Nature Books

FOREWORD. When, some time since, in consequence of continuing demands, the Brooklyn Entomological Society resolved to publish a new edition of its Explanation of Terms used in Entomology, and entrusted the writer and two associates with the task of preparing the same, it was believed that a little revision of definitions, the dropping of a few obsolete terms and the addition of a few lately proposed,... more...

BIRDS FROM A CITY ROOF I laid down my book and listened. It was only the choking gurgle of a broken rain-pipe outside: then it was the ripple and swish of a meadow stream. To make out the voices of redwings and marsh-wrens in the rasping notes of the city sparrows behind the shutter required much more imagination. But I did it. I wanted to hear, and the splash of the water helped me. The sounds of wind... more...

I If his father had been a brown bear and his mother a badger, the result in outward appearance would have been Gulo, or something very much like him. But not all the crossing in the world could have accounted for his character; that came straight from the Devil, his master. Gulo, however, was not a cross. He was himself, Gulo, the wolverine, alias glutton, alias carcajou, alias quick-hatch, alias... more...

LET us now, in order to form a clearer conception of the bees' intellectual power, proceed to consider their methods of inter-communication. There can be no doubting that they understand each other; and indeed it were surely impossible for a republic so considerable, wherein the labours are so varied and so marvellously combined, to subsist amid the silence and spiritual isolation of so many... more...

MY ROBIN There came to me among the letters I received last spring one which touched me very closely. It was a letter full of delightful things but the delightful thing which so reached my soul was a question. The writer had been reading "The Secret Garden" and her question was this: "Did you own the original of the robin? He could not have been a mere creature of fantasy. I feel sure you... more...

When Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., published his "Revision of the North American Bats of the Family Vespertilionidae" (N. Amer. Fauna, 13:1-140, 3 pls., 39 figs. in text, October 16, 1897), the red bat, Lasiurus borealis, was known from the southern half of Mexico but he did not know that the hoary bat, Lasiurus cinereus, also occurred there. Therefore, the name A[talapha]. mexicana Saussure (Revue et... more...

OUR FRIEND THE DOG I I have lost, within these last few days, a little bull-dog. He had just completed the sixth month of his brief existence. He had no history. His intelligent eyes opened to look out upon the world, to love mankind, then closed again on the cruel secrets of death. The friend who presented me with him had given him, perhaps by antiphrasis, the startling name of Pelléas. Why... more...

Mr. Rarey is a farmer from Ohio, in the United States. Five years ago he wrote the little book which forms the text of the following complete account of his system, with pictorial illustrations, which are essential for explaining the means he now employs for subduing the most refractory animals. Without these explanations, it would be extremely difficult for any one who had not enjoyed the advantage of... more...

PREFACE. At the present time there is a growing desire to patronise perennial plants, more especially the many and beautiful varieties known as "old-fashioned flowers." Not only do they deserve to be cultivated on their individual merits, but for other very important reasons; they afford great variety of form, foliage, and flower, and compared with annual and tender plants, they are found to... more...

Supplement To An Address ON BY Lieut.-Colonel William Wood, F.R.S.C. The appeal prefixed to the original Address in 1911 announced the issue of the present supplement in 1912, and asked experts and other leaders of public opinion to set the subject on firm foundations by contributing advice and criticism. The response was most gratifying. The twelve hundred review copies sent out to the Canadian press,... more...