the rain, smiling and refreshed. Sleep had not visited the eyelids of the forsaken wife and with heavy eyes and throbbing brain, she viewed the rising dawn.
"Alas," she sighed, as the whirr of wings and happy chirps of her neighbors struck upon her ears, "how can people be joyous when aching hearts and lives broken with misery lie at their very thresholds? The songs and gleeful voices of my neighbors fill me with anger and despair. I hate the world and everybody in it. I am cold and wet and hungry. I even hate the sun that has risen to usher in a new day.
"I must make an effort," she murmured as the morning advanced and Mr. B. did not return, "and get home to mother. I am so weak I can scarcely stand, much less fly. I am burning with fever, and oh, how my head throbs! Such trouble and sorrow for one so young! I feel as though I shall never smile again."
She steadied herself upon the edge of the nest and, turning, gazed wistfully and sadly upon the five tiny eggs, which she now sorrowed to abandon.
"I may return," she sighed, "in time to lend them warmth, or may find my dear mate performing that office in my absence. I will pray that it may be so as I fly. Praises would be mockery from my throat to-day, mockery!"
"Why, Jenny!" shrieked her mother as Mrs. B. sank down exhausted upon the threshold of her old home. "Whatever is the matter with you, and what has brought you here this time of day?"
"I am hungry and sick, mother, and I feel as though, as though – I am going to die!"
"And where is Mr. Britisher? You've no business to be hungry with a husband to care for you," tartly replied her mother, whilst bustling about to find a grub or two to supply her daughter's wants.
"I have no husband, I fear, mother. He is – "
"Dead!" shrieked the old lady. "Don't tell me Mr. Britisher is dead!"
"Dead, or worse," sadly replied her daughter.
"Worse? Heaven defend us! You don't mean he has deserted you?"
"He left me yesterday afternoon in anger, and has not returned."
"Highty, tighty, that's it, is it? Well, you have brought it all upon yourself and will have to suffer for it. I am sure your father talked enough about idleness and vanity for you to have heeded, and time and time again I have told you that every husband in the sparrow family is a bully and a tyrant, and every wife, if she expects to live happily, must let her mate have his own way."
Mrs. B. sighed, and wearily dropped her head upon her breast.
"You must go back," emphatically said her mother, "before the neighborhood gets wind of the affair. Mr. Britisher may be home this very minute, and glad enough he will be to see you, I am sure. So go back, dear, before the eggs grow cold and your neighbors will be none the wiser."
"I am going, mother, but oh, I feel so ill, so ill!" said the bereaved little creature as she wearily poised for her flight.
"She does look weakly and sick, poor thing," said the mother with a sigh watching her out of sight, "but I don't believe in interfering between husband and wife. Mr. Britisher, indeed, gave me to understand from the first that the less he saw of his mother-in-law the better, remarking that if that class would only stay at home and manage their own household affairs fewer couples, he thought, would be parted. I considered that a rather broad hint, and in consequence have never visited them since they began housekeeping. He has only gone off in a huff, of course, and everything will come out all right, I am sure."
Ere nightfall, however, motherly anxiety impelled her to fly over to her daughter's home.
Alas, only desolation and ruin were there. At the foot of the tree lay the form of Mrs. B. Exposure, sorrow, and excitement had done their work. It was a lifeless form which met her tearful gaze.
The fate of Mr. Britisher was never known. Rumor assigned his absence to matrimonial infelicity, but his more charitable neighbors, as they dropped a tear to his memory, pictured his mangled form a victim to the wanton cruelty or mischievous sport of some idle boy.
A gentleman passing by one day saw the dismantled nest upon the ground and carelessly stirred it with his cane.
"What is that, uncle?" queried a little maid of some five summers who walked by his side.
"That, little one," came the answer slowly and impressively, "is an abandoned home."
"An abandoned home," I repeated, as his words floated up to my window. "Aye, truly to the casual observer that is all it seems, but, oh, how little do they dream of the folly, the suffering, the sad, almost tragic ending of the wee feathered couple whom I saw build that humble home."
THE CONY
THE specimen of this animal presented here (Hyrax abyssinicus) is the best-known of the species. It measures from ten to twelve inches in length; the fur consists of somewhat long, fine hairs, gray-brown at the base, lighter gray in the middle portions, merging into a dark-brown surmounted by a light-colored tip, the resulting general color of this combination being a mottled pale-gray.
The Book of Proverbs, enumerating four animals which it describes as "exceeding wise," says: "The conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks." The conies are mentioned by various writers as well-known animals in days of remotest antiquity. They are found in the wild, desolate mountain regions of Africa and western Asia, and the variety inhabiting Syria and Palestine is probably referred to in the Hebrew text of the Bible under the name of "laphan," which Luther translated by the word, "rabbit," and in the authorized and revised versions is rendered "cony." They inhabit all the mountains of Syria, Palestine, and Arabia, perhaps also of Persia, the Nile country, east, west, and south Africa, frequently at elevations of six thousand or nine thousand feet above sea-level, and "the peaks and cones that rise like islands sheer above the surface of the plains – the presence of the little animals constituting one of the characteristic features of the high table-lands of northeastern Africa." It is stated that if the observer quietly passes through the valleys he sees them sitting or lying in rows on the projecting ledges, as they are a lazy, comfort-loving tribe and like to bask in the warm sunshine. A rapid movement or unusual noise quickly stampedes them, and they all flee with an agility like that usual among rodents, and almost instantly disappear. A traveler says of them, that in the neighborhood of villages, where they are also to be found, they show little fear of the natives, and boldly attend to their affairs as if they understood that nobody thinks of molesting them; but when approached by people whose color or attire differs from that of their usual human neighbors, they at once retreat to their holes in the rocks. A dog inspires them with greater fear than does a human being. When startled by a canine foe, even after they have become hidden, safe from pursuit, in their rocky crevices, they continue to give utterance to their curious, tremulous yell, which resembles the cry of small monkeys.
Brehm confirms the statement of another traveler, who called attention to the striking fact that the peaceable and defenseless cony lives in the permanent society and on the best of terms with a by no means despicable beast of prey, a variety of mongoose.
In regard to their movements and mental characteristics, the conies have been placed between the unwieldy rhinoceros and the nimble rodent. They are excellent climbers. The soles of the feet are as elastic and springy as rubber, enabling the animal to contract and distend the middle cleft or fissure of its sole-pad at will, and thereby to secure a hold on a smooth surface by means of suction. In behavior the conies are gentle, simple, and timid. The social instinct is highly developed in them, and they are rarely seen alone.
The conies have been regarded as the smallest and daintiest of all the existing species of odd-toed animals. Naturalists, however, have held widely divergent opinions as to the classification of the pretty cliff-dwellers. Pallas, because of their habits and outward appearance, called them rodents. Oken thought them to be related to the marsupials, or pouched animals. Cuvier placed them in his order of "many-toed animals," which classification has also been disputed, and Huxley has raised them to the dignity of representatives of a distinct order. Who shall decide where all pretend to know?
COFFEE