to the grand old bird, who, apparently
conscious of the honors conferred upon him, overlooked the sale of
his biography and photographs going on beneath his perch with entire
satisfaction.

As was but just and right, the soldier who had carried him during the
war continued to have charge of him after the war was over, until the
day of his death, which occurred at the capital of Wisconsin, in 1881.

THE MOTHER MURRE

BY DALLAS LORE SHARP

One of the most striking cases of mother-love which has ever come under
my observation, I saw in the summer of 1912 on the bird rookeries of the
Three-Arch Rocks Reservation off the coast of Oregon.

We were making our slow way toward the top of the outer rock. Through
rookery after rookery of birds, we climbed until we reached the edge of
the summit. Scrambling over this edge, we found ourselves in the midst
of a great colony of nesting murres--hundreds of them--covering this
steep rocky part of the top.

As our heads appeared above the rim, many of the colony took wing and
whirred over us out to sea, but most of them sat close, each bird upon
its egg or over its chick, loath to leave, and so expose to us the
hidden treasure.

The top of the rock was somewhat cone-shaped, and in order to reach the
peak and the colonies on the west side we had to make our way through
this rookery of the murres. The first step among them, and the whole
colony was gone, with a rush of wings and feet that sent several of the
top-shaped eggs rolling, and several of the young birds toppling over
the cliff to the pounding waves and ledges far below.

We stopped, but the colony, almost to a bird, had bolted, leaving scores
of eggs, and scores of downy young squealing and running together for
shelter, like so many beetles under a lifted board.

But the birds had not every one bolted, for here sat two of the colony
among the broken rocks. These two had not been frightened off. That both
of them were greatly alarmed, any one could see from their open beaks,
their rolling eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. Yet here
they sat, their wings out like props, or more like gripping hands, as if
they were trying to hold themselves down to the rocks against their wild
desire to fly.

And so they were, in truth, for under their extended wings I saw little
black feet moving. Those two mother murres were not going to forsake
their babies! No, not even for these approaching monsters, such as they