The chipping sparrow, field sparrow, vesper sparrow, mourning dove, red-shouldered blackbird, and purple grackle stay with us as long as the weather will permit. Mr. Chapman says: "Should the season be an exceedingly mild one, many of these birds will remain [about New York] until late in December."

November Second

The brown creeper, another denizen of the forests, groves, and village shade trees, is seldom noticed because of its small size and dull coloring, which blends perfectly with the tree trunks. It is often found in company with chickadees, nuthatches and kinglets. The creeper flies to the base of a tree, and winds his way to the top, hunting in the crevices of the bark for insects and insect larvÆ, occasionally uttering a clear, feeble trill.

November Third

Unlike the bears one meets in certain kinds of animal stories, the real bear is the most easily frightened of all our large animals. His eyesight is defective, and his hearing not particularly good, but his keen nose more than compensates for those deficiencies.

Notes

November Fourth

Artists often make the mistake of drawing a flying bird with its feet drawn up beneath its breast. Although some birds do hold their feet in this position, the herons, gulls, buzzards, and most of the hawks and eagles hold their feet and legs against the under side of the tail. The legs of the many species of herons are very conspicuous when the birds fly, for as the tail is short, they extend far beyond it.

November Fifth

Some ants live in the ground, some make chambers in wood, while others build mounds of small sticks, dirt, and gravel, and construct roadways to and from them. They feed upon flesh, fruit, and plant substances. Their hind legs are provided with a sort of brush for cleaning the dirt from their bodies, and these legs in turn are cleaned by being drawn through the mouth.

November Sixth

The "'coon" (raccoon) is strictly a nocturnal animal, and spends the day in hollow trees, crevices in the rocks, or in thick underbrush, coming forth at night to hunt its food,—mice, birds, crabs, clams, eggs, acorns, and green corn. On the Pacific Coast it makes a neat round hole in the side of a pumpkin and takes out the seeds with its hands.

Notes

November Seventh

Hawks, owls, and eagles are bold defenders of their nests and young. Circling overhead, they suddenly bow their wings and dash at the intruder, turning quickly and swooping up again when only a few inches from his head. Instances are known in which persons have been wounded severely while meddling with the property of such birds of prey.

November Eighth

The tail of the brown creeper, and of all of the thirty-five species and sub-species of woodpeckers, is provided with stiff, pointed feathers which curve in slightly. With the chimney swift, each feather is armed with a spine. While woodpeckers cling to a tree trunk, and the chimney swift to the side of a chimney, their stiff tails help to support them.

November Ninth

Although the darning-needle, dragon fly, snake feeder, or snake doctor is perfectly harmless, Howard says, "Some believe that they will sew up the ears of bad boys; others that they will sting horses; still others that they act as feeders and physicians to snakes, especially to water snakes." They are the beautiful lace-winged insects that frequently dip down and pick up an insect from the surface of a pond or a river.

Notes

November Tenth

Conspicuous in the withered grass of upland meadows are the white flowers of the several species of everlasting. If picked before they begin to fade, they will keep through winter nearly as fresh and white as when the blossoming season was at its height.

November Eleventh

In the mountains of the North, the black bear is beginning to look for a suitable place in which to pass the winter. Many bears could wear their skins much longer if they would only hibernate before the snow begins to fly. Every hunter anxiously awaits the first fall of snow, which makes the tracking of bears so easy.

November Twelfth

Nine out of every ten persons call salamanders or newts, "lizards." Lizards do not metamorphose; consequently they are never found in the water. They are very swift; lovers of the sun, and in the East are rarely seen north of a line parallel with southern New England. Salamanders are found either in the water or in damp places. They metamorphose, and when on the ground their efforts to escape are feeble.

Notes

November Thirteenth

Owls, woodpeckers, ducks, doves, pigeons, the ruffed grouse, Bob-white, belted kingfisher, ruby-throated hummingbird, chimney swift, short-billed marsh wren, and bush-tit lay eggs that are glossy white or various shades of white or buff-color. The eggs of the herons, cuckoos, robin, bluebird, catbird, Wilson's thrush, and hermit thrush are blue, green, or various shades of those colors.

November Fourteenth

Just at evening the white-throated sparrows, from the thickets, call their sweet, clear good-night to one another. As the darkness falls, the calls gradually cease, until only an occasional flutter is heard as some restless bird, not satisfied with its perch, chooses a new position for the night.

November Fifteenth

It is now time to build winter shelters for Bob-white, and to begin to feed the winter birds. Cut pine or evergreen boughs, and pile them against the side of a log, leaving a small opening at each end for the quail to enter. Make the shelters on the south or east side of a hill or bank, where it will be protected from the cold winter storms. Now scatter buckwheat about your bird "wickey-up," as an Indian would call it, and they will soon find it. You should feed grain to your flock all winter.

Notes

November Sixteenth

The sparrow hawk is a summer resident in New England, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. It nests in a cavity of a tree or in a deserted woodpecker's nest, and it will return to the same locality year after year. The bird is no larger than a robin, and instead of being a sparrow killer, it lives chiefly upon insects.

November Seventeenth

The opossum is the only North American member of the order Marsupialia which has so many representatives in Australia and New Zealand. The marsupials are the animals that have pouches over their abdomens in which they carry their young. Some people wrongly include in this order the pocket gopher, pocket mouse, and other mammals that have cheek pouches in which they carry food.

November Eighteenth

Accounts of the capture of "extremely rare and valuable monkey-faced owls," are often published. These owls are nothing more than barn owls, which are so common in the Southern States. They nest in holes in banks, in cavities in trees, or in church belfries. A pair has occupied one of the towers in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, for several years.

Notes

November Nineteenth

The common meadow mouse makes a docile and interesting pet, if captured without frightening or exciting him. Within fifteen minutes from the time of his capture he will often lose all fear, and while you hold him he will wash his face with his paws.

November Twentieth

The snowy, and the great-gray, owls, both inhabitants of the North-land, are the largest American members of the owl family. They are more frequently seen in the daytime and are much tamer than other owls, often permitting one to approach very close to them. Except in very severe weather they rarely come below the Canadian border. In disposition the great-horned owl and the snow owl are considered fierce, still they can be tamed, even if captured when adult.

November Twenty-first

It is a general impression that bears hug their victims to death. When enraged a bear will charge to within a few feet of a man, rise upon its hind legs, and strike him down with its fore paws, or hold him with them while it attacks his neck and shoulders with its teeth. After inflicting several wounds a bear will often leave its victim without further injuring him.

Notes

November Twenty-second

The blue jay is one of the birds who remain with us throughout the entire year. His habits are not the same in all parts of his range. In some localities he is strictly a bird of the forests, while in others, he is common in our city parks and shade-trees. A relative of the crow, he is charged with robbing nests of their eggs and young birds. He is fond of nuts also, and will eat any kind that his strong bill can open.

November Twenty-third

Hawks and owls will respond quickly if you make a squeaking noise like a mouse, and a fox will stop and prick up his ears, then turn and proceed in the direction of the sound until he discovers its source. A weasel will dash toward the hunter, and even after it sees him, its curiosity keeps it from retreating at once.

November Twenty-fourth

The Thanksgiving turkey that we eat about now "is derived from the wild turkey of Mexico, which was introduced into Europe shortly after the Conquest and was thence brought to eastern North America." (Chapman and Reed.) The tips of the upper tail-coverts of the domestic and the Mexican turkey are whitish, while those of the wild turkey of eastern United States are rusty brown.

Notes

November Twenty-fifth

A skunk knows every woodchuck and rabbit burrow in his neighborhood. In the woods he will often visit hole after hole with great precision, but in the meadows he is more apt to follow the fences, frequently cutting across a corner in order to shorten the distance to a burrow. Probably experience has taught him that rabbits are often found in woodchuck holes and that meadow mice also take shelter in them during the winter.

November Twenty-sixth

The tallest and heaviest of all birds is the African ostrich, but the condor of South America has the widest expanse of wing. In the United States, the California vulture, once very rare, but now steadily increasing, is broadest across the wings. The whooping crane stands the highest, and the swans are the heaviest of our birds.

November Twenty-seventh

Do not kill the bats that you find passing the winter in your garret, or those that fly into your house in the summer. They destroy large numbers of gnats and mosquitoes, and do no harm. The belief that they get into one's hair is ridiculous, and it is seldom that they are infested with vermin. A South American species has been known to suck the blood of horses and cattle.

Notes

November Twenty-eighth

On returning to the nest and discovering that a cowbird has laid an egg in it, some species of birds will roll the egg out. But the phoebe, red-eyed vireo, chipping sparrow, and yellow warbler will sometimes cover the eggs with nesting material and build up the sides of the nest, thus burying its own and the cowbird's egg. Another set of eggs is then laid and the bird begins to sit, but the buried eggs are too deep to be affected by the warmth of the parent's body, so the "lazy-bird's" purpose is defeated.

November Twenty-ninth

In the abandoned birds' nests that are placed near the ground in shrubs and small trees close to hazel-nut bushes and bitter-sweet vines, you will often find a handful of hazel-nuts or bitter-sweet berries. They were put there by the white-footed mice and the meadow mice who visit these storehouses regularly. Very often a white-footed mouse will cover a bird's nest with fine dried grass and inner bark, and make a nest for itself.

November Thirtieth

Between now and the first of March you may expect to see large flocks of red-polls feeding on seeds among the weeds and low bushes, and cross-bills in the pine and spruce trees shelling seeds from the cones.

Notes

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