File:Birds and nature (1904) (14565050858).jpg

Identifier: birdsnature161904chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ey gather experience and learnto avoid new dangers. The early settlersfound little difficulty in trapping andshooting the Foxes which skulked abouttheir clearings, and even now those foundin wild, unsettled country are compara-tively easy to outwit. But the Red Foxof cultivated districts has learned a greatdeal from watching the ways of men, andhas already very nearly caught up withReynard of the Old World in the matterof highly developed intellect. The Fox is disliked by the sportsmanbecause it destroys the partridges andother game of his hunting range, and bythe farmer because it preys upon hispoultry yard and his lambs. Yet the Foxis of considerable service to mankind, forit destroys many woodchucks and innu-merable field mice and other noxiousrodents. As the Fox is a burrowinganimal, it will dig out a woodchuck ifthe opening to its burrow is not amongroots. When other food is scarce, theFox will eat frogs, worms, various in-sects, fish, crustaceans, mollusks andfruits. ■MM ■Hi
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TREES AND THEIR LIFE PROBLEMS. As we walk along the streets or wan-der in the woods, admiring the dignityand gracefulness of the trees, few of usstop to realize the cost. We appreciate,in a measure, the cost of a cathedral, forwho has not watched a building grow,stone by stone or brick by brick, until thelast portion is in place? We appreciatefairly the cost of a human life, since wehave so often seen the long and tediousstruggle of the child, journeying towardmaturity; we know of a surety thatnot only the child himself, but also hiskinsfolk and friends have a weighty placein the struggle for manhood. We real-ize to some extent that animals attainmaturity only through many severestruggles. Yet how few among themany have any conception of the fierce-ness of the conflicts which trees areobliged to meet on every hand. Nor isthe market value of the tree any indexof the cost, as would be true of an artifi-cial structure. It will be the mission ofthe following paragraphs to unfold someof th

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