Harold MacGrath - "Half a Rogue"

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v1: Joconde"

Booth Tarkington - "Harlequin and Columbine"

J. Cuthbert Hadden - "Haydn"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Nature\'s Serial Story

E >> E. P. Roe >> Nature\'s Serial Story




"Poor little fellow! and to think that she doesn't care for him!" sighed
Amy, pityingly; and they all laughed so heartily that she bent her head
over her work to hide the rich color that stole into her face--all
laughed except Mr. Alvord, who, as usual, was an attentive and quiet
listener, sitting a little in the background, so that his face was in
partial shadow. Keen-eyed Maggie, whose sympathies were deeply enlisted
in behalf of her sad and taciturn neighbor, observed that he regarded Amy
with a close, wistful scrutiny, as if he were reading her thoughts. Then
an expression of anguish, of something like despair, flitted across his
face. "He has lavished the best treasures of his heart and life on some
one who did not care," was her mental comment.

"You won't be like our little friend in blue, eh, Amy?" said old Mr.
Clifford; but with girlish shyness she would not reply to any such
question.

"Don't take it so to heart, Miss Amy. Mr. B. is never disenchanted," the
doctor remarked.

"I don't like Mrs. B. at all," said Maggie, decidedly; "and it seems to
me that I know women of whom she is a type--women whose whole souls are
engrossed with their material life. Human husbands are not so blind as
bluebirds, and they want something more than housekeepers and nurses in
their wives."

"Excellent!" cried Rev. Mr. Barkdale; "you improve the occasion better
than I could. But, doctor, how about our callous widow bluebird finding
another mate after the mating season is over?"

"There are always some bachelors around, unsuccessful wooers whose early
blandishments were vain."

"And are there no respectable spinsters with whom they might take up as a
last resort?" Leonard queried.

"No, none at all. Think of that, ye maiden of New England, where the
males are nearly all migrants and do not return! The only chance for a
bird-bachelor is to console some widow whom accident has bereaved of her
mate. Widowers also are ready for an immediate second marriage. Birds and
beasts of prey and boys--hey, Alf--bring about a good many step-parents."

"Alf don't kill any little birds, do you, Alf?" asked his mother.

"Well, not lately. You said they felt so bad over it But if they get over
it so easy as the doctor says--"

"Now, doctor, you see the result of your scientific teaching."

"Why, Mrs. Leonard, are you in sympathy with the priestcraft that would
keep people virtuous through ignorance?" said the minister, laughing.
"Alf must learn to do right, knowing all the facts. I don't believe he
will shy a stone at a bird this coming year unless it is in mischief."

"Well," said Squire Bartley, who had relapsed into a half-doze as the
conversation lost its practical bent, "between the birds and boys I don't
see as we shall be able to raise any fruit before long. If our boys
hadn't killed about all the robins round our house last summer, I don't
think we'd 'a had a cherry or strawberry."

"I'm afraid, squire," put in Webb, quietly, "that if all followed your
boys' example, insects would soon have the better of us. They are far
worse than the birds. I've seen it stated on good authority that a
fledgling robin eats forty per cent more than its own weight every
twenty-four hours, and I suppose it would be almost impossible to compute
the number of noxious worms and moths destroyed by a family of robins in
one season. They earn their share of fruit."

"Webb is right, squire," added the doctor, emphatically. "Were it not for
the birds, the country would soon be as bare as the locusts left Egypt.
Even the crow, against which you are so vindictive, is one of your best
friends."

"Oh, now, come, I can't swallow that. Crows pull up my corn, rob hens'
nests', carry off young chickens. They even rob the nests of the other
birds you're so fond of. Why, some state legislatures give a bounty for
their destruction."

"If there had only been a bounty for killing off the legislators, the
states would have fared better," replied the doctor, with some heat. "It
can be proved beyond a doubt that the crow is unsurpassed by any other
bird in usefulness. He is one of the best friends you have."

"Deliver me from my friends, then," said the squire, rising; and he
departed, with his prejudices against modern ideas and methods somewhat
confirmed.

Like multitudes of his class, he observed in nature only that which was
forced upon his attention through the medium of immediate profit and
loss. The crows pulled up his corn, and carried off an occasional
chicken; the robins ate a little fruit; therefore death to crows and
robins. They all felt a certain sense of relief at his departure, for
while their sympathies touched his on the lower plane of mere utility and
money value, it would be bondage to them to be kept from other and higher
considerations. Moreover, in his own material sphere his narrow prejudices
were ever a jarring element that often exasperated Webb, who had been known
to mutter, "Such clods of earth bring discredit on our calling."

Burt, with a mischievous purpose illuminating his face, remarked: "I'll
try to put the squire into a dilemma. If I can catch one of his boys
shooting robins out of season, I will lodge a complaint with him, and
insist on the fine;" and his design was laughingly applauded.

"I admit," said Mr. Clifford, "that Webb has won me over to a toleration
of crows, but until late years I regarded them as unmitigated pests."

"Undeserved enmity comes about in this way," Webb replied. "We see a crow
in mischief occasionally, and the fact is laid up against him. If we
sought to know what he was about when not in mischief, our views would
soon change. It would be far better to have a little corn pulled up than
to be unable to raise corn at all. Crows can be kept from the field
during the brief periods when they do harm, but myriads of grasshoppers
cannot be managed. Moreover, the crow destroys very many field-mice and
other rodents, but chief of all he is the worst enemy of the May-beetle
and its larvae. In regions of the country where the crow has been almost
exterminated by poison and other means, this insect has left the meadows
brown and sear, while grasshoppers have partially destroyed the most
valuable crops. Why can't farmers get out of their plodding, ox-like
ways, and learn to co-work with Nature like men?"

"Hurrah for Webb!" cried Burt. "Who would have thought that the squire
and a crow could evoke such a peroration? That flower of eloquence surely
grew from a rank, dark soil."

"Squire Bartley amuses me very much," said Mrs. Clifford, from the sofa,
with a low laugh. "He seems the only one who has the power to ruffle
Webb."

"Little wonder," thought Amy, "for it would be hard to find two natures
more antagonistic."

"It seems to me that this has been a very silent winter," the minister
remarked. "In my walks and drives of late I have scarcely heard the chirp
of a bird. Are there many that stay with us through this season, doctor?"

"More than you would suppose. But you would not be apt to meet many of
them unless you sought for them. At this time they are gathered in
sheltered localities abounding in their favorite food. Shall I tell you
about some that I have observed throughout several successive winters?"

Having received eager encouragement, he resumed: "My favorites, the
bluebirds, we have considered quite at length. They are very useful, for
their food in summer consists chiefly of the smaller beetles and the
larvae of little butterflies and moths. Many robins stay all winter. It
is a question of food, not climate, with them. In certain valleys of the
White Mountains there is an abundance of berries, and flocks of robins
feed on them all winter, although the cold reaches the freezing-point of
mercury. As we have said, they are among the most useful of the insect
destroyers. The golden-crested kinglet is a little mite of a bird, not
four inches long, with a central patch of orange-red on his crown. He
breeds in the far North, and wintering here is for him like going to the
South. In summer he is a flycatcher, but here he searches the bark of
forest trees with microscopic scrutiny for the larvae of insects. We all
know the lively black-capped chickadees that fly around in flocks
throughout the winter. Sometimes their search for food leads them into
the heart of towns and cities, where they are as bold and as much at home
as the English sparrow. They also gather around the camps of log-cutters
in the forest, become very tame, and plaintively cry for their share in
the meals. They remain all the year, nesting in decayed logs, posts,
stumps, and even in sides of houses, although they prefer the edge of a
wood. If they can find a hole to suit them, very well; if they can't,
they will make one. Their devotion to their young is remarkable. A nest
in a decayed stump was uncovered, and the mother bird twice taken off by
hand, and each time she returned and covered her brood. She uttered no
cries or complaints, but devotedly interposed her little form between
what must have seemed terrific monsters and her young, and looked at the
human ogres with the resolute eyes of self-sacrifice. If she could have
known it, the monsters only wished to satisfy their curiosity, and were
admiring her beyond measure. Chickadees are exceedingly useful birds, and
make great havoc among the insects.

"Our next bird is merely a winter sojourner, for he goes north in spring
like the kinglet. The scientists, with a fine sense of the fitness of
things, have given him a name in harmony, _Troglodytes parvulus_, var.
_Hyemalis_."

"What monster bird is this?" cried Amy.

"He is about as big as your thumb, and ordinary mortals are content to
call him the winter wren. He is a saucy little atom of a bird, with his
tail pointing rakishly toward his head. I regret exceedingly to add that
he is but a winter resident with us, and we rarely hear his song. Mr.
Burroughs says that he is a 'marvellous songster,' his notes having a
'sweet rhythmical cadence that holds you entranced.' By the way, if you
wish to fall in love with birds, you should read the books of John
Burroughs. A little mite of a creature, like the hermit-thrush, he fills
the wild, remote woods of the North with melody, and has not been known
to breed further south than Lake Mohunk. The brown creeper and the
yellow-rumped warbler I will merely mention. Both migrate to the North in
the spring, and the latter is only an occasional winter resident. The
former is a queer little creature that alights at the base of a tree and
creeps spirally round and round to its very top, when it sweeps down to
the base of another tree to repeat the process. He is ever intent on
business. Purple finches are usually abundant in winter, though, not very
numerous in summer. I value them because they are handsome birds, and
both male and female sing in autumn and winter, when bird music is at a
premium. I won't speak of the Carolina wax-wing, _alias_ cedar or cherry
bird, now. Next June, when strawberries and cherries are ripe, we can
form his intimate acquaintance."

"We have already made it, to the cost of both our patience and purse,"
said Webb. "He is one of the birds for whom I have no mercy."

"That is because you are not sufficiently acquainted with him. I admit
that he is an arrant thief of fruit, and that, as his advocate, I have a
difficult case. I shall not plead for him until summer, when he is in
such imminent danger of capital punishment He's a little beauty, though,
with his jaunty crest and gold-tipped tail. I shall not say one word in
favor of the next bird that I mention, the great Northern shrike, or
butcher-bird. He is not an honest bird of prey that all the smaller
feathered tribes know at a glance, like the hawk; he is a disguised
assassin, and possessed by the very demon of cruelty. He is a handsome
fellow, little over ten inches long, with a short, powerful beak, the
upper mandible sharply curved. His body is of a bluish-gray color, with
'markings of white' on his dusky wings and tail. Three shrikes once made
such havoc among the sparrows of Boston Common that it became necessary
to take much pains to destroy them. He is not only a murderer, but an
exceedingly treacherous one, for both Mr. Audubon and Mr. Nuttall speak
of his efforts to decoy little birds within his reach by imitating their
notes, and he does this so closely that he is called a mocking-bird in
some parts of New England. When he utters his usual note and reveals
himself, his voice very properly resembles the 'discordant creaking of a
sign-board hinge.' A flock of snow-birds or finches may be sporting and
feeding in some low shrubbery, for instance. They may hear a bird
approaching, imitating their own notes. A moment later the shrike will be
seen among them, causing no alarm, for his appearance is in his favor.
Suddenly he will pounce upon an unsuspecting neighbor, and with one blow
of his beak take off the top of its head, dining on its brains. If there
is a chance to kill several more, he will, like a butcher, hang his prey
on a thorn, or in the crotch of a tree, and return for his favorite
morsel when his hunt is over. After devouring the head of a bird he will
leave the body, unless game is scarce. It is well they are not plentiful,
or else our canary pets would be in danger, for a shrike will dart
through an open window and attack birds in cages, even when members of
the family are present. In one instance Mr. Brewer, the ornithologist,
was sitting by a closed window with a canary in a cage above his head,
and a shrike, ignorant of the intervening glass, dashed against the
window, and fell stunned upon the snow. He was taken in, and found to be
tame, but sullen. He refused raw meat, but tore and devoured little birds
very readily. As I said before, it is fortunate he is rare, though why he
is so I scarcely know. He may have enemies in the North, where he breeds;
for I am glad to say that he is only a winter resident.

"It gives one a genuine sense of relief to turn from this Apache, this
treacherous scalper of birds, to those genuinely useful little songsters,
the tree and the song sparrow. The former is essentially a Northern bird,
and breeds in the high arctic regions. He has a fine song, which we hear
in early April as his parting souvenir. The song sparrow will be a great
favorite with you, Miss Amy, for he is one of our finest singers, whose
song resembles the opening notes of a canary, but has more sweetness and
expression. Those that remain with us depart for the North at the first
tokens of spring, and are replaced by myriads of other migrants that
usually arrive early in March. You will hear them some mild morning soon.
They are very useful in destroying the worst kinds of insects. A fit
associate for the song sparrow is the American goldfinch, or yellow-bird,
which is as destructive of the seeds of weeds as the former is of the
smaller insect pests. In summer it is of a bright gamboge yellow, with
black crown, wings, and tail. At this time he is a little olive-brown
bird, and mingles with his fellows in small flocks. They are sometimes
killed and sold as reed-birds. They are brilliant singers.

"The snow-bird and snow-bunting are not identical by any means; indeed,
each is of a different genus. The bunting's true home is in the far
North, and it is not apt to be abundant here except in severe weather.
Specimens have been found, however, early in November, but more often
they appear with a late December snowstorm, their wild notes suggesting
the arctic wastes from which they have recently drifted southward. The
sleigh tracks on the frozen Hudson are among their favorite haunts, and
they are not often abundant in the woods on this side of the river.
Flocks can usually be found spending the winter along the railroad on the
eastern shore. Here they become very fat, and so begrimed with the dirt
and grease on the track that you would never associate them with the
snowy North. They ever make, however, a singular and pretty spectacle
when flying up between one and the late afternoon sun, for the predominant
white in their wings and tail seems almost transparent. They breed at the
extreme North, even along the Arctic Sea, in Greenland and Iceland, and are
fond of marine localities at all times. It's hard to realize that the
little fellows with whom we are now so familiar start within a month for
regions above the Arctic Circle. I once, when a boy, fired into a flock
feeding in a sleigh track on the ice of the river. Some of those that
escaped soon returned to their dead and wounded companions, and in their
solicitude would let me come very near, nor, unless driven away, would they
leave the injured ones until life was extinct. On another occasion I
brought some wounded ones home, and they ate as if starved, and soon became
very tame, alighting upon the table at mealtimes with a freedom from
ceremony which made it necessary to shut them up. They spent most of their
time among the house plants by the window, but toward spring the migratory
instinct asserted itself, and they became very restless, pecking at the
panes in their eagerness to get away. Soon afterward our little guests may
have been sporting on an arctic beach. An effort was once made in
Massachusetts to keep a wounded snow-bunting through the summer, but at
last it died from the heat. They are usually on the wing northward early in
March.

"The ordinary snow-bird is a very unpretentious and familiar little
friend. You can find him almost any day from the 1st of October to the
1st of May, and may know him by his grayish or ashy black head, back, and
wings, white body underneath from the middle of his breast backward, and
white external tail-feathers. He is said to be abundant all over America
east of the Black Hills, and breeds as far south as the mountains of
Virginia. There are plenty of them in summer along the Shawangunk range,
just west of us, in the Catskills, and so northward above the Arctic
Circle. In the spring, before it leaves us, you will often hear its
pretty little song. They are very much afraid of hawks, which make havoc
among them at all times, but are fearless of their human--and especially
of their humane--neighbors. Severe weather will often bring them to our
very doors, and drive them into the outskirts of large cities. They are
not only harmless, but very useful, for they devour innumerable seeds,
and small insects with their larvae. Dear me! I could talk about birds
all night."

"And we could listen to you," chorused several voices.

"I never before realized that we had such interesting winter neighbors
and visitors," said Mrs. Clifford, and the lustre of her eyes and the
faint bloom on her cheeks proved how deeply these little children of
nature had enlisted her sympathies.

"They are interesting, even when in one short evening I can give but in
bald, brief outline a few of their characteristics. Your words suggest
the true way of becoming acquainted with them. Regard them as neighbors
and guests, in the main very useful friends, and then you will naturally
wish to know more about them. In most instances they are quite susceptible
to kindness, and are ready to be intimate with us. That handsome bird, the
blue jay, so wild at the East, is as tame and domestic as the robin in many
parts of the West, because treated well. He is also a winter resident, and
one of the most intelligent birds in existence. Indeed, he is a genuine
humorist, and many amusing stories are told of his pranks. His powers of
mimicry are but slightly surpassed by those of the mocking-bird, and it is
his delight to send the smaller feathered tribes to covert by imitating the
cries of the sparrow, hawk, and other birds of prey. When so tame as to
haunt the neighborhood of dwellings, he is unwearied in playing his tricks
on domestic fowls, and they--silly creatures!--never learn to detect the
practical joke, for, no matter how often it is repeated, they hasten
panic-stricken to shelter. Wilson speaks of him as the trumpeter of the
feathered chorus, but his range of notes is very great, passing from harsh,
grating sounds, like the screeching of an unlubricated axle, to a warbling
as soft and modulated as that of a bluebird, and again, prompted by his
mercurial nature, screaming like a derisive fish-wife. Fledglings will
develop contentedly in a cage, and become tame and amusing pets. They will
learn to imitate the human voice and almost every other familiar sound. A
gentleman in South Carolina had one that was as loquacious as a parrot, and
could utter distinctly several words. In this region they are hunted, and
too shy for familiar acquaintance. When a boy, I have been tantalized
almost beyond endurance by them, and they seemed to know and delight in the
fact. I was wild to get a shot at them, but they would keep just out of
range, mocking me with discordant cries, and alarming all the other game in
the vicinity. They often had more sport than I. It is a pity that the small
boy with his gun cannot be taught to let them alone. If they were as
domestic and plentiful as robins, they would render us immense service. A
colony of jays would soon destroy all the tent-caterpillars on your place,
and many other pests. In Indiana they will build in the shrubbery around
dwellings, but we usually hear their cries from mountain-sides and distant
groves. Pleasant memories of rambles and nutting excursions they always
awaken. The blue jay belongs to the crow family, and has all the brains of
his black-coated and more sedate cousins. At the North, he will, like a
squirrel, lay up for winter a hoard of acorns and beech mast. An
experienced bird-fancier asserts that he found the jay 'more ingenious,
cunning, and teachable than any other species of birds that he had ever
attempted to instruct.'

"One of our most beautiful and interesting winter visitants is the pine
grosbeak. Although very abundant in some seasons, even extending its
migrations to the latitude of Philadelphia, it is irregular, and only the
coldest weather prompts its excursions southward. The general color of
the males is a light carmine, or rose, and if only plentiful they would
make a beautiful feature in our snowy landscape. As a general thing, the
red tints are brighter in the American than in the European birds. The
females, however, are much more modest in their plumage, being ash-colored
above, with a trace of carmine behind their heads and upon their upper tail
coverts, and sometimes tinged with greenish-yellow beneath. The females are
by far our more abundant visitants, for in the winter of '75 I saw numerous
flocks, and not over two per cent were males in red plumage. Still, strange
to say, I saw a large flock of adult males the preceding November, feeding
on the seeds of a Norway spruce before our house. Oh, what a brilliant
assemblage they made among the dark branches! In their usual haunts they
live a very retired life. The deepest recesses of the pine forests at the
far North are their favorite haunts, and here the majority generally remain
throughout the year. In these remote wilds is bred the fearlessness of man
which is the result of ignorance, for they are among the tamest of all wild
birds, finding, in this respect, their counterpart in the American red
cross-bill, another occasional cold-weather visitant. For several winters
the grosbeaks were exceedingly abundant in the vicinity of Boston, and were
so tame that they could be captured in butterfly nets, and knocked down
with poles. The markets became full of them, and many were caged. While
tame they were very unhappy in confinement, and as spring advanced their
mournful cries over their captivity became incessant. They can be kept as
pets, however, and will often sing in the night. Mr. Audubon observed that
when he fired at one of their number, the others, instead of flying away,
would approach within a few feet, and gaze at him with undisguised
curiosity, unmingled with fear. I have seen some large flocks this winter,
and a few fed daily on a bare plot of ground at the end of our piazza. I
was standing above this plot one day, when a magnificent red male flew just
beneath my feet and drank at a little pool. I never saw anything more
lovely in my life than the varying sheen of his brilliant tropical-like
plumage. He was like a many-hued animated flower, and was so fearless that
I could have touched him with a cane. One very severe, stormy winter the
grosbeaks fairly crowded the streets of Pictou. A gentleman took one of
these half-starved birds into his room, where it lived at large, and soon
became the tamest and most affectionate of pets. But in the spring, when
its mates were migrating north, Nature asserted herself, and it lost its
familiarity, and filled the house with its piteous wailings, refused food,
and sought constantly to escape. When the grosbeaks are with us you would
not be apt to notice them unless you stumbled directly upon them, for they
are the most silent of birds, which is remarkable, since the great majority
of them are females".