Besides building little houses for bluebirds and others, a very effective means of attracting birds generally is a little tray for crumbs, seeds, etc. A piece of board a foot square with an inch-high border to keep the food from blowing off, and fastened upon a tree, will answer every purpose, though it may be improved by a roof. But the wisest device for calling birds about the house—in places where there are no brooks or springs near especially—is a bird-bath. Almost all birds are fond of bathing; and any one who will but take the trouble to fill a shallow dish every day with water, and place it in some shady nook, will be repaid a thousand-fold by the sight of the birds bathing—some flashing the spray in all directions, some dressing their wet plumage in the near branches, some disputing the right to the first plunge.
To those enjoying the luxury of a garden-fountain it is very easy to arrange a very excellent bath of this kind, and it is surprising that so few have thought of it. All that is necessary is to place the edge of a very shallow dish under the drip of the fountain-basin. Half an inch of water is sufficient—small birds will not bathe unless the water is very shallow, and they do not like to get under the spray—or a little platform could be managed in the fountain-basin. For my birds, as a dish placed upon the ground always excites the insolent curiosity and meddling of the turkeys, I have had recourse to another device: a little platform on four posts about three feet high, perforated to admit a wash-basin to the rim. Around three sides of this table I set a dozen supple oak saplings, fastening them by iron staples to the edge of the table, and bringing them all together, wigwam style, over head about three feet above the basin. At the foot of the saplings I planted madeira-vine roots, which will produce an abundance of foliage and blossom after they grow, but not being willing to wait for this, I covered all the saplings separately from ground to peak with evergreens from the woods, and then carpeted the whole floor under the table with various colored mosses. The whole effect of the structure, standing in the shade of the trees, is very pretty and quaint. As the water should be changed every night, the waste poured over the mosses will keep them always in good condition. Of course this basin of water is far too deep for any sort of bird except a wader or a swimmer, and to arrange it exactly right, so that the bathing depth can be uniform, as the heat of the day dries up the water, has not been so easy as one might imagine it would be. The best thing I have found thus far is a circle of board held submerged on one side by a weight and a string, the other side floating. A more perfect thing could doubtless be contrived, and will be by many who like myself love the birds, and have determined to foster their presence in every way for their beneficent services, material and æsthetical.
M. H.
A CHEERING SIGN.
Very pleasant reading is a California item of court-proceedings going to show that a Mongol still stands within the pale of the law upon the soil of the Golden State. A wanton murder of some Chinese at Chico was judicially avenged by the sentencing of two of the Caucasian participants to twenty-five years' imprisonment, and of a third to the nicely-calculated, if not nicely-adjusted, term of twenty-seven years and a half. Had the unhappy victims been whites, or even blacks, the arithmetic of time would probably not have been drawn on, but summary recourse would have been made to such punishment as eternity could furnish. But we must not be too exacting. Let us be grateful that the criminal law has any shield, be it of the thinnest, for the Chinaman.
Very different is the case when the Celestial ox gores the Yankee bull. Indemnity, swift and condign, does what mortal hand can do to heal the hurt. A Chinese court, upon Chinese soil, is not allowed to try a Chinese for an injury done to the Christian stranger within Chinese gates. Treaties imposed by the strong arm reserve practical jurisdiction to our own representatives; and it is the peers of the alleged sufferer, not the peers of the accused, who virtually try the cause. Similar rules obtain in the other Mongolian empire. We all possess, as still quite a fresh sensation, a memory of the account published a few years since of the committing of harikari by a Japanese official of high social standing, at the bidding of a native court, in atonement of an affront offered to an American officer—how the representatives of the United States were formally invited, in full uniform, to witness the bloody self-immolation of the proud but to the law submissive Mongol; how everything went off en règle, from the theatrical preparation of the stage with seat, sword and red carpet to the climax of decapitation of the culprit by his body-servant; and how our representatives in gilt and blue filed out shocked, but vindicated, and satiated with more than the full measure of justice pressed down and running over.
Harikari has not begun, nor is it likely soon to begin, to thin the ranks of our Californian office-holders. Few die, none resign, and absolutely none are got rid of in that way. They have no treaty-courts to make them afraid. Their lives are their own, and we hope may always be. But we trust, also, that they will accord a like privilege to their neighbors from over the way, and cultivate the impression that life may be dear as well to a man with a lemon complexion, oblique eyes and a pig-tail. As an evidence of a dawning disposition to accept this view we may be permitted to hail with satisfaction the disappearance for twenty-seven years and six months of a Californian who declined adopting it.
E. C. B.