Birds and All Nature Vol VII, No. 1, January 1900. Various

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      Under Whitney's gin the bulky seeds soon began to pile up astonishingly, and it became customary to remove the gins as the piles of this useless seed accumulated. It was left to rot upon the ground in these heaps just as it fell from the gin. Another ingenious Yankee saw there was a great deal of material going to waste in these piles, and he experimented to see what could be done with the seed.

      It was found to be very good for use on ground that had become poor by exhaustive farming. An excellent fertilizer is made from it. The cake is used for feed for cattle to great advantage. Dairymen regulate the quality and color of the milk they get from their cows by varying the amount of oil cake given in their food. The oil extracted from this seed is used in the arts. It is not equal to linseed oil for painters' use, but it is a great substance for use in mixing in with better oils to make them go farther. In other words, it is largely used for the purposes of adulterating other oils. Not only is it used in making lard, but it is now sold on its own merits for cooking purposes.

      Two days out of New York we sighted the black smoke of a great steamer. At sea everybody is on the lookout for vessels and much interested in the passengers that may be on the craft casually met. So we kept watch of the horizon and were glad to see that a big one was coming our way. She was headed so nearly towards us that we hoped to get a good view of the many passengers that might be expected on so large a ship. When she was near enough to show some of her side, she looked rusty and ill kept. We wondered what the fare must be for a ride across the water on such a cheap-looking monster. As she came nearer we saw there were no passengers. "What is she?" "What does she carry?" The first mate told us she was a tank steamer, running between the United States and Belgium, carrying 4,200 tons of cotton-seed oil at a trip.

      THE WISE LITTLE BIRD

      THE GRASSHOPPER SPIDER

      OUT in the garden where the western sun flooded the nasturtiums along the garden wall, a large yellow and black-bodied spider made his lair. The driving rain of the night before had so torn and disarranged his web that he had set about building himself a new one lower down. Already he had spun and placed the spokes or bars of his gigantic web and was now making the circles to complete his geometric diagram.

      From his tail he exuded a white, sticky substance, which, when stretched, instantly became dry. As he stepped from one spoke to another he would spin out his web and, stretching the spoke towards the preceding one, bring the fresh-spun web in contact with it and then exude upon the jointure an atom of fresh web, which immediately cemented the two parts, when the spoke settled back into place, pulling the cross web straight and taut. The process of house-building continued uninterruptedly, every movement of the spider producing some result. No useless steps were taken, and as the work progressed the uniformity of the work was simply amazing; every square, every cross piece, was placed exactly in the same relative position as to distance, etc. A micrometer seemingly would not have shown the deviation of .000001 of an inch between any two of the squares.

      When the web was three-fourths finished a lusty grasshopper went blundering up against one of the yet uncovered spokes of the web and escaped. The spider noticed this and visibly increased his efforts and sped from spoke to spoke, trailing his never ending film of silky web behind him. At last the trap was set and, hastening to the center, he quickly covered the point with web after web, until he had a smooth, solid floor with an opening that allowed the tenant to occupy either side of the house at will. The spot was well selected, the hoppers in the heat of the day finding the heavy shade of the broad nasturtium leaves particularly grateful.

      Our friend the spider had not long to wait for his breakfast, for presto! – a great, brown-winged hopper flew right into the net. Before he could, with his strong wings and powerful legs, tear the silken gossamer asunder and free himself, like lightning our spider was upon him. In the flash of an eye the grasshopper was actually enshrouded in a sheet of white film of web, and with the utmost rapidity was rolled over and over by the spider, which used its long legs with the utmost dexterity. Wound in his graveyard suit of white silk, the grasshopper became absolutely helpless. His broad wings and sinewy legs were now useless. The spider retreated to the center of the web and watched the throes of his prey. By much effort the hopper loosed one leg and was bidding fair to kick the net to shreds when the spider made another sally and, putting a fresh coating of sticky web around him, rolled him over once or twice more and left him.

      In a few moments, when all was over, the spider attacked his prey and began his breakfast. Before his meal was well under way, a second hopper flew into the parlor of the spider and, leaving his meal, the agile creature soon had hopper number two securely and safely ensnared. No experienced football tackle ever downed his opponent with any such skill or celerity as the spider displayed as he rolled over and bundled up into a helpless web-covered roll the foolish and careless hopper.

      THE BLUE-WINGED TEAL

      SO many names have been applied to this duck that much confusion exists in the minds of many as to which to distinguish it by. A few of them are blue-winged; white-face, or white-faced teal; summer teal, and cerceta comun (Mexico.) It inhabits North America in general, but chiefly the eastern provinces; north to Alaska, south in winter throughout West Indies, Central America, and northern South America as far as Ecuador. It is accidental in Europe.

      The blue-winged teal is stated to be probably the most numerous of our smaller ducks, and, though by far the larger number occur only during the migrations, individuals may be found at all times of the year under favorable circumstances of locality and weather. The bulk of the species, says Ridgway, winters in the Gulf states and southward, while the breeding-range is difficult to make out, owing to the fact that it is not gregarious during the nesting-season, but occurs scatteringly in isolated localities where it is most likely to escape observation.

      The flight of this duck, according to "Water Birds of North America," is fully as swift as that of the passenger pigeon. "When advancing against a stiff breeze it shows alternately its upper and lower surface. During its flight it utters a soft, lisping note, which it also emits when apprehensive of danger. It swims buoyantly, and when in a flock so closely together that the individuals nearly touch each other. In consequence of this habit hunters are able to make a frightful havoc among these birds on their first appearance in the fall, when they are easily approached. Audubon saw as many as eighty-four killed by a single discharge of a double-barreled gun.

      "It may readily be kept in confinement, soon becomes very docile, feeds readily on coarse corn meal, and might easily be domesticated. Prof. Kumlein, however, has made several unsuccessful attempts to raise this duck by placing its eggs under a domestic СКАЧАТЬ