gion where a bounty was offered for the destruction of the English sparrows, the boys brought in great numbers of chipping and other sparrows, blue birds, flycatchers, vireos, and other innocent birds, which either the lack of knowledge or the greed for gain had sacrificed.

But ignorance alone is by no means the greatest enemy of our birds great as it is, unless we style indifference an element of ignorance.

I suppose that the statutes of Missouri are ample for bird protection, but few of us would maintain that they are efficient. If our people could realize the purely utilitarian value of the small birds, as we do that of the so-called game birds, we would at least refrain for a season from their slaughter.

If our Bob-whites leave us it will be largely because the draws, the hedges and the fence-rows are cleaned up. At present, the ax, the plow and the barbed wire may be doing as much to exterminate him as the bird dog and the breechloader.

The situation is similar with reference to our smaller "birds of song and beauty." In spite, however, of the necessary destruction of so much of our forests, if there could be left (or planted) upon our farms, certain brushy or wooded streaks, these would afford ample hiding and breeding places, and vast numbers of birds would re

main that must otherwise pass on. I do sincerely believe, extravagant as it may seem, that this would be as paying an acre as any other on the place-viewed from a strictly utilitarian standpoint only; but I am not going into any ngures to prove it.

[The frontispiece of the Story of the Birds is a picture named Driving Away the Birds. The white sky is shining through a "procession" of trees on a low ridge, and between the trees and the lookeron are piles of burning brush, sending their white smoke into the evening, and thus presenting a fair screen for the dark silhouette with pipe in mouth of Pat or Mike, who is simply giving free rein to his "noble rage" for clearing up.-B.]

I have long felt, however, that we shall not be able to convince the average grown up practical man that birds have any uses off of the platter; or, the average grown up woman that they are of any value off of her hat or bonnet. Our hope lies in educating the childhood and youth of the land. For this reason I have asked my old friend, the editor of the Journal, to allow me this space to appeal to the teachers of the state in behalf of a rapidly fading feature of our landscape beauty. There was a time, in his boyhood and mine, that if one should go to see the other, there was scarcely a step within the two miles of deep bottom woods that lay between our homes where

we should not have been cheered by the sight of a pretty wing flash or the sound of a warbling syrinx. But to-day from the top of one house the other can be seen browning beyond the barest fringe of the old forest, which the creek still claims as its own; and there is many a long stretch upon the old path that is bare and voiceless.

There are few persons, surely, that, at some period of their lives, have not felt themselves thrilled at the flight of a bird, the brilliancy of the plumage, the intricacy of its architecture, or the beauty of its eggs. There has run through us all, from the shaver with the pinch of salt and the gamin with his gumsling, up to the youth or the man with his gun and the maid or matron with her millinery, the desire to possess the bird because of its interesting characteristics. It is upon this basis that we must build -not so much by its further extension as by its modification. Heretofore our admiration for the bird has scarcely been above that of the cat's or the hawk's. Our esthetics has been on the level with their blood-thirst or hunger. Our hope lies in the outlook of refining our selfishness. We will have We will have made a great step in blending a shade of ethics with our esthetics when we can leave the bird free now that we may enjoy it another day. This is the substitution of a higher form of selfishness for a lower, and is the ground of our

usual appeal-as it should be. To leave the bird for some one else to enjoy is an exhibition of altruismı that we can scarcely hope for yet.

Of course it would be well if we could go further and eliminate the element of human selfishness from the matter altogether, and leave the bird free and unharmed, because, so long as it does not interfere with our progress or is not needed for our sustenance, it has the same God-given right to be free as we. But with the idea inborn and cultivated that all things are made for man, intensified by our inherited vanity and cruelty, we can scarcely hope to save the birds by this means, although the general admission of the dogma by no means implies that all things were made for man to destroy. Moralist as I am, I very much doubt the outlook for immediate good along the channel of the bird's rights. Our religion has almost utterly failed to do anything for the birds. Every aigrette is the badge of the parent bird worn while the young are fed in the nest. For a lady to wear one costs the lives of many nestlings; yet the votaries of fashion will bow them before the altar or quiver them in their "te deums"though they dare the curse of Deuteronomy in the sacred precincts of the sanctuary (22, 6). If, as hinted in Genesis, the curse fell upon the lower creatures because of man's transgression, we should blush to admit that they have profited very

slightly by his claims of restoration to divine favor.

It is therefore along the line of the pupil's esthetic and purely intellectual interests at first that we must look for our greatest goodthough there are certainly many kind hearts in our children and people where the bird's case may find lodgment. Hence the appeal to teachers. The thing to do, therefore, is anything that may increase interest.

Writing in this off-hand way, I am not prepared to outline any method of procedure. It is doubtless better that this should be left flexible so that the child may be taught at the point of interest or of mutual contact of information between the mind of teacher and pupil. It may be the egg, the manner of flight, the nest, the young, the colors, etc., that may be stimulating. I have found the habits of great interest to little children. The pupil may be taught the usefulness of color to the bird; and a new interest in brilliancy and markings may be provoked beyond that of the mere pleasures of beauty. large amount of interest may be developed in the field of purpose or use of certain parts. As an expansion of this, the bird may be studied in its skeletal, plumage and muscular structure, by means of any good treatise-so many of which are

A

may be

now extant; and if desired something of the bird's kinship to each other, and to other vertebrates, based upon structure, noted. Possibly some hint of its evolution may be very enthralling to some minds. But these higher expositions are by no means called for in order to interest the pupil.

A hunting friend took his little girl and boy out while shooting doves. The boy retrieved with a boy's savageness the birds as they fell from flight, but the little girl smoothed their pretty plumage and cried over them. At last, as she saw her father crouch for another shot, she threw her arms around him and hampered him, saying: "Papa, you just shan't shoot another one. I can't stand it." And the bird flew by unharmed, and the father went home, because he did not care to rub that pretty bloom off his little daughter's heart.

I should rather a little girl of mine should know and love a dozen. birds in the woods than to count all the notches in the sternum or note all the insertions of the toe-tendons of a single specimen upon the dissecting table. The dissector, like the collector, has his calling and election sure, but few-certainly few in our common schools-are really chosen. Take the student. out to the bird rather than bring the bird into the student.

Mr. Richards is very busy at this season of the year, and has therefore dropped his interesting and helpful articles on scientific experiments for the present. He will continue them next fall, beginning either with the September or October number.

HIGHLANDS.

BY JACQUES W. REDWAY, F. R. G. S.

The sometime way in which courses of study here and there provide for the teaching of the highlands of the earth may be both logical and psychological; but when viewed from the standpoint of nature, the "method" is not always supported by the facts of the case.

Quite frequently we begin -"A hill is an elevation of land." "A mountain is an elevation higher than a hill." "A mountain range is a line of mountain peaks," etc. Such a scheme has a charming simplicity about it: it is logical, because systematic in the order of presenta tion: it is psychological, because the pupil proceeds from the known, step by step, to the unknown.

The only trouble about the development of the subject is the fact that no such mountains exist in nature.

Hills and mountains have each the quality of elevation, it is true, but the mountain is something

more than a high hill. Isolated mountains, moreover, are of rare occurrence, and whenever they occur they are very apt to be volcanic cones or domes, neither of which is a good type of structure with which to begin the study of mountains.

The range, and not the peak, is the unit of structure, and the essential feature about it is the fact that it is a wrinkle or fold of the earth's rock-layers. In fitting themselves. about a more rapidly shrinking interior the layers of the earth part we commonly call the "crust"

the

must of necessity wrinkle, cockle, and crumble in order to adapt themselves to it. In other words, misfits and wrinkles go always together, no matter whether in tailor made garments, or in the evolution of the earth.

But a range is always much worn -weathered, we may say. From the very moment the fold begins to be formed, the waters of the atmosphere set to work to wear it down. to base level. The top layers or strata are broken and worn away, leaving long ridges. Thus, the Appalachian ranges consist of comparatively few folds, but the latter have been crowded into very many ridges. The crests of ridges are often very unequally worn, and the higher parts form mountain peaks.

The intermontane troughs are the valleys: the transverse notches, passes, canons, and water gaps. Very frequently a short range is called a mountain, and so also is a plateau of no considerable area.

In a few instances softer rocks may be worn away leaving a boss. of harder material in the form of a mountain peak. Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom are examples. are examples. Pocono, Broad, and Broad Top, in the Appalachian ranges, are practically plateaus. Finistaarhorn, Matterhorn, and Wetterhorn are each what the latter part of the name suggests a "horn" or pinnacle of hard rock projecting above the main ridge.

Here are a few questions: Does the expression "everlasting hills" convey truth or falsity? Why is the floor of an intermontane valley usually flat and comparatively level? Why is the landscape of the Appalachian mountains generally rounded and graceful, while that of the Rocky Mountains is almost always harsh and angular? How does a high range between two peoples affect their intercommunication? How have Khyber Pass, Mohawk Gap, and St. Gotthard Pass, affected history? How are canons formed? In what way have the slopes of the Rocky Mountains changed the contour of the Gulf of Mexico?

AN HOUR WITH EUGENE FIELD. [Arranged by Eleanor Skinner, Columbus Normal School.]

(In three parts.)

PART I. BIOGRAPHY. PART II. FAIRIES, FUN AND FROLIC. PART III. HUSHABY, LULLABY.

NOTE. The Eugene Field exercise can be made intensely interesting by the aid of a few blackboard drawings, illustrating some of the most dearly loved songs and poems. When the program was given in the second grade training school last year, we had no difficulty in finding simple drawings of children for the board work. "Good Children Street" was represented by a train of happy looking boys and girls carrying flags, drums, dolls and various other toys suggesting fun and frolic. We found a little soldier boy to illustrate "I'm a Beautiful Big Red Drum"; "Lady Button Eyes" became very real when her work was shown by a tiny figure locked in dreamland. "Pittypat and Tippytoe" were the darlings of the school for several days. They were two baby figures seated. on the floor, playing with numerous scattered toys. The drawings were quite simple, being done in rough outline. Children are so responsive, and pictures appeal to them so strongly that one never need fear the intended suggestion will be lost.