Northern Shrike.
But when it comes to calling up to you such shy creatures as the mink or fox the utmost caution is necessary, for although lacking the keenness of eyesight possessed by birds, the acuteness of their sense of smell and hearing is something marvelous; yet when conditions are favorable they may sometimes be brought quite close and studied to advantage.
Standing one day beside an old tumble-down rail fence that ran along between the woods and salt marshes, half hidden in the brambles and tall grass, I caught the merest glimpse of a mink slipping along between the bottom rails. As he was evidently unaware of my presence, I determined to see more of him, and squeaked in as mouselike a manner as possible, and quickly had the satisfaction of seeing him make his appearance on a projecting stake much nearer than when I had first seen him. Stretching himself along the stake, he appeared to listen and look in my direction, but although I was standing in plain sight on the edge of the marsh hardly a rod away, the fact that he was obliged to look directly into the sun made it quite impossible for him to clearly distinguish what he saw. At the end of a few moments he dropped into the grass and started in my direction, the trembling grass blades clearly indicating his progress as he approached nearer and nearer, until almost at my feet he vanished, and, in spite of the most patient waiting on my part, absolutely refused to show himself again.
The last instance of the kind that has come under my notice happened on a clear moonlight night as I was wheeling along a lonely road between old apple orchards. Some part of the machine squeaked at intervals in a way that might possibly have been mistaken for a mouse. At all events, an owl appeared to have been deceived thereby, for he came flapping out of the orchard and flew alongside, at times coming quite close and again swinging off into the shadow, till at last, convinced that his supper lay not in that direction, he put on fresh speed and left me far behind. Perhaps he would have done as he did if the bicycle had not squeaked, but, judging from his behavior, I am inclined to think otherwise.
THE MILK SUPPLY OF CITIES.
By Prof. H. W. CONN.
The ever-growing needs of civilized communities constantly demand new methods. At the time when the streets of Boston may have been the actual cow paths which we are sometimes told they represent, the milk problem did not exist. Every farmer owned his cows, and if some of the people in the small communities did not happen to own a cow there were plenty of these animals in their neighborhood to furnish them with milk. But as our cities have grown the farmer has been pushed back farther and farther into the country, while the demand for milk in the cities has been constantly increasing. The man of the city can no longer call upon his neighbor for milk, but must depend upon some unknown farmer living perhaps many miles away. In England the farmer still lives somewhat close to the city, and as soon as one passes the city limits he begins to find the fields and meadows covered with cows. London and Berlin draw their immense milk supply chiefly from a radius of seventy-five miles. In the United States, however, the farmer does not live so close to the cities, and the demand for milk is even greater than in Europe. Our cities must therefore depend upon a wider range of territory. New York draws its milk from a radius of some three hundred miles. It is easy to see that with such conditions many new problems have arisen. These problems, so far as they concern the obtaining of a sufficient quantity and the transportation and preservation of the milk, have, from a business standpoint, been pretty satisfactorily solved. The milk-supply companies succeed in obtaining a sufficient supply at all seasons of the year, and get it into the city in such a manner that when delivered to the consumer, even though it be forty-eight hours old, it is in tolerably good condition. But it is beginning to appear that the problem, as concerns the consumer, is a somewhat serious one, and that this problem has not yet been solved, nor is it likely to be solved unless the consumer himself takes a direct interest in it.