while the black-throated gray-warbler goes ahead and feeds her young in the presence of the photographer and his camera as if she knew they were of her own kind. And what can be more touching than the confiding actions of the young flickers that climb all over the arms and shoulders of Finley and Bohlman as they stand by the side of the old stump, one of them even nestling into Finley's neck to enjoy the warmth.

In the two full page portraits of the naturalists is revealed, better than can be done by any words, their secret of success. The tiny bushtits are safe and secure whether in hand or on cap. The mother feeds her young and they all enjoy that beautiful mutual trust and confidence which in itself is heaven. Surely "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" when the bird comes willingly, knowing that the hand is the hand of love and protection. We hail the day of such sportsmen and students as Finley and Bohlman, for it is the day foretold by the Hebrew prophet when "the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and the little child shall lead them."

"E

BACK TO THE SOIL

VERY farmer boy wants to be a school teacher, every school

teacher hopes to be an editor, every editor would like to be a banker, every banker would like to be a trust magnate, and every trust magnate hopes some day to own a farm and have chickens and cows and pigs and horses to look after. We end where we begin."

TURE: BY BERTHA H. SMITH

T the spring exhibition of the Society of American Artists a conspicuous place in the main salon was given to a life-size sculptured group designated in the catalogue, "Boy and Goat Playing." The group attracted much attention, and to some whose eyes ran across the page for the artist's name there was something of surprise in finding it the work of Anna Vaughn Hyatt and Abastenia St. Leger Eberle. It was not surprise that it should be the work of women. The world has long since ceased to be surprised that any accomplishment should be a woman's. Women have not only been admitted into that holy of holies, the world's work room, but they have entered as high priests with every sacred right there, and much expected of them in their service. The surprise was to find it the joint work of two sculptors. Collaboration in sculpture is not so usual a thing but that it still has a unique interest. In the case of these two young women, the arrangement is a distinct departure from every precedent, their purpose being to work together in the future on animal and figure groups. The first announcement of this purpose was a group called "Men and Bull," exhibited last year at the St. Louis Exposition and awarded a bronze medal. This success with their first group encouraged them to begin at once on another which they had been working out in thought for a year. This by close work they succeeded in completing just in time for them to accept an invitation to exhibit at New York's biggest annual exhibition. The attention attracted by this group foretells a favorable reception for other pieces which may follow.

The career of these two sculptors, now at the beginning, shows many points of similarity. They are two of the few American artists who have not deemed it necessary to go abroad to study. Both have firmly resolved to see if America cannot develop artists without the aid of foreign schools. Art students are wont to go to Europe for "atmosphere," to study what others have done, to try to learn to feel and think as others have felt and thought. By doing this many young men and women of promise have so devitalized themselves that they cannot work save under the spell of that "atmosphere," and so debauched their minds that they cannot think new thoughts for themselves. Too often the result has been a capitulation, with the indi

vidual self as the forfeit. If they had stayed at home and fought the good fight alone, with only the elementary instruction which is a necessary foundation to accomplishment of any kind, battled it out with the great strong tide of their own art impulses, they might have come forth with a masterliness their own and not the mere echo of some other's. This determination to be purely an American product is one of the many points of similarity in the convergent lines along which the course of these two lives have been laid.. With so much of unity of thought and purpose, it is but natural that they should come together and work out their common thoughts and purposes.

I

N the beginning Miss Hyatt had thought to devote her time and talents to a musical career. She chose the violin and for a number of years gave herself to it with all the fervor of her artistic nature. But the many hours of daily practise began to tell on a constitution not over-strong, and an attack of nervous prostration put the violin in its case, where all unexpectedly it was doomed to stay. In the days of convalescence Miss Hyatt found recreation in trying her hand with the modeling clay with which she had always idly amused herself under a sculptor sister's tuition. The result was the life-size model of a Great Dane, which was accepted for exhibition by one of the national art societies, and afterwards sold.

Perhaps it was this encouragement that changed Miss Hyatt's career... Perhaps it was that she discovered that in sculpture her artistic nature found ampler expression than in music. However or whyever it happened, she definitely chose sculpture for her life work. For a short time she studied with Henry Hudson Kitson of Boston, and later spent a few months at the Art Students' League, New York. But for the most part she has worked alone. She felt she must be free, and one cannot be free who works always by the ideas of others.

More than naturally, inevitably, she made her studies from animals. Always she has been passionately fond of animals, from the baby days when she stuck her tiny fist in the mouth of the great St. Bernard to see what he would do, and beat him with the same tiny fist because he did nothing but stand still with his mouth open, as though laughing at her. When she was big enough to run away from her nurse or mother, her favorite play place was the stall of the fam