buying some chickens and asking for more, the little merchant said: "They ain't no more, only but one old rooster; and we don't aim to sell him, 'cause my little brother that died, he always claimed him, and maw sayed she never would sell him!

A queer expression (which is nevertheless a common one here), used by a poor mother whose little girl was burned to death, sticks in my memory: "It ben ten years, now, but I ain't got satisfied with it yit."

And a poor man, who clung desperately to a wretched mortgaged little farm in the swamp, excused himself for unwisdom that even he could see by the plea that his two dead children were buried there, and "My woman, she hated terribly to have them die, and she cayn't git satisfied to leave 'em, nohow!"

"What a life!" our Northern friends say. Yet it is a life with huge ameliorations. In this country, every one has the climate, to begin with. There are only two months in the year when we can be said to have cold weather; and even through those months are scattered lovely days of truce, filled with sunshine. Neither need we pay for our mild winters with hot summers. There are but two months that are really uncomfortably warm for more than a few days at a time. These are August and September. They tell us that the nights are cool then; but I receive this statement with a degree of apathy, because I never was in any climate so torrid that I did not hear it, or that two blankets did not make a handsome figure in the story. We sleep under two blankets, like the dwellers in St. Augustine, Nice, Algiers, and I dare say all the citizens of the equator that respect themselves.

But what a garden does this sombre plain show before spring is well over the threshold! The forest has not only the splendor of its innumerable vines

and shrubs to deck it; there is all the

sumptuous tinting of the trees; not only dogwood, redbud, buckeye, and bramble, but the brilliant sassafras-yellow, gorgeous tassels swinging above the cottonwood limbs, the rich velvet of oak and hickory, a golden flicker on the silver of the sycamores, fairy flames amid the swamp maples, and everywhere the delicate, fernlike cy

press greenery.

When summer comes, our forest cloisters have a shade as dense and rich as the Black Forest. The poor man in this country, whatever he lacks, has air and space and beauty. He has, too, a rude plenty for his material wants. And is it not to be counted that one shall have the key to the fields; the right to live close to the grass, to miss the cankerfret of envy, the suffocation of merciless crowds, the sick despair of failure, and the untiring goad of fear?

Yes, we may weave our complacent plans to "elevate " this people; but I question, Do they need our pity? They are what Montaigne dubbed himself, "unpremeditated and accidental philosophers."

Neither need our kind friends of civilization pity our plight on "that forlorn plantation." We are amazingly comfortable, thank you. For one thing, but there are many things! to win the best out of life, one must live at least part of the time in the country, I mean the real country; not the country of Watteau and fêtes, where nature is but a splendid canvas on which to paint fine toilets and field sports.

A plantation has all the simple charm of a farm without its loneliness. Here there is always a small ripple of human interest to watch, - like that picture from my window at this moment, for instance: a stalwart black fellow breaking a colt. To wake in the morning to the country sounds, a cock crowing lustily, a mocking-bird singing, the ring of an axe, the whistle of the little black boy driving the cows to pasture, the swash of the river waves,

the soft stir of the wind in the cypress brake; at night, to watch the sunset burn out in the west, or the horsemen riding home with their bags of meal flung over their saddle-bow, or the herds winding along the woodland road, listening, at the same time, to the lowing of the cows and the bleat of the lambs, and now and again to a distant yodel or the boat song of Peps steering up a raft of logs, here are simple pleasures, but they leave no sting.

Another thing that we enjoy is that we may be friends with the poor.

Perhaps it will be said that we may -and should · - be friends with the poor everywhere. I will wager a basket of Arkansas roses against a handful of chips that the objector has not a single friend among the real poor. Do you call that woman with the six small children, who comes each morning for your skimmed milk, your friend; or the beneficiaries of your different most worthy societies, whom you barely know apart? If you do, you deceive yourself, and the truth is not in Your friend is himself, by his own name and person, interesting to you; the skimmed-milk woman is only a poor creature to you, that you help because you are benevolent, and from whom you expect vast gratitude or little, according to your temperament, O you unconscious inspirer of anarchists!

you.

But to know the poor as individuals, not as "the poor, to be made free of their sorrows, to see their piteous little pleasures, to be friends, that is different, that is to feel the eternal kinship. Bring your gift to a poor renter's wedding, or go for a few minutes to his merry-making, — spring, when windows and doors are open, is the preferable time; talk with him over your woodpile that he comes to chop, until you know all about the oldest girl, who "kin jest take up a book and read right spang off,- don't have to stop to spell nary, and the baby, "the smartest little trick you ever did

see;" sit all night in the draughts of his cabin watching a dying child (nothing like such an experience to fetch the necessity for comfortable houses for your tenants home to your conscience!); and when the importunity of death to spare has failed, learn how alike are all mothers' hearts in their desolation, — and you will comprehend the difference. Such an intercourse brings a feeling that is nearer and more human than could come of years of perfunctory interest as a "kind lady."

To these people we are only their good neighbors; more generous more kind - than other neighbors,

not

simply because we have more to give. They are attached to us as "mighty nice, pleasant, 'bliging folks." They feel no wound to their pride in accepting favors that they would return were it in their power; indeed, do return in other shapes. Surely, in this day and generation, when Samson strains at the pillars of the temple, it is a thing worth counting, this wholesome and gentle relation.

For myself, I count it a further mercy that we live among a people so honest, kindly, and unhasty. It is a rest to be out of the nineteenth century for a while, with people who will not hurry for money, who believe in Jonah and the whale (all the more stanchly that they have but the dimmest notion what a whale is), and consider theft worse than murder.

Soon it will all be changed. Already the shadow creeps over the dial.

Just as the ugly, comfortable new houses are replacing the picturesque old cabins, as the "heater stove is crowding out the fireplace, so the new ways will push the old aside. The school-children do not talk dialect; only the old people are willing to plant corn by hand.

Some day a railway station will be the magnet for the loungers instead of the store, or oh, heavy thought! there will be no more loungers.

We

shall all be civilized into stirring Philistines, with no time to waste in friendly gossip; farms will be tilled by tenants who expect to make money as well as a livelihood, and could not shoot a wild turkey to save their lives; the saw will buzz away our grand old forests that have sheltered the moundbuilders; we shall become a syndicate, or a corporation, or a trust; and the country will be so well drained that it cannot even summon an old-time chill over its changed conditions.

Yes, the new civilization will come. I am enough a child of my age to feel that it is best it should come, but I am glad to be here before it comes. I hope that it may not come too fast!

"Touch us gently, Time!

We've not proud nor soaring wings; Our ambition, our content, Lies in simple things. Humble voyagers are we O'er Life's dim, unbounded sea, Seeking only some calm clime; Touch us gently, gentle Time!" Octave Thanet.

"Your fathers, where are they?"-ZECHARIAH i. 5.

WHILE keeping daily watch upon a nest of our common humming-bird, in the summer of 1890,1 I was struck with the persistent absence of the head of the family. As week after week elapsed, this feature of the case excited more and more remark, and I turned to my out-of-door journal for such meagre notes as it contained of a similar nest found five years before. From these it appeared that at that time, also, the father bird was missing. Could such truancy be habitual with the male ruby-throat? I had never supposed that any of our land birds were given to behaving in this ill-mannered, unnatural way, and the matter seemed to call for investigation.

My first resort was, of course, to books. The language of Wilson and Audubon is somewhat ambiguous, but may fairly be taken as implying the male bird's presence throughout the period of nidification. Nuttall speaks explicitly to the same effect, though with no specification of the grounds on which his statement is based. The later systematic biographers Brewer, 1 See Atlantic Monthly for June, 1891. VOL. LXVIII. — NO. 405.

4

Samuels, Minot, and the authors of New England Bird Life are silent in respect to the point. Mr. Burroughs, in Wake-Robin, mentions having found two nests, and gives us to understand that he saw only the female birds. Mrs. Treat, on the other hand, makes the father a conspicuous figure about the single nest concerning which she reports. Mr. James Russell Lowell, too, speaks of watching both parents as they fed the young ones: "The mother always alighted, while the father as uniformly remained upon the wing."

So far, then, the evidence was decidedly, not to say decisively, in the masculine ruby-throat's favor. But while I had no desire to make out a case against him, and in fact was beginning to feel half ashamed of my uncomplimentary surmises, I was still greatly impressed with what my own. eyes had seen, or rather had not seen, and thought it worth while to push the inquiry a little further.

I wrote first to Mr. E. S. Hoar, in whose garden Mr. Brewster had made the observations cited in my previous article. He replied with great kindness, and upon the point in question

said: "I watched the nest two or three times a day, from a time before the young were hatched till they departed; and now you mention it, it occurs to me that I never did see the male, but only the white-breasted female."

Next I sought the testimony of professional ornithologists; and here my worst suspicions seemed in a fair way to be confirmed, although the greater number of my correspondents were unhappily compelled to plead a want of knowledge. Dr. A. K. Fisher had found, as he believed, not less than twenty-five nests, and to the best of his recollection had never seen a male bird near one of them after it was completed. He had watched the female feeding her young, and, when the nests contained eggs, had waited for hours on purpose to secure the male, but always without result.

Mr. William Brewster wrote: "I have found, or seen in situ, twelve hummers' nests, all in Massachusetts. Of these I took nine, after watching each a short time, probably not more than an hour or two in any case. the remaining three, I visited one three or four times at various hours of the day, another only twice, the third but once. Two of the three contained

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young when found. The third was supposed to have young, also, but could not be examined without danger to its contents. I have never seen a male hummer anywhere near a nest, either before or after the eggs were laid, but, as you will gather from the above brief data, my experience has not been extensive; and in the old days, when most of my nests were found, the methods of close watching now in vogue were unthought of. In the light of the testimony to which you refer, I should conclude, with you, that the male hummer must occasionally assist in the care of the young, but I am very sure that this is not usually, if indeed often, the case."

Mr. H. W. Henshaw reported a

similar experience. He had found four nests of the ruby-throat, but had seen no male about any of them after nidification was begun. "I confess, he says, "that I had never thought of his absence as being other than accidental, and hence have never made any observations directly upon the point; so that my testimony is of comparatively little value. In at least one instance, when the female was building her nest, I remember to have seen the male fly with her and perch near by, while she was shaping the nest, and then fly off with her after more material. I don't like to believe that the little villain leaves the entire task of nidification to his better half (we may well call her better, if he does); but my memory is a blank so far as testimony affirmative of his devotion is concerned." Mr. Henshaw recalls an experience with a nest of the Rivoli hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens), in Arizona, a nest which he spent two hours in getting. "I was particularly anxious to secure the male, but did not obtain a glimpse of him, and I remember thinking that it was very strange.” He adds that Mr. C. W. Richmond has told him of finding a nest and taking the eggs without seeing the father bird, and sums up his own view of the matter thus: :

"Had any one asked me offhand, 'Does the male hummer help the female feed the young?' I am quite sure I should have answered, 'Of course he does.' As the case now stands, however, I am inclined to believe him a depraved wretch."

Up to this point the testimony of my correspondents had been unanimous, but the unanimity was broken by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, who remembers that on one occasion his attention was called to a nest (it proved to contain a set of fresh eggs) by the flying of both its owners about his head; and by Mr. W. A. Jeffries, who in one case saw the father bird in the vicinity of a

nest occupied by young ones, although he did not see him feed or visit them. This nest, Mr. Jeffries says, was one of five which he has found. In the four other instances no male birds were observed, notwithstanding three of the nests were taken, a tragedy which might be expected to bring the father of the family upon the scene, if he were anywhere within call.

In view of the foregoing evidence, it appears to me reasonably certain that the male ruby-throat, as a rule, takes no considerable part in the care of eggs and young. The testimony covers not less than fifty nests. Some of them were watched assiduously, nearly all were examined, and the greater part were actually taken; yet of the fifty or more male proprietors, only two were seen; and concerning these exceptions, it is to be noticed that in one case the eggs were just laid, and in the other, while the hungry nestlings must have kept the mother bird extremely busy, her mate was not observed to do anything in the way of lightening her labors.

As against this preponderance of negative testimony, and in corroboration of Mr. Lowell's and Mrs. Treat's circumstantial narratives, there remain to be mentioned the fact communicated to me by Mr. Hoar, that a townsman of his had at different times had two hummers' nests in his grounds, the male owners of which were constant in their attentions, and the following very interesting and surprising story received from Mr. C. C. Darwin, of Washington, through the kindness of Mr. Henshaw. Some years ago, as it appears, a pair of ruby-throats built a nest within a few feet of Mr. Darwin's window and a little below it, so that they could be watched without fear of disturbing them. He remembers perfectly that the male fed the female during the entire period of incubation, "pumping the food down her throat." All this time, so far as

could be discovered, the mother did not once leave the nest (in wonderful contrast with my bird of a year ago), and of course the father was never seen to take her place. Mr. Darwin cannot say that the male ever fed the young ones, but is positive that he was frequently about the nest after they were hatched. While they were still too young to fly, a gardener, in pruning the tree, sawed off the limb on which the nest was built. Mr. Darwin's mother rescued the little ones and fed them with sweetened water, and on her son's return at night the branch was fixed in place again, as best it could be, by means of wires. Meanwhile the old birds had disappeared, having given up their children for lost; and it was not until the third day that they came back, - by chance, perhaps, or out of affection for the spot. At once they resumed the care of their offspring, who by this time, it is safe to say, had become more or less surfeited with sugar and water, and gladly returned to a diet of spiders and other such spicy and hearty comestibles.

Mr. Henshaw, with an evident satisfaction which does him honor, remarks upon the foregoing story as proving that, whatever may be true of male hummers in general, there are at least some faithful Benedicts among them. For myself, indeed, as I have already said, I hold no brief against the rubythroat, and, notwithstanding the seemingly unfavorable result of my investigation into his habits as a husband and father, it is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names. Before doing that, we ought to know not only that he stays away from his wife and children, but why he stays away; whether he is really a shirk, or absents himself unselfishly and for their better protection, at the risk of being misunderstood and traduced. My object in this paper is to raise that question about him, rather than to blacken his character; in a word, to call atten