Birds and Nature, Vol. VIII, No. 2, September 1900

SEPTEMBER

 
The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
 
 
The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
 
 
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook.
 
 
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
 
 
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer.
 

Helen Hunt Jackson.

THE MALLOWS

A number of interesting plants are found grouped under the name of the Mallow Family (Malvaceae). They are the common Mallow, a weed of waysides and cultivated grounds; the Indian Mallow or Velvet-leaf, with its large velvety leaves and yellow flowers, a visitor from India which has escaped from cultivation and become a pest in corn and grain fields and waste places; the Musk Mallow, which has also escaped from our gardens; the Marsh-Mallow, the root of which abounds in a mucilage that is extensively used in the manufacture of confections; the Hollyhock of our gardens, which was originally a native of China and the beautiful Rose-Mallow of our illustration.

The Mallow Family includes about eight hundred species which are widely distributed in the temperate and tropical countries. The technical name is from a Greek word having reference to the soothing effect produced by many of the species, when applied to wounded surfaces.

All are herbs. Most of those found in the United States have been introduced from Europe and Asia. Only a very few are native, and no one of these is very common.

The flowers and fruits are all similar in structure to that of the common hollyhock.

The disk-like fruits of the common round leafed Mallow of our dooryards are often called "cheeses" by the children and are frequently gathered and eaten by them. The cotton plant, one of our most important economic plants, is also closely related to the Mallow. The Cotton of commerce is the woolly hair of the seeds of this plant which is a native of nearly all tropical countries and is cultivated in temperate regions.

The beautiful Rose-Mallow has its home in the brackish marshes of the Atlantic sea coast. It is also occasionally found on the marshy borders of lakes and rivers of the interior.

The plants grow to the height of from three to eight feet. The leaves are egg-shaped and the lower ones are three-lobed. The under side of the leaves is covered with fine and soft whitish hairs.

The flowers, produced in August and September, are large, varying from four to eight inches in diameter, and may be solitary or clustered at the top of the stem. The color of the petals is usually a light rose-pink, but occasionally white, with or without crimson at their bases.

Neltje Blanchan in "Nature's Garden" speaks of this beautiful plant as follows:

"Stately ranks of these magnificent flowers, growing among the tall sedges and 'cat-tails' of the marshes, make the most insensate traveler exclaim at their amazing loveliness. To reach them one must don rubber boots and risk sudden seats in the slippery ooze; nevertheless, with spade in hand to give one support, it is well worth while to seek them out and dig up some roots to transplant to the garden. Here, strange to say, without salt soil or more water than the average garden receives from showers and hose, this handsomest of our wild flowers soon makes itself delightfully at home under cultivation."

EAGLE LORE

CURIOUS STORIES OF THE OLD-TIME FAITH IN THE "KING OF THE FEATHERED TRIBES."

Birds were trusted, honored and made the symbols of wisdom and power in the old time, and they have not, at least in their emblematical signification, been neglected in modern times. The eagle, in particular, is exalted to a high and potential distinction. On the banner of a hundred States he is displayed as a conquering symbol and floats to-day over many a fair realm where Rome's imperial standard never penetrated.

The eagle has always been considered a royal bird, and was a favorite with the poets. They called him king of the air and made him bear the thunderbolts of Jove. Euripides tells us that "the birds in general are the messengers of the gods, but the eagle is king, and interpreter of the great deity Jupiter."

The eagle figures in the early legends of all people. When the ancient Aztecs, the mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley, were moving southward under Mexi, their king, their god, Vitziputzli, whose image was borne in a tabernacle made of reeds and placed in the center of the encampment whenever they halted, directed them to settle where they should find an eagle sitting on a fig-tree growing out of a rock in a lake. After a series of wanderings and adventures that do not shrink from comparison with the most extravagant legends of the heroic ages of antiquity, they at last beheld perched on a shrub in the midst of the lake of Tenochtitlan a royal eagle with a serpent in his talons and his broad wings opened to the rising sun. They hailed the auspicious omen and laid the foundation of their capital by sinking piles into the shallows. This legend is commemorated by the device of the eagle and the cactus, which forms the arms of the modern Mexican Republic.

A goose, it is said, saved Rome once upon a time, but it was an eagle that directed the selection of the ancient Byzantium – now Constantinople – as the capital of the Eastern Empire. The site of ancient Troy had been settled upon by Constantine, and the engineers were engaged in surveying the plan of the city, when an eagle swooped down, seized the measuring line, flew away with it and dropped it at Byzantium. At any rate, this was the story told to the soldiers and marines, in order to reconcile them to the change of plan, which they might otherwise have deemed an unfavorable omen, though the splendid situation of the new capital and its long prosperity, prove how admirably sagacious was the choice of its founder.

In the reign of Ancus Martius, King of Rome, a wealthy man, whose name was Tarquin, came to that city from one of the Etruscan States. Sitting beside his wife in his chariot, as he approached the gates of Rome, an eagle, it is said, plucked his cap from his head, flew up in the air, and then, returning, placed it on his head again. Not a few suspect that the eagle was a tame one and had been taught to perform this trick. If so, however, the apparent prodigy lost none of its effect in the popular belief, and Tarquin succeeded Ancus as King of Rome. The eagle's head on the Roman sceptre, and later on its standard, took its origin from this occurrence.

Plutarch, in his life of Theseus, relates that when Cymon was sent by the Athenians to procure the bones of that hero, who had long before been buried in Scyros, to reinter them in his former capital, he found great difficulty in ascertaining the burial place of the ancient monarch. While prosecuting his search, however, he chanced to observe an eagle that had alighted on a small elevation and was trying with his beak and claws to break the sod. Considering this a fortunate omen, they explored the place and discovered the coffin of a man of extraordinary size, with a lance of brass and a sword lying by it. These relics were conveyed to Athens amid great rejoicing, where they found a resting place in the famous temple of Theseus, whose ruins are still in existence.

The old historians state that the Greek poet Aeschylus lost his life through an eagle's mistaking his bald head for a rock and dropping a tortoise upon it in order to break the shell of his amphibious prey, but which broke, instead, the poet's skull. That an eagle, proverbially the keenest-sighted of created things, should mistake a man's head for a stone is absurd beyond the necessity of comment. The story is probably intended for an allegory, showing how stupidity can overwhelm genius, or a dull criticism smash a lively poet.

In A. D. 431 there was war between the Emperor Theodosius II. and Genseric the Vandal, and Marcian, the general of the former, was taken prisoner. The unfortunate captive was doomed to death. At the place of execution an eagle alighted on his head and sat there some time undismayed by the tumult around it. Upon seeing this, and believing that the captive was destined for some exalted fortune, Genseric pardoned him and sent him home. About eighteen years afterwards Theodosius died, and, as his sister had married Marcian, the latter became Emperor of Constantinople.

During the wars between the Christians and the Moors, of Spain, a Spanish knight engaged in combat with a gigantic Moslem. The conflict remained undecided for a long time, but at last the Spaniard began to lose ground. At this juncture an eagle, swooping from above, flew into the face of the Moorish giant, and, taking advantage of this sudden and miraculous intervention, the Spanish champion plunged his sword into the heart of his antagonist, thus winning the battle.

Rudolph, count of Hapsburg, one morning was looking out of his castle window upon the surrounding country, and while thus engaged noticed an eagle circling strangely above a certain place in the forest. Taking some men at arms he proceeded to the spot, where he found a beautiful and high-born lady held captive by a band of robbers. He rescued her and afterwards married her. When a new emperor was wanted in Germany he obtained the election through the influence of his wife's relatives. In this romantic fashion began the glory of the present reigning house of Austria.

I have alluded to the prominence of eagles in the arms of nations and individuals. The famous ensign of the Roman legions verified the text of Scripture when, in referring to the eagle, Job says: "Where the slain are there is she," for the Roman bird flew over nearly the whole known world and delighted in destruction and in threatening it. The Byzantine Caesars sported a double-headed eagle to indicate that they were lords of both the Eastern and the Western world. The Russians adopted the symbol from those princes. About four hundred years ago a lady, who claimed to be the heir of the Byzantine Emperor, married Ivan III., Czar of Russia, who, therefore, assumed the Greek arms, which may possibly be restored again to Constantinople by Russian arms.

The United States chose for her emblem the same imperial and triumphant bird. Some have considered it as not altogether an appropriate device for our republican government. Students of natural history have observed that the eagle is mean and cowardly. He lives, moreover, a life of rapine, plundering birds that are bolder and more industrious than himself. This is rather a bad character for our national bird.

The ancients would probably be horrified at such a criticism of their royal bird, and, after all, it is not surprising that they held him in such reverence. These people of the long ago had no books nor newspapers, but they were proficient students in the book of nature. By them the birds were accounted prophets, and by their varied flights they foretold future events and regulated the movements and enterprises of nations.

We call the wisdom of birds instinct, but they considered it divine intelligence. Nor was it strange that they should take them for the interpreters of fate, seeing that in many things the birds were wiser than themselves, for they seemed to have a knowledge of the future that was denied to man.

We have some idea of how these people regarded the movements of the birds from one of the ancient Greek writers, who, in a play entitled "The Birds," makes them give the following account of themselves: "We point out to man the work of each season. When the crow takes his flight across the Mediterranean it is seed-time – time for the pilot to season his timber. The kite tells you when you ought to shear your sheep; the swallow shows you when you ought to sell your watch-coats, and buy light dresses for the summer. We birds are the hinge of everything you do. We regulate your merchandise, your eating and drinking, and your marriages."

This Greek play-writer probably voiced the sentiments of the majority of the people, who had implicit faith in what they called "the prophecies of the birds;" and it is not surprising that they endowed the eagle – the king of the feathered tribes – with almost supernatural wisdom.

Phebe Westcott Humphrey.