one of Nature’s paradoxes: purity from 
smirch, life from death. 
The entire plant is white as whitest 
snow, this whiteness being due to its lack 
of chlorophyll, the substance which gives 
the green color to other plants. And here 
again the monotropa is a plant of mystery. 
For by Nature’s economy starch, an essen¬ 
tial plant food, cannot be supplied without 
this chlorophyll. So the wise little mono¬ 
tropa enters somehow into a partnership 
for existence with a little fungus cousin 
too small for us to see without a micro¬ 
scope. Together they live and work and 
thrive. 
C LARA SMITH has given us a charm¬ 
ing poem about some of these little 
pipes she found in a forest chancel, 
where Jack-in-the-Pulpit stood a-preach- 
ing. A part of her poem is: 
Look! white Indian pipes 
G’n the green mosses lie! 
Who has been smoking 
Profanely so night? 
Rebuked by the preacher 
The mischief is stopped 
But the sinners, in haste, 
Have their little pipes dropped. 
Let the wind with the fragrance 
Of fern and of birch 
Blow the smell of the smoking 
Clean out of our church! 
In our Northern forest where the little 
pipes of our illustration were gathered, 
plumed pines wave and whisper, and winds 
stir the leaves to sounds like moccasined 
feet; shadows and old memories—the 
ghosts of forgotten things—are every¬ 
where; a fitting place for the little Indian 
pipes to grow. 
And though all earth’s skies are dark 
with war, trusting Nature still scatters her 
snow-white Peace pipes along the world’s 
roadside, a sign and symbol to the nations. 
In the shadows of the forest 
Oft in silence sat the warriors, 
Sat and smoked the pipe of council. 
Long ago the ashes scattered 
From the pipe-bowls of the warriors 
Fell among the ferns and blossoms, 
Lay forgotten in the forest. 
Here, today, the snowy Ghost Flower 
Rises from the scattered ashes; 
Nature gives her stainless Peace Pipes 
Sign and symbol to the nations. 
SOME COMMON 
AQUATIC BIRDS 
II. HORNED GREBE 
\ 
OLYMBUS auritus, the horned grebe, 
is one of the most interesting of 
water birds. They can dive as quick 
as a flash beneath the surface of the water 
without leaving a ripple, and this charac¬ 
teristic has earned for them such names 
as hell-diver, sprite, and water witch. Not 
only are they expert at diving, but they 
swim for long distances under water and 
not exclusively by aid of the feet. Mr. 
McAtee says he has “more than once seen 
the pied-bill grebe using its wings in un¬ 
derwater progression.” 
Grebes have difficulty in rising from the 
water, but fly well when under way. When 
alighting they strike the water with a 
splash, gliding some distance on the 
breast. Their nests are built of water- 
soaked vegetation, a portion of which is 
used to cover the eggs in the absence of 
the parents. 
The horned grebe of North America 
breeds from the northern tier of the 
United States northward, wintering from 
the southern boundary of the breeding 
range south to Florida and California. 
In examinations carried on by the Bio¬ 
logical Survey, it was found that this 
bird’s stomach almost invariably contained 
a considerable mass of feathers. Feathers 
are fed to the young,- and there is no ques¬ 
tion in the minds of Government experts 
but that these feathers play some impor¬ 
tant, though as yet undetermined, part in 
the digestive economy. It was found that 
in fifty-seven horned grebe stomachs ex¬ 
amined by the department, practically 
sixty-six per cent, of the contents was 
feathers. Aside from eating feathers, 
these birds devour beetles, chiefly aquatic, 
and various other insects. 
The claim that grebes live exclusively on 
fish is therefore exploded, the results ob¬ 
tained by stomach examinations showing 
that they do not depend wholly or even 
chiefly upon fish for food. On the con¬ 
trary, they eat a large number of craw¬ 
fishes, which often are severely damaging 
to crops, and consume vast quantities of 
aquatic insects, which devour small fishes 
and the food of such fishes. 
The Horned Grebe at Home 
