Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/268

 To avoid this men who work in the mines have found that a snake will not go near this oktea, and they have built closely knit fences around their tents, with little gates to go in and out, and beyond this the rattler will not penetrate. It was first the Indians of the desert who discovered this deadly shrub, and they got the secret from birds and animals, which, to protect their young, travel sometimes many miles back and forth, bringing the thorns with which to cover their little nests. Gophers and other small animals there cover their nests in this manner.—Los Angeles Times

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FERTILITY

These lines are by Edward Rowland Sill:

Clear water on smooth rock Could give no foothold for a single flower, Or slenderest shaft of grain: The stone must crumble under storm and rain, The forests crash beneath the whirlwind's power, And broken boughs from any a tempest-*shock, And fallen leaves from many a wintry hour, Must mingle in the mold, Before the harvest whitens on the plain, Bearing a hundredfold. Patience, O weary heart! Let all thy sparkling hours depart, And all thy hopes be withered with the frost, And every effort tempest-tossed— So when all life's green leaves Are fallen, and moldered underneath the sod, Thou shalt not go too lightly to thy God, But heavy with full sheaves. (Text.)

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FETISHISM

Miss F. M. Dennis writes from Ebu Owerri, a place about seventy miles southeast of Onitsha, North Africa:

It is a custom in this Ibo country when a child is born for the parents to go into the bush, cut a stick from a tree and plant it. When the child is old enough to walk and know anything it worships this young tree. All the Ibo people have them. But until the child comes to man's estate and has a household, this is the only idol he has.

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The negroes of the Gold and Slave Coasts, like every other people low in the stage of civilization, believe that inanimate, as well as animate, objects have souls or ghosts, a belief which is proved by the practise of burying arms, implements, utensils, etc., for the use of the dead in Dead-land, and there continues the former pursuit of the man, using the souls or ghosts of the weapons buried with him; but the negroes have gone beyond this, and just as they believe man to possess a third element, or indwelling spirit, so do they believe that every natural object, everything not made by human hands, has, in addition to its soul or ghost, a third element of spiritual individuality. They hold that just as, when the man dies, the kra of the man enters a new-born child, and the soul, or ghost-man, goes to Dead-land; so, when the tree dies, the kra, so to speak, of the tree enters a seedling, and the ghost-tree goes to join the ranks of the shadowy forest in Dead-land. And it is these animating or spiritual tenants of natural objects and natural features that the negro fears and consequently worships.—, The Popular Science Monthly.

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Fetters Worn for Others—See.

Fickleness in Work—See.

FIDELITY AMONG ANIMALS

Instances of almost human fidelity are common among deer. We have several times been witness of them. On one occasion we had wounded a good stag late in the evening; the herd broke away, leaving him alone. In a few minutes another fine stag, evidently his friend, detached himself from the herd and galloped back to where the first lay wounded in a burn (brook). It got so dark that we could only tell the where-*abouts of the wounded beast by seeing the other standing by his side. We crawled up to about a hundred yards of him, but still could not see the one we had shot. We stood up, expecting he would jump up and make a run for it, but he was too badly hit. Walking on, we at last saw his gray head in the heather, and a bullet finished him. Still the devoted friend kept close by and would not leave the spot. We had not the heart to shoot the poor beast after he had given proof of such wonderful fidelity, and at last