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

Various

Birds and All Nature Vol VII, No. 1, January 1900 / Illustrated by Color Photography

JANUARY

Then came old January, wrapped well

In many weeds to keep the cold away;

Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell,

And blow his nayles to warm them if he may;

For they were numb'd with holding all the day

An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood,

And from the trees did lop the needlesse spray;

Upon a huge great earth-pot steane he stood,

From whose wide mouth there flowed forth the Romane flood.

    – Spenser.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow; and, driving o'er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.

The sled and traveler stopp'd, the courier's feet

Delay'd, all friends shut out, the house-mates sit

Around the radiant fire-place, inclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

    – Emerson.

OLD YEAR AND YOUNG YEAR

I

Said the year that was old:

"I am cold, I am cold,

And my breath hurries fast

On the wild winter blast

Of this thankless December;

Ah, who will remember

As I, shivering, go,

The warmth and the glow

That arose like a flame

When I came, when I came?

For I brought in my hands,

From Utopian lands,

Golden gifts, and the schemes

That were fairer than dreams.

Ah, never a king

Of a twelvemonth, will bring

Such a splendor of treasure

Without stint or measure,

As I brought on that day,

Triumphant and gay.

But, alas, and alas,

Who will think as I pass,

I was once gay and bold?"

Said the year that was old.

II

Said the year that was young —

And his light laughter rung —

"Come, bid me good cheer,

For I bring with me here

Such gifts as the earth

Never saw till my birth;

All the largess of life,

Right royally rife

With the plans and the schemes

Of the world's highest dreams.

Then – hope's chalice filled up

To the brim of the cup,

Let us drink to the past,

The poor pitiful past,"

Sang the year that was young,

While his light laughter rung.

    – Nora Perry.

THE VIRGINIA RAIL

(Rallus virginianus.)

THIS miniature of Rallus elegans or king rail, is found throughout the whole of temperate North America as far as the British Provinces, south to Guatemala and Cuba, and winters almost to the northern limit of its range. A specimen was sent by Major Bendire to the National Museum from Walla Walla, Wash., which was taken Jan. 16, 1879, when the snow was more than a foot deep. Other names of the species are: Lesser clapper rail, little red rail, and fresh-water mud hen. The male and female are like small king rails, are streaked with dark-brown and yellowish olive above, have reddish chestnut wing coverts, are plain brown on top of head and back of neck, have a white eyebrow, white throat, breast and sides bright rufous; the flanks, wing linings and under tail coverts are broadly barred with dark brown and white; eyes red.

The name of this rail is not as appropriate to-day as it was when Virginia included nearly all of the territory east of the Mississippi. It is not a local bird, but nests from New York, Ohio, and Illinois northward. Short of wing, with a feeble, fluttering flight when flushed from the marsh, into which it quickly drops again, as if incapable of going farther, it is said this small bird can nevertheless migrate immense distances. One small straggler from a flock going southward, according to Neltje Blanchan, fell exhausted on the deck of a vessel off the Long Island coast nearly a hundred miles at sea.

The rail frequents marshes and boggy swamps. The nest is built in a tuft of weeds or grasses close to the water, is compact and slightly hollowed. The eggs are cream or buff, sparsely spotted with reddish-brown and obscure lilac, from 1.20 to 1.28 inches long to .90 to .93 broad. The number in a set varies from six to twelve. The eggs