I followed him up the hill, hearing an occasional flutter of wings to guide my feet, till the sounds vanished into a great tangle of underbrush and fallen trees. I searched here ten minutes or more in vain, then listened in the vast silence for a longer period; but the bird had hidden himself away in some hole or covert where an owl might pass by without finding him. Reluctantly I turned away toward the swamp.

Close beside me was a fallen log; on my right was another; and the two had fallen so as to make the sides of a great angle, their tops resting together against the hill. Between the two were several huge trees growing among the rocks and underbrush. I climbed upon one of these fallen trees and moved along it cautiously, some eight or ten feet above the ground, looking down searchingly for a stray brown feather to guide me to my lost partridge.

Suddenly the log under my feet began to rock gently. I stopped in astonishment, looking for the cause of the strange teetering; but there was nothing on the log beside myself. After a moment I went on again, looking again for my partridge. Again the log rocked, heavily this time, almost throwing me off. Then I noticed that the tip of the other log, which lay balanced across a great rock, was under the tip of my log and was being pried up by something on the other end. Some animal was there, and it flashed upon me suddenly that he was heavy enough to lift my weight with his stout lever. I stole along so as to look behind a great tree—and there on the other log, not twenty feet away, a big bear was standing, twisting himself uneasily, trying to decide whether to go on or go back on his unstable footing.

He discovered me at the instant that my face appeared behind the tree. Such surprise, such wonder I have seldom seen in an animal's face. For a long moment he met my eyes steadily with his. Then he began to twist again, while the logs rocked up and down. Again he looked at the strange animal on the other log; but the face behind the tree had not moved nor changed; the eyes looked steadily into his. With a startled movement he plunged off into the underbrush, and but for a swift grip on a branch the sudden lurch would have sent me off backward among the rocks. As he jumped I heard a swift flutter of wings. I followed it timidly, not knowing where the bear was, and in a moment I had the second partridge stowed away comfortably with his brother in my hunting shirt.

The rest of the flock had scattered widely by this time. I found one or two and followed them; but they dodged away into the thick alders, where I could not find their heads quick enough with my rifle sight. After a vain, hasty shot or two I went back to my fishing.

Woods and lake were soon quiet again. The trout had stopped rising, in one of their sudden moods. A vast silence brooded over the place, unbroken by any buzz of my noisy reel, and the twilight shadows were growing deeper and longer, when the soft, gliding, questioning chatter of partridges came floating out of the alders. The leader was there, in the thickest tangle—I had learned in an hour to recognize his peculiar Prut, prut—and from the hillside and the alder swamp and the big evergreens his scattered flock were answering; here a kwit, and there a prut, and beyond a swift burr of wings, all drawing closer and closer together.

I had still a third partridge to get for my own hungry flock; so I stole swiftly back into the alder swamp. There I found a little game path and crept along it on hands and knees, drawing cautiously near to the leader's continued calling.



In the midst of a thicket of low black alders, surrounded by a perfect hedge of bushes, I found him at last. He was on the lower end of a fallen log, gliding rapidly up and down, spreading wings and tail and budding ruff, as if he were drumming, and sending out his peculiar call at every pause. Above him, in a long line on the same log, five other partridges were sitting perfectly quiet, save now and then, when an answer came to the leader's call, they would turn their heads and listen intently till the underbrush parted cautiously and another bird flitted up beside them. Then another call, and from the distant hillside a faint kwit-kwit and a rush of wings in answer, and another partridge would shoot in on swift pinions to pull himself up on the log beside his fellows. The line would open hospitably to let him in; then the row grew quiet again, as the leader called, turning their heads from side to side for the faint answers.

There were nine on the log at last. The calling grew louder and louder; yet for several minutes now no answer came back. The flock grew uneasy; the leader ran from his log into the brush and back again, calling loudly, while a low chatter, the first break in their strange silence, ran back and forth through the family on the log. There were others to come; but where were they, and why did they tarry? It was growing late; already an owl had hooted, and the roosting place was still far away. Prut, prut, pr-r-r-reee! called the leader, and the chatter ceased as the whole flock listened.

I turned my head to the hillside to listen also for the laggards; but there was no answer. Save for the cry of a low-flying loon and the snap of a twig—too sharp and heavy for little feet to make—the woods were all silent. As I turned to the log again, something warm and heavy rested against my side. Then I knew; and with the knowledge came a swift thrill of regret that made me feel guilty and out of place in the silent woods. The leader was calling, the silent flock were waiting for two of their number who would never answer the call again.

I lay scarcely ten yards from the log on which the sad little drama went on in the twilight shadows, while the great silence grew deep and deeper, as if the wilderness itself were in sympathy and ceased its cries to listen. Once, at the first glimpse of the group, I had raised my rifle and covered the head of the largest bird; but curiosity to know what they were doing held me back. Now a deeper feeling had taken its place; the rifle slid from my hand and lay unnoticed among the fallen leaves.

Again the leader called. The flock drew itself up, like a row of gray-brown statues, every eye bright, every ear listening, till some vague sense of fear and danger drew them together; and they huddled on the ground in a close group; all but the leader, who stood above them, counting them over and over, apparently, and anon sending his cry out into the darkening woods.

I took one of the birds out of my pocket and began to smooth the rumpled brown feathers. How beautiful he was, how perfectly adapted in form and color for the wilderness in which he had lived! And I had taken his life, the only thing he had. Its beauty and something deeper, which is the sad mystery of all life, were gone forever. All summer long he had run about on glad little feet, delighting in nature's abundance, calling brightly to his fellows as they glided in and out in eager search through the lights and shadows. Fear on the one hand, absolute obedience to his mother on the other, had been the two great factors of his life. Between them he grew strong, keen, alert, knowing perfectly when to run and when to fly and when to crouch motionless, as danger passed close with blinded eyes. Then when his strength was perfect, and he glided alone through the wilderness coverts in watchful self-dependence—a moment's curiosity, a quick eager glance at the strange animal standing so still under the cedar, a flash, a noise; and all was over. The call of the leader went searching, searching through the woods; but he gave no heed any more.

The hand had grown suddenly very tender as it stroked his feathers. I had taken his life; I must try to answer for him now. At the thought I raised my head and gave the clear whit-kwit of a running partridge. Instantly the leader answered; the flock sprang to the log again and turned their heads in my direction to listen. Another call, and now the flock dropped to the ground and lay close, while the leader drew himself up straight on the log and became part of a dead stub beside him.

Something was wrong in my call; the birds were suspicious, knowing not what danger had kept their fellows silent so long, and now threatened them out of the black alders. A moment's intent listening; then the leader stepped slowly down from his log and came towards me cautiously, halting, hiding, listening, gliding, swinging far out to one side and back again in stealthy advance, till he drew himself up abruptly at sight of my face peering out of the underbrush. For a long two minutes he never stirred so much as an eyelid. Then he glided swiftly back, with a faint, puzzled, questioning kwit-kwit? to where his flock were waiting. A low signal that I could barely hear, a swift movement—then the flock thundered away in scattered flight into the silent, friendly woods.

Ten minutes later I was crouched in some thick underbrush looking up into a great spruce, when I could just make out the leader standing by an upright branch in sharp silhouette against the glowing west. I had followed his swift flight, and now lay listening again to his searching call as it went out through the twilight, calling his little flock to the roosting tree. From the swamp and the hillside and far down by the quiet lake they answered, faintly at first, then with clearer call and the whirr of swift wings as they came in.

But already I had seen and heard enough; too much, indeed, for my peace of mind. I crept away through the swamp, the eager calls following me even to my canoe; first a plaint, as if something were lacking to the placid lake and quiet woods and the soft beauty of twilight; and then a faint question, always heard in the kwit of a partridge, as if only I could explain why two eager voices would never again answer to roll call when the shadows lengthened.



Umquenawis The Mighty



Umquenawis the Mighty is lord of the woodlands. None other among the wood folk is half so great as he; none has senses so keen to detect a danger, nor powers so terrible to defend himself against it. So he fears nothing, moving through the big woods like a master; and when you see him for the first time in the wilderness pushing his stately, silent way among the giant trees, or plunging like a great engine through underbrush and over windfalls, his nose up to try the wind, his broad antlers far back on his mighty shoulders, while the dead tree that opposes him cracks and crashes down before his rush, and the alders beat a rattling, snapping tattoo on his branching horns,—when you see him thus, something within you rises up, like a soldier at salute, and says: "Milord the Moose!" And though the rifle is in your hand, its deadly muzzle never rises from the trail.



That great head with its massive crown is too big for any house. Hung stupidly on a wall, in a room full of bric-a-brac, as you usually see it, with its shriveled ears that were once living trumpets, its bulging eyes that were once so small and keen, and its huge muzzle stretched out of all proportion, it is but misplaced, misshapen ugliness. It has no more, and scarcely any higher, significance than a scalp on the pole of a savage's wigwam. Only in the wilderness, with the irresistible push of his twelve-hundred pound, force-packed body behind it, the crackling underbrush beneath, and the lofty spruce aisles towering overhead, can it give the tingling impression of magnificent power which belongs to Umquenawis the Mighty in his native wilds. There only is his head at home; and only as you see it there, whether looking out in quiet majesty from a lonely point over a silent lake, or leading him in his terrific rush through the startled forest, will your heart ever jump and your nerves tingle in that swift thrill which stirs the sluggish blood to your very finger tips, and sends you quietly back to camp with your soul at peace—well satisfied to leave Umquenawis where he is, rather than pack him home to your admiring friends in a freight car.

Though Umquenawis be lord of the wilderness, there are two things, and two things only, which he sometimes fears: the smell of man, and the spiteful crack of a rifle. For Milord the Moose has been hunted and has learned fear, which formerly he was stranger to. But when you go deep into the wilderness, where no hunter has ever gone, and where the bang of a rifle following the roar of a birch-bark trumpet has never broken the twilight stillness, there you may find him still, as he was before fear came; there he will come smashing down the mountain side at your call, and never circle to wind an enemy; and there, when the mood is on him, he will send you scrambling up the nearest tree for your life, as a squirrel goes when the fox is after him. Once, in such a mood, I saw him charge a little wiry guide, who went up a spruce tree with his snowshoes on; and never a bear did the trick quicker, spite of the four-foot webs in which his feet were tangled.

We were pushing upstream, late one afternoon, to the big lake at the headwaters of a wilderness river. Above the roar of rapids far behind, and the fret of the current near at hand, the rhythmical clunk, clunk of the poles and the lap, lap of my little canoe as she breasted the ripples were the only sounds that broke the forest stillness. We were silent, as men always are to whom the woods have spoken their deepest message, and to whom the next turn of the river may bring its thrill of unexpected things.

Suddenly, as the bow of our canoe shot round a point, we ran plump upon a big cow moose crossing the river. At Simmo's grunt of surprise she stopped short and whirled to face us. And there she stood, one huge question mark from nose to tail, while the canoe edged in to the lee of a great rock and hung there quivering, with poles braced firmly on the bottom.

We were already late for camping, and the lake was still far ahead. I gave the word at last, after a few minutes' silent watching, and the canoe shot upward. But the big moose, instead of making off into the woods, as a well-behaved moose ought to do, splashed straight toward us. Simmo, in the bow, gave a sweeping flourish of his pole, and we all yelled in unison; but the moose came on steadily, quietly, bound to find out what the queer thing was that had just come up river and broken the solemn stillness.

"Bes' keep still; big moose make-um trouble sometime," muttered Noel behind me; and we dropped back silently into the lee of the friendly rock, to watch awhile longer and let the big creature do as she would.

For ten minutes more we tried every kind of threat and persuasion to get the moose out of the way, ending at last by sending a bullet zipping into the water under her body; but beyond an angry stamp of the foot there was no response, and no disposition whatever to give us the stream. Then I bethought me of a trick that I had discovered long before by accident. Dropping down to the nearest bank, I crept up behind the moose, hidden in the underbrush, and began to break twigs, softly at first, then more and more sharply, as if something were coming through the woods fearlessly. At the first suspicious crack the moose whirled, hesitated, started nervously across the stream, twitching her nostrils and wigwagging her big ears to find out what the crackle meant, and hurrying more and more as the sounds grated harshly upon her sensitive nerves. Next moment the river was clear and our canoe was breasting the rippling shallows, while the moose watched us curiously, half hidden in the alders.

That is a good trick, for occasions. The animals all fear twig snapping. Only never try it at night, with a bull, in the calling season, as I did once unintentionally. Then he is apt to mistake you for his tantalizing mate and come down on you like a tempest, giving you a big scare and a monkey scramble into the nearest tree before he is satisfied.

Within the next hour I counted seven moose, old and young, from the canoe; and when we ran ashore at twilight to the camping ground on the big lake, the tracks of an enormous bull were drawn sharply across our landing. The water was still trickling into them, showing that he had just vacated the spot at our approach.

How do I know it was a bull? At this season the bulls travel constantly, and the points of the hoofs are worn to a clean, even curve. The cows, which have been living in deep retirement all summer, teaching their ungainly calves the sounds and smells and lessons of the woods, travel much less; their hoofs, in consequence, are generally long and pointed and overgrown.

Two miles above our camp was a little brook, with an alder swale on one side and a dark, gloomy spruce tangle on the other—an ideal spot for a moose to keep her little school, I thought, when I discovered the place a few days later. There were tracks on the shore, plenty of them; and I knew I had only to watch long enough to see the mother and her calf, and to catch a glimpse, perhaps, of what no man has ever yet seen clearly; that is, a moose teaching her little one how to hide his bulk; how to move noiselessly and undiscovered through underbrush where, one would think, a fox must make his presence known; how to take a windfall on the run; how to breast down a young birch or maple tree and keep it under his body while he feeds on the top,—and a score of other things that every moose must know before he is fit to take care of himself in the big woods.

I went there one afternoon in my canoe, grasped a few lily stems to hold the little craft steady, and snuggled down till only my head showed above the gunwales, so as to make canoe and man look as much like an old, wind-blown log as possible. It was getting toward the hour when I knew the cow would be hungry, but while it was yet too light to bring her little one to the open shore. After an hour's watching, the cow came cautiously down the brook. She stopped short at sight of the floating log; watched it steadily for two or three minutes, wigwagging her ears; then began to feed greedily on the lily pads that fringed all the shore. When she went back I followed, guided now by the crack of a twig, now by a swaying of brush tops, now by the flip of a nervous ear or the push of a huge dark body, keeping carefully to leeward all the time and making the big, unconscious creature guide me to where she had hidden her little one.

Just above me, and a hundred yards in from the shore, a tree had fallen, its bushy top bending down two small spruces and making a low den, so dark that an owl could scarcely have seen what was inside. "That's the spot," I told myself instantly; but the mother passed well above it, without noting apparently how good a place it was. Fifty yards farther on she turned and circled back, below the spot, trying the wind with ears and nose as she came on straight towards me.

"Aha! the old moose trick," I thought, remembering how a hunted moose never lies down to rest without first circling back for a long distance, parallel to his trail and to leeward, to find out from a safe distance whether anything is following him. When he lies down, at last, it will be close beside his trail, but hidden from it; so that he hears or smells you as you go by. And when you reach the place, far ahead, where he turned back he will be miles away, plunging along down wind at a pace that makes your snowshoe swing like a baby's toddle. So you camp where he lay down, and pick up the trail in the morning.

When the big cow turned and came striding back I knew that I should find her little one in the spruce den. But would she not find me, instead, and drive me out of her bailiwick? You can never be sure what a moose will do if she finds you near her calf. Generally they run—always, in fact—but sometimes they run your way. And besides, I had been trying for years to see a mother moose teaching in her little school. Now I dropped on all fours and crawled away down wind, so as to get beyond ken of the mother's inquisitive nose if possible.

She came on steadily, moving with astonishing silence through the tangle, till she stood where I had been a moment before, when she started violently and threw her head up into the wind. Some scent of me was there, clinging faintly to the leaves and the moist earth. For a moment she stood like a rock, sifting the air in her nose; then, finding nothing in the wind, she turned slowly in my direction to use her ears and eyes. I was lying very still behind a mossy log by this time, and she did not see me. Suddenly she turned and called, a low bleat. There was an instant stir in the spruce den, an answering bleat, and a moose calf scrambled out and ran straight to the mother. There was an unvoiced command to silence that no human sense could understand. The mother put her great head down to earth—"Smell of that; mark that, and remember," she was saying in her own way; and the calf put his little head down beside hers, and I heard him sniff-sniffing the leaves. Then the mother swung her head savagely, bunted the little fellow out of his tracks, and drove him hurriedly ahead of her away from the place—"Get out, hurry, danger!" was what she was saying now, and emphasizing her teaching with an occasional bunt from behind that lifted the calf over the hard places. So they went up the hill, the calf wondering and curious, yet ever reminded by the hard head at his flank that obedience was his business just now, the mother turning occasionally to sniff and listen, till they vanished silently among the dark spruces.

For a week or more I haunted the spot; but though I saw the pair occasionally, in the woods or on the shore, I learned no more of Umquenawis' secrets. The moose schools are kept in far-away, shady dingles beyond reach of inquisitive eyes. Then, one morning at daylight as my canoe shot round a grassy point, there were the mother and her calf standing knee-deep among the lily pads. With a yell I drove the canoe straight at the little one.

Now it takes a young moose or caribou a long time to learn that when sudden danger threatens he is to follow, not his own frightened head, but his mother's guiding tail. To young fawns this is practically the first thing taught by the mothers; but caribou are naturally stupid, or trustful, or burningly inquisitive, according to their several dispositions; and moose, with their great strength, are naturally fearless; so that this needful lesson is slowly learned. If you surprise a mother moose or caribou with her young at close quarters and rush at them instantly, with a whoop or two to scatter their wits, the chances are that the mother will bolt into the brush, where safety lies, and the calf into the lake or along the shore, where the going is easiest.

Several times I have caught young moose and caribou in this way, either swimming or stogged in the mud, and after turning them back to shore have watched the mother's cautious return and her treatment of the lost one. Once I paddled up beside a young bull moose, half grown, and grasping the coarse hair on his back had him tow me a hundred yards, to the next point, while I studied his expression.

As my canoe shot up to the two moose they did exactly what I had expected; the mother bolted for the woods in mighty, floundering jumps, mud and water flying merrily about her; while the calf darted along the shore, got caught in the lily pads, and with a despairing bleat settled down in the mud of a soft place, up to his back, and turned his head to see what I was.

I ran my canoe ashore and approached the little fellow quietly, without hurry or excitement. Nose, eyes, and ears questioned me; and his fear gradually changed to curiosity as he saw how harmless a thing had frightened him. He even tried to pull his awkward little legs out of the mud in my direction. Meanwhile the big mother moose was thrashing around in the bushes in a terrible swither, calling her calf to come.

I had almost reached the little fellow when the wind brought him the strong scent that he had learned in the woods a few days before, and he bleated sharply. There was an answering crash of brush, a pounding of hoofs that told one unmistakably to look out for his rear, and out of the bushes burst the mother, her eyes red as a wild pig's, and the long hair standing straight up along her back in a terrifying bristle. "Stand not upon the order of your mogging, but mog at once—eeeunh! unh!" she grunted; and I turned otter instantly and took to the lake, diving as soon as the depth allowed and swimming under water to escape the old fury's attention. There was little need of fine tactics, however, as I found out when my head appeared again cautiously. Anything in the way of an unceremonious retreat of the enemy satisfied her as perfectly as if she had been a Boer general. She went straight to her calf, thrust her great head under his belly, hiked him roughly out of the mud, and then butted him ahead of her into the bushes.

It was stern, rough discipline; but the youngster needed it to teach him the wisdom of the woods. From a distance I watched the quivering line of brush tops that marked their course, and then followed softly. When I found them again, in the twilight of the great spruces, the mother was licking the sides of her calf, lest he should grow cold too suddenly after his unwonted bath. All the fury and harshness were gone. Her great head lowered tenderly over the foolish, ungainly youngster, tonguing him, caressing him, drying and warming his poor sides, telling him in mother language that it was all right now, and that next time he would do better.

* * * * *

There were other moose on the lake, all of them as uncertain as the big cow and her calf. Probably most of them had never seen a man before our arrival, and it kept one's expectations on tiptoe to know what they would do when they saw the strange two-legged creature for the first time. If a moose smelled me before I saw him, he would make off quietly into the woods, as all wild creatures do, and watch from a safe distance. But if I stumbled upon him unexpectedly, when the wind brought no warning to his nostrils, he was fearless, usually, and full of curiosity.

The worst of them all was the big bull whose tracks were on the shore when we arrived. He was a morose, ugly old brute, living apart by himself, with his temper always on edge ready to bully anything that dared to cross his path or question his lordship. Whether he was an outcast, grown surly from living too much alone, or whether he bore some old bullet wound to account for his hostility to man, I could never find out. Far down the river a hunter had been killed, ten years before, by a bull moose that he had wounded; and this may have been, as Noel declared, the same animal, cherishing his resentment with a memory as merciless as an Indian's.

Before we had found this out I stumbled upon the big bull one afternoon, and came near paying the penalty of my ignorance. I had been still-fishing for togue (lake trout), and was on my way back to camp when, doubling a point, I ran plump upon a bull moose feeding among the lily pads. My approach had been perfectly silent,—that is the only way to see things in the woods,—and he was quite unconscious that anybody but himself was near.

He would plunge his great head under water till only his antler tips showed, and nose around on the bottom till he found a lily root. With a heave and a jerk he would drag it out, and stand chewing it endwise with huge satisfaction, while the muddy water trickled down over his face. When it was all eaten he would grope under the lily pads for another root in the same way.

Without thinking much of the possible risk, I began to steal towards him. While his head was under I would work the canoe along silently, simply "rolling the paddle" without lifting it from the water. At the first lift of his antlers I would stop and sit low in the canoe till he finished his juicy morsel and ducked for more. Then one could slip along easily again without being discovered.

Two or three times this was repeated successfully, and still the big, unconscious brute, facing away from me fortunately, had no idea that he was being watched. His head went under water again—not so deep this time; but I was too absorbed in the pretty game to notice that he had found the end of a root above the mud, and that his ears were out of water. A ripple from the bow of my canoe, or perhaps the faint brush of a lily leaf against the side, reached him. His head burst out of the pads unexpectedly; with a snort and a mighty flounder he whirled upon me; and there he stood quivering, ears, eyes, nose,—everything about him reaching out to me and shooting questions at my head with an insistence that demanded instant answer.

I kept quiet, though I was altogether too near the big brute for comfort, till an unfortunate breeze brushed the bow of my canoe still nearer to where he stood, threatening now instead of questioning. The mane on his back began to bristle, and I knew that I had but a small second in which to act. To get speed I swung the bow of the canoe outward, instead of backing away. The movement brought me a trifle nearer, yet gave me a chance to shoot by him. At the first sudden motion he leaped; the red fire blazed out in his eyes, and he plunged straight at the canoe—one, two splashing jumps, and the huge velvet antlers were shaking just over me and the deadly fore foot was raised for a blow.

I rolled over on the instant, startling the brute with a yell as I did so, and upsetting the canoe between us. There was a splintering crack behind me as I struck out for deep water. When I turned, at a safe distance, the bull had driven one sharp hoof through the bottom of the upturned canoe, and was now trying awkwardly to pull his leg out from the clinging cedar ribs. He seemed frightened at the queer, dumb thing that gripped his foot, for he grunted and jumped back and thrashed his big antlers in excitement; but he was getting madder every minute.

To save the canoe from being pounded to pieces was now the only pressing business on hand. All other considerations took to the winds in the thought that, if the bull's fury increased and he leaped upon the canoe, as he does when he means to kill, one jump would put the frail thing beyond repair, and we should have to face the dangerous river below in a spruce bark of our own building. I swam quickly to the shore and splashed and shouted and then ran away to attract the bull's attention. He came after me on the instant—unh! unh! chock, chockety-chock! till he was close enough for discomfort, when I took to water again. The bull followed, deeper and deeper, till his sides were awash. The bottom was muddy and he trod gingerly; but there was no fear of his swimming after me. He knows his limits, and they stop him shoulder deep.

When he would follow no farther I swam to the canoe and tugged it out into deep water. Umquenawis stood staring now in astonishment at the sight of this queer man-fish. The red light died out of his eyes for the first time, and his ears wigwagged like flags in the wind. He made no effort to follow, but stood as he was, shoulder deep, staring, wondering, till I landed on the point above, whipped the canoe over, and spilled the water out of it.

The paddle was still fast to its cord—as it should always be in trying experiments—and I tossed it into the canoe. The rattle roused Umquenawis from his wonder, as if he had heard the challenging clack of antlers on the alder stems. He floundered out in mighty jumps and came swinging along the shore, chocking and grunting fiercely. He had seen the man again and knew it was no fish—Unh! unh! eeeeeunh-unh! he grunted, with a twisting, jerky wriggle of his neck and shoulders at the last squeal, as if he felt me already beneath his hoofs. But before he reached the point I had stuffed my flannel shirt into the hole in the canoe and was safely afloat once more. He followed along the shore till he heard the sound of voices at camp, when he turned instantly and vanished in the woods.

A few days later I saw the grumpy old brute again in a curious way. I was sweeping the lake with my field glasses when I saw what I thought was a pair of black ducks near a grassy shore. I paddled over, watching them keenly, till a root seemed to rise out of the water between them. Before I could get my glasses adjusted again they had disappeared. I dropped the glasses and paddled faster. They were diving, perhaps—an unusual thing for black ducks—and I might surprise them. There they were again; and there again was the old root bobbing up unexpectedly between them. I whipped my glasses up—the mystery vanished. The two ducks were the tips of Umquenawis' big antlers; the root that rose between them was his head, as he came up to breathe.

It was a close, sultry afternoon; the flies and mosquitos were out in myriads, and Umquenawis had taken a philosophical way of getting rid of them. He was lying in the water, over a bed of mud, his body completely submerged. As the swarm of flies that pestered him rose to his head he would sink it slowly, drowning them off. Through my glass, as I drew near, I could see a cloud of them hovering above the wavelets, or covering the exposed antlers. After a few moments there would be a bubbling grumble down in the mud, as Umquenawis blew the air from his great lungs. His head would come up lazily to breathe among the popping bubbles; the flies would settle upon him like a cloud, and he would disappear again, blinking sleepily as he went down, with an air of immense satisfaction.

It seemed too bad to disturb such comfort; but I wanted to know more about the surly old tyrant that had treated me with such scant courtesy; so I stole near him again, running up when his head disappeared, and lying quiet whenever he came up to breathe. He saw me at last when I was quite near, and leaped up with a terrible start. There was fear in his eyes this time. Here was the man-fish again, the creature that lived on land or water, and that could approach him so silently that the senses in which he had always trusted gave him no warning. He stared hard for a moment; then as the canoe glided rapidly straight towards him without fear or hesitation he waded out, stopping every instant to turn, and look, and try the wind, till he reached the fringe of woods beyond the grasses. There he thrust his nose up ahead of him, laid his big antlers back on his shoulders, and plowed straight through the tangle like a great engine, the alders snapping and crashing merrily about him as he went.

In striking contrast was the next meeting. I was out at midnight, jacking, and passed close by a point where I had often seen the big bull's tracks. He was not there, and I closed the jack and went on along the shore, listening for any wood folk that might be abroad. When I came back, a few minutes later, there was a suspicious ripple on the point. I opened the jack, and there was Umquenawis, my big bull, standing out huge and magnificent against the shadowy background, his eyes glowing and flashing in fierce wonder at the sudden brightness. He had passed along the shore within twenty yards of me, through dense underbrush,—as I found out from his tracks next morning,—yet so silently did he push his great bulk through the trees, halting, listening, trying the ground at every step for telltale twigs ere he put his weight down, that I had heard no sound, though I was listening intently in the dead hush that was on the lake.

It may have been curiosity, or the uncomfortable sense of being watched and followed by the man-fish, who neither harmed nor feared him, that brought Umquenawis at last to our camp to investigate. One day Noel was washing some clothes of mine in the lake when some subtle warning made him turn his head. There stood the big bull, half hidden by the dwarf spruces, watching him intently. On the instant Noel left the duds where they were and bolted along the shore under the bushes, calling me loudly to come quick and bring my rifle. When we went back Umquenawis had trodden the clothes into the mud, and vanished as silently as he came.

The Indians grew insistent at this, telling me of the hunter that had been killed, claiming now, beyond a doubt, that this was the same bull, and urging me to kill the ugly brute and rid the woods of a positive danger. But Umquenawis was already learning the fear of me, and I thought the lesson might be driven home before the summer was ended. So it was; but before that time there was almost a tragedy.

One day a timber cruiser—a lonely, silent man with the instincts of an animal for finding his way in the woods, whose business it is to go over timber lands to select the best sites for future cutting—came up to the lake and, not knowing that we were there, pitched by a spring a mile or two below us. I saw the smoke of his camp fire from the lake, where I was fishing, and wondered who had come into the great solitude. That was in the morning. Towards twilight I went down to bid the stranger welcome and to invite him to share our camp, if he would. I found him stiff and sore by his fire, eating raw-pork sandwiches with the appetite of a wolf. Almost at the same glance I saw the ground about a tree torn up, and the hoof marks of a big bull moose all about.—

"Hello! friend, what's up?" I hailed him.

"Got a rifle?" he demanded, with a rich Irish burr in his voice, paying no heed to my question. When I nodded he bolted for my canoe, grabbed my rifle, and ran away into the woods.

"Queer Dick! unbalanced, perhaps, by living too much alone in the woods," I thought, and took to examining the torn ground and the bull's tracks to find out for myself what had happened.

But there was no queerness in the frank, kindly face that met mine when the stranger came out of the bush a half hour later.—

"Th' ould baste! he's had me perrched up in that three there, like a blackburrd, the last tin hours; an' niver a song in me throat or a bite in me stomach. He wint just as you came—I thought I could returrn his compliments wid a bullet," he said, apologetically, as he passed me back the rifle.

Then, sitting by his fire, he told me his story. He had just lit his fire that morning, and was taking off his wet stockings to dry them, when there was a fierce crashing and grunting behind him, and a bull moose charged out of the bushes like a fury. The cruiser jumped and dodged; then, as the bull whirled again, he swung himself into a tree and sat there astride a limb, while the bull grunted and pushed and hammered the ground below with his sharp hoofs. All day long the moose had kept up the siege, now drawing off cunningly to hide in the bushes, now charging out savagely as the timber cruiser made effort to come down from his uncomfortable perch.

A few minutes before my approach a curious thing happened; which seems to indicate, as do many other things in the woods, that certain animals—perhaps all animals, including man—have at times an unknown sixth sense, for which there is no name and no explanation. I was still half a mile or more away, hidden by a point and paddling silently straight into the wind. No possible sight or sound or smell of me could have reached any known sense of any animal; yet the big brute began to grow uneasy. He left his stand under the tree and circled nervously around it, looking, listening, wigwagging his big ears, trying the wind at every step, and setting his hoofs down as if he trod on dynamite. Suddenly he turned and vanished silently into the brush. McGarven, the timber cruiser, who had no idea that there was any man but himself on the lake, watched the bull with growing wonder and distrust, thinking him possessed of some evil demon. In his long life in the woods he had met hundreds of moose, but had never been molested before.



With the rifle at full cock and his heart hot within him, he had followed the trail, which stole away, cautiously at first, a long swinging stride straight towards the mountain.—"Oh, 'tis the quare baste he is altogether!" he said as he finished his story.



AT THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET



It was now near the calling season, and the nights grew keen with excitement. Now and then as I fished, or followed the brooks, or prowled through the woods in the late afternoon, the sudden bellow of a cow moose would break upon the stillness, so strange and uncertain in the thick coverts that I could rarely describe, much less imitate, the sound, or even tell the direction whence it had come. Under the dusk of the lake shore I would sometimes come upon a pair of the huge animals, the cow restless, wary, impatient, the bull now silent as a shadow, now ripping and rasping the torn velvet from his great antlers among the alders, and now threatening and browbeating every living thing that crossed his trail, and even the unoffending bushes, in his testy humor.

One night I went to the landing just below my tent with Simmo and tried for the first time the long call of the cow moose. He and Noel refused absolutely to give it, unless I should agree to shoot the ugly old bull at sight. Several times of late they had seen him near our camp, or had crossed his deep trail on the nearer shores, and they were growing superstitious as well as fearful.

There was no answer to our calling for the space of an hour; silence brooded like a living, watchful thing over sleeping lake and forest, a silence that grew only deeper and deeper after the last echoes of the bark trumpet had rolled back on us from the distant mountain. Suddenly Simmo lowered the horn, just as he had raised it to his lips for a call.

"Moose near!" he whispered.

"How do you know?" I breathed; for I had heard nothing.

"Don' know how; just know," he said sullenly. An Indian hates to be questioned, as a wild animal hates to be watched. As if in confirmation of his opinion, there was a startling crash and plunge across the little bay over against us, and a bull moose leaped the bank into the lake within fifty yards of where we crouched on the shore.

"Shoot! shoot-um quick!" cried Simmo; and the fear of the old bull was in his voice.

For answer there came a grunt from the moose—a ridiculously small, squeaking grunt, like the voice of a penny trumpet—as the huge creature swung rapidly along the shore in our direction.

"Uh! young bull, lil fool moose," whispered Simmo, and breathed a soft, questioning Whooowuh? through the bark horn to bring him nearer.

He came close to where we were hidden, then entered the woods and circled silently about our camp to get our wind. In the morning his tracks, within five feet of my rear tent pole, showed how little he cared for the dwelling of man. But though he circled back and forth for an hour, answering Simmo's low call with his ridiculous little grunt, he would not show himself again on the open shore.

I stole up after a while to where I had heard the last twig snap under his hoofs. Simmo held me back, whispering of danger; but there was a question in my head which has never received a satisfactory answer: Why does a bull come to a call anyway? It is held generally—and with truth, I think—that he comes because he thinks the sound is made by a cow moose. But how his keen ears could mistake such a palpable fraud is the greatest mystery in the woods. I have heard a score of hunters and Indians call, all differently, and have sometimes brought a bull into the open at the wail of my own bark trumpet; but I have never yet listened to a call that has any resemblance to the bellow of a cow moose as I have often heard it in the woods. Nor have I ever heard, or ever met anybody who has heard, a cow moose give forth any sound like the "long call" which is made by hunters, and which is used successfully to bring the bull from a distance.

Others claim, and with some reason, that the bull, more fearless and careless at this season than at other times, comes merely to investigate the sound, as he and most other wild creatures do with every queer or unknown thing they hear. The Alaskan Indians stretch a skin into a kind of tambourine and beat it with a club to call a bull; which sound, however, might not be unlike one of the many peculiar bellows that I have heard from cow moose in the wilderness. And I have twice known bulls to come to the chuck of an ax on a block; which sound, at a distance, has some resemblance to the peculiar chock-chocking that the bulls use to call their mates from a distance.

From any point of view the thing has contradictions enough to make one wary of a too positive opinion. Here at hand was a "lil fool moose" who knew no fear, and who might, therefore, enlighten me on the obscure subject. I told Simmo to keep on calling softly at intervals while I crept up into the woods to watch the effect.

It was all as dark as a pocket beyond the open shore. One had to feel his way along, and imitate the moose himself in putting his feet down. Spite of my precaution a bush whispered; a twig cracked. Instantly there was a swift answering rustle ahead as the bull glided towards me. He had heard the faint message and was coming to see if it were not his tantalizing mate, ready to whack her soundly, according to his wont, for causing him so much worry, and to beat her out ahead of him to the open where he could watch her closely and prevent any more of her hiding tricks.

I stood motionless behind a tree, grasping a branch above, ready to swing up out of reach when the bull charged. A vague black hulk thrust itself out of the dark woods, close in front of me, and stood still. Against the faint light, which showed from the lake through the fringe of trees, the great head and antlers stood out like an upturned root; but I had never known that a living creature stood there were it not for a soft, clucking rumble that the bull kept going in his throat,—a ponderous kind of love note, intended, no doubt, to let his elusive mate know that he was near.

He took another step in my direction, brushing the leaves softly, a low, whining grunt telling of his impatience. Two more steps and he must have discovered me, when fortunately an appealing gurgle and a measured plop, plop, plop—like the feet of a moose falling in shallow water—sounded from the shore below, where Simmo was concealed. Instantly the bull turned and glided away, a shadow among the shadows. A few minutes later I heard him running off in the direction whence he had first come.

After that the twilight always found him near our camp. He was convinced that there was a mate hiding somewhere near, and he was bound to find her. We had only to call a few times from our canoe, or from the shore, and presently we would hear him coming, blowing his penny trumpet, and at last see him break out upon the shore with a crashing plunge to waken all the echoes. Then, one night as we lay alongside a great rock in deep shadow, watching the puzzled young bull as he ranged along the shore in the moonlight, Simmo grunted softly to call him nearer. At the sound a larger bull, that we had not suspected, leaped out of the bushes close beside us with a sudden terrifying plunge and splashed straight at the canoe. Only the quickest kind of work saved us. Simmo swung the bow off, with a startled grunt of his own, and I paddled away, while the bull, mistaking us in the dim light for the exasperating cow that had been calling and hiding herself for a week, followed after us into deep water.

There was no doubt whatever that this moose, at least, had come to what he thought was the call of a mate. Moonlight is deceptive beyond a few feet; so when the low grunt sounded in the shadow of the great rock he was sure he had found the coy creature at last, and broke out of his concealment resolved to keep her in sight and not to let her get away again. That is why he swam after us. Had he been investigating some new sound or possible danger, he would never have left the land, where alone his great power and his wonderful senses have full play. In the water he is harmless, as most other wild creatures are.

I paddled cautiously just ahead of him, so near that, looking over my shoulder, I could see the flash of his eye and the waves crinkling away before the push of his great nose. After a short swim he grew suspicious of the queer thing that kept just so far ahead, whether he swam fast or slow, and turned in towards the shore whining his impatience. I followed slowly, letting him get some distance ahead, and just as his feet struck bottom whispered to Simmo for his softest call. At the sound the bull whirled and plunged after us again recklessly, and I led him across to where the younger bull was still ranging up and down the shore, calling imploringly to his phantom mate.

I expected a battle when the two rivals should meet; but they paid little attention to each other. The common misfortune, or the common misery, seemed to kill the fierce natural jealousy whose fury I had more than once been witness of. They had lost all fear by this time; they ranged up and down the shore, or smashed recklessly through the swamps, as the elusive smells and echoes called them hither and yon in their frantic search.

Far up on the mountain side the sharp, challenging grunt of a master bull broke out of the startled woods in one of the lulls of our exciting play. Simmo heard and turned in the bow to whisper excitedly: "Nother bull! Fetch-um Ol' Dev'l this time, sartin." Raising his horn he gave the long, rolling bellow of a cow moose. A fiercer trumpet call from the mountain side answered; then the sound was lost in the crash-crash of the first two bulls, as they broke out upon the shore on opposite sides of the canoe.

We gave little heed now to the nearer play; our whole attention was fixed on a hoarse, grunting roar—Uh, uh, uh! eeeyuh! r-r-r-runh-unh!—with a rattling, snapping crash of underbrush for an accompaniment. The younger bull heard it; listened for a moment, like a great black statue under the moonlight; then he glided away into the shadows under the bank. The larger bull heard it, threw up his great head defiantly, and came swinging along the shore, hurling a savage challenge back on the echoing woods at every stride.

There was an ominous silence up on the ridge where, a moment before, all was fierce commotion. Simmo was silent too; the uproar had been appalling, with the sleeping lake below us, and the vast forest, where silence dwells at home, stretching up and away on every hand to the sky line. But the spirit of mischief was tingling all over me as I seized the horn and gave the low appealing grunt that a cow would have uttered under the same circumstances. Like a shot the answer was hurled back, and down came the great bull—smash, crack, r-r-runh! till he burst like a tempest out on the open shore, where the second bull with a challenging roar leaped to meet him.

Simmo was begging me to shoot, shoot, telling me excitedly that "Ol' Dev'l," as he called him, would be more dangerous now than ever, if I let him get away; but I only drove the canoe in closer to the splashing, grunting uproar among the shadows under the bank.



There was a terrific duel under way when I swung the canoe alongside a moment later. The bulls crashed together with a shock to break their heads. Mud and water flew over them; their great antlers clashed and rang like metal blades as they pushed and tugged, grunting like demons in the fierce struggle. But the contest was too one-sided to last long. The big bull that had almost killed me, but in whom I now found myself taking an almost savage pride, had smashed down from the mountain in a frightful rage, and with a power that nothing could resist. With a quick lunge he locked antlers in the grip he wanted; a twist of his massive neck and shoulders forced the opposing head aside, and a mighty spring of his crouching haunches finished the work. The second moose went over with a plunge like a bolt-struck pine. As he rolled up to his feet again the savage old bull jumped for him and drove the brow antlers into his flanks. The next moment both bulls had crashed away into the woods, one swinging off in giant strides through the crackling underbrush for his life, the other close behind, charging like a battering-ram into his enemy's rear, grunting like a huge wild boar in his rage and exultation. So the chase vanished over the ridge into the valley beyond; and silence stole back, like a Chinese empress, into her disturbed dominions.

From behind a great windfall on the point above, where he had evidently been watching the battle, the first young bull stole out, and came halting and listening along the shore to the scene of the conflict. "To the discreet belong the spoils" was written in every timorous step and stealthy movement. A low grunt from my horn reassured him; he grew confident. Now he would find the phantom mate that had occasioned so much trouble, and run away with her before the conqueror should return from his chase. He swung along rapidly, rumbling the low call in his throat. Then up on the ridge sounded again the crackle of brush and the roar of a challenge. Rage had not made the victor to forget; indeed, here he was, coming back swiftly for his reward. On the instant all confidence vanished from the young bull's attitude. He slipped away into the woods. There was no sound; scarcely a definite motion. A shadow seemed to glide away into the darker shadows. The underbrush closed softly behind it, and he was gone.

Next morning at daybreak I found my old bull on the shore, a mile below; and with him was the great cow that had hunted me away from her little one. The youngster was well grown and sturdy now, but still he followed his mother obediently; and the big bull had taken them both under his protection. I left them there undisturbed, with a thought of the mighty offspring that shall some day come smashing down from the mountain to delight the heart of camper or hunter and set his nerves a-tingle, when the lake shall again be visited and the roar of a bark trumpet roll over the sleeping lake and the startled woods. Let them kill who will. I have seen Umquenawis the Mighty as he was before fear came, and am satisfied.



GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES

Cheokhes, che-ok-hes', the mink.

Cheplahgan, chep-lah'gan, the bald eagle.

Ch'geegee-lokh-sis, ch'gee-gee'lock-sis, the chickadee.

Chigwooltz, chig-wooltz', the bullfrog.

Clote Scarpe, a legendary hero, like Hiawatha, of the Northern Indians. Pronounced variously, Clote Scarpe, Groscap, Gluscap, etc.

Commoosie, com-moo-sie', a little shelter, or hut, of boughs and bark.

Deedeeaskh, dee-dee'ask, the blue jay.

Eleemos, el-ee'mos, the fox.

Hawahak, ha-wa-hak', the hawk.

Hukweem, huk-weem', the great northern diver, or loon.

Ismaques, iss-ma-ques', the fishhawk.

Kagax, kag'ax, the weasel.

Kakagos, ka-ka-gos', the raven.

K'dunk, k'dunk', the toad.

Keeokuskh, kee-o-kusk', the muskrat.

Keeonekh, kee'o-nek, the otter.

Killooleet, kil'loo-leet, the white-throated sparrow.

Kookooskoos, koo-koo-skoos', the great horned owl.

Koskomenos, kos'kom-e-nos', the kingfisher.

̤Kupkawis, cup-ka̤'wis, the barred owl.

Kwaseekho, kwa-seek'ho, the sheldrake.

Lhoks, locks, the panther.

Malsun, mal'sun, the wolf.

Meeko, meek'o, the red squirrel.

Megaleep, meg'a-leep, the caribou.

Milicete, mil'i-cete, the name of an Indian tribe; written also Malicete.

Mitches, mit'ches, the birch partridge, or ruffed grouse.

Moktaques, mok-ta'ques, the hare.

Mooween, moo-ween', the black bear.

Musquash, mus'quash, the muskrat.

Nemox, nem'ox, the fisher.

Pekquam, pek-wam', the fisher.

Quoskh, quoskh, the blue heron.

Seksagadagee, sek'sa-ga-da'gee, the Canada grouse, or spruce partridge.

Skooktum, skook'tum, the trout.

Tookhees, tok'hees, the wood mouse.

Umquenawis, um-que-na'wis, the moose.

Unk Wunk, unk' wunk, the porcupine.

Upweekis, up-week'iss, the Canada lynx.



ANNOUNCEMENTS

WOOD FOLK SERIES

By WILLIAM J. LONG

The unique merit of this nature student rests in his fascinating style of writing, which invariably interests young and old; for without this element his pioneer work in the realm of nature would now be familiar only to scientists. As it is, Long's Wood Folk Series is in use in thousands of schools the country over, has been adopted by many reading circles, and is now on the library lists of six important states; thus leading laymen, young and old, into the wonderland of nature hitherto entirely closed to all.

WAYS OF WOOD FOLK

205 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents

This delightful work tells of the lives and habits of the commoner wood folk, such as the crow, the rabbit, the wild duck. The book is profusely illustrated by Charles Copeland and other artists.

WILDERNESS WAYS

155 pages. Illustrated. List price, 45 cents; mailing price, 50 cents

"Wilderness Ways" is written in the same intensely interesting style as its predecessor, "Ways of Wood Folk." The hidden life of the wilderness is here presented by sketches and stories gathered, not from books or hearsay, but from the author's personal contact with wild things of every description.

SECRETS OF THE WOODS

184 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents

This is another chapter in the shy, wild life of the fields and woods. Little Toohkees, the wood mouse that dies of fright in the author's hand; the mother otter, Keeonekh, teaching her little ones to swim; and the little red squirrel with his many curious habits,—all are presented with the same liveliness and color that characterize the descriptions in the first two volumes. The illustrations by Charles Copeland are unusually accurate in portraying animal life as it really exists in its native haunts.

WOOD FOLK AT SCHOOL

186 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents

The title of this new book suggests the central thought about which the author has grouped some of his most fascinating animal studies. To him "the summer wilderness is one vast schoolroom in which a multitude of wise, patient mothers are teaching their little ones the things they must know in order to hold their place in the world and escape unharmed from a hundred dangers." This book, also, is adequately illustrated by Charles Copeland.

A LITTLE BROTHER TO THE BEAR

178 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents

This latest book in the Wood Folk Series contains observations covering a period of nearly thirty years. Some of the chapters represent the characteristics of animals of the same species, and others show the acute intelligence of certain individual animals that nature seems to have lifted far above the level of their fellows. The book is well illustrated and is the most noteworthy contribution to nature literature during the past two years.

GINN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS



NATURE STUDY

List Mailing price price The Jane Andrews Books: The Seven Little Sisters $0.50 $0.55 Each and All .50 .55 Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children .50 .55 My Four Friends .40 .45 Atkinson's First Studies of Plant Life .60 .70 Beal's Seed Dispersal .35 .40 Bergen's Glimpses at the Plant World .40 .45 Burt's Little Nature Studies for Little People. Vol. I. A Primer and a First Reader. Vol. II. A Second Reader and a Third Reader each .25 .30 Burkett, Stevens, and Hill's Agriculture for Beginners .75 .80 Comstock's Ways of the Six-Footed .40 .45 Eddy's Friends and Helpers .60 .70 Frye's Brooks and Brook Basins .58 .70 Frye's Child and Nature .80 .88 Gould's Mother Nature's Children .60 .70 Hale's Little Flower People .40 .45 Hardy's Sea Stories Hodge's Nature Study and Life 1.50 1.65 Holden's The Sciences .50 .60 Jefferies' Sir Bevis .30 .35 Lane's Oriole Stories .28 .33 Long's Wood Folk Series: Ways of Wood Folk .50 .60 Wilderness Ways .45 .50 Secrets of the Woods .50 .60 Wood Folk at School .50 .60 Morley's Little Wanderers .30 .35 Morley's Insect Folk .45 .50 Porter's Stars in Song and Legend .50 .55 Roth's First Book of Forestry .75 .85 Stickney's Study and Story Nature Readers: Earth and Sky, No. I .30 .35 Earth and Sky, No. II .30 .35 Pets and Companions .30 .40 Bird World .60 .70 Strong's All the Year Round. Part I, Autumn. Part II, Winter. Part III, Spring each .30 .35 Weed's Seed-Travellers .25 .30 Weed's Stories of Insect Life: First Series .25 .30 Second Series. (Murtfeldt and Weed) .30 .35

GINN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS



TEXT-BOOKS IN ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

List Mailing price price Atkinson's First Studies of Plant Life $0.60 $0.70 Ball's Star-Land 1.00 1.10 Beal's Seed Dispersal .35 .40 Bergen's Glimpses at the Plant World .40 .45 Blaisdell's Child's Book of Health .30 .35 Blaisdell's How to Keep Well .45 .55 Blaisdell's Our Bodies and How We Live .65 .75 Burkett, Stevens, and Hill's Agriculture for Beginners .75 .80 Frye's Elements of Geography .65 .80 Frye's Grammar School Geography 1.25 1.45 Frye's Child and Nature .80 .88 Frye's Brooks and Brook Basins .58 .70 Gould's Mother Nature's Children .60 .70 Hall's Our World Reader, No. 1 .50 .60 Hodge's Nature Study and Life 1.50 1.65 Holden's The Sciences .50 .60 Newell's Outlines of Lessons in Botany: Part I. From Seed to Leaf .50 .55 Part II. Flower and Fruit .80 .90 Newell's Reader in Botany: Part I. From Seed to Leaf .60 .70 Part II. Flower and Fruit .60 .70 Roth's First Book of Forestry .75 .85 Shaler's Story of Our Continent .75 .85 Weed's Seed-Travellers .25 .30 Weed's Stories of Insect Life: First Series .25 .30 Second Series. (Murtfeldt and Weed) .30 .35

GINN & COMPANY Publishers



AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS

By C. W. BURKETT, Professor of Agriculture; F. L. STEVENS, Professor of Biology; and D. H. HILL, Professor of English in the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts

12mo. Cloth. 267 pages. Illustrated. List price, 75 cents; mailing price, 80 cents

No book for common schools in recent years has aroused such widespread interest and been so universally commended as this little volume. Its adoption in two great states before its publication, and in still another state immediately after its appearance, indicates the unusually high merit of the work.

The authors believe that there is no line of separation between the science of agriculture and the practical art of agriculture, and that the subject is eminently teachable. Theory and practice are presented at one and the same time, so that the pupil is taught the fundamental principles of farming just as he is taught the fundamental truths of arithmetic, geography, or grammar.

The work is planned for use in grammar-school classes. It thus presents the subject to the pupil when his aptitudes are the most rapidly developing and when he is forming life habits. It will give to him, therefore, at the vital period of his life a training which will go far toward making his life work profitable and delightful. The text is clear, interesting, and teachable. While primarily intended for class work in the public schools, it will no doubt appeal to all who desire a knowledge of the simple scientific truths which lie at the foundation of most farm operations.

The two hundred and eighteen illustrations are unusually excellent and are particularly effective in illuminating the text. The book is supplied throughout with practical exercises, simple and interesting experiments, and helpful suggestions. The Appendix, devoted to spraying mixtures and fertilizer formulas, the Glossary, in which are explained unusual and technical words, and the complete Index are important.

In mechanical execution—in the attractive and durable binding, in the clear, well-printed page, and in the illustrations—the book is easily superior to any other elementary work on agriculture.

GINN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

+ + Transcriber's Note The following words were found in both hyphenated and unhyphenated forms: half-way halfway tree-top treetop Words printed in bold font in the book are surrounded by '+' signs. Illustrations have been moved to more appropriate places in the text. + +

THE END