Kitobni o'qish: «Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 2, February 1899», sahifa 4
THE WHITE IBIS
(Guara alba.)
LYNDS JONES
THE white ibis might well serve as the text of a symposium upon the evils of plume-hunting to supply the constant demand of the millinery trade. Suffice it to say here that this species, in common with many other members of its family, and many other birds as well, has decreased to the point of almost complete extermination within the last fifteen years from this cause alone. Surely it must be true that the living bird in its natural environment is far more pleasing to the æsthetic sense than the few feathers which are retained and put to an unnatural use.
As lately as 1880 the white ibis was decidedly numerous in the various rookeries of the southern states, wandering as far north as the Ohio river, and touching southern Indiana and southern Illinois. Two were seen as far north as southern South Dakota. They are now scarcely common even in the most favored localities in Louisiana and Texas, being confined to the gulf states almost entirely, and even there greatly restricted locally.
Like many of their near relatives, the herons, the ibises not only roost together in rookeries, but they also nest in greater or less communities. Before their ranks were so painfully thinned by the plume-hunters, these nesting communities contained hundreds and even thousands of individuals. But now only small companies can be found in out-of-the-way places.
The nest is built upon the mangrove bushes or upon the broken reeds and rushes in the swamps, and is said to be rather more carefully and compactly built than are the herons' nests. The eggs are three or four, rarely five in number, and are laid about May 1 in many localities, later in others. They appear large for the bird. In shape they are usually rather long ovate, and in color are gray or ashy-blue, irregularly and rather heavily blotched and spotted with reddish and umber browns of various shades. Some specimens are very pretty.
The story of their great abundance, persecution, rapid decline, and almost death, if written, would read like some horrible nightmare. Confident in the apparent security of their ancestral gathering-places, they fell an easy prey to the avaricious plume-hunter who, from some vantage-point, used his almost noiseless light rifle or air-gun with deadly effect, tallying his victims by the hundred daily. We are sometimes led to wonder if there is anything so sacred as money.
We might be able to derive some comfort from the thinning ranks of many of our birds, perhaps, if we could be sure that when these were gone the work of extermination would cease. But when one species disappears another, less attractive before, will be set upon, and thus the crusade, once begun, will finally extend to each in turn. This is not theory but fact. Nor will the work of extermination cease with the demand for plumes. Not until repeated refusals of offered plumes have impressed upon the mind of the hunter the utter futility of further activity in this line will he seek some other occupation. It is a shame upon us that killing birds should ever have become an occupation of anyone. A strong public sentiment against feather adornments will yet save from destruction many of our native birds. Can we not arouse it?
THE HELPLESS
ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE
AS the nesting-season of our feathered friends approaches the mind naturally reverts to the grief in store for so many of them. Notwithstanding the efforts of the several Audubon societies, the humane journals, and in rare instances earnest pleas from the pulpit, fashion decrees that the wearing of bird plumage, and the birds themselves, is still de rigueur among women. The past season, certainly, showed no diminution of this barbarous fashion – a humiliating thing to record – and so the beautiful creatures will continue to be slaughtered, not by hundreds or thousands, but by millions upon millions, all for the gratification of woman's vanity and a senseless love of display.
Alas, that the "fair" sex in whom the quality of mercy is supposed to exist in a high degree, should still wear above their serene brows – often bowed in worship – the badge of inhumanity and heartlessness. That mothers who have experienced all the pangs as well as joys of motherhood can aid in breaking up thousands of woodland homes by wearing the plumage which makes the slaughter of these birds one of commercial value and necessity. Soon accounts will be published of the fabulous sums to be gained by the heron hunters, and in order to supply the demand for the filmy, delicate aigrette to adorn my lady's bonnet, the nesting colony of these snowy egrets will be visited by the plume-hunters and the work of slaughter begin. Love and anxiety for their nestlings will render them heedless of danger, and through all the days of carnage which follow, not one parent bird will desert its nest. Fortunately the birds are instantly killed by the bullet, else, stripped of the coveted plumes they will be thrown in a heap, there slowly to die within sight and hearing of their starving, pleading little ones. These have no value for the plume-hunter, and so off he goes with his spoil, leaving thousands of orphaned nestlings to a painful, lingering death. And all this for a plume, which, in these days of enlightenment marks the wearer either as a person of little education, or totally lacking in refinement of feeling. It is trite to say that motherhood no more than womanhood necessarily implies refinement in the individual, but surely in the former, one would, in the nature of things, expect to find engendered a feeling of tender pity for any helpless animal and its offspring.
It is this phase of the question which particularly appeals to people in whom love, as well as compassion for all helpless creatures is strong, not a sentiment newly awakened, or adopted as a fad. That genuine love for animals is inherent and not a matter of education the close observer, I think, will admit. Not that a child cannot be brought to recognize, when caught in any act of cruelty to some defenseless creature, the wanton wickedness of his act, but that no amount of suasion can influence him to treat it with kindness for love's sake rather than from the abstract moral reason that it is right.
How can this love for animals exist in a child who has never known the joy of possessing a household pet? In whose presence an intrusive dog or cat is ever met with a blow, or angry command to "get out?" When somebody's lost pet comes whining at the door, piteously pleading for a kindly pat, and a morsel to eat, and is greeted with a kick, or possibly a bullet, under the pretense that the exhausted, panting little animal might go mad? How can a child who has witnessed these things view a suffering animal with any other feeling but calm indifference, or a brutal desire to inflict upon it additional pain? In his estimation every dog is subject to rabies, and every cat infested with fleas.
Paternal apathy in this direction may, to some extent, be remedied by the child's instructors, especially in the kindergarten, where the foundation of character is supposed to be laid. But even there the teacher will fail in arousing a feeling of compassion in a naturally cruel child's mind, unless her own sympathies are genuine, and not assumed for the time or place. Here more than anywhere else, it seems to me, intelligence, if not love, should prompt the teacher to familiarize herself with the treatment necessary not only to the well-being but to the happiness of the little captives held for the purpose of nature-study in her class.
As spring opens, thousands of would-be naturalists, stimulated by nature-study in schools, will, no doubt, begin their universal search for birds' eggs, not from any particular interest in science, but as they collect stamps or marbles, simply to see how many they can get. In this way millions of birds are destroyed with no thought beyond the transitory triumph and pleasure of getting them. This egg-collecting should not be encouraged by the teachers. On the contrary every boy should be told that a true naturalist does not slaughter animals, or rob birds' nests promiscuously; that he is the first to remonstrate against wanton waste of life; that he does not take eggs of common birds at all, and never empties a nest unless of a rare bird, and sometimes not always then. These arguments will prevail among a few who have the real naturalist's instinct, but to the many who either do not know, or do not care, about the cruelty they inflict upon the parent birds in thus robbing them of their treasures, another appeal must be made. Picture the family life of the innocent little creatures – a lesson indeed to people of larger growth; how they guard their nests with almost human care and wisdom, and how they cherish their young with as faithful and self-sacrificing love as parents of human families. Impress upon their young minds how many days of toil the mother-bird, aided by her mate, spent in building the nest which they purpose to rifle, of her joy and pride when the first egg was deposited, and all the patiently borne days of brooding which followed. Surely a boy not wholly depraved would be moved by such a recital, and thus thousands of birds be saved, and through their influence, protected. In this way, too, might not the whole question of slaughtering birds for millinery purposes be solved, for what mother or sister could turn a deaf ear to the reproaches of a child, or to pleadings from young lips for more humane treatment of their feathered friends?
That the small boy is not without wit, and quick to perceive the difference between precept and practice, the following anecdote, I think, will aptly prove:
She was smartly dressed, and when she met one of her scholars bearing off a nest in which were five pretty little speckled eggs, she did not hesitate to stop him.
"You are a wicked boy," she exclaimed indignantly. "How could you rob the birds of their nest? No doubt, at this very minute, the poor mother is hovering about the tree grieving for the loss of the eggs which you carry."
"Oh, she don't care," replied the urchin, edging off with a derisive smile, "she's on your hat."
FEBRUARY
The old, old wonder of the lengthening days
Is with us once again; the winter's sun,
Slow sinking to the west when day is done,
Each eve a little longer with us stays,
And cheers the snowy landscape with his rays;
Nor do we notice what he has begun
Until a month or more of days have run,
When we exclaim: "How long the light delays!"
So let some kindly deed, however slight,
Be daily done by us, that to the waste
Of selfishness some light it may impart —
Mayhap not noticed till we feel the night
Is less within our souls, and broader-spaced
Has grown the cheerful sunshine of the heart.
– Samuel Francis Batchelder.
THE IRIS
IN botany this is the generic name of a number of beautiful plants belonging to the natural order of Iridaceæ. The plants have a creeping rootstock, or else a flat tuber, equitant leaves, irregular flowers, and three stamens. They are represented equally in the temperate and hotter regions of the globe. The wild species of iris are generally called blue-flag, and the cultivated flower-de-luce, from the French fleur de Louis, it having been the device of Louis VII. of France. Our commonest blue-flag, Iris versicolor, is a widely distributed plant, its violet-blue flowers, as may be seen, upon stems one to three feet high, being conspicuous in wet places in early summer. The root of this possesses cathartic and diuretic properties, and is used by some medical practitioners. The slender blue-flag found in similar localities near the Atlantic coast, is smaller in all its parts. A yellowish or reddish-brown species, resembling the first named in appearance, is found in Illinois and southward. There are three native species which grow only about six inches high and have blue flowers. They are found in Virginia and southward, and on the shores of the great lakes; these are sometimes seen as garden plants. The orris root of commerce is the product of Iris Florentina, I. pallida, and I. Germanica, which grow wild in the south of Europe; the rhizomes are pared and dried, and exported from Trieste and Leghorn, chiefly for the use of perfumers; they have the odor of violets. The garden species of iris are numerous, and by crossing have produced a great many known only by garden names. The dwarf iris, I. pumila, from three to six inches high, flowers very early and makes good edgings to borders; the common flower-de-luce of the gardens is I. Germanica; the elder-scented flower-de-luce is I. sambucina. These and many others are hardy in our climate, and readily multiplied by division of their rootstocks. The mourning or crape iris is one of the finest of the genus, its flowers being very large, dotted and striped with purple on a gray ground. The flowers of most of the species are beautiful. Some of them have received much attention from florists, particularly the Spanish, English, and German, or common iris, all corm-rooted species, and all European. The Persian iris is delightfully fragrant. The roots of all these species are annually exported in considerable quantities from Holland. The roasted seeds of one species have been used as a substitute for coffee.
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS
THE language of flowers is a study at once interesting and innocent, cultivating, as it does, a taste for the works of nature, filling the soul with the sweetest emotions and presenting to view one of the most enchanting phases of a beautiful world full of wonders. Following are a few of the best known flowers and the sentiments which they represent:
Sweet alyssum, worth beyond beauty; apple blossom, preference; bachelor's button, single and selfish; balm, sympathy; barberry, sourness; candytuft, indifference; carnation pink, woman's love; Chinese chrysanthemum, cheerfulness under misfortune; clematis, mental beauty; columbine, folly; red clover, industry; dahlia, dignity; white daisy, innocence; faded leaves, melancholy; forget-me-not, remembrance; jonquil, affection returned; lily of the valley, return of happiness; myrtle, love in absence; pansy, you occupy my thoughts; moss rose, superior merit; red rose, beauty; white rose, I am worthy of love; sunflower, haughtiness; yellow rose, infidelity.
