The weaver chooses a spot under the shade of a large tree, digs a hole in the dirt for his legs and the lower part of the "geer" and fastens his balances to some convenient bough overhead. His exceedingly fine threads will not work well except in such a shady spot and early in the morning, when there is just the right amount of moisture in the tropical air. There is no line of hand work in which there is such a contrast to-day as in the business of making cotton goods. Machinery has vastly outstripped the hand in quantity of product and accuracy, yet the old ways prevail in the manipulation of the very finest of web. Although Whitney's saw gin made a revolution in the industry, yet the long and delicate fibers of sea-island cotton are separated from the seed in the old way of passing seed cotton between two rollers which are going in different directions. The smooth seeds of this cotton pop away from the fiber quite readily without breaking it. If it were pulled through Whitney's gin there would be more or less tearing and breaking. So the great invention does not apply to cleaning the very finest material. The short wool fibers of common cotton are not so much hurt by the saw teeth and the amount of work done by the gin makes this damage of no account. At the Atlanta Cotton Exposition in 1882 the old and the new were strikingly contrasted. The mountain people of the South, in many instances, live after the old fashions of colonial times. They make homespun cloth which is a revelation to us. Some of these people were induced to show their work at the exposition, and they were as much astonished at the apparel of their visitors who gazed upon them and their strange labor as were the visitors at the work and manners of the mountaineers. Two carders operated hand cards, two spinsters ran the spinning-wheels and one weaver made cloth upon a hand loom. In ten hours these five people made eight yards of very coarse cloth. [Illustration: CINNAMON TEAL. 1/2 Life-size. FROM COL. F. KAEMPFER. A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.] THE CINNAMON TEAL. (_Anas cyanoptera._)