Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1901-03-28
THE vERNAL IMPULSE
washington Press.

MT Lpgue pceacneO, SUNDAY a. M
Ion birds, their strange back wandering
fere. their mating, nesting, broodins
lsalid found lessons In it all.
What we want to kEow. and have
| pumped bird -cranks and read books oil
lscrnithology to find out, and all in YAM
lsis, do our blackbirds and robins, that
winter in the Louisiana and Texas
and our bobolinks that devas-
lstate rice fields in the Carolinas and
Louisiana. do they brood again down
lSthere?a or use the winter merely as
lss:esta. loaf and invite their souls.
Walter Ayres has been much in tbs
south, and says he nexer saw a nest OF
llcur migrating birds, and does not be-
lSlieve they brood there in winter, but
really does not know.
What is the secret of all this? This
the angle of the solar ray The Ner-
hal impulse that resurrects hibernat-
ling animals, starts the sap IN plants
expands buds. recreates vegetation and
warns the blood of animals comes from
1.-THE sun. The religious side of this mo-
tor is celebrated in Easter. A wave OF
Hove oyerflnws all nature in the spring
laTennyson beautifully hits it off IN
l5rLocksley Hail.:
ls"In the pring a purple crimson comes
upon the robins breast
lin the spring the wanton lapwing gets
himself another crest:
| IN the spring livelier iris changes on
the FURNISHED dove:
lin the spring a young mans fancy
lightly turns to thoughts of love.
In the natural state breeding and
Ibrooding depend upon the food supply.
Eighty per cent of all the food brought
lily the old to the young birds is animal
Ifcod, WORMS, bugs. insects. etc, and
mot over 90 per cent is vegetable and
|fruit food. Birds migrate because frost
lcloses the larder. They go TO other cup
boards. They come back here when the
| sun opens the lower world, and time
Their brooding to the tide of animal and
insect life. The impulse to breed is OF
solar origin. and the wild animals are
lmathematically timed 10 coincide with
THE heyday of food. Rutting time is as
mathematical as the almanac. In the
animal world, in the Wild estate, unaf-
lfected by mans interference by domes-
ITCHY, the counting season falls IN the
spring. as Tennyson notes. His lines art
not more poetic than scientific. The
| birds don the new plumage to impress
1.-The female and attract and fascinate
and bewitch her, so that she viii say
not this is SO sudden" bur yes, Iii
marry you aud bear you chicks. HUI
man youths feel the same identical inn
l!rulse. as the poet says. They spruce
lSLp, pon1atum their hair. encourage a
feeble mustache. brush clothes and
shoes and travel on their shape. to
fetch the girls. And old men. widow
Iiers, bachelors ct al, buy wigs or pur-
rle their scanty locks. and fix up. and
logic, and pop, apt to do all that
lin the spring than at any other time
Old Sol gets In his work on them, as or
the lower orders OF creatures.
But the queer thing is this: Scientists
say and demonstrate it by historic and
Iindubitable evidence. that in the wild
aboriginal, savage state of human be.
| ings. they are governed by the same law
ct periodicity, as concerns mating, mar
riage and offspring, that rules birds and
insects and Wild animals They mate
Ell masse. in the natural state, about the
same time The amorous wave, sc,
adrift by the solar ray, breaks over men
and women as well as over birds and
mammals. and their offspring come In
floods at about the same season. The
artificial conditions of civilized life have
changed all that to a large degree. But
wild men act precisely like wild birds
and ainmols. They court. mate and mar
ry under the fateful influence in perio-
deity. They are under natural law
even in this seemingly maynard inn
Pulse, and act exactly like the creatures
below them. And this is confirmation
of the truth of the doctrine of general
nvnIlftion