More than a hundred years ago a new flower was found in the wild and
rugged mountains of North Carolina by Michaux, a Frenchman, who had
traversed many lands and known many perils and adventures in his search
for rare plants. He had traveled through his native country and Spain,
climbed the Pyrenees, crossed sea and desert, been despoiled by Arab
robbers, so that he arrived in Persia with nothing but his books left to
him of his baggage. Luckily he cured the Shah of an illness, and was
allowed to carry back to France many Eastern plants. He was then sent by
his country to explore the forests of North America. In the mountainous
country of North Carolina there were no roads, only Indian trails,
traversed by a few missionaries and traders. In this wild and lonely
region he found a new flower, that belonged to no recognized genus, and
was mentioned by no previous botanist. It was a modest little flower;
its pure white cup rises on a wand-like stem in the midst of shining and
tender leaves, round in shape and prettily edged. He secured a specimen,
but he had no leisure to study its habits in the “montagnes sauvages,”
as he called these mountains in his own language. Rumors reached him of
the French Revolution, and he immediately hastened to return home. He
was shipwrecked on the voyage and lost nearly all his collections.
From this time the flower was lost, so far as any knowledge of its
existence was concerned. But after the death of Michaux, our botanist,
Dr. Asa Gray, happened to be in Paris with the son, the younger Michaux,
also a lover of plants. Very naturally Michaux showed his American guest
his father’s new specimens of American plants that had escaped the
shipwreck, and Dr. Gray was much interested in this little flower,
marked “Unknown.”
When he returned to the United States he sought it in vain. All trace
seemed to have disappeared. Year after year when he heard of anyone
going to the North Carolina mountains he would beg the person to look
for the lost flower.
At last, someone, by chance, found a blossom, in early spring, growing
in a different locality, and not recognizing its genus or species, sent
it to Dr. Gray, as one of the highest botanical authorities.
As soon as Dr. Gray saw it he exclaimed, with delight: “Why, this is the
little unknown flower of Michaux.”
After its strange disappearance of a century it had again come to light.
It has since been found in various parts of upper South Carolina, and is
now cultivated by more than one florist and grower of rare plants. Its
leaves are like those of the southern wild flower, the Galax, akin to
the Pyxie or flowering moss, so it has been placed in the same family
and named Shortia galacifolia, i. e., with a leaf like Galax. The first
name is given in honor of Short, the botanist, a lovely way of keeping
alive the remembrance of one who loved flowers.
Ella F. Mosby.
[Illustration: POLAR BEAR.
(Ursus maritimus).]
THE POLAR BEAR.
(_Ursus maritimus._)
The Polar Bear is the only aquatic member of the family being often
called Sea Bear, as the scientific name (Ursus maritimus) signifies. It
is practically confined to the arctic zone, although various unwilling
visitants have come as far south as Iceland and Newfoundland on the
floating cakes of ice. In size the Polar Bear ranks next to the grizzly,
with a doubt, perhaps, in his favor. He has the longest neck of any bear
and finds it very useful in catching seals and fish under water. The
coat is a silvery or creamy white, very long and thick, as might be
expected in an animal which swims about in the Arctic Ocean and rests
upon cakes of ice. The soles of the feet are very long and are covered
with thick fur, which gives it a large unslippery surface, and enables
it to climb over ice with facility.
The food of the Polar Bear consists principally of fish and seals, but
the walrus often falls a prey to his strength and cunning, and when
starved this Bear is known to eat marine grass in large quantities.
Carcasses stranded on the beach, dead whales and marine animals afford
him an opportunity to gorge himself to the utmost and make enough fat to
keep out the chill of arctic waters. So fat do these great bears become
that the pregnant female is able to bury herself in the snows of winter
and hibernate, at the same time suckling her cubs until spring. The
males do not hibernate, but may be seen all winter.
In hunting seals the Polar Bear enters the water at some distance from
where his prey is basking on the ice and swims with great rapidity
toward it, keeping well under water and raising the tip of his nose to
the surface at intervals for breath. At last it rises beneath and in
front of the seal and strikes it where it lies, or if it escapes into
the water, captures it with ease, for he is a very rapid and expert
diver. One has been known to dive from a block of ice and capture a
passing salmon as deftly as a kingfisher catches a minnow.
In Greenland the Polar Bear is known to swim from island to island along
the shore, eating the eggs and young of the innumerable birds which nest
there.
Jacques Cartier, the French navigator, in the narrative of his voyage to
Newfoundland in 1534 gives a wonderful account of the Polar Bear’s
fondness for birds and eggs and the efforts which he will make to
procure them. An “Island of Birds” was discovered off the coast of
Newfoundland, “and albeit the sayd island be fourteen leagues from the
maine-land, notwithstanding beares come swimming thither to eat of the
sayd birds, and our men found one there as great as any cow, and as
white as any swan, who in their presence leapt into the sea, and upon
Whitsun Munday (following our voyage to the land) we met her by the way,
swimming toward land as swiftly as we could saile. So soon as we saw her
we pursued her with our boats, and by maine strength tooke her, whose
flesh was as good to be eaten as the flesh of a calf of two yeares old.”
Captain Sabine reports having seen a Polar Bear swimming strongly forty
miles from land and with no ice in sight upon which to rest, so the
statement of Cartier is perhaps true. Very few cows weigh fifteen
hundred pounds, but this is the recorded weight of Polar Bears, “as
great as any cow,” killed by whaling crews in the arctic seas.
In hunting the Polar Bear the Eskimos usually pursue them with dogs and
having surrounded them, kill them with spears and harpoons, while they
fight the dogs. In the water the Polar Bear is generally able to escape
by swimming and diving and often it happens that by his strength and
quickness he overturns boats and mangles the occupants before they can
be rescued. The skin and fat of the Polar Bear are more valued by the
natives of the north than his flesh, which is both fibrous and strong in
flavor. The members of various arctic expeditions have been glad to eat
it, however, Dr. Kane in particular, having had his life and that of his
comrades preserved for some time by the meat from the carcass of a great
bear, which fell into a trap baited simply with an old and greasy
stocking. Whenever possible his men shot the bears on the ice, and many
pathetic scenes were witnessed by them when the mothers of cubs were
killed or when the cubs being slain, their mother refused to leave their
bodies, even when wounded. So great is the affection of these bears for
each other that when one of a pair is killed the mate remains by the
body, fondling and caressing it and trying to tempt it by food and
endearments to rise again.
It has always been very difficult to keep Polar Bears in confinement, on
account of the heat and lack of swimming facilities. The great bears at
Bronx Park in New York City are probably the happiest in captivity; with
a great pool to swim in, rocks to climb and a deep cave down into the
cool heart of a granite rock, where they can always retire and go into
cold storage. Their happiness is largely due to the ingenuity and
kindliness of William T. Hornaday, the director, who probably
understands better what an animal wants than any man in America. But
after he had provided everything that a well-regulated bear might
desire, he was distressed to see his pets idle and sulking, taking no
exercise and declining to utilize any of the facilities except the cold
storage department. It was at this crisis that Mr. Hornaday heard from
some whalers that in the arctic lands Polar Bears had been seen to play
with small boulders by the hour. At once he gave his pets a small
boulder and immediately all changed. They pushed, they fought and
struggled, rolled the stone up hill and down hill, threw it into the
pool and dived for it—and have been happy ever since. They had been like
children in a fine house, but with nothing to play with.
Dane Coolidge.
O, beautiful world of gold!
When waving grain is ripe,
And apples beam
Through the hazy gleam,
And quails on the fence rails pipe;
With pattering nuts and winds,—why then,
How swiftly falls the white again!
—G. Cooper, “’Round the Year.”