a fine piece of bird architecture. It is coarse and slovenly constructed with dry grass, fibers, twigs, small roots, rags, twine, paper and in fact of any substance that strikes the fancy of the bird. It is lined, though not always, with wool, vegetable down and feathers. At times when the nest is placed in hollow trees the bedding consists of powdered wood. The Starling returns to the same site year after year, but always builds a new nest.

Though the Starling will often pilfer fruit trees, especially late in the season, it is of great service to man, for its chief food consists of worms, larvae and various adult insects. It is a voracious feeder and thus destroys a large number of forms of insect life, many of which are very destructive to plant life. It “is almost as closely associated with man as the sparrow,” but unlike the sparrow it is much more able to adapt itself to a change of surroundings.

NOVEMBER.

November sits at the door of her wayside tent looking out upon the valleys and mountain tops. She has torn from the trees their faded banners of yellow and their worn fringes of crimson. November is an old dame, gray-haired, somber-eyed and strong-featured. Clad in garments of dun and dusky brown, she sits resting and smoking; and that is why we get such smoky days toward the last of her stay.

Yes, November is an old gypsy dame, but she is not always melancholy. She is the month of whom artists are especially fond. While she lacks the glow of midsummer, there is compensation for the absence of bloom and radiance in the ripening of all vegetation; there is still a touch of splendid color on the hills, and the grass is green with the aftermath of summer. Beautiful mists veil the mountain tops. There is an exquisite beauty in the tints of sepia and the rich brown tones of the landscapes and in the tender grays and clear blues of November skies.

Ah, she knows, does November, that she, too, in her old age, gives promise of something sweet to come. All the trees are filled with next year’s buds; the trailing things of the woods, too, are budded and wait but a few months until the first snows are gone to blossom in fragrance and gladden the bright wedding days of Spring.

Calmly she smokes, the dear old dame, sitting at the door of her tent. Near by, dim and misty, are the marshy fens, in which stand the herons like sculptured figures, where the bulrushes have turned yellow amongst the tawny tussocks. Around her the Indian creeper weaves its still brilliant strands of red and gold. Softly the willow bands drop their trailing leaves. Heavy and purple still hang the berries on the elder boughs that languidly wave in the faint breeze as if they still felt the ghosts of summer kisses.

The nut-brown face of old November looks impassively on all the changes of her season. She knows nothing is dying about her that shall not live again. Her eyes, dark, liquid, somberly deep and tranquil, have seen all the things beautiful that our eyes have missed—the wild flowers trodden down by careless feet; moonlight on far off lakes at midnight; the first pink flush of dawn on stately mountains. Ah, yes, she knows of Love; of dead folded hands, and she remembers the buds of her last year’s reign. She knows that, like the sleeping buds about her now, Love shall give all things back again in the sweet springtime of Paradise, even as these same buds shall waken to bloom and beauty when their winter sleep is over.

But now the night is coming on. Deep shadows are filling the dusky stalls of the drooping hemlocks on yonder hill. Faint spicy odors of sweet fern and illusive witch hazel rise on the misty air. Dame November rises slowly, knocks the ashes from her pipe, gazes broodingly for a few moments over the fading landscape, then turns and softly closes her door. All night the solemn winds intone the requiem of Spring and Summer glories past, but at intervals listen and you will hear the sweet, thin flute of the wood-frog, faintly but hopefully voicing the promise of another Spring, with more bloom, more gladness and glory to come.

Dear old Dame November! A few more days and she will no longer be sitting at the door of her wayside tent. We love her mists, her mellow rains, her dull, rich tones of brown and faded gold. December shall disturb the brooding calm that she has left with us, but we know he cannot harm with his icy mail and glittering frost spears the tightly folded promises which the gypsy November has prepared for next year’s blooming.

Belle A. Hitchcock.

THE ARKANSAS GOLDFINCH.
(Spinus psaltria.)

These lines of the poet were inspired by the beautiful goldfinch so familiar to all, and usually called yellow-bird and thistle-bird. They form an appropriate introduction to a few words regarding the thistle-bird’s sister species of the Pacific coast—the Arkansas Goldfinch. This bright and sprightly bird enlivens the shrubby ravines and weedy places from Oregon southward through the United States, and from the Pacific coast eastward into Colorado. Throughout its range it is quite common and nests on the plains and also in the mountains to a height of nine thousand feet. Abundant in many mountainous regions, it has been given the name Rocky Mountain Goldfinch, and the olive-green color of the plumage of its back has given it the very appropriate name Arkansas Green-backed Goldfinch.

Like the common thistle-bird, it has a social disposition and feeds with its fellows in flocks of a greater or less number. Not infrequently several individuals will alight on the same plant and immediately begin a diligent search for their food of seeds. Active and of a seemingly impatient temperament, it seldom remains long in any one locality, yet a garden rich in sunflower blossoms or a field full of blooming thistles furnished so tempting a larder that a flock may patiently labor therein for some time, gathering an abundance of goldfinch dainties.

Its notes are similar to those of the thistle-birds. “The ordinary note is a plaintive mellow, whistling call, impossible to describe and so inflected as to produce a very mournful effect.” While pursuing its undulating flight, it utters a sweet song which is in harmony with the rise and fall of its onward motion and is indicative of its sweet disposition. Its nest is a dainty structure built of fine bark and other vegetable fibers, fine grasses and moss compactly bound together and quite thickly lined with plant down.

ARKANSAS GOLDFINCH.
(Spinus psaltria).
Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.

TRAGEDY IN BIRD LIFE.

For the friends of birds there are, in cold days of wind and storm, opportunities of loving service.

In the drama of bird-life the scenes are ever shifting, and struggle for existence is not always under sun-lighted, genial skies.

It is true that creative love has endowed the birds with facilities for resisting the havoc of storms. The feathered tribes, nested in chosen coverts, defy the elements and shake out their plumage in