File:Birds and nature (1899) (14565138420).jpg

Identifier: birdsnature511899chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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d of the arts of life. This was a favorite subject with theartists from the earliest times as oldvase paintings bear witness. But thefamous representation was that in theeast pediment of the Parthenon, thework of Phidias. Only fragments ofthis remain to-day. The central groupis entirely lost except for the torsoof one god, supposed by some tobe Hephaestus, but more probably itis that of Prometheus. So the frag-ments are of the side groups and notso helpful in recalling the original, butstill conjectures and reproductions havebeen innumerable. In Madrid a Roman puteal has beenfound which is believed to present thecentral group of the east pediment.Upon this Zeus is seated, before himAthenaflees away. Victory flies afterherto place a crown upon her head and be-hind Zeus Prometheus with the ax inhishand draws back in fright and turnsaway. This group of Phidias was, ofcourse, the culmination of this story inart. The later representations are fewand supposed) to be merely copies ofthis. 32
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THE WHIPPOORWILL. WHAT farm boy has not heardthis birdless voice echoing fromthe ghostly shades of thethicket close at hand, or scarcely audi-ble in the distance? Perhaps you haveheard it as you have passed betweenthe wood and the hill over there, com-ing clear from the wood but reechoingfrom the hill only the shrill last sylla-ble. Farther away on the distant hill-top you may have taken this last sylla-ble for the piping of the salamander.The whippoorwill song belongs withthe early May moonlit balmy nights,before the blossoms have lost their bestperfume and before farm work has be-come a mere drudgery. It vividly recalls the merry May-basketing frolics, apparently so neces-sary to existence on the farm; the freshgreen fields and woodland blossoms;the planting season with all its hiddenpromises. There is, in the warble ofthe bluebird, glad promise of returningspring; and in the animated whistle ofthe phcebe reiteration of the earlierpromise; but the whippoorwill tells ofthat delightfu

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