Birds and Nature, Vol. 10 No. 1 [June 1901]

It is interesting to know how it steals. In the dark basement chambers underground the root servants of the plant move slowly in a certain circle that corresponds to the circle of light that the branches describe overhead. Within this space they gather chemicals from the soil and store up moisture, sending these by the sap up their elevators to the well-lighted leaves, where the manufacturing of starch and sugar goes busily on. Now, the Gerardia, being too trifling to collect its own stuff, sends suckers into the roots of other plants and greedily absorbs their contents. That is the reason it is so hard to transplant the Gerardia – its roots are enmeshed and entangled so in other roots below ground. A very odd thing sometimes happens to it. In the dark the roots occasionally blunder and tap other roots of the same Gerardia, just as if a pickpocket in the dark were by mistake to put his hand slyly into his own pocket and steal his own purse.

Ella F. Mosby.O violets tender,Your shy tribute render!Tie round your wet faces your soft hoods of blue;And carry your sweetness,Your dainty completeness,To some tired hand that is longing for you.– May Riley Smith.

THE GREAT NORTHERN SHRIKE

(Lanius borealis.)

Of the great family Laniidae, the shrikes, of the order Passeres, we have in America only two species, the Great Northern Shrike, Lanius borealis, and the loggerhead shrike, which has been dealt with in a previous article. The name of the Great Northern Shrike is much more than a mouthful, and is all out of proportion to the size and importance of the bird, though when I intimate it lacks in importance I by no means wish to say that it lacks in interest.

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