general's, and then went in the evening to dine. As it was dark, I could not see the boat from the outside, but the minute I boarded her I thought, "How familiar this yacht looks! I am sure it is our old yacht, the Norseman." And it was! The French Government bought her from Lord L; they changed her name to Albatross.

The next morning M-- and I were up bright and early, and off to camp to arrange the tents before the others came on the following day. The sky and sea were so blue that it was hard to tell one from the other; the birds were singing, and the fields were filled with daisies, poppies, wild carrots, and all sorts of wild flowers. Up on the top of the highest hill were dotted white tents. These hills are glorious, covered with flowers, and so green. A little distance from the camp, our tents were waiting for us. Naturally, there was great excitement among the poilus and officers. M— and I started in at once, and by night had the beds up and things started. Such fun! After a few days, Mand K- were sent to Adana, and I was left with the three maids.

While they were gone, I worked like a dog to have everything arranged before M returned. I wish you could see the officers' room, and the sous-officiers'. I made them really attractive. I went down to Alexandretta, found some one who could speak Arabic, and spent my day in the native part of the town. I found some black panels covered with flowers, and bought enough to panel the sides of the tents; found mats, such as we had in China, bought big drinking jars and long pillows, and got enough blue to cover the divans and make a curtain for the entrance of the tent. Then back to camp, and next day how I worked! I had the tables and benches painted black, and also the jars. When the panels were up, and the divans covered with the yellow and blue and filled with cushions, I had the room filled with flowers and the jars filled with branches of genet, the writing tables made ready, and books and papers provided. The sous room was the same, except that the covering was blue and white.

It would have made you weep to see the gratitude of the officers and men at the little touch of home. Mand were delighted. It has made the Foyer celebrated, everyone in Beyrout knows of it.

K

and

Every night, from the first, I was out with my poilus,

having a concert under the moon and stars, and giving them cigarettes. You should have heard them sing. My poilus are having a barrack built, and if I cannot find a piano, General Gouraud will send me his. Every afternoon we had tea for the officers at five; at six, coffee for the poilus. I can tell you, they are happy. M- has started a remarkable work; one cannot realize, unless one is here to see, how necessary it is to introduce a little joy into the lives of these dear poilus and officers, so far away from their homes and loved ones, and in a country where there is nothing to amuse them, and where it is impossible to get any creature comforts. The General gave them a cinema and phonograph, and we keep them gay. We have no fruits and few vegetables; the natives are too lazy to grow them. I have a little flower garden in front of the officers' tent; if I were staying, I should plant vegetables, for the earth is so rich that anything will grow. I fancy the French will do so, as soon as things are more settled. The brigands are everywhere in the hills; every night they have their signals, and it takes me back to the Western Hills after the siege, among the brigands, with an American guard. I long to walk in the hills, but no one is allowed. Their homes are the color of the soil and cannot be seen, but they see you easily, and you never come back. I have a guard of spahis on one hill near the tent, and one of poilus on a hill quite a little distance off. We have trenches all around which were dug by the Turks, and jolly good ones.

We sent a lot of our men to take a town about fifty kilometers from here. I was so sad to see them marching away, boys of nineteen and twenty, and after five years of war. It is terrible. Thank God they are back, only one killed; and they took the town. We have the Senegalese troops also, and spahis. The spahis are a picture in their red capes, white turbans and brown, with their dark faces beneath, and framed by the glorious country. When coffee and cigarette-time arrives, they come like masses of black clouds. As they all look alike to me, they get more than their share of cigarettes. They stick out first one black hand and then the other, and as the spahis never touch pinard, I give them lemonade.

Now I must tell you the tragedy. Night before last we had almost a cyclone. At twelve o'clock the maids and I had to fly to the house of the Pigeons Voyageurs for

safety. All the tents were blown down, also the poilus', and the officers' papers were blown to sea. Well, I just damned that vile wind and thought, "Build not treasures on this uncertain planet." Also, I almost wept; so did all of us. Never mind! In two days I shall have them up again and in order. The Captain of the Senegalese gave me a squad of his soldiers to help me unearth the wreck. In a short time all was brought here in my poilus' barracks, where I am until the tents are up again. I felt like the refugees, seeing my belongings being carried in. The captain in charge of the camp came while the Senegalese were working. They are wonderful. In one of the battles, their captain told me, his sergeant stood always in front of him. He ordered him to "Go behind!" but the Sergeant answered, "No, my captain, for if a ball comes, it kills me and not you." He also said to me, "Never be afraid, madame, if the brigands come, we shall save you." One of them had a big knife in his belt. I asked him what he did with it. He answered, "Brigands say no like Frenchee. I kill one, two, three. They are splendid, ink-black men, straight as arrows, and powerful. I know them well, as I cared for many in the hospital.

I shall have a picture taken of the camp and of my soldiers, and shall send it to you. You should see me with the pigeons! I feed them twice a day. They are on my head, arms, and shoulders. As this is called my camp I can do anything I want. I hope M-- won't return till I am all in order again. If she sees the tents gone she will think the brigands have taken me. We are to have three generals, and, in a few days, fifteen thousand troops. They will be spread all around this part of the country. It is so interesting, and, as I said, a splendid work.

I shall have to stay here until M-- finds some one to take my place. After all is organized, it will not be difficult. When I say that I am going, you should hear them! The General says he will have me chained.

A SHEAF OF NATURE NOTES

BY JOHN BURROUGHS

I

NATURE'S WIRELESS

THE Spirit of the Hive, which Maeterlinck makes so much of, seems to give us the key to the psychic life of all the lower orders. What one knows, all of that kind seem to know at the same instant. It seems as if they draw it in with the air they breathe. It is something like community of mind, or unity of mind. Of course it is not an intellectual process, but an emotional process; not a thought, as with us, but an impulse.

So far as we know there is nothing like a council or advisory board in the hive. There are no decrees or orders. The swarm is a unit. The members act in concert without direction or rule. If anything happens to the queen, if she is lost or killed, every bee in the hive seems to know it at the same instant, and the whole swarm becomes greatly agitated. The division of labor in the hive is spontaneous, the bees function and coöperate as do the organs in our own bodies, each playing its part without scheme or direction.

This community of mind is seen in such an instance as that of the migrating lemmings from the Scandinavian peninsula. Vast hordes of these little creatures are at times seized with an impulse to migrate or to commit suicide, for it amounts to that. They leave their habitat in Norway and without being deflected by any obstacle, march straight towards the sea, swimming lakes and rivers that lie in their way. When the coast is reached, they enter the water and continue on their course. Ship captains

report sailing for hours through waters literally alive with them. This suicidal act of the lemmings strikes one as a kind of insanity. It is one of the most puzzling phenomena I know of in animal life. But the migration of all animals on a large scale shows the same unity of purpose. The whole tribe shares in a single impulse. The animal migration of the caribou in the North is an illustration. In the flocking birds this unity of mind is especially noticeable. The vast armies of passenger pigeons which we of an older generation saw in our youth, moved like human armies under orders. They formed a unit. They came in countless hordes like an army of invasion, and they departed in the same way. Their orders were written upon the air; their leaders were as intangible as the shadows of their wings. The same is true of all our flocking birds; a flock of snow buntings, or of starlings, or of blackbirds, will act as one body, performing their evolutions in the air with astonishing precision.

In Florida, in the spring when the mating instinct is strong, I have seen a flock of white curlews waltzing about the sky, going through various intricate movements, with the precision of dancers in a ball-room quadrille. No sign, no signal, no guidance whatever. Let a body of men try it under the same conditions, and behold the confusion, and the tumbling over one another! At one moment the birds would wheel so as to bring their backs in shadow, and then would flash out the white of their breasts and under parts. It was like the opening and shutting of a giant hand, or the alternate rapid darkening and brightening of the sail of a tacking ice-boat. This is the spirit of the flock. When a hawk pursues a bird, the birds tack and turn as if linked together. When one robin dashes off in hot pursuit of another, behold how their movements exactly coincide! The hawk-hunted bird often escapes by reaching the cover of a tree or a bush, but not by dodging its pursuer, as a rabbit or a squirrel will dodge a dog. Schools of fish act with the same machine-like unity.

In the South I have seen a large area of water, acres in extent, uniformly agitated by a school of mullets apparently feeding upon some infusoria on the surface, and then instantly, as if upon a given signal, the fish would dive and the rippling cease. It showed a unity of action as of ten thousand spindles controlled by electricity.