The Wapiti is more common in low grounds in the vicinity of marshes and well wooded tracts, where it feeds on grasses and the young branches and leaves of the willows and allied trees.
The Wapiti is graceful and proud in its bearing and very light in its movements. This is especially true of the male, which may be described as an animal of “noble carriage.” When moving from place to place it walks rapidly and runs with remarkable swiftness.
A FRIENDLY FIELD MOUSE.
Many stories have been told in the past, tending to show that wild animals when in trouble will display surprising confidence in man, in fact will often seek his assistance when sore beset. The writer, when a boy upon a farm in Minnesota, had an experience with a field mouse which prettily illustrates this trait in wild creatures. It was stacking time and the men were all busy in the fields lifting the shocks of cured grain and stacking them in hive-shaped stacks in the barnyard. The writer, a barefoot boy at that time, had been following the wagons in the field all the morning in a vain endeavor to capture some field mice to take home as pets. He had seen a number of the drab little creatures with their short tails, but had failed to lay his hands upon any of them, owing to the thick stubble and the nimbleness of the mice. At last, as a particularly large shock was lifted, a broken nest was disclosed and the youthful mouser was put upon the qui vive by the slender squeaks of seven or eight hairless little beings that were so young as not to have opened their eyes as yet. The mother disappeared with a whisk, whereupon the young hunter sat down in a critical attitude beside the nest and began to examine his find. He had already put one of the young mice in his trousers pocket when the mother reappeared out of the stubble beside the nest. The boy held his breath and awaited developments. Much to his surprise, the mouse-mother, after carefully examining the ruined nest, entered his pocket, which, as he sat, opened very near to the nest. She seemed to come to the conclusion very quickly that her lost little one had found a very good home, and in about two minutes had transferred the remainder of her offspring from the nest to the pocket, carrying them one at a time in her mouth.
The writer has had many varied experiences with wild animals, but none of them impressed him so strongly as the episode of the mouse-mother in the wheat stubble.
J. Clyde Hayden.
THE OPENING OF WINTER BUDS.
In our cold temperate zone spring means chiefly the changing of the trees from their naked winter condition to the beautiful green leafy appearance of early summer. When stripped of their foliage, trees present to the observant eye a great variety of form. The tall, slender poplar can easily be distinguished from the spreading elm as far as it is seen; as, also, can the rough-barked hickory, with its clinging strips of bark, from the smooth beech.
Usually, the opening of buds seems to take place almost in a single night, but they really open very gradually. Now, these buds are all formed the summer before, but they are so small that they are scarcely noticed in the midst of the many leaves. In the winter, however, they are readily seen; and, then, when the first warm rains fall in the spring they start to swell, and gradually grow larger until, suddenly, they burst through their snug winter coats, and show the tiny, green leaves that have been concealed in the thick, dark, outer covering.
The buckeye bud is one of the largest of the winter buds. It is covered with small, pointed, brown scales, which overlap each other, thus keeping the cold from the more delicate parts within. Underneath these hard outer scales are thinner, half-transparent ones. Their color is a delicate pink, and fine veins line them. Snugly wrapped inside these dainty coats are tiny woolly objects, and when the wool is removed they are found to be miniature leaves folded together so compactly that they occupy very little room. If the bud has grown on the end of the twig a very small flower bud will be enclosed within the leaves; but if it has grown on the side there will be no flower bud. Since these leaves and flowers have all been formed the summer before, it is easy to understand that a few warm days will cause them to grow so that they soon become too large for their winter covering, and suddenly burst it open.