Those living before the era of modern investigation knew little of the functions of the various parts of flowers. We find an excellent illustration of this ignorance in the following peculiar account of a South American lady's slipper, written by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, father of Dr. Charles Darwin, in the latter part of the last century. In his notes on his poem, "The Economy of Vegetation," he says: "It has a large globular nectary * * * of a fleshy color, and an incision or depression much resembling the body of the large American spider * * * attached to divergent slender petals not unlike the legs of the same spider." He says that Linnæus claims this spider catches small birds as well as insects, and adds: "The similitude of this flower to this great spider seems to be a vegetable contrivance to prevent the humming-bird from plundering its honey." [Illustration: A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. LADY'S SLIPPER. COPYRIGHT 1899, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.] JIM AND I. BY ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE. Wouldn't the little readers of BIRDS AND ALL NATURE enjoy a talk with a mother-bird? The father-bird, it seems to me, has done all the talking hitherto. Because he is handsome and can sing is no reason why Jim, my mate, should write up the history of his family. It would have been a sorry attempt had he tried, I promise you, for though he is a Hartz Mountain Canary--pure yellow and white like the lower bird in the picture--he is not at all clever. My mistress says I have more sense in one of my little toes than Jim has in his whole body. "You cute little thing," she exclaims when I kiss her, or take a hemp seed from off her finger, "you are the dearest and wisest little bird in the world." Jim sometimes taunts me because I wear such sober colors--black and brown with green and yellow mixed--like the upper bird in the picture--but I retort that I am a Hartz Mountain bird, also, and have just as good German blood in my veins as he has. Neither of us ever saw the Hartz Mountains, of course, for we were born in Chicago, but our great grandmothers did, I am sure. A good husband? No, I can't say that Jim is. He is too quarrelsome. My mistress says he is a bully, whatever that may mean. He has a fashion of standing by the seed cup and daring me to come and pick up a seed; the same with the drinking-water and the bathing-dish. Then again he is very gracious, and calls me pet names, and sings at the top of his voice every love song he knows. Sometimes I try to imitate him, when he flies into a rage and sharply bids me "shut up." I am too meek to return the compliment, even when I have grown weary of his music, but my mistress shakes her finger at him and calls him a "naughty, naughty bird."