Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-08-26

QescT1Des an lntlinhcy OF fourteen years
with a scarlet virginian nightingale. This
bird, in its solitude, grew to look upon his
mistress as a mate, and every spring en-
deavored to persuade her to join in build
ing nest of twigs in a snug retreat be-
hind one of the ornamental scrolls at the
top of the looking glass. On these occa-
sions he would go through the whole farce
of supposing Mrs. Brightwen to require his
assiduous attentions, would hasten to her
lips with a fly or piece of sugar, and,
when he conceived her health to be very
delicate indeed, would prepare q mince of
spider and caterpiller in little water, and
chirp increasingly until his human mate
had pretended TO taste a little of this
dainty. Never, until she had done so.
would he swallow an atom himself; but as
soon as ever she had sImade believe he
would enjoy his mess of meat and gobble
it all up with gusto. He seems TO have
been the most ingenious of all pets whose
habits Mrs. Brightwen has studied, and the
degree of itelligence which he showed af-
fords her some of her most curious and
valuable pages. To naturalists the chap
ter dedicated to Zoe, the Nuthatch will
possess great interest. We do not think
that so close observation of the habits of
this '1small gray-coated detective" as our
author calls it, have everbeen recorded be-
fore. 1t is not every mistress, indeed, who
would allow metal-worms to be stored
in various hooks of her drawing room, or
could endure the loud hammerings which
Zoe kept up- The following note we be-
heve to be novel;
"I do not know whether naturalists
have remarked that the nuthatch has a
very limited range of vision. Zoe could
see nothing beyond twelve or fourteen in
ches; the more tempting meal-worm might
La Afsnr 1fr rf,a n..d cf..
happened to be on her tree-stem; and
have tried bringing the insect nearer by de-
grees and have found that only within a
foot of her eyes could she see it, and fan
cy then only indistinctly, as she would
peer about excitedly, as if uncertain what
it was, until near enough to be in the focus
of clear vision, and then, with a sudden
dart, she would seize and fit away with
it,
One of Mrs. Brightwen's happy ideas
has been, for eighteen years past, to keep
alwaySjust outside her diningroom window
basket of fat for the titmice. She finds
that four species-the Greater Tit. Blue
Tit, Cole Tit and Marsh Tit-come regular
ly to feast in it. As she says nothing
about the Long Tailed or Bottle Tit, we
suppose that the fat does not attract that
fascinating little denizen of kitchen gar
dens. She finds the personal manner of
these four species totally distinct The
Cole Tit, with misplaced energy, wearies
himself to carry the fat away and hide 1t
in crevices in the bark of trees, fussily
iourneying TO and fro for that purpose
The Marsh Tit and Greater Tit, hkt good
children, eat what they require and pocket
none. The quietness of these species con-
trast with the contentious hustle of the lit
tie Blue Tit, whose life is spent in what
Mrs. Brightwen calls "twittering scrin-
mage" and who is never happy unless he
is hanging upside down, with open beak
and outspread wings, defying some other
Blue Tit. One of the Cole Tits built her
nest in the garden letter-box, land seemed
in no way Disconnected when letters came
in suddenly around and upon her" The
imprudence of the tits is sometimes beyond
bearing:-
MY head gardener came to me one day
looking very serious, and began by asking
whatever he was to do 1abeut those Blue
Blue Tits why, what have they been
doings' 1 asked Two of them have been
sitting at the entrance of one of the hives,
and they have picked off and killed every
bee as il came out; and now they have be-
gun upon a second hive Well, you had
better hang up some potatoes stuck over
with feathers, and that will frighten them
away I've done that, ma'am, and they
just lAsUSS poAsANOcS allu aOOh M II
was trying case of utter contumacy. snd
at last was obliged, for the sake of saving
my bees, to let one little victim be shot and
hung up as an awful example TO the rest;
and it proved an effectual remedy"
We have no space TO draw particular at
tention to the multitude of good things TO
be found in this cheerful and unaffected
little book, from every pageof which there
breathes sincerity which gives the reader
that confidence which is necessary to en-
joyment of such stories as these. We
should like TO dwell ON the curious episode
of the water-shrews, ON the exciting Incl
dents in the life of mole, on the chapter
called AN Earwig Mother" on the close
and valuable observation of the habits of
the spiders, and, indeed, on many things
wild Nature won by Kindness" We
hope we have said enough to induce lovers
of living creatures to apply to Mrs Bright
wen's pages for themselves. Whether they
are outsiders or insiders in the world Of
natural history, they will be sure to find in
her book much that will please them, and
not a little that is new to them