Classics Books

The whole of the large collection of birds secured by the Congo Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History during the years 1909 to 1915, under the leadership of Mr. Herbert Lang, has now arrived safely at the Museum. It is composed of material gathered all across the Belgian Congo, from Boma on the west to Aba in the northeastern corner, but the greater part from the more remote territory... more...

Field studies on hylid frogs in southern México and northern Central America have resulted in the collection of numerous specimens of Ptychohyla, a genus of hylid frogs heretofore poorly represented in museum collections. Experience with the living frogs in their natural habitats has been helpful in defining the species and in formulating ideas concerning their relationships. Taylor (1944) proposed... more...

CHAPTER I Between two flames the man stood, overlooking the crowd. A soft breeze, playing about the torches, sent shadows billowing across the massed folk on the ground. Shrewdly set with an eye to theatrical effect, these phares of a night threw out from the darkness the square bulk of the man's figure, and, reflecting garishly upward from the naked hemlock of the platform, accentuated, as in... more...

CHAPTER I On the day Fort Sumter surrendered I was seventeen years old, having been born April 14, 1844. Like other boys, I proposed enlisting, but my father refused consent; and at that time youths under eighteen years would not be accepted without the consent of parents. In July of the following year, when the news of McClellan's retreat on the Peninsula was published, I was satisfied that the... more...

A COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS It was an evening of sudden mildness following a dry October gale. The colonel had miscalculated the temperature by one log—only one, he declared, but that had proved a pitchy one, and the chimney bellowed with flame. From end to end the room was alight with it, as if the stored-up energies of a whole pine-tree had been sacrificed in the consumption of that four-foot stick.... more...

Biological exploration of México and Central America has revealed the presence of a diverse fauna, elements of which have undergone speciation in separate areas within the relatively small region. Some genera of amphibians, especially Eleutherodactylus and Hyla, are represented by many species having small geographic ranges in México and Central America. Most of the species of Hyla inhabiting the... more...

I Distant a few miles from the southern extremity of Lago Maggiore, the castle-crowned heights of Anghera and Arona face one another from opposite sides of the lake, separated by a narrow stretch of blue water. Though bearing the name of the former burgh, it was in Arona[1], where his family also possessed a property, that Pietro Martire d'Anghera first saw the light, in the year 1457[2]. He was... more...

GREETINGShake, Pard! I'm mighty proud o' you!(I'm know'd as "Yukon Bill");You blazed th' trail an' blazed it true;——Some o' my friends I see y' knewOn old Che-cha-ko Hill;But say, old man, y' clean forgot my friend, "Swiftwater Bill!"You was a kid in pettic'utsWhen I went in, a man;Grub-stakin' with two other goats——We... more...

HARD FACTS. 'These are the facts, Miss Wharton; hard facts no doubt, but you wished for the truth, and indeed I could not have hidden it from you even if I had wished to do so.' So said a keen but kindly faced old gentleman, as he sat in an office surrounded by despatch and deed boxes which proclaimed his profession to be that of a lawyer. The young lady to whom these remarks were addressed,... more...

CHAPTER I. TAXATION AND GOVERNMENT. In that strangely beautiful story, "The Cloister and the Hearth," in which Charles Reade has drawn such a vivid picture of human life at the close of the Middle Ages, there is a good description of the siege of a revolted town by the army of the Duke of Burgundy. Arrows whiz, catapults hurl their ponderous stones, wooden towers are built, secret mines are... more...