Two Useful Winter Birds By Julie Adams Powell 7 Years ago when Mr. Eugene Setaief- ] felin introduced the English starling j into Central park. New York city, I do | not believe that he thought that it would breed so fast as to spread over j a good part of the I'nited States, in so short a time, nor that it would be come such a nuisanoe, that the Audu- i bon societies a~e thinking of having it I put on the list of game birds. This is because this new comer is driving out many of our own more beautiful song birds, such as the blue bird, the flick- j er, the wren, and whatevei bird nests in holes in trees. I have called this bird useful, in my headline. So he is, because in the summer time he kills thousands of qfubs, spiders and ineects in order to satisfy the hungry hiood of young sters, that is always clamoring for more and more. If tlieir number could V be kept down, and if the}' would not perch around our dwellings, we would be very glad to welcome them to our orchards during the grub and insect period. I Some sunny morning, you boys will ! hear a long drawn whistle outside your window, and then a sound very like a chuckle. Open the w indow care fully. and wrapped up warmly, you can stand there and view the songster, and you will find that between the chuckle and whistle, there are some very sweet notes which you did not hear before. And on the elm tree just outside the house you will see two, four and some times six birds which from that dis tance look as if they were all attired in black suits, which in the sun shine with a metallic purple and green color. You will find a compactly built bird, between eight and nine inches long, with a strong brown bill and a rather short tail. Instead of being all of an iridesceht black, the feathers of the upper parts and sides are tipped with deep yellow, the wings and tail are dark brownish gray, tipped with buff, and the under parts are heavily spot- | ted with white. The starlings do not hop. They are walkers like the crows. During the winter they can be studied more care fully than in the summer, when there are so many more attractive birds about. They are great chatterers, and often the listener will be rewarded by a series of warbles and notes of joy, which are like the laughter of little ! children. If this wise old bird sees you looking at him. he will shut up his mouth right in the middle of his , prettiest notes, and not open it again until you walk around the corner of the house out of his sight. A story was told me the other day of a pair of starlings which built their nest in a hole in the side of a house in our city of Stamford, right under the eaves. There must have been a beam projection for the roughly put to gether nest of sticks to be fastened to, but even so, when the birdlings grew large enough to move about, they fre quently tumbled out of the nest, with great scramblings and flutterings of wings and shrill cries of alarm. Inside the wall of the house was the room of a little boy, and as it hap Silver Pheasants—One of the Most Common -Species of the Family—The Upper Part of the Body is White Delicately Marked With Black. pened, the head of his bed was against the very spot where the feath ered youngsters took their naps, and oftentimes in the middle of the night the little boy was rudely awakened by the cries of the babies who tumbled out of their bed. When the little boy learned what the noise was, he watched the parents going in and out of the hole, until one day they all flew away and a piece of tin was placed over the entrance to keep them out. Last summer during a gale of wind an old apple tree in our orchard was blown directly in two. 1 found that a j starling nest was laid bare, and in the nest were four youngsters almost ready to fly.. The nest was securely ! fastened to the side of the tree which 1 was left standing, fortunately, and so < these birdlings remained a week long er, until they flew out into the world One of our very interesting little winter birds, and one of the least con spicuous, is the nuthatch—the white breasted nuthatch. He is remarkable for his stout and sturdy buijfl and strong pointed cylindrical bill and very short tail. The nuthatch is one of our common est winter birds, and easily identified. To see him run down the trunks of trees, is enough to make one dizzy, and his hoarse cry of "yank, yank" is Bath Tub for Birds on an Eight-Foot Pole. 1—Cat Guard. 2—Cross Pieces for the Birds to Rest on and Dry Their Feathers After Their Bath. different from any other bird call. In some districts the nuthatch is extreme ly shy, while at other times and places this little bird becomes as friendly as the chickadee, or the winter sparrows. Some writers say that the nuthatch feeds mostly on nut meat6, while oth ers declare that the bird breaks the shell to get at the insects and grubs which inhabit the nut. It is surely an _s. insectivorous bird, as one will learn by watching the hird industriously searching the barks of trees for larvae and insects. Their bill is very strong and the nut batch will push "a nut into a crevice and hammer away at it until the shell breaks. One day in November I saw a nut hatch on the roof outside my win dow. He had something in his mouth and without noticing my near pres ence. he hunted about for a place to hide his treasure. Under a loose shingle he pushed it, and then I saw that it wae a cherry stone. He cocked his head on one side and then on the other, for the place did not seem quite secure enough. He made a dive for a leaf, and poked that in after his cherry I ■ 1 pit. I thought that it showed wonder ful intelligence. The nuthatch is a gray and black bird, about six inches in length. The top of his head and the front of his back is a shining black, while the rest ol his upper parts are of a bluish gray. There is white on his wings, and the sides of his head and under parts are white. Just under his tail will be noticed a dull rufous color. We do not often see the nuthatch about cur hemes in summer unless we are fortunate enough to live off in the country districts. They build their pests in the hollows of trees, where the entrance is particularly small. If it is too large, they build it up with mud or clay until it is of the desired size. They are great fighters for a bird of their size, and it is a brave bird that tries to molest the nest of the little white breasted nuthatch. ARE OF THE EARTH’S BEST Deserved Tribute to the Women of Whom It Is Said They Are “Agreeable to Live With.” “I feel of so little use in these pro gressive days,” said a woman of ma ture years. "The woman of today is full of stimulating ideas. She is iden tified with important movements. She makes the most of her talents, but I— I—can do nothing. It seems as if I have so much to take up my time and yet I never do accomplish anything that will ever count in the vast scheme of things.” “You have the rarest talent that the world boasts and you make the most of it every day.” replied the visitor. "You are agreeable to live with.” Agreeable to live with! Unassum ing phrase, with what a powerful reach! With domestic squalls so flag rant, divorce rampant, “incompatibil ity" a household word, the woman who is agreeable to live with is a mighty factor in the press of progress. She brightens the atmosphere about her at a time when there seems much effort expended to make people good, but lit tle to make them happy. Such a wom an has the gift of divinity. She glori fies the commonplace. She nourishes the nation. It is splendid to uplift, to be artistic, to head world movements, but there is little that so becomes a woman as to be agreeable to live with. It is a way in which those who tarry at home may keep step with their more conspicu ously progressive sisters.—Mother’s Magazine. Australia’s Mallee Hen. The builder of the biggest nest in the world is the Australian mallee hen. a bird considerably smaller than a domestic turkey. The nest is used year after year, and as many as twen ty or thirty pairs of birds use the same nest at one yjne. It is not uncommon to find a hundred eggs in a nest, and these are very good for cooking pur poses. A large mound of earth is scratched together by the birds, the center being filled with leaves, and on these the eggs are laid. They are then covered with more leaves and earth, and the cares of the parent bird are ended. They do not sit on the eggs at all, as the spontaneous combustion of the rotting leaves generates the required heat for incubation, says the Strand. The chickens are able to run about and find food for themselves from the time they are hatched. The small hen is a very shy bird, and is seldom seen near any habitation. Peerless Geneva. The most glowing tribute to Geneva is Mr. Frederic Harrison's. “1 hold Zurich. Basle and Geneva to be the model cities of our age—the fine type of what cities will one day be in a regenerated age—the true type of civic organization, having sites of rare beau ty and convenience, spacious streets and avenues, noble public walks and gardens, perhaps everything short of grand antique buildings.” Geneva in particular is "the finest type of a ra tional city that Europe posses ses ... a true city where, as in Athens. Florence, Venice. Antwerp or Ghent, or old. men can live a whole some civic life, not in huge, amor phous caravanseries such as London, Paris or Berlin—not in suffumigated barracks such as Manchester, or Ly ons, or Glasgow—but in a beautiful, well-ordered, free, organic city.” . This Is Funny. An English paper says that the hat of a certain short-sighted master at Eton blew off one day, and as he start ed in pursuit of it a black hen dashed out of the gateway. The schoolmaster saw the hen and thought it was his hat, and so all Eton was electrified by the spectacle of a hatless and breath less learned man chasing a black hen from one end of the street to the other. AS IN OLD SAILBOAT DAYS American Vessel Will Take Cargo to the West Coast of Africa to Trade. For about one hundred years Ameri can sailing vessels bartered and traded on the west coast of Africa. So again, with the Stars and Stripes flying from its masthead, tbe Adelia T. Carleton. an American sailing vessel, loaded with a cargo of American goods, will sail for the west coast of Africa This enterprise is due to the efforts of Aurthur Muller, president of the newly organized American Tropical Trading company of New York. This company intends to take American goods on consignment—consisting of tobacco, flour, pork. salt, beef, vege tables. gin, matches, to trade for na tive products In the old timeE the American flag dying from Y'ankee ships took the place of lighthouses along this coast so regularly were they to be found. The shrewd Yankee trader, quite often master of the vessel he sailed, evaded or conquered opposition wherever he came in contact with it and returned borne with a profit which modern busi ness minds find hard to believe.—New York Sun A Poker Devotee. "liingburn says he reads everything that comes into his hands." "That oughtn't to take him long." “Why xot?" “It's mostly hearts, clubs, spades an