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 Mother Nature's children / 
 
 3 1924 001 176 720 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924001176720 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S 
 CHILDREN 
 
 BY 
 
 ALLEN WALTON GOULD 
 
 GINN & COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON • NEW YORK ■ CHICAGO • LONDON 
 
Copyright, 1900, by 
 ALLEN WALTON GOULD 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 37.5 
 
 Cbe atbenceum grtfifi 
 
 (".INN Si COMPANY • PRO- 
 PRIETORS • B-OSTUN ■ U.S. A 
 
©ebicatcb to 
 
 jlp little Daughter 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This book aims to help the young to see the spirit rather than 
 the form of nature. It traces the love and care and mutual depend- 
 ence of living things from human beings down to plants. And 
 while it is set in an imaginative framework, no facts are stated and 
 no illustrations used save on good scientific authority. Recognizing 
 the power of pictures to reach the child, such subjects are treated 
 as can be illustrated. Each chapter opens with a picture by 
 some artist of acknowledged ability and contains other interesting 
 pictures bearing directly on the text. 
 
 In using the book in the schoolroom it might be well to have 
 the children look at the pictures and tell what they see before the 
 descriptions are read. They will thus learn to observe and to think 
 for themselves as well as to express themselves. The pictures and 
 descriptions can be made more real by bringing into the class-room 
 some specimen of the plant or animal or nest or other object that 
 is described. 
 
 But in dwelling on these material facts of nature, we must be 
 careful not to let them obscure the truth we wish to teach, or 
 bewilder the child by their multiplicity. We must remember that 
 it is not the formal part of nature, but the spiritual part we wish 
 to teach through the forms. "We must try to give the children no 
 more of body than shows soul, as Browning says of painting. 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 Our purpose is to teach only the actual facts about nature. But 
 as every fact is a fairy tale in the mind of the child, these facts 
 will " take form and limb " in a way that would make them untrue 
 for us. They may seem childish to us, but we must remember that 
 all conceptions are necessarily childish when really imaged by 
 children. That is the only way the truth can be held by tire child. 
 If we impress upon the child the love and faithfulness of nature, 
 and also the way in which nature requires effort and desert, we can 
 safely leave the reconciliation of those ideas to the later years of 
 the pupil. 
 
 Heartfelt thanks are due to many friends, on both sides of the 
 water, who have helped with suggestions and criticisms and encour- 
 agement in this effort to put the everlasting gospel of nature in 
 such a form that even the children may read and understand it. 
 If this result is achieved, surely we shall all feel that we have our 
 
 exceeding great reward. 
 
 ALLEN WALTON GOULD. 
 
 Chicago Institute. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. How the Birds Cradle their Babies 1 
 
 II. How Mammals, Spiders, and Fish Cradle their Babies 9 
 
 III. How Babies are Cradled in Clay and Wood ... 17 
 
 IV. How the Plants Cradle their Babies 25 
 
 V. How the Plants Tend their Babies 33 
 
 VI. How Mammals Tend their Babies 41 
 
 VII. How Fish, Reptiles, and Spiders Tend their Babies 40 
 
 VIII. How Mother Nature Sets the Table eor Birds . . 57 
 
 IX. How Mother Nature Sets the Table eor Reptiles, 
 
 Fish, and Spiders 65 
 
 X. How Mother Nature Sets the Table for the Insects 73 
 
 XI. How Mother Nature Sets the Table for Plants . 81 
 
 XII. How Mother Nature Clothes the Birds 80 
 
 XIII. How Mother Nature Clothes the Mammals ... 07 
 
 XIV. How Mother Nature Clothes the Mollusks . . . 105 
 XV. How Mother Nature Clothes the Plants . . . .113 
 
 XVI. How Seeds Learn to Fly 121 
 
 XVII. How Reptiles and Mammals Learn to Fi.y .... 120 
 
 XVIII. How Birds Learn- to Fly 137 
 
 XIX. Helping Each Other in the Early Family .... 145 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll 
 
 Contents. 
 
 ( IIATTKU I'AOE 
 
 XX. Helping Hath Other in the Sister Family . . . 153 
 
 XXI. Helping Each Other in Flocks and Herds . . . 161 
 
 XXII. How Human Beings Help Each Other 169 
 
 XXIII. How Men and Birds Lav up Food 177 
 
 XXIV. How the Rodents Lay up Food 185 
 
 XXV. J I < >w the Insects Lay up Food 103 
 
 XXVI. How the Plants Lay up Food 201 
 
 XXYII. Borrowing Strength from Others 209 
 
 XXVIII. Borrowing Clothing from Others 217 
 
 XXIX. Borrowing Food from Others 225 
 
 XXX. Sleeping and Waking Daily' 233 
 
 XXXI. .Sleeping and Waking Yearly 241 
 
 XXXII. Sleeping and Waking for a Lifetime 249 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S CHILDREN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOW THE BIRDS CRADLE THEIR BABIES. 
 
 That baby in the picture ought to be a happy little child. 
 She has been playing with the pet lamb that you see lying in 
 front of the cradle, and with the dog who is rubbing his head 
 against the cradle to show how much he loves his little play- 
 mate. And she had such fun watching that mother hen feed 
 
 1 
 
2 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 her three cunning little chickens. But when she grew tired of 
 play and wanted to sleep, she did not have to lie down on the 
 hard ground. She found a cradle ready for her. Where do 
 you suppose she got that little rocking cot, with a soft lied in 
 it to lie on and a cover at the head to keep the wind and light 
 from her while she slept? Of course she could not have made 
 it herself. Some one else must have made it for her. I think 
 it was her father who made it for her, or got some one else to 
 make it. And it must have been her mother who made the 
 soft bedding for the baby. You can see the father and mother 
 both looking so lovingly at their sleeping baby. But why do 
 you suppose they took the trouble to make such a cradle for 
 the child? They cannot speak in the picture, hut I think 
 if they could speak they would tell you that they did it 
 because they loved her. If you ask your own father and 
 mother why they made your little bed for you, I am sure 
 they will say it was because of love for you. 
 
 But birds, and other creatures too, all make cradles for their 
 young, and even the plants cradle their babies in beautiful 
 flowers. They cannot tell us in words why they do it, any 
 more than the parents in the picture can ; but we cannot help 
 thinking that it is because of their love for their little ones. 
 The same Great Love seems to be in us all, — in man and birds 
 and insects and plants, — coaxing us to make cradles for the 
 children because we love them. 
 
 Here is the cradle the humming-bird makes for her baby 
 (Fig. 2). You see it is no bigger than half an egg-shell, and 
 the one in the picture lias two eggs in it about the size of peas. 
 It was made by those two beautiful birds that sit on the rose- 
 bush beside it. Mr. Humming-bird and his little wife live in 
 Mexico and build their nests in the gardens there. . How do 
 
How the Birds Cradle their Babies. 
 
 you suppose they manage to make such a dainty little cradle 
 for their tiny habies? 
 
 If you and I could steal softly to their rosebush when they 
 were at work, we should see first one bird and then the other 
 come with a mouthful of spider's webs mixed with the downy 
 fibres that grow on seeds like the soft white threads that float 
 the dandelion seeds. Each bird would put the down on the 
 bush where the nest was to . - v, g^, 
 be, and would tie it fast to tjn ^$CV'fe 
 the branch by winding the v/flf^l^ 
 spider's web about it. 
 
 Soon the mother bird would 
 seat herself on the pile of fi- 
 bres, and by turning round and round 
 on it she would press it and round it 
 into the circular bottom of a little 
 nest. Then the husband would bring 
 her more downy fibres and spider's webs 
 as fast as he could find them, and she 
 would work them into the side of the 
 nest in the same way. But the white 
 down of the nest could be seen a long 
 way off, so that you could find the nest 
 easily if the down were left uncovered. So the wise little 
 birds gather bits of gray lichen or thin moss, such as you find 
 on the tree trunks or rocks, and put them all over the outside 
 of the nest, and make it look just the same color as the bush 
 on which it rests, to hide it from us. In a week they finish 
 their work, and then in a day or two you would find two little 
 eggs, and a couple weeks later you would see two of the tiniest 
 little birdies you ever saw 
 
 Fig. 2. — The Humming- 
 bird's Cradle. 
 
Mother Natures Children. 
 
 The next picture (Fig. 3) shows you the oriole's nest. It 
 looks like a bag, and it is really a bag ; but it has one great 
 advantage, — the babies cannot fall out of it. I suppose that is 
 what Mr. and Mrs. Oriole thought when they decided to make 
 such a nest as the one in the picture, for it is exactly like a 
 
 bag with the three corners 
 fastened to the branches of 
 the tree. Their dear little 
 babies will be safe enough 
 in it. But how could birds 
 weave such a nest as this? 
 Perhaps you have seen the 
 oriole picking up strings and 
 long grasses about the or- 
 
 chards or lawns in the spring 
 and flying away with them. 
 He takes one of the longest 
 and strongest and winds one 
 end of it around a branch of 
 the tree he has chosen for his 
 nursery. Then he winds the 
 other end of the strand about another branch close by, leaving 
 a loop hanging down as long as he wishes the nest to lie. 
 
 Then his mate brings another strand and makes a loop with 
 it, just as Mr. Oriole did with his, so that two loops are now 
 hanging down. They do this again and again, till they think 
 they have loops enough for their bag. Then they begin to 
 weave in between the strands finer material, like down or tow. 
 Usually one of the birds stays inside, weaving and picking and 
 pressing the down and tow into shape, wdiile the other brings 
 it from the fields or forest. 
 
 Fio. 3. — The Oriole's Nest. 
 
lino the Jlircls (JraOLle their Babies. 5 
 
 As you may imagine, they are very glad to get anything that 
 they can use in making this cradle. One nest was made almost 
 entirely of tow furnished by a man who loved birds, and the 
 oriole was so delighted to have such a gift that he would burst 
 into song with his mouth full of tow. He could not wait to 
 express his thanks till he came back for more. But they do 
 not always wait for people to give them the strings they want. 
 One eager pair were making their nest not far from a house 
 where a woman sat sewing by an open window. She left the 
 room for a moment, and when she came back she could not find 
 the measuring tape or the skein of silk she had been using. 
 The birds had flown into the window and carried them off and 
 woven them into their nest. 
 
 I will tell you the story of something that befell a Mrs. 
 Oriole who did this. She and husband were a very happy pair. 
 They had first met each other in an orchard in the beautiful 
 month of May. Two or three gaily colored songsters of the 
 Oriole family had been trying to win this young lady bird as 
 their wife. Each one of them had sung his sweetest to her and 
 looked his finest and behaved his best, in order to persuade her 
 to choose him. But when she saw Mr. Oriole and heard him 
 sing to her, she fell in love with him at once. And when she 
 had chosen him, you should have seen how fond he was of her, 
 — singing to her, bringing her the daintiest bits of food he 
 could find, talking to her in the sweetest little ripple of coo- 
 ings, and doing everything he could for her. 
 
 After a day or two they went house-hunting for a tree to 
 hang their cradle in. They flew from one tree to another for 
 several days, till at last they found a graceful elm where there 
 were two drooping branches close together and high up out of 
 the reach of cats and bad boys. Then they set to work at once 
 

 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 weaving their little cradle. Early in the morning, tefore yon 
 and I were awake, they were flying over the fields and through 
 the forests to find the bits of fibre they needed. 
 
 They had been working for four days early and late, and in 
 a day or two more they would have finished the nest, when 
 Mrs. Oriole happened to spy a skein of thread hanging by an 
 open window. She thought that this would be just what she 
 wanted and would save her many a long search. So she darted 
 into the window, caught the thread in her mouth, and flew 
 quickly to the nest. There she found her husband hard at 
 
 work weaving in a horsehair 
 he had found in a pasture. He 
 was delighted with the thread, 
 and they both set to work to 
 weave it in and out through 
 
 o 
 
 the sides of the nest. 
 
 But it was so long- that it 
 got into a snarl, and as they 
 were trying to straighten it 
 out Mrs. Oriole somehow got 
 both her tiny feet caught in 
 one of the knots. Her hus- 
 band tried his best to help 
 her and picked at the knot, 
 but he could not untie it. 
 lie could only moan with her, 
 and she would have lost her life if some kind man had not 
 happened to hear them and cut the string for them. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Titmouse make a cradle that is safer even than 
 the bag of the Orioles ; for these ingenious little birds have 
 covered the nest all over at the top and made a round passage- 
 
 Fig. 4. — The Titmouse's Nest. 
 
rnjiv one £>%tws K/Tutius inetr 
 
 Bald 
 
 way at the side, like the neck of a bottle or flask, tipped to 
 one side, as you see in the picture (Fig. 4). These bright 
 little cradlemakers are foreign relatives of our own Chickadees. 
 They live in Europe, and are called Titmice, because they arc 
 so small. But small as they 
 
 are, they have found out how 
 to make a nest that keeps the 
 sun and wind and rain from 
 the babies they love so well. 
 
 But the Weaver birds of 
 Africa have made something 
 still better. They have hung 
 their nests (Fig. 5) upside 
 down, with the entrance at 
 the very bottom, like a decan- 
 ter wrong side up. They have 
 a safe little cot for their babies 
 at the large part of the nest, 
 with a high side to keep them 
 from falling out. When they 
 build their hanging nests, one of the birds stays inside and the 
 other outside. The outside bird pushes a strip of grass through 
 the strands, and the bird within pushes it back in another place ; 
 and so they weave the strip out and in till their baby's cradle 
 is finished. They only stop now and then for a frolic, chasing 
 each other merrily through the trees with many a gentle twitter 
 and loving caress. 
 
 They like play as much as you do. But these loving pairs 
 never quarrel. Each seems to think that the other is just right. 
 The nearest approach to a quarrel that I have heard of in Bird- 
 land was where one bird refused to bring any more stuff to 
 
 Fig. 5. — The African Weaver's Nest. 
 
8 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 weave into the nest till his little mate had taken a romp with 
 him. He even picked at the nest roguishly, as if he would 
 tear it down. His mate came out of the nest and gave him a 
 little love-pat with her bill, and then darted off through the 
 trees for just a minute's sport with him. At the end of the 
 minute they were back at work as hard as ever, making a 
 cradle for their dear little babies. 
 
 He prayeth well who loveth well 
 
 Both man and bird and beast; 
 He prayeth Lest who loveth best 
 
 All things both great and small ; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 
 He made and loveth all. — Coleridge. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 The spirit and method under which these chapters can be made to accomplish 
 their purpose is indicated in the Preface. 
 
 The opening picture by Landseer is a lesson in itself, and may lead to acquaint- 
 ance with other animal pictures by this great artist, now readily obtainable in 
 convenient form for school use. 
 
 The following are appropriate topics for conversational and language exercises 
 in connection with this and the three following chapters, which are intended to 
 cover a month of time and bear upon a single branch of the book : — 
 
 How nests are made ; wdry birds build in trees rather than on the ground ; 
 why more often on tips of branches than close to the trunk ; why with open- 
 ings below in the land of monkeys ; why some have their nests over water ; 
 why such as have strong feet for walking or swimming do not need finely woven 
 nests ; why the birds that have strong beaks for fighting do not make fine nests, 
 and other questions to make children see the wisdom as well as the love of birds. 
 
 A collection of abandoned nests will add greatly to the profit and interest 
 of the reading. 
 
 Books useful for consultation will be named from time to time and a list 
 furnished in the Appendix. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW MICE AND SQUIRRELS, FISH AND SPIDERS, CRADLE 
 THEIR BABIES. 
 
 Here is a happy little family, and they have a cradle large 
 enough for them all to snuggle into at night, if they pack 
 themselves very close 
 together. How do 
 you suppose they 
 managed to make 
 this tiny cradle ? I 
 do not think you ever 
 saw them building a 
 nest, because they are 
 so very shy and put 
 their cradle so deep 
 in the forest and so 
 high on the tree. But 
 an Englishman once 
 got near enough to 
 watch them, by wear- 
 ing clothes the color 
 of the forest and lying 
 perfectly still on the 
 ground, so that they could neither see nor hear him. And 
 he tells us how the squirrels do it. 
 
 In the first place, Mr. Squirrel had to get himself a wife, — 
 
 9 
 
10 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 and that was no easy task. There were a dozen other young 
 squirrels who wanted to marry this same Miss Squirrel, and so 
 he had to show himself stronger and braver than all the rest of 
 them before he could persuade her that he was the best. Even 
 then she led him a merry dance through the trees. She ran to 
 the very top of the tallest tree, keeping on the other side of 
 the trunk from him and peeping mischievously around it now 
 and then at him with her bright eyes. 
 
 And when he thought he had caught her at the top, she 
 dodged him and scampered gaily down to the lowest branch. 
 When she reached that, she jumped lightly to the ground and 
 was up another tree and out of sight in a second. He raced 
 after her but could not see her or hear her anywhere. Then 
 he stopped and peered into the branches and tipped his pretty 
 little head over on one side as if he were listening with all his 
 might. In a minute or two he heard the faintest little foot- 
 falls, and away he was after her again. 
 
 So they played hide and seek through the forest till she let 
 him catch up with her at last, and then they came scampering 
 back again, leaping lightly from one tree to another. After 
 while they began to think of a cradle for the little ones, though 
 they kept up their merry sport whenever they were not at work 
 building the nest. 
 
 The first thing they did was to find some large bird's nest of 
 last year to use as a floor for their cradle. Then they went 
 down to the ground and gathered ever so many mouthfuls of 
 dead grass or flower stalks, nibbling them off close to the lower 
 end. When they had brought up enough, they put on a 
 rounded top and wove in the twigs and grass and stalks so 
 close together that neither wind nor rain could get in to wet the 
 little babies when they came. Inside they put soft moss, while 
 
 a 
 
How Mice, Squirrels, Fish and Spiders, Cradle their Babies. 11 
 
 Mother Squirrel pulled out a lot of hair from her breast to 
 make the softest possible couch for her dear little babies. 
 
 And when the babies come she cares for them tenderly ; and 
 she will not desert them, either, if any danger threatens them. 
 She and her husband have two or three other nests besides this 
 softly lined cradle. If any bad boy climbs to this one, the papa 
 and mamma take their little ones in their mouths and carry 
 them off to another nest. But once, when the mother could not 
 carry off her babies, she staid in the nest, even when the tree was 
 cut down and came crashing to the ground, and she refused to 
 leave her little ones even when they were put in a cage. 
 
 Another time, when Mr. Audubon here in America took a 
 nest of baby flying squirrels home, their mother went with 
 them, and he put them all in a table drawer, leaving it open a 
 little crack. The next morning the mother was gone, but the 
 babies were there. He tried to feed them, but they would not 
 take anything, — yet they seemed to be growing larger every 
 day. After several days he felt sure that they must be getting 
 food somewhere, and so he thought he would watch them by 
 night as well as by day. He hid himself in the room, and as 
 soon as it began to grow dark the mother squirrel suddenly 
 peeped into the window. Finding no one in sight, she ran 
 softly over to her babies and nestled down to nurse them. 
 
 I suppose she felt something as your own mother would feel 
 if she had to go into a lion's den. But if her baby was in the 
 lion's den and crying to be fed, your mother would go, at the 
 risk of her life. And the little squirrel mother risked her life, 
 too, because she loved her children more than her life. 
 
 We have had babies in a bag and in a bottle, you remember, 
 and now we have them in a ball. And these are about the 
 tiniest babies there are among mammals. You see the papa 
 
12 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 and the mamma in the picture (Fig. 7). The mamma has found 
 .something to eat, — a fly, perhaps, — and she is sitting up on 
 the top of the nest and holding the hit of food in her hands 
 
 while she nibbles it. 
 I ler husband is climb- 
 ing up the stalks of 
 wheat and holding 
 himself fast by coil- 
 ing his tail about the 
 stem. They are the 
 tiny harvest mice of 
 Europe, and are only 
 two inches long, and 
 so light that it would 
 take a hundred of them 
 to weigh a pound. 
 
 But small and light 
 as they are, they make 
 a prettier nest for 
 their little ones than any other animal. They find a place 
 where ten or fifteen stalks of grain are standing close together, 
 and then they take the grass-like blades that grow on the grain 
 and draw them through their mouths with their teeth shut, and 
 so divide them into a lot of fine fibres. But they do not break 
 them from the stalks of wheat. They pull them together so that 
 the stems of wheat make the supports for the cradle. Then they 
 weave the strands of grass in and out, as you see in the picture, 
 making a perfect ball somewhat smaller than a tennis ball. 
 
 When it is finished the wheat goes on growing and the fibres 
 stay green for a long while, so that the nest looks just like the 
 rest of the grain and cannot easily be seen by any one. The 
 
 Fi< 
 
 7. — Nest of the Harvest Mouse. 
 
How Mice, Squirrels, Fish and Spiders, Cradle their Babies. 13 
 
 inside of the nest is soft and smooth, because the little parents 
 line it with the down of thistles and dandelions to make it 
 comfortable for the six or eight little babies that the small 
 mamma will soon be caring for. Those babies fill the nest so 
 full that Mrs. Mouse can hardly squeeze in to feed them. 
 Whenever she leaves them for a few moments she pulls the 
 strands of grass together over the entrance, so that you and I 
 would not be able to find any opening at all. 
 
 But the baby mice do not stay in their ball very long. When 
 they are two or three weeks old the papa and mamma help 
 them down the stalks to the ground and begin to teach them 
 how to make a living, — for a mouse has to make a living, you 
 know, as well as a man. They soon learn to climb and jump 
 and swim, and to find the little insects and seeds they eat, and 
 then they are able to start in life for themselves. 
 
 But if any one attempts to catch them while they are still in 
 the cradle, the little mother will try to run away with them all 
 in her arms at once, using her tail to hold them to her. Of 
 course she cannot run 
 very fast with such a 
 load as that ; but she 
 loves them so much 
 that she will allow 
 herself to be caught 
 rather than desert 
 them. 
 
 But little Mrs. 
 Harvest Mouse is not 
 the only mother who weaves a 
 Mrs. Spider makes a little bed of 
 and then weaves a silk ball around the bed 
 
 Fig. 8 
 
 Crowned Spider's Cocoon. 
 
 ball for her babies' cradle, 
 soft fluffy silk for her eggs, 
 
 The ball is soft 
 
1 f 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 s& 
 
 and yielding inside, but hard and smooth outside. You see 
 such a little ball full of spider babies in the picture (Fig. 8). 
 The mother has fastened her cradle to a leaf by spinning 
 threads all about it, and she has tied the edges of the leaf 
 together to make the nest still safer. Then she sits beside 
 it on a leaf to watch over it till the eggs are hatched and the 
 babies ready to come out. If you break off the leaf and throw 
 it to the ground, she will immediately raise it to some bush again 
 by spinning threads from the bush to it and then drawing it 
 
 up. If you tear a hole in it, she 
 will mend it with new silk, so as 
 to keep her babies safe. 
 
 In the other picture (Fig. 0) 
 the mother spider is so careful 
 of her ball of babies that she 
 even carries it around in her 
 arms and will not let go of it 
 for a moment. If you are cruel 
 enough to pull it away from her 
 by force, she is wild with anxiety till she finds it again, when she 
 hugs it tighter than ever, just as your mother would if she should 
 lose you and find you once more. 
 
 A Frenchman who was studjung spiders once threw a 
 
 mother and her ball of babies into the pit of an ant-lion, a 
 
 horrible creature who is fond of eating spider babies, and spider 
 mothers, too, whenever he can get them. The mother tried hard 
 to pull her little ones from the jaws of the monster, but all in 
 vain. Then the man who was watching her thought he would 
 save her life, and so drew her out of the pit, leaving her half- 
 devoured nest behind. But the moment lie let o-o his hold of 
 her she rushed back again and seized her nest, right in the 
 
 Hunting Spider's Cocoon. 
 
How Mice, Squirrels, Fish and Spiders, Cradle their Babies. 15 
 
 jaws of the ant-lion. She loved her babies even more than 
 her life. 
 
 Even the fish down in the water love their little ones well 
 enough to make cradles for them. They have no hands or feet, 
 — nothing but their mouths to work with, — yet they manage 
 to weave a comfortable little nest. In the pic- 
 ture (Fig. 10) you see two sticklebacks beside a 
 nest that has just been filled with eggs, after the \. ( if 
 papa had built it; for it is the 
 Papa Stickleback who does all 
 of the cradle-making. If you 
 could get close to the bank of a 
 brook without his noticing you, 
 you would see him rushing about 
 in search of stuff for his nest. 
 He gets a bit of weed in one 
 place and a tiny stick in another, 
 and tugs them along in his mouth 
 to the place he has chosen. There 
 he puts them down, one after an- 
 other, laying them close together. 
 
 If a stick will not fit one way, 
 be pulls it out and puts it in 
 another way ; or if it is too 
 crooked or too light, he carries it off to a distance and drops it, 
 and gets another, straighter or heavier, in its place. He tries 
 the weight of the sticks by letting them drop. If they fall through 
 the water rapidly, he uses them ; if not, he leaves them. When 
 he has got material enough for the floor of his nest, he glues the 
 pieces together by rubbing his body over them ; for you know 
 how sticky a fish's body makes anything he touches. 
 
 Fig. 10. — Nest of the Stickleback. 
 
16 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 Then he scoops up a mouthful or two of sand from the 
 bottom of the brook, and .scatters it over the floor of the nest to 
 make, it heavier and more stable. After that he builds up the 
 sides of the nest, rubbing round and round it with his body to 
 stick it fast, and spinning a sort of gluey thread to bind it 
 together, something as a spider spins its web. The roof he 
 makes in the same way, only he has to go through the nest 
 often to keep it the right shape and to smooth it inside. It is 
 prettj' hard work for the little fellow, — for he is only about as 
 large as a baby's little finger, — and he gets so excited with his 
 work that he never stops to rest or to eat. 
 
 When he has finished it to suit him, he goes off to find Mrs. 
 Stickleback and coax her to fill his nest with eggs. Then he 
 stands guard over it for many weeks, caring for the eggs, and 
 later for the baby fish. And though he is so small, he will 
 rush upon any fish, no matter how large, that venture to come 
 near his precious charge. He will strike at their eyes, bite 
 their fins, and stick his sharp spine into them, till they are glad 
 to swim off and let his babies alone. 
 
 God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, 
 To give sign we and they are his children, one family here. 
 
 Browning. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 Marvels of Animal Life by 0. F. Holder lias a full account of the nests of fish; 
 and Chamber's Journal for 1850 describes the "Ways of the Squirrel"; and 
 Homes without Hands by J. G. Wood is a good book for the whole subject. 
 
 Have the children tell how the nests are made and how the tools used by man 
 have been suggested by the work of animals without tools. 
 
 Ask why it is the smallest animals and lisli that make the most careful 
 cradles ; why the squirrel and harvest mouse rather than the lion or bear or 
 shark keep the purpose of the nests steadily in view. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW BABIES ARE CRADLED IN CLAY AND WOOD. 
 
 This picture shows a 
 swallows here in Amei* 
 that you see here, and 
 sing the same sweet 
 little twittering song. 
 About the only dif- 
 ference between the 
 French swallows and 
 those in America is 
 that our Mr. Swallow 
 sits on the eggs some- 
 times and lets Mrs. 
 Swallow have an hour 
 or two off, while his 
 French cousin lets 
 Madame Swallow do 
 all of the sitting her- 
 self, though he is very 
 faithful in getting her 
 food as long as she has 
 to stay on the nest. 
 
 And how do they 
 build this nest? They 
 are very sociable little 
 
 family of swallows in France. But our 
 ica build just the same sort of a nest 
 
 .... j... i aaa. 
 
 17 
 
18 Mother Nature * Children. 
 
 birds and like to have their nest close to their neighbor's 
 nest, so where yon find one nest you will generally find a lot 
 more near by. They are fond of men too, as well as of birds, 
 and so they have left the woods and fields, and chosen sheds 
 and barns for their nesting places. Away up north in British 
 America some men built a rough shed for a temporary black- 
 smith shop far away from any other buildings. Almost before 
 it was finished two swallows came flying into it as if they were 
 delighted to find civilized beings like themselves. And they 
 went to work at once building their nest right over the anvil 
 within a few feet of the heads of the workmen. 
 
 In the town where I lived in my boyhood there was one barn 
 that used to lie lined under the eaves with dozens of swallows' 
 nests, while there were a hundred other barns all around with- 
 out a single swallow's nest. The birds had all built in this one 
 place to be together. And I used to watch them as they swept 
 gaily back and forth, building their nests on beautiful spring 
 mornings, lint I know now that they were at work long before 
 I was up. It takes a great deal of labor to make such a large 
 nest when a swallow's bill is all they have to work with. 
 
 In the first place the birds have to pick out the right place 
 for the nest. It must be sheltered so that the rain will not 
 wash it down, and it must be shaded so that their little ones 
 will not be too warm. Birds often start a nest in the wrong 
 place and then give it up and try in another place. But when 
 they find the right spot they must be careful to get the right 
 sort of clay to make the cradle with, or it will come tumbling 
 down to the ground. 
 
 Then they must mix the clay with a little sand and work it 
 over till it is moist and soft. When they have got a little ball 
 of it just right they bring it in their mouth and pack it down 
 
How Babies are Cradled in Clay and Wood. 
 
 19 
 
 on the spot where the bottom of the nest is to be. They start 
 five or six inches below the top of the nest and put on a small 
 layer of little balls against the boards of the barn and then 
 another larger layer above it, with some fine grass or hairs 
 placed in between to make the clay stick better. 
 
 You can see in the picture the different layers and the grass 
 and hair hanging down. A layer or two is pretty good work 
 for one day. So that it will take them a week to finish it, even 
 if the weather is fair and no accidents happen. But they do 
 not easily give up, even when accidents do happen. A pair 
 once built a nest under a veranda where a wire bell-rope ran. 
 The bell was not rung very often, but whenever it was rung it 
 pulled the growing nest down. When it had fallen twice the 
 birds rebuilt it in such a way as to leave an open passageway 
 through that part of the nest where the wire was. 
 
 When they have finished the clay sides, they get fine soft 
 grass or other fibres and fill it nearly to the top. Then they 
 put in a lining of downy feathers 
 for their little babies to lie on. 
 You can see some of the feathers 
 at the top of the nest, and you can 
 make out three baby heads peep- 
 ing out of the nest to greet their 
 mother, who has just come to bring 
 them something to eat. 
 
 But the insect mothers, as well 
 as the bird mothers, cradle their 
 
 babies in clay. A little green bee, not so large as a house 
 fly, builds a tiny cell of clay for each of her little ones. You 
 see in the picture (Fig. 12) some of the cells made inside of 
 a lock by this Mason Bee. The little mother bee picks out 
 
 Fig. 12, — Mason Bee's Cells. 
 
20 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 some safe place ami then brings a tiny hit of clay that she 
 has worked over and mixed with a little tine sand and stieks it 
 on the spot she has chosen. Then she gets another bit of clay 
 and lays it down beside the first and presses it firmly against 
 it. So she goes on all day long, bringing a new piece every 
 minute or two and laying it in place till she has finished one of 
 the little earthen jars you see in the picture. But her work is 
 not done yet. She must go to the flowers and gather pollen 
 and honey and mix them together and put them 
 as bee-bread in the cell for her little baby bee. 
 \ V /Jlf Then she lays an egg on the food and seals up 
 
 the tiny jar, and when the baby wakes 
 up she finds herself in a jar of honey 
 and begins to eat and to 
 grow. 
 
 The wasps also make 
 
 clay cradles for their little 
 
 sw ones. The next picture 
 
 l-fPtN (Fig- I 3 ) shows two differ- 
 
 ? ~5 r cut wasps at work on such 
 
 cradles. One of the nests 
 
 Fig. 12 
 
 -Mud Wasp's Nest. 
 
 is round, something like 
 a sugar bowl, while the other is longer. The wasp at work 
 on the longer nest is the South American cousin of the mud 
 wasp that we have everywhere in this country. When I 
 was a boy I used to see them come into the unfinished attic 
 and make their mud cells on the boards and rafters, and this 
 summer I found them doing the same thing up in Wisconsin. 
 
 The mother — for it is the mother always that makes the 
 cradle for the wasp babies — finds some sheltered place and 
 brings in her jaws lumps of clay about twice as lar^e as her 
 
How Babies are Cradled in Clay and Wood. 
 
 head and spreads the soft stuff down on the board. She works 
 as hard as the little bee and soon has a cell between one and 
 two inches long. When she has finished one and filled it with 
 the food her baby likes best, she closes up the end. But she 
 makes that part much thinner than the rest of the cradle, so 
 that the baby wasp will find it easy to get out when he has 
 grown up. Then the mother goes to work on another cell 
 right beside the first one, but she does not forget the first one. 
 While she is away getting clay for the second, if you make a 
 little pin hole in the first, she will at once notice it on her 
 return and use the clay to stop it up, and if you break off a 
 piece she will mend the place. 
 
 A man once stuck a tack in her nest while she was absent. 
 When she came back she seemed very much surprised and 
 worried by it. She ran back and 
 forth around it with the bit of 
 clay still in her jaws, as if she did 
 not know what to do ! But soon 
 she dropped the clay and took hold 
 of the tack and pulled until it 
 came out. Then she closed the 
 opening once more. Another time 
 when this man broke open one of 
 her nests in her absence, she took 
 out all the food and put in a fresh 
 supply before closing it up. She 
 seemed to think something unusual 
 had happened, and she did not want 
 her baby's food spoiled in any way. 
 
 We have seen how Mrs. Mason Bee packs her baby away in a 
 jar full of honey, and now we have another bee, — Mrs. Carpenter 
 
 Fig. 14. — Carpenter Bee's Cell. 
 
22 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 Bee, — who puts her baby inside the trunk of a tree (Fig. 14). 
 She bores with her sharp mouth right into the wood, and when 
 she has gone in an inch or so she turns downwards. Sometimes 
 she makes a tunnel over a foot long, though it is very slow 
 work for her. It takes her a month to finish her nursery. She 
 lias to brush out all of the bits of wood that she bites off, and 
 she generally carries them away from the tree, so that her 
 enemies may not steal her babies by finding out where her nest 
 is from the chips on the ground. 
 
 When she has made the tunnel long enough, she goes in 
 search of pollen and honey, like the mason bee, and makes a 
 ball of bee-bread and puts it in the bottom of the tunnel and 
 lays an egg on it. Then she takes some of the little chips she 
 made and sticks them together and builds a little floor above 
 the ball of food. On this floor she puts more food and another 
 Ggg, and then builds another floor. She does this ten or a dozen 
 times, making a cradle with many stories. 
 
 But her work is not over yet. You will see from the picture 
 (Fig. 14) that the lowest baby is the largest, because it is the 
 oldest. So the lowest baby must get out of this many-storied 
 cradle first. Consequently, when the mother has finished all of 
 the floor inside, she goes down the outside of the tree to where 
 the bottom of her cradle comes, and gnaws a hole. into the wood 
 to the lowest cell. This hole she stops up with chips stuck 
 together in the same way she made the floors inside, and when 
 her oldest baby is grown into a bee he can gnaw out without 
 any trouble, because he had such a thoughtful mother. 
 
 Another bee is still more thoughtful for her young. Mrs. 
 Rose Bee is her name and she lines her cradle with soft green 
 rose leaves. She cuts out little pieces from the leaves of roses, 
 shaping them so that they will just fit the tiny cradle she has 
 
How Babies are Cradled in Clay and Wood. 
 
 23 
 
 dug out of the wood. She takes from twenty to thirty pieces 
 to line each little cell, and sometimes she has thirty cells in her 
 nursery, making a thousand hits of lining she has cut out and 
 fitted one by one to make her baby's cradle soft and smooth. 
 So you can imagine what a busy little bee she is. Perhaps you 
 have seen her sometimes cutting her bits of lining from your 
 rosebush, or if you have not seen her, I am sure you must have 
 seen the little round scollops 
 she makes alono- the edges of 
 leaves. She has a cousin who 
 is even more dainty about 
 the lining of her baby's cra- 
 dle and cuts out bits from 
 the red petals of the poppy 
 to spread inside of her nest. 
 
 But the most wonderful 
 cradle is the one that the 
 gall-fly makes for her baby. 
 You see the fly on the oak 
 leaf in the picture (Fig. 15), 
 and you see the round balls growing on the oak branch. 
 Those round things are called galls, and they are the cradles 
 of the baby gall-fly. One of them has been cut open, and 
 you can see a tiny worm curled up cosily in the middle of 
 it. That is the baby fly. The ball is not only the cradle, but 
 it is also food for the little one — all of the food he needs until 
 he grows up into a fly and leaves his nest. Then he will gnaw 
 his way out, as you see one of the others has already done. 
 
 Do you ask me how the fly made this cradle ? I cannot tell 
 you. The fly's mother laid her egg in the bark of the twig and 
 then left it there. Then the oak tree went right to work and 
 
 Fig. 15 
 
 Oak Galls. 
 
24 Mother Nature'* Children. 
 
 built up this beautiful little cradle, soft to lie in and juicy to 
 eat. Did the mother ask the tree to do it? She seemed to 
 know that her baby would be cradled and fed by the tree. She 
 had found it out somehow, just as men have found out that if 
 you put seeds in the ground they will grow up into more seeds. 
 But I do not suppose she said anything to the tree, any more 
 than the farmer says anything to the earth when he puts the 
 seed into the ground. Who then did ask the tree to cradle the 
 tiny baby '! and who taught it how to do it so well ? 
 
 I have gone the whole round of creation : I saw and I spoke ; 
 
 I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain 
 
 And pronounced on the rest of his handiwork, — returned him again 
 
 His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw. 
 
 I report as a man may of God's work — all 's love, yet all 's law. 
 
 Bkowninci. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 Children do not as readily as older people get the reality of these galls and 
 clay nests from pictures. A single example will he of great interest. Encour- 
 age them to try to obtain one. 
 
 Keep the purpose of the nests as cradles in sight, and take occasion to 
 suggest the larger Wisdom and Love that inspires all things. 
 
 In preparation for the following lesson let a pea be put in soak in moist earth 
 for a week. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW THE PLANTS CRADLE THEIR BABIES. 
 
 The dear little 
 girl in the picture 
 has picked some of 
 the earliest flowers 
 of spring and has 
 brought them to her 
 mother. She loves 
 them very much, but 
 she loves her mother 
 more than she does 
 the flowers, and she 
 thinks they are the 
 sweetest things she 
 can find to give to 
 her mother. I sup- 
 pose you can tell me 
 why she loves her 
 mother so much. She 
 is her mother's baby ; 
 and her mother has 
 held her in her arms 
 before she could 
 walk, and has made 
 beautiful baby 
 
 2i> 
 
26 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 clothes for her, and the pretty dress she lias on now was given 
 her by her mother. So of course she cannot help loving her 
 mother because she is sure her mother loves her. That is the 
 reason why she wants to give her mother the prettiest present 
 she can find anywhere. So when she ran out in the fields to 
 play this bright spring morning and found some early flowers, 
 she thought they were so beautiful that she must give them to 
 her mother. 
 
 But I don't suppose you can tell me the reason why the 
 flowers are so beautiful. They are beautiful for the same 
 reason that that little girl is beautiful. They are the babies of 
 mothers that love to care for them, as that girl's mother loves 
 to care for her. The German artist who painted the picture 
 calls it "The First Children of Spring," and lie means that the 
 flowers are those " first children." And the flowers really are 
 the children of the plants on which they grow. They are 
 babies held in their mothers' arms ; for the leaves and 
 branches are the hands and arms of the plants. But the bright 
 colored leaves of the flowers are not the babies themselves. 
 They are only the baby clothes which the loving mother plants 
 have made to wrap their babies in. 
 
 A flower is a cluster of leaves that the plant has gathered 
 into a nest for its little baby. You know how the branches 
 grow where there is no flower. They grow long, with one leaf 
 here and another there. But when a branch is to have a baby 
 on it, it does not grow in length. It stays so short that all its 
 leaves are in one place, in order to make a cradle for the baby. 
 And the thoughtful mother plant loves her baby so much that 
 she is not willing to have it cradled on rough green leaves. She 
 changes those leaves in the cradle from green to red, or white, 
 or some other pretty color, and makes them as soft and sweet 
 
How the Plants Cradle their Babie 
 
 27 
 
 smelling as any human mother could make the clothes of her 
 baby's cradle. 
 
 You can see from this picture of a rosebush (Fig. 17) that 
 the colored leaves of the rose, or the petals, as they are called, 
 are really the same as the green leaves. For in this bush, after 
 the leaves had been gath- 
 ered into a nest, the stalk 
 forgot to stop and went 
 right on growing through 
 the centre of the rose. 
 Above the petals of the 
 rose there are green leaves 
 just as there are below it, 
 showing you that the leaves 
 and petals are the same. 
 And sometimes instead of 
 the pink and white petals 
 of the rose you find green- 
 ish leaves right in the rose. 
 I suppose the Rose Mothers 
 all love their babies and 
 are all trying their best to 
 change their leaves in the 
 flower to petals, and some of them succeed better than others, 
 just as some human mothers make better baby clothes than others. 
 
 But the plant does more than just make a nest of soft, fra- 
 grant leaves for its babies to lie in. It takes one of its leaves 
 and makes a little cup or basket to pack the babies in, so that 
 they shall not fall out of the nest of petals. If you cut a rose 
 right through the middle, you will see the tiny cup which the 
 rose mother makes for her babies. You see such a cup in the 
 
 Fio. 17 
 
 - A Rose with Rosebush Growing 
 through it. 
 
28 
 
 Mother Nature' 8 Children. 
 
 Fig. IS. — A Kose Cut through. 
 
 picture (Fig. 18), and the little round specks at the bottom of 
 the cup are the rose babies. You can find those little cups on 
 the wild-rose bush in the autumn. They are called rose-hips, 
 and look like little red plums or apples, and are about as big 
 
 as a small marble. 
 
 It is not easy for you to 
 see how the rose mother makes 
 a cup out of a rose leaf, be- 
 cause she changes the shape 
 of the leaf so much. But in 
 this picture of the pod of a 
 marsh marigold (Fig. 19) you 
 can see that it was only a leaf 
 folded together, with baby 
 seeds on the edges of the leaf that are inside when it is folded 
 up. You can fold a rose leaf for yourself and see how it is done, 
 just as you see it in the picture (Fig. 20). Or you can take a 
 bean pod, like that in the next picture (Fig. 
 21), and you will see that it is made of a 
 folded leaf ; and when it splits open, it 
 splits into the two halves of the leaf. Some- 
 times several of such folded leaves are found 
 in the same nest, as you see in the upper 
 part of the picture. Each of them is full of 
 tiny seeds — the babies of the plant. At 
 the bottom of the picture you see another 
 shape that the mother plant folds her leaf 
 into, with a little cap on the cup like a cradle with a cover 
 to it to keep the babies in safety till they get old enough to 
 take care of themselves. Then the mother plant takes off 
 the cover and lets her children out, just as the mother 
 
 Fig. 19. — Marsh Mari- 
 gold Seed Vessel. 
 
How the Plants Cradle their Bain 
 
 20 
 
 pea twists open the pea pod when her babies are ready to go 
 
 out into the world. 
 
 If you look at a poppy after the red petals of the 
 flower have fallen away, you will find a little cup with 
 a cover that does not come off. By gently shaking the 
 stalk of the poppy you can hear the seeds rattle inside 
 of the cup. You may wonder how those babies are to 
 get out of their nest that seems so tightly closed. But 
 if you watch the plant some day when the wind blows 
 hard you will see one little seed after another jump 
 out of the cup and alight upon the ground a foot or 
 two away from the mother plant and settle down into 
 the earth to build up a 
 
 stalk and flower of its own. By 
 
 looking under the cover of the cup- 
 like cradle you can see how the 
 
 seeds get out. There are little 
 
 openings close to the cover just 
 
 large enough for the babies to creep 
 
 through. The careful mother makes 
 
 those openings so that the wind can 
 
 toss her children out when they are 
 
 ready to leave, and yet the rain can- 
 not reach them as it might do if she 
 
 took the cover off altogether. 
 
 These are a few of the ways the 
 
 mother plants have of cradling their 
 
 babies, and you will find many more 
 
 everywhere that you look. So you 
 
 see that all of the beautiful flowers that we love so much are 
 
 only the nests that plants have made to cradle their babies in. 
 
 Fig. 21. — Some Seed Vessels. 
 
30 
 
 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 They are the arms and hands of loving mothers clasping their 
 little ones close to their breasts. We know that we ourselves 
 make cradles for our babies because we love them. " The 
 tender love of human hearts " is what impels us to cradle our 
 little ones. And when we see the birds so fond of each other 
 and of the babies in their nests, we cannot 
 help thinking that the birds, yes, and the 
 insects too, have some of the same tender 
 love for their little ones that we have. But 
 when we see the flowers doing just the same 
 thing for their little ones that we do for ours, 
 can we help thinking that they, too, have 
 something of that same tender love that we 
 feel? and that they are trying to make a 
 beautiful resting place for their little ones 
 as we do for ours ? 
 
 But the Earth itself is a great cradle too. 
 When a plant mother has cradled her little 
 one for a while in the soft, fragrant nest of 
 leaves that we call a flower, she puts her 
 baby to sleep and cradles him again in the 
 dark earth. In the fall of the year you can 
 see ever so many babies lying thus asleep on 
 the ground where their mothers have put 
 them. The next time you go out in the 
 garden where the beans or peas have been 
 growing, look sharply on the surface of the soil and I am 
 sure you will find a bean or a pea lying near the foot of its 
 mother plant. If you find a little round pea like the one in 
 the picture (Fig. 22), you may think it is dead, but it is not. 
 It is only sleeping. It will lie there sleeping soundly through 
 
 Fig 
 
 -Pea Waking 
 up. 
 
How the Plants Cradle their Babies. 31 
 
 all the cold weather, wrapped up in a warm blanket of 
 snow. 
 
 But when spring comes, if you watch it closely, you will see 
 it wake up. Some bright, warm day you will find it has begun 
 to send its tiny roots down into the ground and its little leaflets 
 up into the air. If you would talk with the pea, I think you 
 would find it was quite a happy little fellow. It would tell 
 you that it woke up in a nice nest with all it needed to eat and 
 drink right about it, and the warm, bright sunshine spread over 
 it. It had only to reach out its little fingers in the ground for 
 food, and open its leaves to get rain and dew and sunshine. 
 It was as well tended as the little baby gall-fly that woke up 
 finding that a big oak tree had undertaken to care for it and 
 was making it a nest that should shelter it and feed it at the 
 same time. 
 
 So the baby pea finds that the earth itself is caring for it by 
 making it a nest that holds it safely, and feeds it and shelters 
 it. But out in the lonely forest, too, where there are no 
 gardens with fences to keep the cows and sheep away, and no 
 farmer to plough the ground and pull up the weeds, you would 
 still see the baby seeds waking up in the spring and finding 
 food and drink and sunshine all ready for them. And away up 
 on the mountains the baby seeds of the plants that grow there 
 peep out of their baby clothes in spring and find that they 
 have not been forgotten. And even down in the water of the 
 seashore or lake-side the tiny baby seeds wake up in the 
 spring and find that the same loving care has kept them safe 
 during the cold and is giving them all they need. 
 
 So the whole great earth seems to be such a nest, filled with 
 new babies every spring. And the blue sky and warm sunshine 
 seem to be brooding over the earth-nest, like some great bird 
 
3 - Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 tending its little ones. And not only the plants and insects 
 but the higher animals and men are gathered together in that 
 great nest of the earth and brooded over by that sky and sun- 
 light. We should all freeze to death without that warm light, 
 and we should all .starve without the earth to feed us in its 
 great cradle. And if our mother cradled us and fed us because 
 she loved us, may we not think that the Great Mother of us 
 all loves us? 
 
 Flower in the crannied wall, 
 
 I pluck you out of the crannies ; 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 
 Little flower — but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 
 I should know what God and man is. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 TEACHING NOTE. 
 
 The teacher who roads these chapters to or with a class in a public school 
 will readily appreciate that the underlying thought — the Immanence of God 
 in Nature — must not he forced into dogmatic assertion. If kept to the spirit 
 and movement of a fairy tale, with its light touch upon truths too high for 
 stereotyped tonus, the effect will be entirely salutary, as in Kingsley's Water 
 Babies. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW THE BIRDS TEND THEIR BABIES. 
 
 " A Kiss First " is what the German artist, Meyer Von 
 Bremen, calls this 
 beautiful picture of 
 his. The little baby 
 has just waked from 
 his sleep in his cradle 
 and he is hungry. His 
 mother has an apple 
 for him in her hand, 
 but she says he must 
 give her a kiss first 
 before he can get the 
 apple. I don't sup- 
 pose she would starve 
 him even if he should 
 not give her the kiss, 
 for she cared for him 
 long before he could 
 pay her by even a 
 kiss. She has fed him 
 and washed him and 
 clothed him, not for 
 the sake of kisses, but just because she loved him, and she 
 would go on caring for him as long as he needed her care. 
 
34 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 And the mothers among the birds show the same unselfish, 
 loving care for their children. You must have often seen how 
 watchful the hen mother is of her little brood. She keeps them 
 close to her by day, and under her wings at night. She takes 
 
 them about with her 
 to get their food, and 
 s c r a t c h e s u p t h e 
 ground to help them 
 find it. One mother 
 hen was found one day 
 on the other side of a 
 deep stream with all 
 her chickens about her, 
 and at night she was 
 found back in the yard 
 with her brood. Her 
 owner wondered how 
 she managed to get her 
 babies across the water, 
 and so he watched her 
 the next day. She went 
 down to the edge of 
 the water, and sitting 
 down, clucked to her 
 chickens. They all 
 came up to her, and one of them — the bravest, perhaps — 
 jumped on her back. Then she got up carefully and spread 
 her wings, and actually flew over the water with her baby on 
 her back. When she had alighted on the other side and he 
 had jumped oft in the ground, she left him and flew back to the 
 rest of the little flock and took another in the same way; and 
 
 
 w 
 
 Fig. 24. — A Hen Driving away a Hawk. 
 
How the Birds Tend their Bala 
 
 35 
 
 so she went on till she had carried them all over. Was not 
 that a pretty good mother ? 
 
 But she is as brave as she is thoughtful. If you try to take 
 one of her baby chicks, she will fly at you and try to strike and 
 peck you. She will fight anything that seems to threaten 
 harm to her loved ones. She will fight a hawk, as you see her 
 doing in the picture (Fig. 24), and drive him away, though she 
 would run away herself if she did not love her little ones so 
 much. It is her love that makes her brave. 
 
 The bravest are the tenderest, 
 
 The loving are the daring. 
 
 But the most thoughtful bird mother that I know of was a 
 goose which Franklin tells us about. He says that this goose 
 had made her nest in the ^ 
 kitchen of the farmhouse, and 
 that she was the only one of 
 the fowls that came in there 
 to nest. But after she had 
 been sitting on her eggs a 
 few days, she was seen to 
 leave them and go out of the 
 room and waddle slowly to 
 the yard where the rest of 
 the geese were. There she 
 went up to a younger goose 
 and after some cpuacking, she 
 turned and walked back and 
 the other goose came with 
 
 her. She came into the kitchen, followed shyly by the other 
 goose, who had never been in the room before. Then the older 
 
 Fig. 
 
 -The Dying Mother. 
 
36 Mother Nature 's Children. 
 
 one went up to the nest, but lay down on the ground beside it, 
 as you see her in the picture on the preceding page (Fig. 25), 
 while the younger one climbed into the nest and sat down on the 
 eggs. In a short time the mother goose was dead, while the other 
 remained and hatched the eggs and brought up the brood. The 
 mothers love was strong even in death : and when she felt that 
 she could not live, she made up her mind that her babies should 
 live, if she could get any one to take her place. 
 
 But when the little ones come out of the eggs, the birds are 
 busier than ever. I wonder if you know how many times a 
 bird mother feeds her babies during the day. Of course she 
 has her husband to help her, but even then she is kept very, 
 very busy. I sat for five minutes in a boat under a cliff swal- 
 low's nest this summer, and the parents came twice in that time 
 to feed their little ones. They flew in so swiftly and stopped 
 so short a time and went darting off again in such a hurry that 
 I really pitied them, if they had to keep it up all day long. 
 And men who have watched birds all day say that they are 
 just as busy from before sunrise till the sun sets again. If the 
 mamma and papa birds come every three minutes, that would 
 be twenty times an hour and three hundred times a day. Your 
 mamma and papa would be pretty tired if they had to feed you 
 three hundred times a day. To be sure, there are three or four 
 birds in every nest, so that would be only about one hundred 
 times for each birdie. But even that would be a good many 
 meals a day. 
 
 You see in the picture of the tailor bird (Fig. 26) two little 
 open mouths waiting for the worm their mother has found and 
 brought to them. She and her husband had to spend a great 
 deal of time in making that fine nest. In the first place they 
 hunted up the strands of cotton fibre that grow on the plants, and 
 
How the Birds Tend their Bab, 
 
 ■M 
 
 twisted them into a string with a knot at the end. Then they 
 held the edges of two leaves together and made a hole through 
 the leaves with their sharp hills and pushed the strand through 
 at the same time. You see how nicely they have done it, both 
 in the front and the back of 
 the nest. Then they had to 
 find a lot more of the soft 
 vegetable fibres for the birdies 
 to lie on. You can see them 
 sticking over the edge of the 
 nest. When they have done 
 all that and have hatched out 
 those two baby birds, then 
 their hardest work really be- 
 gins, for they must hunt near 
 and far to find nice food to 
 fill those two hungry mouths. 
 But I suppose they like to 
 do it because they love their 
 babies, just as a human mother 
 likes to feed her baby even if 
 she has to work hard to do it. 
 The birds will keep on feeding 
 their little ones even if you 
 are cruel enough to take the 
 baby birds from the nest and shut them up in a cage. In the 
 picture on the next page (Fig. 27) you see two blackbirds, of the 
 kind that live in Europe, trying to put food through the bars of 
 the cage that shuts their babies in. The father and mother had 
 built their nest in the garden, and after their babies were nearly 
 ready to fly, the owner of the garden thought he would capture 
 
 Fig. 20. — The Tailor Bird and 
 her Youny. 
 
38 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 the little ones and tame them. Mr. and Mrs. Blackbird were 
 frantic when they saw the man come to their nest. They flew 
 at his face and tried to drive him away, but he was too strong for 
 
 them. He took their four 
 little babies and shut them 
 up in that cruel iron cage, 
 where they cried piteously. 
 The father and the mother 
 tried in vain to free their 
 captive children by throw- 
 ing themselves against the 
 iron wires. When they 
 found that the wires would 
 not break, they flew off 
 sadly, and the man thought 
 they had deserted their 
 babies, but they had not. 
 They had only gone to get some food, and you can see them 
 reaching it in through the bars of their prison. But they 
 could not care for their babies very well through the wires, 
 and in spite of all that they could do to help them, the little 
 creatures drooped, and in a day or two their cruel jailer found 
 them lying dead in the bottom of the cage. It was over in 
 France that this sad event happened. But here in America 
 a man did the same thing to some young birds. But when 
 their parents came and fed them, they sat down beside the 
 cage and wailed in such a heart-broken way that the man was 
 touched at last, and he opened the cage to let the little ones 
 out. And you should have seen what a glad family they were. 
 But the birds do more than feed their little ones, as you will 
 see from the next picture (Fig. 28). 
 
 Fig. 27. — European Blackbirds Feeding 
 their Young in a Cage. 
 
How the Birth Tend their Bahiet 
 
 39 
 
 When the bough breaks the cradle will fall 
 And down will come baby, cradle, and all, 
 
 is the way the rhyme goes, but you will see from this picture 
 that this is not the way things go in Birdland. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Goldfinch — the European cousins of our goldfinches — do not 
 intend to have their cradle and their little ones fall to the 
 ground, even though the branch that holds the nest does 
 break. They thought they had picked out a good tree for 
 their home. They spent several da}~s looking everywhere. It 
 was their first experience in making a nest, and so it was not 
 easy for them to find just what they wanted. So Mr. Gold- 
 finch suggested to his wife that, while she was resting, he 
 should go by himself and search farther than they had gone 
 before. In a short time he found what seemed the very tree 
 wanted. He hurried 
 off to bring his mate, 
 and the) 7 came flying 
 back together. Then 
 the little lady perched 
 on the spot her hus- 
 band pointed out to 
 her, turned around in 
 it to take its measure, 
 looked at the leaves 
 
 above it to see whether 4^§/,^ ki ^i& 
 thev would keep the ' ^ w<, 
 
 Fig. 28. — Mending a Broken Bough. 
 
 they would keep 
 
 rain and sun away from 
 
 her and her little ones, 
 
 and then flew around the tree to see what her neighbors were 
 
 like. All the time they kept up a constant murmur of pleasant 
 
 twitterings, as they talked it over. 
 
40 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 Everything seemed just right, and they set about making 
 their nest at once. When it was finished, the little lady bird 
 sat brooding over the eggs for nearly a fortnight, while her 
 bright husband sang sweetly to her from a neighboring bough, 
 when he was not hunting through the town and country to 
 find food for her. And at night he sat perched on the branch 
 beside the nest, whispering words of love to her, no doubt. 
 But when the little babies came out of the shells you should 
 have seen how proud and busy they both were. But they 
 found, as their babies grew heavier day by day, that the branch 
 settled lower and lower. It was a terrible day when they dis- 
 covered that the bough was actually breaking. But Mr. Gold- 
 finch loved his children very much, and as he was a brave, 
 ino-enious bird, he determined to tie the sinking' branch to 
 another stronger one not far away. And you see him in the 
 picture pulling the strong branch up to the nest while Mrs. 
 Goldfinch is tying it to the nest with fibres. And so the 
 cradle did not fall. 
 
 I know not where his islands lift 
 
 Their fronded palms in air, 
 I only know I cannot drift 
 
 Beyond his loving care. 
 
 Whittiek. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 The ways of nesting birds make interesting conversational lessons. Get the 
 pupil to It'll the class any instance of mother-love they know among the lower 
 creatures, and to match it by human mother-love. Lead them to think where 
 the first mothers got their love. 
 
 For the evolution of high qualities, Drammond's Ascent of Man will be 
 suggestive to the teacher. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW MAMMALS TEND THEIR BABIES. 
 
 The French artist who painted this picture calls it "Mother- 
 hood." He seems to think that the cow is a mother to her calf, 
 just as the human 
 mother is to her baby. 
 You can see from the 
 mother's face how 
 much she loves her 
 baby and how ten- 
 derly she cares for 
 her. Though the 
 mother herself is bare- 
 footed, she has taken 
 her baby up in her 
 arms so that she may 
 not hurt her little 
 feet on the hard road 
 or get tired with the 
 long walk. And I 
 should not be at all 
 surprised if she 
 thought her baby was 
 the sweetest and 
 brightest and prettiest baby in all the wide world. 
 
 And I feel sure that the mother cow thinks the same about 
 
 41 
 
 43Jj* \ ■ jjSfS . 
 
42 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 her calf, because she cares for him so tenderly and faithfully. 
 She cannot carry him in her arms, but she takes just as good 
 care of him as she can. She cleans him whenever he gets 
 soiled in any way and feeds him when he is hungry, and she 
 hides him carefully away from any one that she thinks intends 
 to take him from her. A farmer told me this summer of a 
 bright cow who hid her calf from him. The cow mother was 
 shut up in a small pasture and the farmer looked all over the 
 pasture but could not find any trace of the calf. He was sure 
 the cow had her baby there somewhere and so he pretended to 
 go away, but remained near enough to watch he]' ; and soon he 
 saw her go to a little clump of bushes and low softly, when out 
 came her calf. The bright little fellow had kept perfectly still 
 while the farmer was hunting all about him and almost stepping 
 on him, because his mother had told him to, I suppose. 
 
 It almost breaks the heart of a cow to take her calf away 
 from her. She will call for her baby in the most pitiful tones 
 and she will go almost any distance to get back to her child. 
 I remember in my boyhood going five miles to get a cow that 
 had gone that distance to be with her baby. She had been sold 
 and driven five miles away from her child and shut up in a 
 stable, but when we went out to the stable in the morning she 
 was missing. She had managed to work the door open in the 
 night and had gone straight back to her calf, where we found 
 her the next day. 
 
 But she will go much more than five miles to find her baby. 
 A Frenchman says that during the last war the Germans drove 
 the cattle away from the farms, and from one farm they took a 
 mother without her calf. She refused to go, and they could 
 make her move only by cruelly pricking her with their bayonets. 
 They drove her many days' march in this way, till at last she 
 
How Mammals Tend their Babies. 43 
 
 was able to steal away from them one night. Then she came 
 straight back the weary miles she had been driven, without 
 stopping to eat or drink, till she reached the farm, when she 
 rushed through the yard into the barn where her calf was, call- 
 ing it loudly on the way. She had been gone so long that the 
 calf had forgotten her, and her milk had dried up so that she 
 had no food for him. But she kissed him so tenderly and cared 
 for him so constantly that he began to love her as much as ever. 
 
 But other animals care for their babies just as well as the 
 cows do. I am sure that you have a cat or a kitten at home, 
 
 Fig. 30. — Cat Saving her Kittens. 
 
 and most of you have seen how fond the mother cat is of her 
 kittens. But I do not believe you ever saw the cat jump into 
 the water, as you see her doing in the picture (Fig. 30). She 
 hates water worse than anything else in the world, yet a mother 
 cat actually sprang into a stream and swam out into the deep 
 water to save some of her kittens who had tumbled off from a 
 plank into the water. She was a brave mother, wasn't she? 
 
 And she is as tender and loving as she is brave. If she 
 thinks her kittens are in danger, site will hide them so no one 
 can find them. I heard of a cat mother whose kittens disap- 
 peared from her home when a new dog came there to live, and 
 
44 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 it was found that she had carried them to a neighbor's barn two 
 miles away. As she had five kittens, the mother must have 
 traveled twenty miles to get her babies in safety. Another cat, 
 who had her kittens in a shed, carried them off when a rough 
 boy visited the family. During the whole week of his stay no 
 trace of them could be found, though their mother came regu- 
 larly to get food. But the rough boy had been gone hardly an 
 hour when puss came bringing her kittens back one by one. 
 Another cat, who had but one kitten, was seen to jump up, with 
 her kitten in her mouth, from the basement floor to an open 
 drawer some feet above the floor, and put her little one in the 
 drawer. Then she sprang back again and gave battle to a huge 
 rat, larger than her kitten, and after a hard fight she killed it. 
 Then she jumped up to her kitten with a pleasant call and took 
 her back to her bed on the floor. 
 
 But a cat shows her kindness of heart especially in the way 
 she will care for the kittens of other cats. She will even go 
 and find motherless kittens to tend. We had a very bright cat 
 once — a cat who used to unlatch doors, ring door-bells, and 
 open slides in the pantry. She came to me once and acted so 
 excited and so eager for me to go with her that I followed her 
 out of doors and then into the stable. She took me to one 
 corner of the stable, where she lay down beside three little 
 kittens about a week old. She had no kittens herself then, and 
 so she had no milk for these little strangers, and she jumped 
 up and came to me as soon as they tried to nurse. She evi- 
 dently wanted me to get some milk for them and I did it, much 
 to her relief. I found she had brought the kittens from a house 
 in another block, where they had been crying for some time. 
 Our tender-hearted cat had been touched by their cries and had 
 done all she could for them. 
 
How Mammals Tend their Babies. 
 
 45 
 
 sT^feSC 
 
 The tiger, too, is a cousin of our cat and she loves her babies 
 as our cat does. Some people in India found five little tiger 
 babies left alone by their 
 mother while she sought food 
 for them. The men took 
 three of the babies, thinking 
 she would never miss them, 
 and if she did that she would 
 stay with those that were 
 left. But soon they heard 
 the terrible roar of the 
 mother, and they were so 
 frightened that they opened 
 
 ,ii r ,i i •! v Fig. 31. — Tigress Rescuing her Children. 
 
 the door of the building b 
 
 where the little ones were, and their mother carried them 
 off one by one, as you see her doing in the picture (Fig. 31). 
 Another way of caring for the babies is the way Mrs. Opos- 
 sum is doing in the picture 
 (Fig. 32). She has a little 
 bag right underneath her 
 body, and she puts her babies 
 in there when they are first 
 born. They are very tiny 
 then and stay in the bag nurs- 
 ing and growing for several 
 weeks. But when they get 
 large enough to use their feet 
 they come out of the bag and 
 climb up on their mother's 
 fasten themselves there by 
 
 Fig. 32. — Opossum Mother and her 
 Children. 
 
 back, 
 
 d 
 
 y< 
 
 see how they 
 
 twining their little tails about her large one, which she 
 
46 
 
 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 bends over her back for them. So she can carry them around 
 
 with her wherever she goes. 
 
 In the other picture (Fig. 33) you see another mother carrying 
 
 her child on her back. It is a bier mother with a big name. 
 
 Hippopotamus is what they call her, — a word that means 
 
 River Horse, — and she is more than ten feet long. She lives 
 
 in the rivers of Africa and likes to wade and swim in the water. 
 
 She will stay under 
 
 water four or five 
 
 minutes at a time, 
 
 and then just stick 
 
 her nose out of the 
 
 water to breathe, as 
 
 you see one doing 
 
 right at the front of 
 
 the picture, where the 
 
 air is blowing up two 
 
 little jets of water. 
 
 But when she has a 
 
 baby she comes up 
 
 much oftener to let 
 
 him have plenty of 
 Fig. 33. -Hippopotamus Mother and her Child. ^ ^ she ^^ 
 
 him about on her back, as you see her doing in the picture. 
 He does not look very pretty to us, but she seems to think a 
 great deal of him. She makes a soft place in the rushes for 
 him to lie in when he is too j'oung to go with her, and when 
 he is older she keeps him with her and guards him against every 
 danger. She will even attack men when she has her baby with 
 her, though she will run away when she has no baby. One of 
 these great creatures rushed upon a traveler in Africa recently, 
 
How Mammals Tend their Babi 
 
 47 
 
 and his negro guide told him that she must have a calf close 
 by, and sure enough they found a baby hippopotamus hidden 
 away on the bank. She was determined no one should disturb 
 her baby. 
 
 In the next picture (Fig. 34) you see a poor bear mother who 
 has lost both of her babies at once, and she feels very badly over 
 it, for she loved them dearly and cared for them tenderly. She 
 had made a warm 
 
 nest for them down 
 deep in the snow, by 
 lying close against a 
 cliff and letting the 
 snow fall over her till 
 it buried her all up 
 except a little breath- 
 ing-hole. In this 
 snow home the 
 mother and her two 
 babies passed the cold 
 winter. But when 
 spring came the baby 
 bears were large 
 enough to go about 
 
 Fig. 
 
 -Mrs. White Bear and her Children. 
 
 with their mother and eat the food she got for them. But 
 once she found some walrus flesh close to an ice-bound vessel. 
 She tore off some small pieces and gave them to her babies, 
 but they had scarcely eaten the meat when some sailor fired 
 at them with a gun from the deck of the vessel and killed 
 both of the little ones and wounded the mother also. When 
 she saw her babies lying motionless she went to them and 
 patted them with her paws, and with coaxing tones tried to get 
 
4S Mother Natures Children. 
 
 them to come to her. Then she brought some more meat and 
 tore it up and laid it beside them. When she found that they 
 took no notice of that she went away some distance and then 
 turned and began to call them in the most tender wa}^ to follow 
 her. She did this twice, and when she found nothing could 
 stir them, she went back to them and kissed them and caressed 
 them with her paws, wailing as if her heart would break. 
 
 Another white bear mother was more fortunate with her little 
 ones. When she found that the men on a vessel were trying 
 to shoot them she urged them to run away as fast as they 
 could ; and when they grew tired she went behind them and 
 put her long flat head under the body of one and then the other 
 and threw them ahead over the ice, and so escaped. 
 
 A thread of Law runs through thy prayer, 
 Stronger than iron cables are ; 
 And Love and Longing toward her goal 
 Are pilots sweet to guide the soul. 
 
 Wasson. 
 
 TEACFUXG NOTE. 
 
 Trare the impulse of love, like that of human parents, in all this care of 
 helpless offspring, and keep strongly in the children's minds the motto : Love 
 is a safe pilot of the soul. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOW FISH, REPTILES, AND SPIDERS TEND THEIR BABIES. 
 
 The little girl in this picture seems to be giving her doll a 
 bath. I suppose she knows that her mother gives her a bath 
 because she loves her, 
 and so she thinks she 
 will show her love for 
 her doll by giving it 
 a bath. But I fear 
 she will find that the 
 bath will do her doll 
 more harm than good, 
 because dolls are not 
 made to put in the 
 water. It spoils them 
 to wet them. If she 
 only had a doll-baby 
 that the water would 
 not injure, she could 
 put it in the water 
 all she wanted to. 
 
 There are such 
 water-babies in the 
 world — real live babies, not merely dolls. In tbe first picture 
 (Fig. 36) on the next page you can see a lot of such babies fol- 
 lowing their mother about in the water. They are fish, and their 
 
 49 
 
50 
 
 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 mother, whom the fishermen call a lumpfish, is very fond of 
 them. I suppose you do not think she looks very pretty, hut I 
 dare say that her bahies think she is a very pretty mother, because 
 
 she takes good care of 
 
 58k 
 
 %&$k 
 
 pr 
 
 Fig. 
 
 -The. Lumpfish with her Children. 
 
 them. She and her 
 husband watch the 
 tiny eggs before they 
 are hatched, and the 
 father covers them 
 over with his big body 
 so that no harm shall 
 befall them. When 
 the little water-babies 
 have come out of the 
 eggs and are able to 
 swim, they go wher- 
 ever their mother goes, playing about her in the merriest way, 
 and cuddling up close to her if they see anything that frightens 
 them. 
 
 Mrs. Lumpfish and her babies are found in the ocean off the 
 coast of Maine, but in our fresh-water streams we have fish 
 mothers who tend their water-babies in the same way. We 
 sometimes see the sunfish and her brood swimming about as 
 Mrs. Lumpfish does. A gentleman once held his hand in the 
 water as Mrs. Suiitish and her babies came along. The mother 
 stopped when she saw the fingers. She evidently knew what 
 a hand was, and that there was probably a man back of it, and 
 she had learned to be afraid of a man. But her little water- 
 babies came swimming fearlessly up to the hand and began to 
 nibble the fingers to see whether they might not be good to eat. 
 The mother was very much worried hy the careless way her 
 
How Fish, Reptiles, and Spiders Tend their Babies. 51 
 
 children behaved, and moved nervously about at a distance from 
 
 them. But when the man began to slowly close his fingers 
 
 over the little fish, as if he would catch them, the mother could 
 
 stand it no longer. She rushed at the man's hand so suddenly 
 
 and hit it so hard that she startled him so that he lost his 
 
 balance and almost fell into the water. She might be afraid of 
 
 a man, but she was n't going to let him steal her babies if she 
 
 could help it. 
 
 But fish have other ways of keeping their little ones safe. 
 
 Sometimes the parents will take the children all into their 
 
 mouths, as you see them doing in the second picture (Fig. 37). 
 
 Ophiocephalus is the long word the scientific men have given 
 
 to these fish, a word made up of two Greek words meaning 
 
 "snakehead." So we will call them Snakehead for short. Mr. 
 
 and Mrs. Snakehead 
 
 seem to think a great 
 
 deal of each other, 
 
 for you generally see 
 
 them together. They 
 
 build quite a nice nest 
 
 for their babies, using 
 
 straw for the frame, 
 
 and covering the 
 
 .,-1 -i Fio. 37. — Ophiocephali and their Yonng. 
 
 straw over with mud. 
 
 The father and mother watch over the little ones very carefully 
 
 and do not allow them to come out of the nest till they get 
 
 strong enough to swim quite well. Then they go around with 
 
 their brood, and if they see a dangerous fish or a man's hand, 
 
 they open their mouths and in half a second all the tiny fish have 
 
 disappeared, stowed safely away inside their parents. I suppose 
 
 if the parents had any arms they would use them to hold their 
 
r .2 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 children, but as they have n't any arms, they make their mouths 
 do instead. 
 
 They use their mouths also to make their children mind, not 
 by scolding them as we sometimes do, but by catching them in 
 their mouths. Among the Sticklebacks, I believe, the father 
 alone tends the babies, and he tries to keep them in the nest, 
 or close to it, because if they get away beyond his reach they 
 will be eaten by some big fish or other. So when Mr. Stickle- 
 back sees one of his numerous children going away too far, he 
 rushes after him and opens bis mouth and takes him in. Then 
 
 Fig. 38. 
 
 Alligator Mother and Children. 
 
 he turns around and squirts the little fish out toward the nest. 
 And if the little fellow does not take the hint even then and 
 stay at home, the father will shut him in the nest by pulling 
 the straws down oyer the opening. So you see what a busy 
 time of it a fish father or mother must have with a hundred 
 children to look after, when they all like to play and get into 
 mischief as much as you do. 
 
 But fish are not the only water-babies by any means. The 
 Alligator is another mother who takes her babies in the water, 
 though they are born on the land and breathe air, as you and I 
 do. The mother makes a nest for her eggs, for she lays eggs 
 like a bird. She brings sticks and leaves in her big mouth to 
 
How Fish. Reptiles, and Spiders Tend their Babies. 
 
 some safe place among the reeds on the bank of the river, and 
 when she has laid her eggs she covers them over with more 
 leaves and stays by them to keep them from harm. When they 
 are hatched she leads the little alligators to some quiet little 
 pool with sunny banks of sand for them to play in and bask on ; 
 and if you should steal softly to the place without frightening 
 her, you would see her lying, as she is in the picture (Fig. 38), 
 with her babies climb- 
 ing' all over her in a 
 slow, sedate sort of 
 sport. But the mo- 
 ment they heard you 
 they would all scram- 
 ble into the water and 
 vanish from sight. If 
 the little ones were 
 too small to take care 
 of themselves and get 
 out of danger, she 
 would open her big 
 mouth and take them 
 out of harm's way, 
 just as the fish do. A 
 man once found a lot 
 of baby alligators on the bank of a liver and took one of them to 
 carry home with him. But he had hardly picked it up when the 
 mother alligator lifted her head from the water and bellowed at 
 him, and in half a minute a dozen other big heads were lifted out 
 of the water, all barking and snapping at him and all making their 
 way towards him. So he was glad to drop the baby alligator and 
 hurry off beyond the reach of its angry mother and her friends. 
 
 ■9. — The Alligator Defending her Young 
 
54 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 You can see from the other picture (Fig. 39) how carefully 
 the mother alligator protects her babies from the birds that 
 would eat them. The bodies of the little alligators are soft and 
 tender, not hard and scaly like their mother's, and so the hawk 
 likes to get a baby whenever he can. This time the mother 
 seemed sleeping on the sand witb her little ones playing care- 
 lessly about her. But if she was asleep she woke up very 
 
 quickly when she heard the sound of 
 the hawk's wings, and you see she is 
 gathering her little ones close to her 
 and is facing the hawk. He will have 
 to eat her before he can eat her babies. 
 A mouth may be a safe place for 
 liabies, but I shovdd think a tent would 
 suit the babies better, and so I suppose 
 that those baby spiders in the next 
 picture (Fig. 40) must be having quite 
 a jolly time, for they are living in a 
 tent made of silk. You can see their 
 mother sitting inside the tent, while 
 her little ones are running all around, 
 and one of them has spun a thread and 
 let himself down from the oat stalk on 
 which the tent is pitched. And where 
 do you suppose the tent came from? Mrs. Spider made it all 
 herself. She spun the silk and wove it together and pitched it 
 in the branches of the stalk of an oat plant. When she made 
 it for her babies it did not have that large opening in it. A 
 man tore it open to see what was inside, and as soon as she 
 could she closed it up by weaving some more silk over it. 
 
 A lady here in America found a tent something like this, 
 
 Fn 
 
 . 40. — Spider Mother and 
 Little Ones. 
 
How Fish, Reptiles, and Spiders Tend their Babies. 55 
 
 only it was made of two smilax leaves fastened together by the 
 silk threads of the spider mother. The mother was away from 
 home when the lady discovered the nest. So she pried it 
 softly open, and many of the little spiders came running out, 
 like children out of school. Soon Mrs. Spider came home and 
 seemed greatly surprised at what had happened. First she tried 
 to pull the tent together again by spinning threads from one 
 leaf to the other. But she found that this was going to take so 
 much time that her children would get lost unless she looked 
 after them first. So she ran about gathering them in one after 
 another, bringing some of those who had strayed farthest in her 
 mouth. The lady put her pencil in, and the spider sprang at it 
 and then at her hand, evidently thinking that this strange 
 creature wished to harm her babies. Three daj's later she came 
 and pulled the tent open farther. This troubled Mrs. Spider 
 very much, and she ran all about the place in an angry, excited 
 manner, as if trying to find the cause of the harm. Then she 
 went to work in the most determined way to close up the 
 opening, and the next morning it was all repaired. The 
 industrious little mother had made her babies' tent all right 
 again. 
 
 She also feeds her babies as well as shelters them. If you 
 find a nest without the mother and stay to watch it, you will 
 see her come back bringing a fly in her mouth. She will settle 
 down among her babies, and half a dozen of them will begin to 
 eat the fly with her. I found such a nest one morning this 
 summer and dropped a fly into it, within reach of the mother. 
 She sprang upon the fly and dragged it among the little ones 
 and held it fast while her babies gathered about and began to 
 eat. With a hundred babies to feed and care for, she must be 
 quite a busy little mother and has to work hard, no doubt. 
 
56 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 But if she loves them, 1 suppose she enjoys working for them, 
 as your parents enjoy working for you. 
 
 And there is never a leaf nor a blade too mean 
 To lie some happy creature's palace. Lowell. 
 
 Let me go where'er I will, 
 
 I hear a sky-born music still: 
 
 It is not only in the rose, 
 
 It is not only in the bird, 
 
 Not only where the rainbow glows, 
 
 Nor in the song of woman heard, 
 
 But in the darkest, meanest things 
 
 There alway, alway something sings. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 Attention is again called to the use of the picture at the beginning of each 
 lesson. They are reproductions from reliable if not celebrated artists. 
 
 The truth in Emerson's fine lines should be dwelt upon to suggest the unity 
 of all life. 
 
 A few sprouted kernels of corn will be needed for the next lesson. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOW MOTHER NATURE SETS THE TABLE FOR BIRDS. 
 
 I DO not believe that this little girl's mother is in the room, 
 for if she were, she would not let her little daughter feed the 
 cat on the table and out of the same spoon she herself uses. 
 The mother would 
 say that she set the 
 table for her own 
 family, but not for 
 cats and dogs to eat 
 from. She will give 
 the, cat and the dog 
 something to eat after 
 she and her family 
 have finished their 
 dinner. But if she 
 allowed cats and dogs 
 to help themselves 
 first, it is very likely 
 that there wouldn't 
 be anything left for 
 her and her family. 
 Certainly there would 
 not, if she let all the cats and dogs in town eat first, And if 
 every mother let all the cats and dogs in the world help them- 
 selves first, there would not be any food left for boys and girls, 
 
58 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 and men and women anywhere, and they would die of hunger, 
 and this world would be Idled full of eats and dogs instead of 
 men and women and dear little girls and hoys. And that would 
 be very bad, would n't it? 
 
 So you see we have to set the table for ourselves and keep 
 the eats and clogs away till we have eaten what we need. Then 
 we can give them what we have left and set. their table on the 
 floor, as it were. But who sets the table for all the creatures 
 which do not live 1 in our homes and share our food, like the 
 squirrels „ui the woods, and the birds and the butterflies in the 
 air, and the fish in the water? You know we buy our food at 
 the meat market and the grocery store, or if we live on farms, 
 we raise it by planting seeds in the ground, or feeding poultry 
 and cattle to use on our own tallies. But where are the meat 
 markets and the grocery stores of the birds and fish and insects ? 
 And where are their farms ? And who plants them and culti- 
 vates them ? I suppose there are at least a thousand times as 
 many other creatures in tins world as there are men and women 
 and boys and girls, and so there ought to be a thousand times 
 as many stores and farms to furnish them with food, and a 
 thousand times as many tallies set morning, noon, and night- 
 Just think what a lot of housekeeping must be done by some- 
 body ! 
 
 For a week or two this summer I was where I saw some of 
 this housekeeping done. I lived where I could almost step 
 from the door of my room to the top of a cliff overlooking long 
 stretches of cpuiet water. On the face of the cliff, right under 
 my feet, were dozens of swallows' nests ; and whenever I went 
 to the top of the cliff I used to see the swallows sweeping 
 swiftly back and forth over the still water. What do you 
 think they were doing ? If you will look at the picture of the 
 
Hoiv Mother Nature Sets the Table for Birds. 
 
 59 
 
 swallows at dinner (Fig. 42), you will see what they were about. 
 They were catching flying insects. I could not see anything 
 but swallows from the top of the cliff, but as soon as I went 
 down to the edge of the water I was surrounded by a perfect 
 cloud of hungry mosquitoes, eager to eat me up. And the birds 
 were eating those mosquitoes up. That was their breakfast 
 and dinner and supper. That 
 quiet water was the table set 
 for them. It was sending up 
 out of its depths a stream of 
 dragon flies, mosquitoes, and 
 other winged insects. And 
 all that the birds needed to 
 get their food were wings 
 swift enough to overtake the 
 insects, and mouths opening 
 wide enough to take them 
 in, so that they could scoop 
 up insect after insect, till each 
 bird packed hundreds away 
 in his mouth. If you could 
 catch one of the swallows when he has been taking: his dinner 
 in this way and open his mouth, you would find a round, solid 
 mass of insects in the back of his mouth, something like a mar- 
 ble in size and shape. That is his share of the dinner set on 
 this watery table, and he had to earn it by hard work. 
 
 In the next picture (Fig. 43) you see another family of birds 
 at dinner — the woodpeckers. On this same cliff from which 
 I watched the swallows, there was a pine grove ; and some- 
 times I would sit down on the carpet of the pine needles for 
 half an hour. As soon as I got quietly seated, I would hear a 
 
 Flo. 42. — Swallows at Dinner. 
 
60 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 knocking, as if somebody wanted to come into my pine room ; 
 and looking in the direction of the sound I would see a green- 
 ish bird — a cousin of those in the picture — climbing rapidly 
 up and down one of the pine trees, and stopping every second 
 or two to give a few knocks with his sharp bill upon the 
 trunk or branches of the tree. When he had gone over one 
 tree he would fly to another, till lie had visited sometimes a 
 
 dozen in as many minutes. 
 That was the Green Wood- 
 pecker getting his dinner. 
 The pine grove was his 
 dining-room, and not his 
 alone, but the dining-room of 
 all the green woodpeckers in 
 the forest. For nine came, 
 one after another, within half 
 an hour the first time I went 
 there. 
 
 They have a sort of pine 
 table for their dinner. In- 
 stead of its being flying food 
 spread over the water, it is 
 creeping food hid away in 
 the wormholes of the trees ; and the birds must have a pretty 
 sharp bill to get it out, as you see from the ivory-billed wood- 
 pecker in the picture (Fig. 43). They use their heads and 
 bills as a sort of pickaxe to pick the bark off, and drill a hole 
 into the hard wood where the worm is. And if they cannot 
 quite reach the worm with their bill, they have a long tongue 
 to thrust into the hole and stick fast to the worm and draw it 
 out. This ivory-billed bird is so large and strong that he 
 
 Woodpeckers at Dinner. 
 
How Mother Nature Sets the Table for Birds. 
 
 61 
 
 will sometimes knock an old tree trunk all to pieces to get 
 out the worms. 
 
 They are hammering and chiseling all day long, hunting for 
 food. You will see one of them strike a tree, and then listen 
 with his head tipped over on one side. If he hears a worm 
 stirring inside the tree, he chisels straight into it and gets it. 
 But if he hears nothing he hops to another hole and strikes and 
 listens once more. And so 
 he works from morning to 
 night, finding his table set 
 for him as the swallow does, 
 but finding that he must earn 
 his food before he can get it. 
 
 But the humming-bird has 
 a nicer table than either the 
 swallow or the woodpecker, 
 for his table is set on flowers 
 and in them. You see from 
 the picture (Fig. 4-1) that his 
 bill is long and slender, and 
 just fitted to reach into the 
 flowers to the very bottom ; 
 and he has a dainty little 
 tongue that he can thrust 
 out beyond the end even of his long bill. He darts from 
 flower to flower, pushing his slim beak into each and sweep- 
 ing off the tiny insects that live inside of the flowers; and 
 along with the insects he takes a sip of the honey that is 
 found deep in the flower. 80 he has something to drink 
 as well as to eat, and he seems to like the honey best. A 
 gentleman tells us how he caught one of these beautiful birds 
 
 Fig. 44. — Humming-Bird at Breakfast. 
 
62 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 one clay and how it pretended to be dead. He says: " It lay 
 on my open palm motionless for some minutes, during which 
 time 1 watched it in breathless curiosity. I saw it gradually 
 open its bright little eyes to peep whether the way was clear, 
 and then close them slowly as it caught my eye upon it." But 
 when a mixture of sugar, honey, and water was brought and 
 "a drop was touched upon the point of its bill, it came to life 
 very suddenly ; and in a moment it was on its legs, drinking 
 with eagerness of the refreshing draught from a silver tea 
 spoon." It was so fond of the drink that it would come from 
 any part of either room and alight upon the cup containing it. 
 
 It came back after it was 
 
 allowed to fly away, and 
 
 even a year later returned 
 
 with its mate to get some 
 
 more of the sweet drink. 
 
 It liked to have its table set 
 
 for it without the trouble 
 
 |j| of going to so many flowers. 
 
 Ill The water also is fdled 
 
 with food for the birds. In 
 
 the picture of the pelicans 
 
 (Fig. 45) you can see the 
 
 tail of a fish sticking out 
 
 of the mouth of the further 
 
 one, and you can see what 
 
 a big bag the bird has under 
 
 her chin. That is her fish 
 
 basket and holds almost a pailful of water. When the pelican 
 
 is hungry she goes flying out from the land and hovers over the 
 
 water till she sees a fish. Then she sweeps down from the air 
 
 Fj<:. 45 
 
 - A Pelican at Dinner. 
 
Row Mother Nature Sets the Table for Birds, 
 
 bo 
 
 into the water with her great mouth wide open and scoops up 
 
 the fish, or a dozen of them if she can find as many together. 
 
 When she has caught enough she goes flying home again with 
 
 her fish basket well filled and 
 
 sits down on the shore and 
 
 dresses her feathers, as you 
 
 see one of them doing in the 
 
 picture. But as soon as she 
 
 has digested her meal she has 
 
 to go fishing again for another 
 
 meal. So you see she earns 
 
 her food as much as the other 
 
 birds do. 
 
 There are birds that get 
 their food out of the ground 
 as well as out of the water. 
 You must have often seen the 
 hens scratching up the earth 
 and picking bits of something 
 from it. Sometimes you will see the robins on the lawn, 
 especially in the early morning, pulling and tugging at some- 
 thing in the ground. If you watch one of them closely enough, 
 you will see him, after a hard pull, pick up an angleworm and 
 fly off with it wriggling in his beak. Some one who watched a 
 pair of robins that had a nest in sight says that they brought 
 three thousand earthworms during the time they lived in their 
 nest. 
 
 In the last picture (Fig. 46) you sec the bobolink, whose 
 brio-tit colors and guy song make him such a delight to us all. 
 You will see him swinging on a thistle or any other weed strong 
 enough to bear him, and eating the seeds and caroling his merry 
 
 Fig. 46. — Bobolink at Dinner. 
 
64 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 song. He finds his table spread with the seeds of the grasses and 
 thistles and dandelions, and all the other weeds. It almost 
 seems as if the weeds planned to furnish the birds with seeds, 
 for each weed, like a thistle or dandelion, produces hundreds 
 of seeds. One of those seeds is enough to start a new thistle 
 or dandelion, and the other ninety and nine can be eaten by 
 the birds. And all over the earth plants and trees are thus 
 making seeds each year and setting the table for the birds. 
 
 So you see that the birds find their table set everywhere — 
 in the air, in the water, in the earth, in the wood of the trees, 
 and in the seeds of the weeds. All the birds have to do is 
 to get the food thus spread for them. 
 
 Doubt nut, so long" as earth has bread, 
 
 Thou first and foremost shalt be fed ; 
 The providence that is most large 
 
 Takes hearts like thine in special charge, 
 Helps who for their own need are strong, 
 
 And the sky doats on cheerful song. 
 
 Emerson, The Titmouse. 
 
 TEACHING NOTE. 
 
 The presence of love and care even where there is no actual mother leads 
 the thought to the great Caretaker for all things. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW MOTHER NATURE SETS THE TABLE FOR REPTILES, FISH, 
 
 AND SPIDERS. 
 
 I do not think that this little girl ever saw a toarl at dinner 
 before, she appears so surprised and interested. And her friends 
 
 : K ^' :^<&j.a 
 
 seem surprised, too. The kitty looks as if she thought it was 
 hardly a safe place to be in, and I fear she would run if the 
 
66 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 toad should hop. But the dog is not afraid. He is ready to 
 jump at the toad if that strange creature should offer to hurt 
 his dear little mistress. I suppose that the load is surprised, 
 too, to have three such strange visitors at dinner, for he seems 
 to have puffed himself up, as toads do when they are frightened 
 at anything. 
 
 But where is his dinner? Can you see it? It is that fly on 
 the ground two or three inches in front of him. But how is 
 such a slow, clumsy creature as a toad to catch such a lively 
 thing as a fly? If you watch him carefully till he gets over 
 his flight, you will see how lie docs it. lie fixes both of his 
 eyes upon the fly as it moves toward him, and the moment it 
 gets within a couple of inches of his head, he opens his mouth 
 suddenly and darts out a long tongue that sticks the 11 y on the 
 end of it and thrusts it down his throat. And then he shuts 
 his mouth again. He does it all so quickly that 3 T ou can hardly 
 see his tongue at all. It looks as if he just opened his mouth 
 and the fly flew in of its own accord. 
 
 That is the way Mr. Toad eats his dinner. He finds the 
 garden full of insects, — beetles, ants, moths, caterpillars, spiders 
 and everything else, — and he thinks that they have all been 
 made for him to eat. I dare say he imagines the garden to be 
 a sort of table set just for him alone. And so he digs himself 
 a little home under one of the flat stones you see in the picture, 
 in a dark corner of the garden, and sits dozing quietly all day 
 long. But with evening he comes out to dine. lie moves 
 slowly along from one part of the garden to another, often 
 stopping still quite a while and opening his large mouth and 
 snapping up an ant and a beetle and a, moth, and a lot of other 
 insects as they happen to come within reach of his long tongue. 
 But as soon as it grows light, he goes back to his room under 
 
The Table for Reptiles, Fish, and Spiders. 67 
 
 the stone and takes a good long nap and digests his dinner and 
 gets ready for another the next night. 
 
 So he goes on from spring till fall. But when the cold 
 weather comes and all the insects are gone, lie takes a nap that 
 lasts night and day right through the winter, till another spring 
 comes with more insects. Then he wakes up again and begins 
 to dine on the insects once more. I fear the insects would eat 
 our gardens all up if it were not for the toads. We do not see 
 them very often, because they are not apt to come out by day, 
 unless it is in rainy or cloudy weather. Their eyes do not look 
 very sharp, but they can see in the night to catch even the 
 smallest insects. But when the toad loses one of his eyes he 
 can no longer see to hit the insects with his tongue. 
 
 There was a toad once that had his home under a doorstep 
 for thirty-six years, and the people who lived in the house 
 treated him so gently that he became tame enough even to come 
 into the house at night and sit on the table and catch the 
 insects that were drawn by the lamp. But the people had also 
 a tame raven. And this bird was jealous of the toad, seeming 
 to think that the people liked him more than they did her ; and 
 she used to peck at him with her sharp bill, and at length put 
 out one of the eyes of this poor old toad. After that the toad 
 could not often hit the insects with his tongue, and so he slowly 
 starved to death. For a toad will not eat any insects that you 
 have caught and killed for him. Another thing a toad will not 
 do is to quarrel with another toad over their food. Perhaps 
 they think they have enough for all. 
 
 The fish also sit down to this table of flying insects, which 
 we have seen set for the birds and the reptiles. Of course 
 when an insect falls into the water, the fish can get it without 
 much trouble. Or they can even jump out of the water a little 
 
68 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 way and catch them, as we often see them doing. You know 
 that the fisherman uses an artificial fly — something made to 
 look like a fly — to catch the fish with. He makes it skim over 
 the water, and the fish down under the water think it is a real 
 fly, and spring up and snap at it and so get caught on the hook. 
 But there are fish in the Old World which can actually 
 squirt water from their mouths at the flies on reeds or rushes 
 
 beyond their reach and so sweep 
 
 them into the water, as you see 
 one doing in the picture of the 
 Archer-fish (Fig. 48). A Euro- 
 pean, who was in Java and heard 
 that the fish shot the flies in tins 
 way, got several of the fish and 
 kept them in a vessel where he 
 could watch them, and then he 
 fastened a fly to a stick and put 
 it over the water. As soon as 
 the fish saw the fly he came 
 steadily towards it till he was 
 within a short distance of it. 
 Then he lifted his head a little 
 from the water and sent a stream 
 flying right up to the insect and hit it, but did not bring it 
 down because it was fastened. The fish seemed much surprised 
 that the fly did not fall, but he swam around the vessel and 
 came up to it again and tried once more. Soon the other fish 
 in the vessel saw it and came up to it in the same way and tiled 
 to sweep it down with a stream of water. And finally there 
 was a stream of fish swimming around the vessel and stopping 
 just long enough to take a shot at the fly. 
 
 Fig. 48. — The Archer-Fish 
 Shooting a Fly. 
 
The Table for Reptiles, Fish, and Spider 
 
 69 
 
 But if the fish had to wait till they could bring down flies in 
 this way before getting their dinner, I am afraid most of them 
 would go hungry and many starve to death. But they do not 
 have to trust to this food alone. They find the water itself full 
 of food. You see in the picture (Fig. 49) one of them — a 
 very big fish four or five feet 
 long with a very big mouth 
 — trying to catch one of the 
 little fish and eat it. The 
 big fish is called the Ano-ler- 
 fish, because he has that 
 curious sort of a fish-pole and 
 fish-line sticking out from his 
 head. He covers himself up 
 in the mud or sand, leaving 
 only the fishing tackle reach- 
 ing out into the water. Then 
 he waves it back and forth 
 so that the little tag at the 
 end looks like some little liv- 
 ing thing, and when a small 
 fish comes prying about and tries to taste it, the big fish feels it 
 and suddenly opens his mouth and swallows the poor little fish. 
 
 There are a great many other big fish who eat the little fish. 
 Indeed, it seems as if that was what so many little fish were 
 born for, since the whole ocean would be packed solid with fish 
 in a very short time if all the little ones lived and grew up, 
 just as the whole earth would be filled full of plants in a little 
 while if all the seeds grew into plants. 
 
 You see in the next picture (Fig. 50) how the spider gets her 
 share of the insects that seem to feed so many of her fellow 
 
 Fig. 49. — The Angler-Fish Angling. 
 
70 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 HP 
 
 creatures. She lias no wings or fins, so that she cannot fly or 
 swim, nor has she a Ions 1 tongue like the toad to catch her food 
 with. I low does she manage to get it? She does just as men 
 do who wish to catch the fish in the sea. The fishermen take 
 cords and tie them hy knots into a large net and hang it between 
 
 stakes in the water, so 
 that the fish, as they 
 swim along, will get 
 caught in it and fur- 
 nish food for us. 
 
 So the spider spins 
 cords and makes a net 
 and sets it to catch the 
 flies for food. You have 
 seen many of those nets, 
 like the one in the pic- 
 ture, hut perhaps you 
 never saw the spider 
 making it. She usually picks out some place where she can 
 have a post or tree or doorway to fasten one side of it to. 
 She cannot drive posts in the ground as men do in the water 
 to hold their nets, so she has to take what she can find. When 
 she has found the best place, like the corner of a window frame, 
 she fastens a line to one side of the frame and then ones down 
 to the window sill and up the other side of the frame and pulls 
 the line up tight. Then she goes across on it till she reaches 
 the place where she wishes the centre of her net to be. Here 
 she fastens one new line after another, just like the spokes of a 
 wheel, and joins these spokes by some cross lines like the tire 
 of a wheel. These cross lines are very sticky and stretch like 
 a rubber band, so that when a fly comes sailing along and 
 
 Fig. 50. — A Spider's Net. 
 
The Table for Reptiles, Fish, and Spiders. 
 
 71 
 
 strikes one of the webs he is caught fast. And the more he 
 struggles to get away, the faster he sticks. 
 
 The spider sits in a little nest in the corner of the window 
 frame or some other safe place, holding fast to a cord stretched 
 from the centre of her net. And the moment she feels the fly 
 struggle she rushes down to the centre, as you see her in the 
 picture, and seizes the lines of the web and pulls, something as 
 a fisherman does when he has a bite. She can tell by the feel- 
 
 FlG. 51. — Monkeys Trying to Dine. 
 
 ing which of the lines the fly is on, and she runs right down to 
 him ; and if he is a large one, she spins some more cord and 
 winds it about him so that he shall not get away. When she 
 has him caught fast she carries him up to her nest for dinner, 
 and then fixes her net up to catch another for supper. So ) r ou 
 see she has to work just as hard as any of the others to get her 
 daily bread. 
 
 And here are some monkeys getting their dinner (Fig. 51). 
 They are the brothers of the little monkeys you see on the 
 hand-organs. They live in Africa, and one day they went out 
 in the forest to get something to eat. They saw some birds' 
 
72 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 nests on a tree, and as they liked eggs very much, they thought 
 they would get a few to eat. But the nests hung on slender 
 branches out over the water, and as soon as the monkeys tried 
 to climb out to one of them, the birds all came flying at them 
 and struck them with their sharp bills till they tumbled one of 
 the monkeys into the river. You can see his head just above 
 the water, and the other one looks as if he would get a ducking, 
 too. I suppose the monkeys thought that birds' eggs were 
 meant for them to eat, but the birds themselves did not seem 
 to think so. What do you think about it? Were hens' eggs 
 meant fur us to eat? And how do we manage to get them for 
 our breakfasts ? Why don't the monkeys keep birds and feed 
 and shelter them, and so have all the eggs they want? 
 
 He that feeds men, serveth few ; 
 He serves all who dares lie true. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 TEACHING NOTE. 
 
 The repetition of the incidents of these chapters will be of interest and profit, 
 and will show to what degree the main purpose, as stated in the preface, is 
 being accomplished. 
 
 Pupils can be led to distinguish between work which, as lias been shown, 
 belongs to animals no less than to ourselves, the spirit of, and toil in which no 
 such healthful principle is present. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOW MOTHER NATURE SETS THE TABLE FOR THE INSECTS. 
 
 How interested they are in that gauze net ! They have just 
 caught a butterfly in it, and now they are going to hold her in 
 their hands and have a look at her graceful wines and beautiful 
 
 colors. But how frightened the poor little butterfly must feel 
 to find herself caught in such a trap as that! And how rough 
 the boy's hands must seem to the tender creature ! You can 
 imagine how you would feel if some great giant should sud- 
 
 73 
 
74 Mother Nature'* Children. 
 
 denly scoop you up in a net as big as a room. I think you 
 would struggle to get away as the poor butterfly does. And 
 what do you suppose she was doing when the little boy saw her 
 hovering' about a flower and flung 1 his net over her? She was 
 just going to dinner. For the flowers are the dinner tables for 
 the butterflies. They do not eat the pretty petals, but they sip 
 the honey that is found in the petals of the flower. You have 
 often sucked the honey in the petals of the clover or in the tips 
 of the red columbine, I am sure, and you know how nice it 
 tastes. Almost all of the flowers have just such sweet syrup as 
 that down deep in the petals, and it seems just as if this sweet 
 juice was meant to be the food of insects like the butterflies. 
 
 The flowers are like so many dishes of honey set all over the 
 earth to feed the insects, and I dare say that the insects think 
 that the whole earth is one great table with the blossoms for 
 plates. So they go flitting about from one plate to another, 
 helping themselves to the sweet food set out for them. If 
 you want to see how beautiful the colors of the butterflies are, 
 and how daintily they sip their food, and how gracefully they 
 fan their wings, the best wa}^ is not to catch them in a net, but 
 to stand quietly beside a bed of flowers in summer and watch 
 them as they come and go. Or you might find some chrysalids 
 hanging on trees or walls and put them in a box with a glass 
 top, and in the spring each chrysalid would wake up, some of 
 them into moths and some into butterflies, and you could see 
 them stretch their new wings. And if you put a flower into 
 the box you could see the little creatures sip the honey from 
 down deep in the petals. 
 
 How do you suppose the butterfly gets at the honey ? She 
 does not pull out the petals to suck it, as you or I would do, 
 nor does she tip the flower to turn it out, for it would not run 
 
How Mother Nature Sets the Table for the Inserts. 
 
 Fig. 53. — Head of 
 the Butterfly. 
 
 out if she did ; nor does she creep down into the flower. But 
 
 she sucks it out through a sort of long tongue that she has, 
 which you see coiled up under the head of the 
 butterfly in the picture (Fig. 53). When she 
 conies to a flower she straightens this tongue 
 out and pushes it down into the bottom of each 
 petal and sucks up the sweet liquid, just as you 
 can suck up water through a dandelion stem 
 or a straw. I remember in my boyhood that 
 the first time I saw a cider-mill the cider was 
 running into a great tub, so big that we boys 
 30uld not tip it to get the cider. Nor were 
 there any dippers to dip it up. But the mill 
 
 was in a barn and there were plenty of straws stacked up in 
 
 the mow, and we were soon sitting around the tub, each with 
 
 a straw in his mouth, 
 
 sucking up the sweet 
 
 cider. That is the way 
 
 the butterfly sucks up 
 
 her sweet food, only her 
 
 straw grows out of her 
 
 mouth, and she can roll 
 
 it up out of sight as soon 
 
 as she has finished one 
 
 flower and wishes to go 
 
 to another. 
 
 In the picture of the 
 
 moth you see the long 
 
 tongue uncoiled (Fig. 54). 
 
 JKSm 
 
 sp 
 
 Jf 
 
 ' y 
 Fig. 
 
 f 
 "lift/ 
 
 54. — The Sphinx Moth. 
 
 The moth is just going to push it into the flower. It does 
 not need to be so long for just that blossom, but some of the 
 
76 
 
 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 blossoms have very deep cups, like the morning-glory, or 
 long spurs, like the honeysuckle, so that the honey would be 
 (juite out of the reach of an insert with it short tongue. You 
 do not see the moths so often as you do the butterflies, because 
 they nearly all llv only by night. But if you look under a 
 street lamp in the morning, you will almost always find some 
 that have killed themselves by flying against it the night 
 before, and you can see their beautiful colors and can uncoil 
 their long tongues by using the point- of a pin. Hut the best 
 way to see them is to find some of their cocoons and put them 
 in a glass-covered box and then watch them open. Sometimes 
 
 you can see them eat by 
 putting a dish of sweet- 
 ened water in the box, 
 but most of them like 
 flowers better and will 
 leed on them only at 
 night. There arc some 
 moths, however, which 
 cannot eat at all. One 
 of them is the great poly- 
 phenius moth, which lias 
 on its wings beautiful 
 spots like the eyes of 
 peacock feathers. The 
 first time I tried to feed 
 a moth, it happened to 
 be one of these, — a Mrs. Polyphemus who had flown into my 
 room, — and f was much troubled because she would not eat, 
 though she laid a hundred eggs or more in the box where 1 
 put her. But 1 found out afterwards that she never cats after 
 
 Fig 
 
 . — Brazi 
 
 it ] tinner. 
 
How Mother Nature Seta the. Table for the luxe, -Is. 
 
 77 
 
 mi 
 
 M 
 
 m 
 
 4 
 
 '■i) 
 
 I':/ 
 
 11 
 
 I 
 
 / 
 
 she has become a moth. She finishes her dinner while she is a 
 caterpillar eating leaves. 
 
 The bees also, as well as the butterflies and moths, get their 
 food from the flowers ; and they, too, have long tongues to 
 suck up the sweet juice, as 
 
 you see from the picture of / ^P^ - 
 
 the Brazilian bees at dinner 
 (Fig. 55). With such tongues 
 they can reach down very 
 deep in the flowers. Our 
 own hive-bees, which you see 
 in the picture (Fig. 56), do 
 not have their tongues quite 
 so long and so they have to 
 push their heads into the 
 flower. When you stand 
 beside the flower-bed in sum- 
 mer to watch for butterflies 
 you will see a dozen bees to 
 one butterfly, and the bees 
 will all seem to be in a greater 
 hurry than the butterflies. 
 
 This is not because they are so much more hungry than the 
 butterflies, but because they have ball)- sisters at home to feed, 
 while the butterfly has no one but herself to tend. The bees 
 carry their honey to the hive and give it to the nurses, who 
 mix it with bee-bread and give it to the tiny baby bees, some- 
 thing as the ant nurses give food to the baby ants. There are 
 hundreds of those baby bees in every hive, and they are all 
 hungry and need to be fed often. So their sisters who get 
 food from the flowers for them must wake up early and work 
 
 Fig. 56. — Hive-Bees at Dinner. 
 
7* 
 
 Mm her Nature's Children. 
 
 hard all day long, as hard as your father and mother do to get 
 food for the rhildren at home. 
 
 Rut insects can suck their fond out of the green stalk of a 
 plant as well as out of the flower. You must have .seen on the 
 
 plants in flower-pots little 
 green aphides, or plant-lice, 
 as they are called. You can 
 see a lot of them clustered on 
 the stalks in the picture (Fig. 
 57). They are pictured four 
 or five times larger than they 
 really are, so that you can see 
 them better. Each one has 
 a sharp little bill, as you see 
 in the lower one, and it will 
 jro through the tender bark 
 of the young shoot, as a mos- 
 quito's bill goes through our 
 skin. So they can suck the 
 sap out of the petals. And 
 each one of them lias two 
 little tubes sticking out of 
 the back of its body, as you can see in the cut, and out of those 
 tubes they can send tiny drops of hone}*. 
 
 But the ants have found out that these little creatures give 
 honey ; and so you can almost always find some ants running 
 about among these aphides when they are on plants out of 
 doors. If you watch them carefully, you will see the ant touch 
 the tubes with its feelers, as in the picture, and then a tiny 
 drop will come out of the tubes and the ant will eat it, for ants 
 are very fond of sweet things. Men who have studied ants call 
 
 Fig. 57. 
 
 Ant and Aphides at Dinner. 
 
How Mother Nature Sets the Table for the Insects. 70 
 
 these aphides the cows of the ants, because they get honey 
 from them as we get milk from our cows. The wasps like 
 honey also and try to get it from the aphides. When I was 
 a boy I once found a tree where a whole line of ants were going 
 up and down the trunk. When I looked closely at the branches 
 and leaves of the tree I found some aphides feeding there and 
 furnishing this sweet milk to the ants. While I was watch- 
 ing them a big wasp came flying along and alighted near some 
 of the aphides. But she had hardly touched the leaf before 
 three or four ants came running towards her. She seemed to 
 see them, for before they were near enough to touch her she 
 started up and flew off in a way that made me think she was 
 really afraid of the tiny creatures. 
 
 But some of the ants have hit on a better way of keeping the 
 wasps from their cows. They build little sheds out of clay or 
 crumbled wood to cover them up, something as men build barns 
 to cover up our real cows. Sometimes the ants even make a 
 covered passageway leading from the aphides down to the 
 ground where their home is. For of course they carry this 
 honey down to the baby ants in the ant-hill. But they have 
 still another way of getting honey for their nurslings. They 
 make tunnels in the ground where the roots of plants grow, 
 and take some aphides like these and put them on the roots 
 and let them suck the juice and make their honey there where 
 the wasps cannot get at them and where their little ones can 
 be fed still better. When winter comes and everything is 
 frozen, the aphides die, but they leave eggs that will hatch 
 out into new aphides the next spring. The wise little ants 
 gather up the eggs and carry them into their own homes and 
 tend them carefully during the long, cold winter. But as soon 
 as spring comes and the ground thaws so that the sap is run- 
 
80 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 ning in the rooty once more, the ants dig their little tunnels 
 along the roots again. Then as fast as the young aphides 
 come out of their eggs, the ants carry them out to the roots 
 and set them to feeding there, just as the farmers drive their 
 cows out to the pasture in the spring to feed on the new grass. 
 The ants seem to think that the aphides were meant to furnish 
 honey for them and their babies. I wonder what the aphides 
 think about it. What do you think about it? "Were the cows 
 meant to furnish us with milk, and the bees to furnish us with 
 honey ? 
 
 Nature ever faithful is 
 
 To .such as trust, her faithfulness. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 Mrs. Bullard's Butterflies and ifotlis will lie useful, especially in telling how 
 the perfect insect can be obtained from the cocoon. 
 
 Miss Buckley's Fairy Lund of Science has a. chapter on bees and flowers ; 
 also Mr. Scudder's Butterflies: Their Structure and his Life of a Butterfly will 
 be helpful. 
 
 A plant with living" aphides will not be difficult to obtain ; nor should a 
 mounted butterfly or moth and a flower with a long calyx. If the teacher is 
 well prepared to answer questions, ami pupils are encouraged to ask them, the 
 exercise following the reading may be made very profitable. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW MOTHER NATURE SETS THE TABLE FOR THE PLANTS. 
 
 " The Favored One " is what the painter of this picture 
 calls it. I suppose that he means that the little girl in the 
 centre is " the favored one," because she alone is drinking 
 some of the milk, though the two cats evidently want a drink 
 
 of it. You can see one of them looking so eagerly and long- 
 ingly at the milk, and the other is coaxing for it by rubbing 
 her head against the feet of the milkmaid. There are the two 
 calves, too, that seem to be wondering why they have to wear 
 sharp points of cruel iron on their noses to keep them from get- 
 ting any of their own mother's milk, while the little girl can 
 
 81 
 
82 
 
 Mother Nature's Ohildre, 
 
 have all she wants. And the kind old cow-mother herself looks 
 a little troubled over it. 
 
 But I think you know why wc let the little girl drink lirst. 
 If we let the cats always get all they wanted lirst, (here would 
 not be anything left for the hoys and girls, and hoys and girls 
 
 are much more help to 
 the world than cats are. 
 And if we let the calves 
 L, r et all the milk they 
 \ wanted there would not 
 P 1 he any left for us. So 
 we have to keep the 
 calves away from their 
 mother and give only a 
 part of her milk to them. 
 In that way we get 
 enough for them and 
 us both, and enough to 
 make butter also. 
 
 But where does the 
 cow herself get the milk 
 she gives to us '! She 
 stays all day in the pas- 
 ture, which you see in 
 the picture, and eats nothing hut grass, and drinks nothing but 
 water. Yet she has a whole pailful of milk at night and almost 
 as much more again in Ike morning. So you sec the milk must 
 somehow come from the water and the grass. Neither the water 
 nor the grass seems to have any milk in it, yet the stuff out 
 of which the milk is made is really there in the water, and the 
 
 - '. s 
 
 Fig. 59. — Milking the Cow Tree. 
 
 juice of the blades, and stei 
 
 of tl 
 
 le crass. 
 
 You remember 
 
How Mother Nature Sets the Table for the Plants. 
 
 sr, 
 
 that the corn-mother made "milk " for her baby seeds, and we 
 saw the milk "condensed" in the kernels of corn. The white 
 flour also that we eat in oar bread is the condensed milk which 
 the wheat-mother made for her baby wheat seeds. There is a 
 tree in South America called the cow tree, because when you 
 cut into it a stream of white juice runs out that looks like 
 milk and tastes like it, and has 
 in it about the same stuff milk 
 has. You can see some peo- 
 ple cutting or tapping such a 
 tree in the picture (Fig. 59). 
 
 Perhaps some of you have 
 seen people tapping trees here 
 in our own country. When I 
 was a boy in New England I 
 used to enjoy going in the 
 spring to a sugar berth, as it 
 was called. It was a grove of 
 maple trees which had been 
 tapped by boring holes in the 
 trunks of the trees and putting- 
 round tubes into the holes. A 
 sweet sap would run out of 
 the hole and drop into the pail 
 set under the tube, as you see it doing in the picture (Fig. 60), 
 and out of that sap maple syrup and maple sugar were made. 
 So you see the farmers milk their maple trees as well as their 
 cows, and they get a good many pailfuls of maple milk, as it 
 were, from each tree. 
 
 But where do the maple trees get the sap, and the cow trees 
 the milk, they pour forth so kindly to us ? And where does 
 
 Fig. 60. — Milking tin- Maple Tree. 
 
8 4 
 
 Mother Nature's ('luhlroi. 
 
 the grass get the juice, it gives the cows that they may change 
 it into milk 7 Where is their table set to furnish them with 
 lood? If yon should pull up a bunch of 
 grass, you would find a lot of fine, white, 
 thread-like roots running down into the 
 ground. So, too, if you could pull up a 
 maple tree, or any other live, you would 
 find that the big roots send out at their 
 sides or tips these same fine, thread-like 
 shoots. Of course, you cannot pull up a 
 big maple tree, but you can pull up a baby 
 maple, like that in the picture (Fig. HI), 
 Fig. iii.— A Baiiy Maple and you will find its own loots covered 
 
 (the tip magnified). .,, ,, ,- ul , ., , ,,. , , 
 
 with those little white hairs. It you look 
 at the tip of the root with a magnifying glass, it will appear 
 like that thing at the right of the baby maple ; or if you could 
 magnify it still more and see it with all the bits of earth about 
 it, just as it is in the ground before 
 you pulled it up, it would look 
 as you see it in the next picture 
 (Fig. 62). You can see there that 
 the hairs are little tongues pushed 
 out into the earth between the ';„ 
 bits of sand to suck up food, tV.-''-^*51 
 
 'MillUnl'lll . 
 
 
 ■r/\ 
 
 -"\ ■ lift",'. ^- 
 
 something as the long tongues of : .'ii, 
 
 
 butterflies and moths are pushed 
 into the flowers to suck up the <i, 
 
 sweet juices the ] ilants make. The Fl °- H2 ' - Ti| "' r ,t '"" Ma S nifle '' M '"'"- 
 plants do not eat the earth, any more than the moths and butter- 
 flies eat the flowers. The roots only send out their long, slender 
 tongues and lick up all the juices they can find in the earth. 
 
Hoiv Mother Nature Sets the Table for the Plants. 
 
 85 
 
 How do you suppose these slender rootlets manage to find 
 their way about in the dark earth, so as to get their food and 
 steer clear of the obstacles in their pathway? You can see 
 from the picture of the root in the earth (Fig. 62) that one of 
 the little tongues has bent right around a bit of gravel and 
 then gone straight on its way again. Men 
 used to think that the stone pushed the 
 root away. But if that were so, it would 
 go growing off in another direction, instead 
 of climbing over the stone and keeping on 
 the same way, as you see it does. And 
 Mr. Darwin proved by a very pretty ex- 
 periment that it was the root that moved 
 itself because it was trying to get around inSfe 
 the stone, and not because it was pushed 
 away by the stone ; for he got the roots 
 to turn by making them think there was 
 a stone in their path when there was really 
 no obstacle at all in their way. You can 
 see his experiment in the picture of the 
 roots trying to dodge an imaginary stone 
 (Fig. 63). He thought that if the roots 
 turned of their own accord because they 
 felt the stone, as we turn to avoid a wall 
 when we feel our way along in the dark, 
 then they would turn without any stone 
 in their way if they felt something that seemed like a stone. 
 So he started some seeds, and when the roots began to grow he 
 pasted a tiny bit of paper on the side of each root tip. Of 
 course the paper was not able to stop the roots. They could 
 have gone on growing straight ahead if they had only thought 
 
 Fig. t;.".. — Baby Ro 
 Dodging Imagi- 
 nary Stones. 
 
86 Mother Nature* Children. 
 
 so. But the little things were Cooled and thought the touch of 
 the paper was the touch of a stone in their path, and so began 
 to try to get around it. But the paper was stuck to them, and 
 as they turned they took it with them. So they kept on turn- 
 ing and turning, some of them three or four times round, till 
 they knocked the hit of paper off, as you see the two lower ones 
 have done ; and then they started straight on again, thinking 
 they had at last got around that big stone they imagined in 
 their way. 
 
 They remind me of a cat I had in my boyhood who brought 
 a mouse into my chamber once and let it loose to show me 
 how well she could catch it. But the mouse ran into one 
 of my congress boots that was lying on the floor, and the cat 
 pushed her head in after it. But when she tried to pull her 
 head out, the elastic held the shoe fast on her head. So she 
 began to try to hack out of it, and she backed all the way 
 around the room two or three times, till I came to her help and 
 pulled the boot off. I suppose she thought she could hack out 
 of the shoe if she backed far enough. But she could not, 
 because she was taking the shoe with her on her head. And 
 so the roots thought they could turn away from the obstacle 
 if they turned long enough, but they couldn't, because they 
 were carrying the obstacle with them. 
 
 The roots also know how to find the best food and water, as 
 well as how to avoid obstacles. I have heard of a root that 
 climbed a wall six feet high to get at some water the other side 
 of it, and of another tree that sent loots sixty feet away in one 
 direction because there was a spring of water there, though 
 the roots went only a few feet in the other direction. You 
 know how thickly trees grow beside a stream. They seem to 
 o-ather about the water as the bees and butterflies Leather about 
 
How Mother Nature Sets the Table for the Plants. 87 
 
 the flowers. And they gather for the same reason, because 
 they find a table set for them there. The roots of the little 
 plants, like the wheat and the barley, will push their tiny 
 fingers down into the ground five or six feet in trying to find 
 water. But up in Siberia, where the ground is frozen within 
 two or three feet of the surface even in summer, the roots will 
 not try to go down straight. When they get near the frozen 
 soil they will turn their shoots off level with the surface. But 
 when a plant starts high up on the branch of a tree, it will 
 sometimes send its roots straight down forty or fifty feet, as if 
 feeling for the ground. It seems to think its table is set for it 
 somewhere, and it keeps on groping till it finds it. 
 
 So you see the great earth itself is the table set for the 
 plants, just as the plants are the table for the cattle and the 
 insects. Mother Nature has spent thousands of years getting 
 this table of the earth ready for her plant children. She has 
 crumbled the rocks by freezing and thawing them, and by wet- 
 ting and drying them, till they make a soft lied for the baby 
 plants to sleep in during the winter and a rich table of food in 
 summer. All that the little baby seed has to do when it has 
 waked up in the spring and eaten the condensed milk its 
 mother made and laid up for it is to stick out its tiny tongues 
 and it will find plenty of food melted in the moisture of the 
 earth. Somebody seems to have made this whole globe a great 
 round ball of condensed milk which the rains melt, so that all 
 the tiny mouths of the millions of plants can snck it in and 
 change it to sap or milk, or corn or wheat. But all these 
 plants have to work hard to get this food. They have to push 
 their tender tongues out in all directions, and climb over stones 
 and walls to reach the food. Mother Nature does not pour it 
 down their throats, any more than she pours honey down the 
 
88 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 throats of bees or butterflies. Those that wake \i[> earliest and 
 work hardest get the must food and outgrow and overshadow 
 the others. Mother Nature sets her table over the whole earth 
 for all her children, but she does not allow any of them to eat 
 without earning their food by working for her. The plants 
 that feed the cattle, the cattle that eat the grass and change it 
 to milk for us are all working. The birds and insects that 
 cradle and tend their little ones are working for her. But the 
 man or woman, or boy or girl, that does some kind act, or 
 speaks some loving word, is doing the noblest work of all, and 
 so is fed with the bread of earth and heaven most bounteously. 
 
 Rooked on her breast, these pines and I 
 Alike on Nature's love rely. 
 
 Whittikk. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES 
 
 Besides the books on plants previously mentioned, Darwin's Power of Move- 
 ment in Plants and Gray's IJoio /'(nuts Behave will he helpful. Taylor's 
 Sagacity and Morality of Plants will also give suggestions for the whole series. 
 The best recent book on the subject is Kerner von Marilaun's Natural History 
 of Plants, translated by Oliver and just published in England in four half- 
 volumes. 
 
 This chapter can Ijp made more real to the children by showing them some 
 seeds that have just started, or still better hy asking them to start the seeds for 
 themselves. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW MOTHER NATURE CLOTHES THE BIRDS. 
 
 You can all see what that little girl is doing in the picture. 
 She is playing with 
 one of those clear lit- 
 tle kittens, while the 
 other one is eating 
 milk out of the saucer 
 on the ground. But 
 can you see what the 
 mother is doing ? It 
 looks as if she were 
 sewing, does n't it ? 
 If you look at the 
 picture closely, I 
 think you will see 
 what it is she is sew- 
 ing. It is a little 
 jacket. So I suppose 
 she has a little boy 
 some whe re, — per- 
 haps at school, — and 
 she is making him a 
 coat, or mending it 
 for him. That sweet little girl has on a dress that her mother 
 
 If you look through the open door 
 
 8!) 
 
 has probably made for her. 
 
90 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 at the right of the picture, you will see a tiny baby sleeping in 
 a cradle, and I am sure that the baby's dresses were also made 
 by her mother, who loves her too dearly to let any one else do 
 it for her. 
 
 So you see what a busy woman this mother must be, making 
 and mending the clothes lor all the little ones, and perhaps 
 as many more bigger ones that we know nothing about. I 
 
 should n't wonder if 
 she had to sit rip at 
 night after the chil- 
 dren were abed and 
 asleep to keep them 
 warmly and neatly 
 clothed. But what 
 would she do if she 
 had to make and 
 mend the clothes of 
 all the people in the 
 world, big and little? 
 And what would she 
 do if, besides that, 
 she had to make and 
 mend all the cloth- 
 ing' for all the birds and all the cattle and all the fish and all 
 the insects and all the plants? Do you suppose she could 
 manage to do all that? I don't believe she could, even if she 
 sat up all night long every night in the year. And yet some- 
 body is making and mending the clothes for all these countless 
 crowds of creatures all the time, and giving them new suits of 
 clothes every year, and sometimes two or three times a year. 
 Who do you suppose this good mother is? And how do you 
 
 '#% 
 
 mqjjg0 
 
 Fig. 05. — The Ptarmigan in his Summer Suit. 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the Birds. 
 
 91 
 
 suppose she manages to clothe her family'!' Let us see how 
 she does with the birds. 
 
 If you should feel a live bird's body, you would find that 
 it felt a great deal warmer than your hand or your face. And 
 it is really warmer than any other living thing. You know it 
 goes flying through the air, so that a cool breeze is blowing 
 upon it all the time. Therefore it needs very warm clothing 
 to prevent it from .. ■->, - , 
 
 getting cold 
 
 It has 
 just the clothing it 
 needs in its feathers. 
 You know how warm 
 feathers are, and you 
 can see from the pic- 
 ture of the Ptarmigan 
 in his summer suit 
 (Fig. 65) that he 
 seems covered all 
 over with dark-col- 
 ored feathers. In 
 winter he has a still 
 thicker coat of white 
 feathers to match the 
 white snow, as you will see from the next picture of the same 
 bird in his winter suit (Fig. 66). How does he get his 
 clothes? How does he change them with the changing seasons 
 of the year? 
 
 Next spring, when the mother hen has her tiny chickens, if 
 you will look at them closely when they are only a day or two 
 old, you will find that they do not seem to have feathers like 
 their mother, but are covered over with soft down, more like 
 
 Fig. Ii(i. — The Ptarmigan in liis Winter Suit. 
 
92 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 hair than feathers. That soft down is their baby clothes, and 
 they get it before they leave their shells, so that they are born 
 with their baby clothes on. It grows out of their skin, just as 
 our linger nails grow out of our skin at the end of the lingers. 
 
 T.. 4-1... ...'..J- f tk„ (nortov n^nminn 
 
 (Fig. 07) you see it coming through 
 the cells of the skin something as the 
 blades of grass come up through the 
 grains of sand. The soft downy 
 points that are to form the sides of 
 the feather come up first, as you see 
 in the picture, and the feathers come 
 out later. In the next picture of the 
 wing of the bird (Fig. 68) you can see 
 the feathers full-grown. You will 
 notice how far the quills go down 
 into the skin, something as the stalks 
 of some plants go down into the earth. 
 And when a bird like the ptarmigan 
 changes its summer clothes for a 
 thicker winter suit, the new feather grows up right in the same 
 place where the old ones are and pushes them out, so that they 
 fall off and you find them on the ground sometimes. That 
 change of dress is what is called "molting," and it takes place 
 so rapidly that in a few weeks a bird will change all its feathers 
 and have a new suit, though the old feathers do not all come 
 out at once, because the poor bird would be likely to freeze to 
 death if they did. 
 
 So you see how the birds get their clothing. The bird 
 mothers do not have to sit up nights making and mending the 
 clothes of their little ones, because the clothing grows out of 
 
 Fig. (17. — A Feather Growing. 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the Birds. 
 
 93 
 
 the skin of the birds, as the plants grow out of the earth. But 
 the plants grow from seeds in the ground ; and who do you 
 suppose sowed the seeds for the feathers, and waked them up 
 and taught them how to grow ? Whoever it is that does it 
 must be very, very busy, for you know what countless numbers 
 of birds there are, all having new suits of clothes every year to 
 take the place of the old suits that get worn and torn. 
 
 But though the birds have their clothing grow for them, yet 
 they have to take care of it for themselves. If you have ever 
 watched canary birds, you must have noticed how often they 
 have to fix their feathers — "preen" them, as it is called — by 
 smoothing them out with the bill. Birds have to comb their 
 feathers more carefully than you do your 
 hair. For, if you let your hair go, so that 
 it got snarled, I suppose you would not die, 
 though you would not feel so comfortable, 
 nor look as well as you do now. But if a 
 bird should let his feathers be- 
 come tangled and wet and dirty, 
 he would probably die in a very 
 short time, because his clothes 
 would not keep him warm any 
 longer. For the feathers are 
 warm because they are not 
 packed close together but are 
 loose and have places filled with 
 air between them. By raising 
 the feathers and making those 
 places larger the feathers become still warmer. If you notice 
 a canary bird when he is asleep, you will see that his body 
 seems much larger than when he is awake. That is because 
 
 V 
 
 Fig. 08. — A Bird's Wins. 
 
'-II 
 
 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 he lifts up his feathers and so makes them warmer when he 
 goes to bed, as we put on more clothes at night, And 
 he tucks his head under the bedclothes, too. In winter 
 you will notice that the sparrows seem puffed out larger. 
 They have really put on their thicker coats by raising their 
 feathers. But the birds could not do this unless they kept 
 their feathers clean. So they have to be always washing them 
 
 and brushing them 
 and laying them down 
 straight, because they 
 cannot take them off 
 and wash them and 
 iron them once a 
 week. 
 
 When a bird goes 
 into the water, as so 
 many birds do, lie has 
 to be still more care- 
 ful (if his clothes or 
 he will get them wet 
 through and so die of 
 cold. All water-birds 
 have an oil-can, or 
 oil-gland, as it is called, located down among the tail feathers. 
 When the bird has smoothed out his feathers, he reaches his 
 head down to the oil-gland and gets a nip of oil in his bill and 
 oils the feathers, so that the water will have hard work to get 
 into them. It makes a sort of oilcloth of the feathers, so that 
 the water runs off a duck's bark instead of soaking in and 
 wetting the duck. In the picture of the pelicans (Fig. (i'.t) you 
 see one of them oiling his feathers witli his hill. He has been 
 
 Fig. 69. —Pelican Fixing his Clothes 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the Birds. 
 
 95 
 
 fishing for his dinner and had to dive into the water to catch 
 the fish, but as soon as he has come out on the shore he begins 
 to work on his feathers. It takes him about all the time to get 
 his meals and fix his feathers. 
 
 The baby birds cannot manage their feathers so well as their 
 mother can, and so the mother sometimes carries the little ones 
 on her back when 
 they get tired and 
 wet, as you see the 
 crested Grebe doing 
 in the picture (Fig. 
 70). The land birds, 
 like our domestic 
 fowls, have so little 
 oil on their feathers 
 that they would get 
 wet through very 
 quickly. The little 
 chickens sometimes 
 die when they are out 
 in a cold rain, and 
 even the grown up 
 hens do not like to 
 go into the water. I 
 remember reading 
 once of a swan that carried a hen on her back, as the grebe 
 carries her little ones. The swan and the hen had each hatched 
 out some little ducklings at the same time, and the two broods- 
 used to go around together, the hen scratching for them on 
 land and the swan looking after them when they took to the 
 water. But the hen seemed very much troubled when the 
 
 Fig. 70. 
 
 -The Crested Grebe Keeping her 
 Bahies' Feathers Dry. 
 
96 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 ducklings were on the water where she could not look alter 
 them. So one day the swan came swimming up to the shore 
 and took the hen upon her back and carried her out among the 
 little brood, so that she could watch over them without wetting 
 her feathers. 
 
 Tliis scrap of valor just for play 
 
 Fronts thr north-wind in waistcoat gray. 
 
 Emerson, The T'itnwuse. 
 
 TEACHING NOTE. 
 
 A number of excellent books for children, on the habits of birds and tlie 
 provisions in nature for their happiness, have been lately published. The read- 
 ing of this hook should be made the occasion for commending others for outside 
 reading if school time cannot be afforded. The deeper purpose of this book 
 makes it a good foundation tor getting the best value of others later on. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOW MOTHER NATURE CLOTHES THE MAMMALS. 
 
 Why do you suppose the shepherdess is carrying that lamb 
 in her arms ? Perhaps the poor little thing was cold and so 
 numb that it could 
 not walk. The baby 
 lambs are born so 
 early in the spring, 
 sometimes, that they 
 have to be wrapped 
 up in a blanket to 
 keep them warm, be- 
 cause their baby 
 clothes are not so 
 thick as their mothers' 
 clothes, as you can 
 see from the picture. 
 Where do you think 
 they get such nice 
 warm clothing ? Who 
 do you imagine makes 
 it for them? It is 
 made by the same 
 good mother that 
 makes the birds' clothing. You remember that the birds' 
 clothes, instead of being cut out of cloth and sewed together, 
 
 97 
 
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 -'■.- 
 
 
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 w 
 
 
 
 jfei -^"sailS 
 
 £~ A. ,M</£t 
 
 ■■•^fe~V- ' ~ ::: ^~ : ' : -r-- -^ 
 
 '// >B^- **t3&£s^ 
 
 
 ^E^'J&~ J&&^j3 
 
 ISI i \as11 
 
 *upf ;*^ * Isgj 
 
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 -Nr4f fg : Mjfllfcftm&MU 1 
 
 r'H|p4B 
 
 
 gfflfcff.-'"' ^W/ 
 
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98 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 and put onto the birds from the outside, were made to prow 
 out of the birds' skin in the shape of leathers, something as 
 our nails prow out of the ends of our lingers. The sheep's 
 clothing grows in the same: way out of the skin of the sheep, 
 just as hair grows out of your head. Each hair of your head 
 has little oil-glands to keep it moist, so that the water cannot 
 easily soak in to wet your head. In just the same way each 
 hair of the sheep's wool lias oil-glands to make a sort of oil- 
 cloth of the fleece so that the rain may run off without wetting 
 the sheep or the lamb. So they do not have to oil each separate 
 hair, as the bird does eacb feather. 
 
 The sheep, too, have thicker clothes for winter, and thinner 
 for summer, just as well as the birds do ; for the wool of the 
 sheep falls off every spring, or would fall off if it were not cut 
 off by the shepherds. Then a new growth starts, and by winter 
 it is long enough to keep them warm. And then in the spring 
 it falls off again. So it docs every yea) 1 , giving them a thick 
 coat in the winter and a thin one in the summer. The wild 
 sheep of the Rocky Mountains, who do not have any one to 
 ■shear them, have an overcoat of long hair grow in the fall and 
 drop off in the spring, while their undercoat of short hail' stays 
 in the summer as well as in the winter. If you will smooth 
 your kitty's bark the wrong way, you will sec the same two 
 coats she has on, one of longer, coarser hairs, and the other of 
 finer, shorter hairs. You must have often seen her cleaning her 
 fur by licking it with her tongue. She has to work very hard 
 to keep it clean, because it has not so mucb < » i I as the sheep's 
 wool has, and would easily get wet and dirty, and so be cold and 
 unhealthy. And when the eat has little kittens you will sec her 
 clean them in the same careful way before they are large enough 
 to take care of themselves. She has to do all the family washin"' 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the Mammals. 
 
 99 
 
 for herself and all her children, and has to do it with her tongue, 
 and yet she keeps herself and her family very clean indeed. 
 
 In the next picture (Fig. 72) you see another mother and 
 her family, the white bear mother and her two babies. They 
 are lying down deep under the snow. On the surface of the 
 snow you can see the dogs and men hunting for the bear, but 
 they will hardly find 
 her, because she is 
 buried so deep in the 
 snow. You remem- 
 ber how she lies down 
 under some cliff and 
 lets the snow fall on 
 her, and cover her 
 and her babies up till 
 they are wholly out 
 of sight. But she 
 would freeze to death 
 if she did not have 
 such long, thick fur 
 to keep her warm. 
 That is her blanket 
 and quilt, and she draws her little ones up to her breast so that 
 they do not feel the cold and the snow, though they, too, have 
 their baby clothes of fur when they are born. 
 
 One of Mother Nature's largest children is the elephant. 
 I think you must have seen an elephant, and I dare say you 
 think it would take a pretty large suit of clothes to cover him. 
 He looks as if he had nothing on his skin to keep him warm, 
 and he lives in a country so hot that he does not need any 
 clothes. But his ancestors — his great-great-grandfathers — 
 
 Fig. 72.— The White Bear in her Winter Clothes. 
 
100 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 used to live on the earth during what is called the Great Ice 
 Age, when most of the land where we live was covered with 
 vast fields of ice, ever so thick. These animals were called 
 
 mammoths, and though 
 
 they were much larger 
 than the elephant is 
 now, they had clothing 
 to cover them ; for a 
 coat of brown hair 
 nearly a foot long grew 
 all over their bodies, and 
 they had a shaggy mane 
 about the head and neck. 
 You can see one of them 
 in the picture of the 
 mammoth (Fig. 73), and 
 you can make out the 
 great glaciers or ice- 
 fields in the back of the 
 picture, while in the 
 right-hand part of it there are three seals that also wear fur 
 clothes — sealskin coats — which not only keep them warm, 
 but also keep them dry when they swim in the water, as they 
 do a great deal of the time. So you see the great mother kept 
 her children well clothed even in the ice age. But when the 
 ice-fields melted away and it grew hot again, she took off their 
 heavy coats, so that you will find only a few coarse hairs on the 
 elephants of to-day. 
 
 The mother monkey in the next picture (Fig. 74) does not 
 have to make her baby any clothes, for they grow on him just 
 as her clothes grow on her, though I think she would find 
 
 Fig. 
 
 The Mammoth in Winter Clothes. 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the Mammals. 
 
 101 
 
 some way to keep him warm even if he was not born with 
 clothes on. She carries him in her arms when he is small, and 
 she keeps the flies away from him when he is asleep. And 
 when he wakes she takes him down to some pool of water and 
 washes his face like a human mother, and if he does not behave 
 himself she boxes his ears, I am sorry to say. You see from 
 the picture that she uses her long tail to hold on to the branch 
 of a tree, but she also uses it as a sort of comforter to wrap 
 around her neck, or her baby's neck, when it is cold, as it often 
 is at night in South America, where these monkeys live. 
 
 Besides keeping her children warm, Mother Nature keeps 
 them safe by their clothing when they seem to need it. The 
 soft hairs grow stiff and sharp, as the hairs on the back of a pig. 
 Those pigs' hairs we 
 call bristles. You can 
 see them in any tooth- 
 brush, and you can feel 
 of them and see how 
 strong and sharp they 
 are. But on the porcu- 
 pine, as you see in the 
 picture on the follow- 
 ing page (Fig. 75), they 
 grow still longer and 
 sharper and stiffer, so 
 that they are like so 
 many sharp needles 
 ready to stick into any 
 one. The porcupine is 
 a slow, weak creature, and she cannot keep herself safe by run- 
 ning, or biting, or scratching. So when she finds any one coming 
 
 Fig. 74. —The Woolly Monkey and her Child. 
 
102 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 Fig. 
 
 -The Porcupine Mother and her Children. 
 
 she gets right in front of her little ones, and turns her bristling 
 
 back toward the enemy, and then she raises her quills so that 
 
 they stick out in all di- 
 rections. If you touch 
 them, they seem to fly 
 right out of her skin 
 into yonr hand. And 
 they work their way 
 deep into your flesh, 
 so that sometimes lions 
 and tigers have been 
 found dead with some 
 of these quills sticking 
 
 into them far enough to kill them. But if you do not try to 
 
 touch her, she will smooth them down and let her little ones 
 
 come out from behind her and begin to eat, as you see them 
 
 doing in the picture , s 
 
 (Fig. 75). The little 
 
 ones themselves have 
 
 only soft white quills 
 
 when they are born, 
 
 but as they grow 
 
 older the quills grow 
 
 hard anil long, so that 
 
 in a few weeks the 
 
 little ones can look 
 
 out for themselves in 
 
 the same way that 
 
 their mother does. 
 
 A still stranger suit of clothes is seen in the next picture 
 
 (Fig. 70). The Six-banded Armadillo, as it is called, has 
 
 Fig. 7fi. — The Six-Banded Armadillo. 
 
Mow Mother Nature Clothes the Mammals. 
 
 103 
 
 some hair under its body and a few hairs between the scales 
 on its back. But on most of its surface you see it has 
 bony scales, covered over with a sort of enamel, something as 
 if we had a lot of finger nails growing out all over the back of 
 our body. The bony scales grow out of the skin as the feathers 
 and hairs do. But this creature does n't need hairs to keep him 
 warm, though he does need scales to keep other creatures from 
 eating him up. So his suit of clothes grows out of his skin, as 
 a suit of armor. He 
 uses it to make him- 
 self safe in several 
 ways. If you come 
 upon him, he will at 
 once burrow into the 
 ground with his 
 strong claws, as you 
 see him doing in the 
 picture. In three 
 minutes he will dig 
 a hole deep enough to 
 squeeze into it and 
 get out of sight. If you try to pull him out by the tail, you 
 will find that you cannot possibly do it, because he raises his 
 scales, something as the porcupine does his quills, and sticks 
 their sharp ends right into the earth above his back, while his 
 long, sharp claws stick into the earth below him. You may 
 pull his tail off if you pull hard enough, but you cannot move 
 him. Another way he uses the scales to defend himself is by 
 rolling himself up into a ball so that the outside of his body is 
 almost covered with scales. 
 
 But his cousin, the Three-banded Armadillo that you see in 
 
 Pig. ' 
 
 -The Three-Banded Armadillos. 
 
104 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 the picture on the preceding page (Fig. 77), is still better 
 clothed for turning himself into a round ball. You see that 
 the scales on his shoulders have grown into one solid bony box, 
 like half of the cocoanut shell, and the two halves are joined in 
 the middle of his body by bony rings that open and shut, some- 
 thing as the sticks of a fan do. When this armadillo goes out 
 walking, he opens his two half boxes, as you see him in the 
 picture, and walks slowly along on the tips of his toes. But 
 whenever you come upon him he does not try to dig into the 
 ground as his cousin does, but he shuts up his two half-round 
 boxes into one box wholly round, like a cocoanut shell before 
 you cut it open. You see two of these armadillos shut up that 
 way at the back of the picture on the left-hand side, and you 
 can see in one of them how the scales on the head and tail close 
 up the opening altogether, so that even the dogs cannot get at 
 the creature, though they try hard to bite into it. So you see 
 how safely as well as warmly these children of Mother Nature 
 are clothed. 
 
 Know, Nature's children all divide her care; 
 The fur that warms a monarch warmed a. bear. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 So good an opportunity should nut be neglected to bring to class notice 
 scientific facts belonging to the need and value of a higher standard of cleanli- 
 ness and sanitation than is held in most communities. 
 
 Our purpose is to teach only the facts of nature as they can be observed. 
 The children will doubtless get ideas that are too narrow and positive, but they 
 will insensibly enlarge them as they learn more of the world and human life. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOW MOTHER NATURE CLOTHES THE MOLLUSKS. 
 
 Here is a happy family. The oldest boy has been away to 
 sea and has just come back from his first voyage, and he is so 
 
 busy telling them about the droll things he saw, that he can 
 hardly find time to eat. You can see how interested they all 
 are in listening to him — his mother, his two brothers, and his 
 
 105 
 
106 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 oldest sister, who has stopped with her ladle in her hand to 
 hear the story. But Ins other sister, on the other side of the 
 picture, does not seem to lie listening to the story. She is 
 holding something up to her ear, just as we hold the receiver 
 of a telephone when we want to hear the message. What do 
 you think it is that she is listening to in such pleasant surprise? 
 If you look closely, you will see the coils of a shell. It is one 
 of those lovely shaped seashells that people bring home from 
 the other side of the world. I suppose her brother has brought 
 home that shell and perhaps he has given it to her for her own. 
 But what do you think a shell realby is? It 
 is a suit of clothes that Mother Nature made 
 for a little creature that lived in the sea, or, 
 rather, the good mother helped the little Mol- 
 lusk, as he is called, to make the clothes for 
 himself. lie did not start in life with his shell 
 full-grown. When he was a baby he had only 
 a little cap of a shell, as it were, on his upper 
 side. For the people who study him do not 
 believe that he has much head. You can see 
 this little baby shell right at the sharp end of 
 the large shell which the boy's sister is holding 
 to her ear. Some of the mollusks do not change 
 the shape of the shell from this first cap-form. 
 They just make the cap a little larger round, 
 something as if your mother should make you a, 
 baby straw hat, and then as you grew larger you should sew on 
 one braid of straw after another. If you should keep sitting on 
 the ground all your life and should make your hat broad- 
 brimmed enough, it would cover you completely up, as the 
 shell of the limpet does him. And lie lias made it by adding 
 
 Fig. 79. —The 
 Blue Limpet's Hat 
 The Rose Lim- 
 pet's Hat. 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the Mollusks, 
 
 107 
 
 one braid of shell to another, as you can wee by looking at the 
 picture (Fig. 79). The little baby shell grows out of the 
 mollusk's back, as the feathers grow out of birds and the hairs 
 out of animals ; and as he gets large)', he pushes his skin out 
 bej r ond the edge of the old shell and makes a new rim, and 
 then another, and so on, as long as he keeps on growing. 
 
 But some of the mollusks do not like to sit on the ground 
 holding their hat on all the time, and so they have contrived 
 a differently shaped shell. As they have grown and made 
 their hat larger braid by braid, 
 they have changed it into a 
 sort of basket into which they 
 can get altogether and put the 
 cover on, and so shut them- 
 selves out of harm's way. In 
 the picture of the growing 
 snails (Fig- 80) you can see 
 that the smallest one — the 
 one at the bottom of the pic- 
 ture — has a shell that he can 
 pull himself into and be completely out of sight, though he 
 has only just come out of one of those eggs. When he grows 
 a little larger he looks like what you see at the top of the 
 picture on the right-hand side, and when he is full-grown he 
 looks as you see him in the middle of the picture. 
 
 As he grows he adds just enough to keep the shell the right 
 size. If you look at it carefully, you will see the little rows of 
 matter he has added from day to day. He twists it round as 
 he makes it larger and so he can use the old baby shell as a 
 part of the new clothes. He does not throw away his baby 
 clothes, but on the largest shell you can see the first suit in 
 
 Fig. 80. 
 
 A Growing Snail's Urowiuj 
 
 Clothes. 
 
108 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 Fig. 81. — Water Snails and their Clothes. 
 
 the tiny twist at the centre. When a bird comes along- and 
 tries to eat up Mr. Snail, he pulls himself into his hat and is 
 safe ; and when winter comes and tries to nip him with its 
 
 frost, he gets into his 
 clothes and makes an 
 air-tight door, and 
 then goes to sleep for 
 the winter. In the 
 water, as you see from 
 the picture of the 
 pond snail (Fig. Si), 
 he can get along just 
 as well as on land. If 
 any hungry fish comes 
 along, he goes into his 
 shell, and the fish can 
 harm him no more than the bird can his cousin on the land, 
 though he gets killed sometimes, as you sec from the empty 
 shell on the right. 
 
 There is another sort of mollusk that makes a still better suit 
 of clothes for himself. He starts in life with a little cap on 
 his back, something as the snail does, but his cap has a little 
 hinge in the middle of it, so that it can lie opened and shut like 
 the covers of a tiny book. Perhaps it is more like a coat that 
 is stiff on the sides but has hinges up and down the back. The 
 oyster belongs to this coat-wearing family, and the baby oyster 
 has a tiny shell coat that he can open and shut. You can see 
 from the picture of the growing oysters (Fig. 82) how small 
 they are when they settle down in life. The smallest — those 
 specks at the bottom of the picture on the right — are only a 
 few days old, while the largest at the top are a year old. 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the 3Iollusks. 
 
 109 
 
 Each of the little ones adds a new layer to his coat as fast as 
 he outgrows it. This layer is added to the inside of the coat 
 and leaves the outside just as it was, so that even on the 
 largest oysters you can see the tiny baby coats they wore at the 
 very first. The baby coat is close to the hinge at the back of 
 the shell, and then next to it comes the second coat that was 
 put under the first, and then the third, and so on to the last 
 coat of all, that was put on perhaps only a few days ago. It is 
 something as if your father should still keep his baby coat, and 
 all the other coats he ever wore, fastened upon the back of the 
 last coat that he bought. 
 That would make a pretty 
 heavy coat, wouldn't it? 
 And so you find the shell 
 coats of the oysters are 
 heavy, and they are thick- 
 est and heaviest close to 
 the hinges, where all of 
 them are kept piled up, 
 one inside of another. If 
 3'ou should burn an oyster 
 shell in the fire and then 
 break one side of it into 
 two pieces, you would prob- 
 ably see the different layers 
 of the different coats. 
 
 I do not think your 
 father would lie able to 
 move about very much if 
 he wore such a heavy coat as that. He would have to sit still 
 in one spot, and leave the travelling to be done by people who 
 
 Fig. 82. 
 
 -Growing Oysters and their 
 Growing Coats. 
 
110 
 
 Blather Nature's Children. 
 
 wore lighter coats. And so the oyster has to stay in one place, 
 and leave the rest of the world to be looked after by some of 
 Mother Nature's children who have not put on such heavy coats. 
 In the picture of the clams and mussels (Fig*. S3) you can see 
 some more mollusks that wear this two-leaved coat. But their 
 
 coat is not nearly so 
 heavy as the oyster's, 
 and so they can move 
 about much more. The 
 one at the bottom of the 
 picture in front is the 
 clam. He has stretched 
 out his one foot on the 
 right, and the tubes 
 through which he gets 
 his water on the left. 
 But he can pull in his 
 foot and his tubes so 
 that they will all lie in- 
 side the shell coat, and lie can shut the two leaves of the coat 
 so tight that you couldn't open them with your fingers, if you 
 tried ever so hard. Perhaps you never saw a live shell open, 
 for these creatures always shut up their coats and button them 
 when they are caught. But if you take one of the mussels 
 that you can find in the rivers or ponds, and put it in a pail of 
 water with sand at the bottom and watch it a few hours without 
 touching it, you will see it cautiously open its coat and push 
 out its foot and plough a little path for itself in the surface of 
 the sand. In summer you can often see such little paths in the 
 sand along the edge of ponds or streams, and if you follow them 
 you can find the little traveller at the end of each path. 
 
 Fig. 83, 
 
 -Clams and Mussels in their 
 Shell Clothes. 
 
How Mother Mature Clothes the Mollusks. Ill 
 
 But the salt-water clams that you see at the bottom of the pic- 
 ture do not live on the surface of the sand. They burrow down 
 out of sight, and only thrust up their tubes to get fresh water, 
 as you see one of them doing at the right edge of the pic- 
 ture. The other mollusks in the picture do not go on the 
 ground if they can help it. They spin fine threads to fasten 
 themselves to a stick or a stone, and open their coat to get 
 food and drink. You can see the edges of their skin, or 
 " mantle," as it is called, sticking out in a little white line just 
 beyond the edges of the shells, with something that looks like 
 little frills reaching out still farther ; and in the clams also you 
 can notice the mantle pushed out beyond the shell. This 
 mantle somehow gets lime and makes it into new layers of 
 shells. But the mollusks have to be very busy all the time 
 getting material and making it into shell, if they would have 
 clothes large enough to cover them, and stony enough to keep 
 them safe from the waves and the hungry creatures on sea and 
 land. 
 
 So you see how well clothed all these creatures are. They 
 do not need feathers or hairs to keep them warm, as the birds 
 and the beasts do, because they are just as cool as the water 
 is, and so the water itself keeps them warm enough. But 
 they need for their soft bodies something that the fish and 
 birds cannot easily break, and they have what they need. 
 And the wise little things seem to know enough to make 
 their clothes over and keep them the right size and shape. 
 How do you suppose they learned to do it? Who teaches 
 all the baby clams, and baby oysters, and baby snails to make 
 their clothes hard and stony outside and smooth as pearl 
 inside ? Whoever it is that does it must care a great deal for 
 all living- things in the sea as well as on the land, and must 
 
11: 
 
 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 know just what each thing needs, and just how to give it what 
 it needs — feathers or hair to keep it warm, or bony plates or 
 shells to keep it safe. 
 
 Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest 
 Of leaves, and feathers from her breast? 
 Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, 
 Painting with morn each annual cell? 
 
 Emerson, The Problem. 
 
 TEACHING NOTE. 
 
 The value of specimens illustrative of these various kinds of clothing and 
 armor cannot be too strongly urged upon the teacher. A teaching of nature 
 that ends with the reading of a. book is always faulty. Because the teacher 
 lias fixed impressions around all the materials drawn from the natural world, 
 it must not l>e assumed that the names of them recall such to the children. 
 While the pictures help greatly, they arc liable to create mistaken images if 
 not reinforced by actual substances which can be handled. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HOW MOTHER NATURE CLOTHES THE PLANTS. 
 
 "Spuing has 
 comb again" is what 
 the German artist is 
 trying to tell us in 
 this beautiful picture. 
 You can see that the 
 trees are all bare of 
 their leaves still, but 
 there are one or two 
 blossoms in front of 
 the little boy, and 
 quite a cluster of 
 them behind the dear 
 little girl. I think 
 she has in her hand 
 a bunch of ilowers, 
 too, that she and 
 her brother have 
 gathered; and I fear 
 that the thoughtless 
 boy is trying to catch 
 the butterfly that is 
 sipping a little honey from one of the flowers. But what do 
 you think the mother is looking at with such a happy smile 
 
 113 
 
114 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 on her face ? If you will follow her glance, you will see a tiny 
 bird sitting at the door of his little house, up in the tree. 
 Perhaps it is the first bird she has seen since the last summer. 
 During the loner, cold winter, when the ground was frozen and 
 covered with snow, nearly all the birds have been far away in 
 the warm south ; but when spring comes they fly north and we 
 see them again everywhere. And we are very glad to see them, 
 not only because we love their charming ways, but because we 
 
 enjoy spring and summer much 
 more than we do winter. In winter 
 we have to stay indoors where 
 there is a fire, or, if we go out, we 
 have to wrap ourselves up in a lot 
 of warm clothes to keep Jack Frost 
 from nipping our fingers and toes. 
 The mother in this picture had to 
 be very careful of that sweet little 
 baby, and keep him well clothed 
 and warm during the cold weather; 
 and that little girl by her side, 
 whose curly head she is caressing, 
 while even the boy needed pretty 
 thick clothes when he went out to play or to go to school. 
 
 But how do you suppose the trees and plants manage to live 
 during the cold weather? They cannot fly away from the 
 cold to a warmer land, like the birds. The tree in the picture 
 has to stand right there all winter long, and so do the shrubs. 
 And all the flowers are staying somewhere in the field or by 
 the roadside till spring comes again. How do they manage to 
 do it? Do they have clothes like all the other creatures? 
 Certainly they do. 
 
 Fig. 85. — Piece of Onk Cut across. 
 
 had to be kept warm, too 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the Plants 
 
 115 
 
 You can see the rough bark on the tree in the picture. 
 That bark is the clothing of the tree, and wraps the trunk and 
 branches of the tree all around. In the picture of a slice of 
 oak cut across (Fig. 85) you can notice how thick the bark is 
 at the bottom of the 
 picture. You can 
 see, too, that there 
 are several layers of 
 the bark, and the 
 outer layer seems 
 breaking away. Each 
 spring the tree has a 
 new layer of bark, a 
 new suit of clothes, 
 and the new suit is 
 put on inside of the 
 old suit. The tree is 
 growing larger all the 
 time, and so the new 
 suit has to be larger 
 than the old one. So 
 the old one stretches 
 and cracks more and 
 
 more till it falls off, as you see it doing in the slice of the tree, 
 or till it is taken off, as you see done in the next picture (Fig. 
 86), where men are taking off the outer and older coat of the 
 cork oak. That bark is used to make stopples for bottles ; 
 and if you will look at one of the stopples you will see what 
 the outer bark of the tree is like. This tree is called the 
 cork oak, and Mr. Cork Oak has to make himself a new suit 
 every spring, and each suit is between one and two inches 
 
 Fig. 86. —Taking off the Old Coat of the Cork Tree. 
 
116 
 
 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 thick. Of course he has to be very busy in the summer making 
 these new clothes. He has to reach out his roots and leaves 
 for the stuff to be used in making the new clothes, and then he 
 lias to work hard early and late, spinning and weaving his 
 cloth and making it up into garments ; for he has to be his 
 own tailor, as well as his own cloth factory. And he has to 
 patch his clothes, too, as you will see if 3 r ou cut into the bark, 
 for lie will soon cover the cut place with new bark. 
 
 But when winter comes and Jack Frost is about, the tender 
 leaves and soft rootlets would be frozen, as your fingers and 
 
 toes would if you left them 
 bare all winter. So the 
 tree makes some tiny new 
 leaves before the winter 
 arrives, and keeps them 
 wrapped up in the bark or 
 in a lot of warm scales, 
 laid one over the other, as 
 you see in the picture 
 (Fig. 87) of the baby lily in its winter jacket. In the very 
 centre of the picture is the baby plant which is to come out in 
 the spring, and grow and blossom and bear fruit in the summer, 
 and leave another baby plant snuggled away in wrappers for 
 the next spring. If you should cut through the leaf buds on 
 the trees, as on the horse-chestnut, you would find the same 
 layer of wrappers and the same tiny cluster of new leaves for 
 the next spring. And in some plants there are downy cover- 
 ings to keep the baby leaflets still warmer. The mother plant 
 has little, soft hairs grow, something like those in the picture 
 of hair clothing (Fig. 88), to keep them from thawing and freez- 
 ing in. the winter and so being killed. I noticed one day in 
 
 Fig. 87. — The Baby Lily in its Winter Flannels. 
 
Hoiv Mother Nature Clothes the Plants. 
 
 117 
 
 winter at Jackson 
 Park that some of 
 the new shrubs, five 
 or six feet high, had 
 fine, soft hairs thickly 
 covering the upper, 
 newer part of the 
 plant, while the lower 
 and older portion had 
 only hare bark. Some- 
 body, and not the city 
 gardener either, had 
 wrapped the tender 
 part of the plant in 
 hairs. 
 
 But the baby seeds 
 are even more care- 
 fully clothed than the 
 baby buds. The 
 mother trees are care- 
 ful to wrap them up 
 so that they cannot be 
 harmed by sun or rain 
 or hungry creatures. 
 In the picture of the 
 anatto seeds (Fig. 89) 
 you see what safe 
 baby jackets the little 
 ones have on. They 
 are covered with stout 
 hairs to prevent the 
 
 Fig. 89. — The Anatto Seeds in Baby Jackets. 
 
118 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 birds from eating them ; and the jacket is thick to keep the 
 seed from feeling the sun's heat too much, just as the burrs of 
 the chestnuts are thick and rough for the same reason. 
 
 In the next picture (Fig. 
 90) — the one that is half 
 dark and half light — you see 
 how the babies are protected 
 from the rain. The light side 
 shows how the jackets are 
 when the sun shines. You 
 see there that all of the little 
 coats are open and turned 
 back at the top. The little 
 collars are turned down, as 
 it were. But as soon as it 
 threatens rain, the collars are 
 all turned up, as you see 
 them in the dark side of the 
 picture, which shows the 
 same plants in a rainstorm. 
 I don't know whether the 
 mother tree turns up the 
 collars or the baby seeds do it, or whether the coats turn up 
 their collars themselves. That would be a fine sort of a coat 
 that knew enough to turn up its own collar when rain came, 
 wouldn't it? 
 
 But when the seed babies have been kept dry and comfort- 
 able long enough to be ready to go to sleep in the ground, the 
 mother tree not only puts a bottle of condensed milk beside the 
 baby, but she wraps a comfortable jacket about the baby and 
 the milk both, as you see from the last picture, the one of the 
 
 Fig. 90. 
 
 - Seed Jackets in Sunshine 
 and in Rain. 
 
How Mother Nature Clothes the Plants. 
 
 119 
 
 lime babies (Fig. 91). In the ball at bottom of the picture you 
 can make out the baby in its white milk and two different 
 coats, and on the outer one you can see some fine hairs, to keep 
 the little one still more comfortable 
 while waiting for spring, during the 
 long, cold winter. 
 
 So you see how well clothed these 
 baby plants are before they leave 
 their mother tree. But after they 
 have fallen to the ground and Jack 
 Frost is hunting for them, somebody 
 still looks after them and makes them 
 still safer by spreading a great warm 
 comforter over them. For the snow 
 is a comforter to the baby seeds, and 
 keeps them much warmer than they 
 would be without it. And besides 
 the snow there is another comforter still larger and warmer, 
 which is spread over all of the tallest trees as well as over the 
 plants and seeds that lie on the ground. This larger comforter 
 is the air. You cannot see it but you can feel it when you try 
 to run through it or when the wind blows it past you. This 
 great comforter reaches higher even than the highest mountains 
 and is wrapped about you and me as well as about the plants and 
 animals. If it were not for this comforter we should all freeze 
 to death in a single day. Somebody evidently loves all these 
 creatures and keeps them from the cold, as the human mother 
 loves and cares for her little ones — somebody who is wise 
 enough to know how to make feathers and hairs, shell and 
 bark, and a thousand other kinds of garments. But this wise 
 and loving somebody makes all the children work for their 
 
 Fig. 91. — The Lime BaLies 
 in Winter Jackets. 
 
120 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 clothes — except, perhaps, the babies who have their mothers 
 to work for them. The moment one of her children stops 
 working, she stops clothing it. She will have no idlers in 
 her great family. 
 
 For well the soul, if stout, within, 
 Can arm impregnably the skin; 
 Ami polar frost my frame defied, 
 Made of the air that Mows outside. 
 
 Emerson, T7ie Titmouse. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 The studies of the properties of hair, fur, feathers, scales, etc., will suggest 
 themselves, and the processes by which these substances are made available for 
 our own use in clothing and ornaments. 
 
 The Encyclopedia Britannica, in the absence of oilier helps, will serve fin- 
 added knowledge of clams, oysters, and snails, for which these lessons create 
 natural occasion. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HOW SEEDS LEARN TO FLY. 
 
 You see that one of the bubbles in the picture is higher 
 than the other. The one that lias been set free has not fallen 
 to the ground, but 
 has floated in the air 
 and has even gone up 
 higher than it was 
 when the little girl 
 blew it up. Why 
 does it not fall? It 
 is made of nothing 
 hut a drop of soap 
 and water ; and if you 
 should take a little of 
 the soapy water in a 
 spoon and hold it up 
 as high as your head 
 and turn it out of 
 the spoon, it would 
 drop right straight to 
 the floor. It would 
 go so fast, too, that 
 you could hardly see 
 it. But if you take the same soapy water on the end of a 
 clean pipe and blow it up till it is as 
 
 121 
 
 big as your head, and 
 
1-22 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 then set it free from the pipe, it will act very differently. If 
 it falls, it will fall so slowly that it will take, a long time to 
 reach the: ground. If it feels the slightest breath of air blow- 
 ing upward, it will stop falling and begin to rise with the air. 
 When I was a boy 1 used to have a place at home where on 
 pleasant days the bubbles we blew would go sailing up over 
 the house-top instead of falling to the ground. They did that 
 because the south wind blew up the slanting roof of the porch 
 of the house and so made an upward stream to carry the bub- 
 bles. But the drops of rain from the eaves of that same porch 
 would fall straight to the ground, as a drop of soapy water 
 would from a spoon. 
 
 The reason the drop falls, while the bubble floats, is because 
 the bubble takes up so much more room than the drop, though 
 they both have the same amount of water. When they try 
 to fall through the air, the tiny drop lias to push aside only a 
 little air, while the big bubble has to push away a lot of air, 
 and needs a long time to do it. So, too, if you take a news- 
 paper folded up tight and drop it, you will find that it will go 
 straight and quickly to the ground, but if you take the same 
 paper and spread it out and then let it fall, it will take a long 
 time to reach the ground. If a gust of wind happens along, 
 it may sweep it a hundred feet or more before it gets to the 
 earth. 
 
 In this same way Mother Nature's children can float in the 
 air and sail a long way by spreading themselves out thin, like 
 an open paper, instead of folding themselves up close. In the 
 picture (Fig. 93) of winged seeds you can see three different 
 seeds. The one on the light looks as if it had a pair of wings 
 like a fly. That is the seed of the sugar maple, the tree that 
 gives us our maple sugar. When Mis. Sugar Maple has her 
 
How Seeds Learn to Fly. 
 
 123 
 
 tiny baby put to sleep and packed away in his little seed-case 
 
 and ready to start in life for himself, she does not drop him 
 
 right down on the ground by her own feet. The baby tree could 
 
 not grow there because he would be in his mother's shade, and 
 
 if all the baby maples dropped down there they would find no 
 
 room and would be crowded to death. So Mrs. Sugar Maple 
 
 sends her child into the world, something as the human mother 
 
 does ; only the human mother packs her boy's trunk and buys 
 
 him a ticket on the railroad which will 
 
 take him to some place where he can 
 
 have a good chance to start in life, while 
 
 the tree mother packs her boy's seed-case 
 
 with food and gives him a pair of light, 
 
 wide-spread wings. Then when the 
 
 wind blows briskly some day, she bids 
 
 him good-by and puts him aboard the 
 
 wind-train to find a new home far away, 
 
 where he can have more room than he 
 
 would have close by his mother, and crowded in witli all his 
 
 hundreds and thousands of brothers and sisters. If you will 
 
 watch the seeds of the maple trees as they fall on a windy day, 
 
 you will see how far they can float before they finally reach the 
 
 ground. 
 
 The elm tree also gives its baby plant wings, as you can see 
 in the middle seed of this same picture. That is the seed 
 of our American elm. It has its covering spread out thin 
 all around it and then pressed down flat, so that the wind- 
 train will carry it far away from its early home. The seed 
 on the left of the picture is that of the white ash. Mrs. 
 White Ash has given her boy a ticket on that same train 
 that the others ride on. In the picture of the pine tree's 
 
 Fig. '.I.". 
 
 Some Seeds with 
 Wiut's. 
 
124 
 
 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 cradle (Fig. 94), you can see the way Mrs. Pine-tree sends her 
 baliies out into the world. The cone is her cradle, or rather 
 a lot of cradles together in a sort of nursery. Each one of the 
 scales of the cone is really a cradle, and while the baby pine 
 is too young to start out for himself, Mrs. Pine-tree keeps the 
 doors of her nursery shut by pressing the scales of the cone 
 close together. But when the baliies are ready to go she opens 
 the doors and lets them float away on the wind-train. You see 
 one of the cradles at the right of the cone with one of the pine 
 babies still lying in it, and the other 
 outside just ready to go flying away on 
 the wind. In the spring you can find 
 plenty of the cones in the pine forests, 
 with all the doors open and the babies 
 all gone. 
 
 The ash and the maple, the elm and 
 the pine are all of them great trees, 
 and they are tall enough to lift their 
 babies high up in the air, so that they 
 can go a long distance on the wind 
 before they reach the ground, and so get far enough away from 
 their mothers and their brothers to start life in clear places. 
 But how do you suppose the low shrubs and little plants 
 manage with their babies? If you will look at the picture of 
 the dandelions (Fig. 95), you can see how one of the plants 
 sends her children out into the world. I am sorry that I could 
 not get a better picture of this plant, but I think you will 
 remember how the dandelion looks, both with its yellow blos- 
 som and its white head of seeds. While the yellow blossom 
 is open the stem of the flower is short, keeping it down close 
 to the ground where it will be safe. But as soon as the flower 
 
 Fig. 94. — The Pine-Tree's 
 Nursery. 
 
How Seeds Learn to Fly. 
 
 125 
 
 has faded, the stem begins to grow longer and lift the head 
 high up into the air. At the same time the top of each tiny 
 seed stretches up into a long, slender thread with a lot of deli- 
 cate hairs sticking out at the end, making something that looks 
 a little like a Japanese paper sunshade without the paper. 
 You see these seeds with their Japanese sunshade on the head 
 of the dandelion at the top of the picture, and at the bottom 
 you can find one of them twice as 
 large as it realty is, so that you can 
 see just how it is shaped. 
 
 So you see that Mrs. Dandelion gives 
 each one of her babies a sort of Jap- 
 anese sunshade to spread in the wind. 
 While the weather is damp and cold 
 she keeps her babies snug and dry by 
 wrapping them up in the leaves, that 
 you see hanging down from the head 
 of the flower. But when the weather 
 becomes warm and bright she rolls 
 down the leaves and lifts the head 
 high on its stem and opens all the tiny 
 umbrellas, one for each of her babies. 
 Then the wind comes blowing along 
 and catches up one baby seed after 
 another in its arms and bears them up over the house-tops 
 and the tree-tops, sometimes miles away from the place where 
 their mother lives. Perhaps some of you have picked those 
 round, white heads and blown the baby seeds off. When I 
 was little we used to blow off the dandelion heads to see 
 whether our mothers wanted us, and over in England the 
 children do it to see what time it is. But the wind does 
 
 Fig 
 
 "J5. — The Dandelion and 
 her Babies. 
 
126 
 
 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 ,,,,, 
 
 : % 
 
 m: 
 
 w> 
 
 Sm 
 
 it to take the baby dandelions where they can have a good 
 start in life. After a while, when the seed has reached some 
 Held or lawn, the wind lets it drop gently to the ground, and 
 then the rain comes down and wets the seed and pats it into 
 the earth. In a week or two you would find a tiny green plant 
 starting up where the seed was, and next spring the plant would 
 have grown into a dandelion with its own blossoms and its own 
 baby seeds with their tiny umbrellas. 
 
 Another plant that helps its babies to float away from home 
 is the cotton plant. You see it in the picture of the cotton 
 
 ,,., -^ f baby (Fig. 96). The 
 
 seed itself is no bigger 
 than an apj)le seed, and 
 you can see the little 
 plant packed up in the 
 one that is cut through 
 
 o 
 
 in the middle. If the 
 seed had nothing to 
 help it float, it would 
 fatl right to the ground 
 beside its mother and have no room to grow. But the cotton 
 mother gives her child a lot of fine threads puffed out like a 
 ball, so that the wind will catch it up and bear it away where 
 it will have room to start life all by itself. Those fine, flossy 
 threads are used to make cotton and twine. If you take a piece 
 of cotton wrapping-twine and untwist it and pull off the floss 
 from the end, you can make a ball, light and soft as feathers, 
 that will go sailing away on the breeze, as the seed would if 
 men left it to ripen and fall from the plant. But instead of 
 doing that, it is picked oil just before it falls and the floss is 
 used to make thread and cloth. All the cotton cloth we have 
 
 A Cotton Baby, Whole and Cut through 
 the Mi.hlle. 
 
Sow Seeds Learn, to Fly. 
 
 127 
 
 in the world is made by the mother plants. They make the 
 flossy threads for their own babies, and then we borrow them 
 for our own human babies as well as for grown-up men and 
 women. 
 
 In the last picture of all (Fig. 97) you can see spiders float- 
 ing in the air by just the same means that the seeds float. One 
 
 of these wise little 
 
 creatures climbs to 
 the top of a post, 
 L -"' when the wind is blowing, 
 and turns its head toward 
 the breeze. Then it begins to 
 spin a lot of fine silky threads that 
 stream out on the air, like the 
 threads of the cotton seed. When 
 enough of these threads have been 
 spun to hold the spider, she gives a little 
 spring upward from the post and goes 
 floating' along- the air, till her wind-train 
 brings her to some tree or field, where 
 she can And more food than in her old 
 home. Sometimes the warm currents of 
 air, as they rise, sweep her up into the 
 sky, so that she sails away many miles 
 before she sinks down to the earth again. And it is the baby 
 spiders especially who do this. Forty or fifty such tiny crea- 
 tures, no bigger than the head of a pin, will leave their mother 
 some pleasant day and come out of their home to climb a blade 
 of grass or a bush. Then as they feel the wind blowing, one 
 and another of the little band will boldly spin his silk threads 
 and toss himself into the arms of the wind to be carried, like 
 
 Fig. 97. — Spiders Spinnin 
 Wings. 
 
128 
 
 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 Columbus, into new worlds. But they have no fear, for Mother 
 Nature will take good care of them and of all her other ehil- 
 clren. The winds blow them into every nook and corner of 
 the earth, so that the whole world is a garden, filled with the 
 baby seeds growing to feed the insects, and the animals, and 
 the men and women. 
 
 The winds that o'er ray ocean run 
 Reach through all heavens beyond the sun, 
 Through life and death, through fate, through time, 
 Grand breaths of God, they sweep sublime. 
 
 Eternal trades, they cannot veer, 
 And blowing, teach me how to steer; 
 And well for him. whose joy, whose care, 
 Is but to keep before them fair. 
 
 Wasson. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HOW REPTILES AND MAMMALS LEARN TO FLY. 
 
 These girls are having a gay time sliding on the hard snow-. 
 
 There was a slide something like this, only very much steeper, 
 
 behind the school- 
 house where I went 
 
 to school when I was 
 
 small. Whenever 
 
 the snow was hard 
 
 enough we used to 
 
 slide on our feet down 
 
 the hill — unless we 
 
 lost our balance or 
 
 caught our foot in 
 
 some hole. If we 
 
 did that, we used to 
 
 go rolling down tire 
 
 rest of the way. 
 
 Sometimes when it 
 
 was icy we would 
 
 put on skates and 
 i go sliding down the 
 
 hill on them, and the 
 
 skates would carry us twice as fast and twice as far. But it 
 
 took a cool head and steady feet to do that. In some countries, 
 J believe, they have snow skates made for sliding down the 
 
 129 
 
130 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 long hills, or the mountains even, when they are covered all 
 over with snow. But the safest and easiest way of sliding on 
 the snow is to use a sled or a toboggan. You can sit down 
 on the sled and get your big brother to steer for you, and you 
 
 will go Hying down the long 
 hill and away off on the level 
 snow at the foot of the hill. 
 Or if you have two hills, as 
 we did at home in Maine, you 
 can slide down one hill and 
 halfway up the other, and 
 then walk up the rest of the 
 way, and slide back almost 
 to where you started from. 
 Once when 1 was a boy the 
 snow was so deep and the 
 crustsohard, that I slid nearly 
 a mile right over the tops of the fences that divided the fields. 
 
 That was very line, was it not? But would it not be much 
 finer to go sliding on the air instead of on the snow? 1 don't 
 suppose you would feel brave enough to try to do that. Yet 
 some creatures are brave enough to try to do it, and some of 
 them are cool-headed enough to succeed in doing it. In the 
 picture of the flying tree frog (Fig- 99) you see a bright little 
 fellow who has got some air skates, as it were, on all four of 
 his feet. He lives in the trees on the island of Borneo. When 
 he wants to travel about he climbs to the top of a, tall tree and 
 jumps out into the air, spreading his lingers and toes, so as to 
 make four kites of them. < >n these kite-shaped air shoes he 
 goes sliding down the air, reaching the ground a long distance 
 from the tree where he started. 
 
 Fig. '.!!>. — The Flying Tree Fri 
 
How Reptiles and Mammals Learn to Fly. 
 
 131 
 
 The picture of the flying dragon (Fig. 100) shows you 
 another creature who has learned to slide on the air. This is 
 a lizard, with feet and tail like most lizards. But besides the 
 feet and tail, you see something along his sides that looks like 
 wings. It is the skin of the lizard, and it is held out by the 
 little creature's ribs. The last six or seven ribs on each side, 
 instead of stopping at the edge of the body, are pushed far out, 
 carrying the skin along with them, and looking something like 
 the ribs of an umbrella. While the little fellow sits motionless 
 on a tree, the ribs are bent back close to the body and the skin 
 folded up like a closed umbrella. But the moment an insect 
 comes flying within 
 his reach he suddenly 
 spreads out his ribs 
 and gives a quick 
 leap and goes flying 
 through the air to 
 catch his food. You 
 see him doing this in 
 the picture, where he 
 has jumped from the Fig. 100.— The Flying Dragon, 
 
 branch to seize that fly by the tree trunk. Sometimes he slides 
 a hundred feet on the air before he stops. 
 
 Another creature that slides on the air is the flying lemur 
 that you will find in the picture on the next page (Fig. 101). You 
 will notice that the skin of the one in the corner of the picture 
 stretches from his foredeg to his hind-leg, and also down to the 
 tip of his tail. This turns him into a great kite when he spreads 
 out his tail and legs, so that he can go sliding over the air a 
 long way. Mrs. Flying Lemur, who is hanging to the branch 
 of the tree, uses her loose skin as a sort of blanket to hold her 
 
132 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 
 \/l 
 
 baby in. All day long she wraps him up in it and hangs her- 
 self from the branch of a tree, clinging by the long nails of her 
 hind-feet. But when it comes night she goes sliding down the 
 air to catch insect food for herself and her baby. 
 
 These flying creatures live on the other side of the world, 
 but in our own forests we have a little flying squirrel, that lias 
 just such loose skin as they have, and uses it to slide on the air 
 in the same way. We do not see him very often, because he 
 sleeps in his hole by day and only comes out after dark, li' 
 you should go some summer afternoon into the woods where 
 these flying squirrels live, and should sit down quietly till the 
 sun set and night came on, you would have a chance to see 
 
 them at their fun. 
 First one little bright- 
 eyed fellow would 
 pop out of the hole 
 in the tree where he 
 had been sleeping, 
 and then another 
 would appear, and an- 
 other, till the woods 
 were full of them, 
 and they would go 
 chasing each other up 
 the trees, as if they 
 were playing tag. 
 When one of them 
 had chased his mate 
 to the very topmost bough of the tree, the squirrel would give 
 a spring out into the air, with paws and tail outspread, and go 
 sliding down the air from the tree-top almost to the ground. 
 
 \m 
 
 
 t> 
 
 Fig. 101. —The Flying Li 
 
Hoiv Reptiles and Mammals Learn to Fly. 
 
 133 
 
 But the moment when she seemed just going to touch the earth, 
 
 she would bend her body and curve upward from the ground, 
 
 so that she would come to a stop part way up another tree a 
 
 hundred feet away 
 
 from the first one. 
 
 Her mate would 
 
 boldly take the same 
 
 leap and go coasting 
 
 down the air and up 
 
 the other tree. But 
 
 before he could catch 
 
 her, she would have 
 
 scampered up the tree Flfi - 102. —The Common English Bat. 
 
 and jumped again from the top to another tree. And so they 
 would coast back and forth on the air, as we used to coast on 
 the snow, sliding down one hill and part way up the other, and 
 then climbing to the top of the second hill and coasting back 
 again. They seem to enjoy it just as much as you enjoy coast- 
 ing, and I suppose it takes a cool head and a brave heart to do 
 it so well. 
 
 But though they can slide so skillfully they cannot really fly-, 
 as the bats can. You see the common English bat in the next 
 picture (Fig. 102), flying up high in the air. He has stretched 
 his skin out so far that he has made leather wings of it, and 
 can fan himself along through the air very fast. He has 
 reached his hands out so earnestly in trying to fly that his 
 finger-bones have become about as long as his arms. For if 
 you look closely at the picture, you will see that the four ribs 
 of his wings are really the four fingers of his hands, his thumb 
 being that little claw that sticks up at the top point of each 
 wing. In the picture of the vampire (Fig. 103) you can see 
 
134 
 
 Mother Nature n Children. 
 
 the finger-bones still more plainly, and you will notice that this 
 creature has his middle finger twice as long as his arm, and 
 longer even than his whole body. 
 
 But the bat did not get such large wings and learn how to 
 use them so well all at once, I am sure. Pie got them little by 
 little, and he learned to fly little by little, learning to slide 
 first, and then to fly a short distance, and then a longer 
 
 distance, till at last 
 he had larger wings 
 than the squirrel or 
 the lizard, and could 
 even slide up hill by 
 fanning the air with 
 his wings. But in 
 getting such fine 
 wings the bat lost the 
 use of his hands for 
 anything but flying, 
 as you can see from 
 this same picture 
 (Fig. 103), where one 
 of the vampires is 
 trying to walk on 
 the ground. He is very awkward, and no wonder, for he has 
 to walk on the thumb nails of his fore-leg's and the weak toes of 
 his hind-legs. So he does not alight on the ground if he can 
 help it. Even when the mother bats have little ones, they fly 
 about with them tucked snugly away under their arms. Some- 
 times when a bat gets caught in a room at night, if you look 
 closely under her arm you will find a baby bat there clinging to 
 its mother's breast, and covered up by the wing as well as by 
 
 Fig. 103. — Tliu Vampire Flying ami Walking. 
 
How Reptiles and Mammals Learn to Fly. 
 
 135 
 
 the arm of its mother. The mothers carry them and care for 
 them when they get to be quite large. A boy here in America 
 once caught a young bat, and when he was carrying it home 
 the mother flew round and round him, trying to get it, and at 
 last she alighted on his hands where he had the little one, and 
 refused to be driven away. She would rather be caught and 
 killed even, than desert her child. 
 
 In the next picture (Fig. 104) you can see the kind of crea- 
 tures that used to fly 
 all over the earth 
 long years ago, before 
 there were any men, 
 or any horses or cows 
 on the earth. These 
 creatures are called 
 " wino'-fino'ered," be- 
 cause they had such 
 a long finger on each 
 hand to stretch out 
 their wins 1 for flight. 
 It is the little finger, 
 and yet it is as long as the whole body. Some of these crea- 
 tures were as much as twenty feet across from the tip of one 
 wing to the tip of the other, so that their little fingers must 
 have been five or six feet long. They look very much like 
 bats, but they were more like birds or reptiles than like bats, 
 because they did not nurse their babies as the bats do. They 
 probably left them to hatch out from eggs in the sand, as the 
 alligator does. 
 
 This greater care that bats have for their babies is the rea- 
 son we find bats all over the earth now, but do not find any of 
 
 The Wing-Finger Flyini 
 
136 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 the wing-fingers alive anywhere. The wing-fingers got wings 
 quite as good as the wings of the bats, but they did not learn 
 to nurse their babies and care for them as the bat mothers do. 
 So the bats grew in number and strength because their children 
 were so well cared for, while the great sharp-teethed wing-fingers 
 grew less in numbers and strength because they did not care 
 for their babies well enough. I suppose that one reason why 
 human beings have spread all over the earth and got ahead of 
 all other creatures in the world is because the human mother 
 cares for her baby more than any other creature cares for its 
 baby. If the human mothers should stop caring for their 
 babies most, I suppose human beings would soon be left behind 
 by some other creature that cared more for its babies. If we 
 want our babies to live and be masters of the earth, we must 
 make them just as good as we can — feed them, and shelter 
 them, and teach them, so that they will know what is light 
 and be strong enough and brave enough to do it. 
 
 What is excellent, 
 As (rod lives, is permanent. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 TEACHING NOTE. 
 
 It requires but a small stretch of fancy to make each maple, elm, or cotton- 
 seed fly by an impulse all its own, and much has been written in this line of 
 late., partly in the interest of nature teaching and partly for ethical purposes. 
 It seems to us the better, safer teaching for both these standpoints to lay the 
 emphasis on the impulse at t lie Heart of things. This does not rob each little 
 life of its share in the great upward movement of life, but does not lay upon it 
 more than it can bear, and so throw the teaching iuto disrepute from a scientific 
 point of view. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HOW BIRDS LEARN TO FLY. 
 
 This hungry fox saw these birds resting on the shore of the 
 lake, so he crept up to them as silently as he could, and then 
 he suddenly sprang upon them. He thought he had surely 
 caught one of them. But he only caught the bird's feathers, 
 
 which you can still see in his mouth. The bird herself instantly 
 spread her large, strong wings and went flying away through 
 the air with her mates, as you can see them doing at the right 
 of the picture. Their wings have saved them from this 
 hungry animal. And the wings of birds can carry them over 
 wide lakes and oceans, and even over mountains, hundreds and 
 hundreds of miles, and very rapidly, too, for some of the birds 
 
 137 
 
138 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 — The Grandparent of the Lizards and 
 ■ Great-Grandparent of the Birds. 
 
 can fly two or three times as fast as a railroad train goes. 
 How have the birds managed to get such fine wings? 
 And how have they learned to use them so well'/ 
 Long ago, before there were any birds fl}'ing 
 through the air or any dry land even, when the 
 waters covered all the — 
 face of the earth, such 
 creatures as you see in 
 the next picture (Fig. 
 100) were paddling Fn 
 about in the ocean and 
 learning to lift their heads up higher and higher, because in 
 that way they could catch insects and other food 1 etter than 
 the short-necked creatures. When the dry land came the)' 
 scrambled out of the water and learned to use their hind-feet to 
 
 stand and walk with, 
 so that their hands 
 and arms were left 
 free. 
 
 In the picture of 
 the bird-snake (Fig. 
 107) you sec how 
 these creatures got up 
 on their hi nd-f cet, 
 and even on their 
 hind-toes ; for the 
 heel of this bird-snake 
 is not on the ground. It is up as high as where the tail 
 begins, so that he is really walking on his toes. The grand- 
 parents of the birds were like this creature, only they had 
 feathers on their bodies where he has scales, and their arms were 
 
 Jmi;. 107. — Tin: Bird-Snake. 
 
How Birth Learn to Fly. 
 
 189 
 
 Fig. 108. — A Bird's Wine 
 
 long and strong, while his are short and weak. 1 suppose they 
 got their better arms by working harder in climbing the tree to 
 escape from savage animals and to get better food for themselves 
 and their children ; and I think they must have got 
 their feathers by trying to slide through the air, Mfa 
 as the flying squirrels and reptiles do. 
 When they tried to spread out their 
 scales in order to make themselves 
 lighter, Mother Nature changed the 
 scales little by little into feathers. 
 She is so kind to her children that if 
 they wish to stay in the water or mud, 
 she gives them scales that will let the 
 mud be easily washed off. But if they are brave and loving 
 enough to come out upon the ground and nurse their little ones, 
 she gives them hair instead of scales. And so, if they are daring 
 
 enough to try to live in the air, she 
 gives them feathers — soft and light 
 and yet long and strong. 
 
 You can see some of those light, yet 
 long and strong feathers in the 
 picture of the bird's wing (Fig. 
 108). That is really the bird's 
 arm, and the feathers are grow- 
 ing out of the skin of the arm. 
 In the picture of the dove in 
 three parts (Fig. 109) you can 
 see the bones of the arm raised 
 above the dove's body. The black part of this picture shows 
 you the dove's body, and the lighter part outside is the feathers, 
 while the lighter part inside is the bones. 
 
 Fkj. 1011. — A Dove in Three Parts. 
 
140 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 If 
 
 
 ^MM>"^ 
 
 
 
 If you look carefully at the clove's wing, you will notice that 
 the wrist — marked tL W " — is just above the dove's head, 
 and the hand, which is also covered with long feathers, is folded 
 back. When the hand and arm are straightened out, the long-, 
 wide feathers are spread out into the air like an open fan, and 
 make a. long wing, with the edge of the feathers lying over 
 
 one another. If you 
 watch your canary 
 bird when he stretches 
 his wings, you will 
 see how long he can 
 make them. You can 
 see Low large they 
 are and how fast they 
 move in the pictures 
 of the heron frying 
 (Fig. 110). It looks as if there were five birds in this picture, 
 but there is really only one bird pictured five times. A 
 Frenchman wdio wished to know how the birds used their 
 wings in flying, made a camera that would take ten pictures 
 every second, or six hundred every minute. The camera 
 was shaped like a gun and he aimed it at a flying bird, but 
 he did not shoot the bird. Fie only took one picture after 
 another so quickly that the five pictures you see were taken in 
 just one-half a second. They show how the bird moved her 
 wings during that short time. The first picture you see begin- 
 ning on the left shows the wings spread downward and in 
 front of the bird. In the next the wings have gone part way 
 up, and in the third picture they are stretched up to their 
 highest and widest point. Then in the fourth picture they 
 are coming down, and in the fifth they are just where they 
 
 Fig. 110. — Five Pictures of a Heron Flying. 
 
How Birds Learn to Fly. 
 
 141 
 
 were at starting. But during this half-second the bird lias 
 moved forward five or six times her length. She keeps up this 
 swift motion up and down one hundred and twenty times a 
 minute, — almost as fast as you can count, — and fans herself 
 forward sometimes two or three miles a minute. 
 
 But of course the birds did not get their fine feathers and 
 swift wings all at once. There was a time when they had long 
 tails on their bodies, and sharp claws on their hands, and teeth 
 in their mouths, as you see 
 
 in the picture of the ancient 
 birds (Fig. Ill), where the 
 teeth can still be seen in 
 the bill, and two claws at 
 the middle of the upper side 
 of the wings. But Mother 
 Nature soon taught them to 
 fly so well that they no longer 
 needed claws on their hands 
 for climbing ; and she taught 
 them to steer themselves by 
 
 Fig. 111. —The Ancient Birds. 
 
 long feathers instead of using 
 that heavy, clumsy tail ; and she helped them to pack the use- 
 less bones of their old tails together, as you see them in the tail 
 of the dove (Fig. 109). She showed them, too, that they could 
 build their nests and feed their little ones a great deal better 
 without any sharp teeth in their bills. So she helped them to 
 change their mouths into that of the dove. But when they had 
 lost their hands they learned to use their toes for holding things, 
 and sometimes the bird mother will take one of her little ones 
 in her claws and fly away through the air with it and carry it to 
 a place of safety. 
 
14: 
 
 Mother Nature 's Olnhlren. 
 
 But perhaps the finest tiling that Mother Nature taught her 
 feathered children to do with their wings was to fly away to 
 the sunny south when the cold winter came in the northern 
 lands. You see the swallows gathering for their flight in the 
 
 picture (Fig. 112). The summer 
 leaves have fallen, the sky is dark 
 with storm clouds, and so the swal- 
 lows know that the winter is at hand. 
 So they gather in great flocks, sweep- 
 ing through the air or perching on 
 the trees or buildings, and chattering 
 in their cheerful, excited way, as if 
 thej r were all talking at once about 
 their trip. In a day or two they have 
 all cone, and while we are shiverinc 
 in the winter's cold, where do you 
 suppose they are ? Mother Nature 
 has guided them to the southern 
 countries, a thousand miles away. 
 
 When the spring returns she 
 will lead them hack again, so that 
 they will escape the parching heat of 
 the southern summer, as well as the 
 freezing cold of the northern winter. 
 This long flight they must have 
 learned about little by little, like 
 everything else. At first when winter came, they flew only 
 a few miles south to find better food and warmer air, and then 
 when spring came they flew back north to their old homes 
 again. But they found the food and climate so much better 
 by going south in winter and north in summer, that they 
 
 Fig. 112. — Swallows Gathering 
 lor their Fall Trip. 
 
Mow Birds Learn to Fly. 148 
 
 flew farther and farther each year, till now they will go over 
 wide oceans even, and high mountains, each spring and fall, 
 and nothing can keep them from starting, when the time comes. 
 Only their little ones will sometimes hold them hack. 
 
 A man in England one fall noticed one pair of swallows 
 linger about their nest long after all the rest had flown away. 
 So he climbed up and looked into the nest to see what kept 
 them. And there he found one of their children with its foot 
 caught fast in a hair of the nest, so that it could not get away. 
 He thought he would leave it there to see how long the parents 
 would stay and feed it, and so he left it till Christmas. But 
 it grew so cold then that he took pity on the birds and cut the 
 hair. Then all three went flying away from the cold north to 
 the sunny south, changing winter for summer, as the other 
 birds had already done. Perhaps they pitied the human beings 
 they left behind them in the cold country. It may be that 
 they thought that they were themselves the most favored of all 
 Mother Nature's children. Certainly they seem the happiest — 
 so happy, indeed, that their gladness overflows in the flood of 
 song that comes rippling from their tiny breasts. I suppose 
 their joy comes from the fact that they have dared to do the 
 boldest and hardest thing that they could see to do. Mother 
 Nature urged them to go higher and higher — out of the water 
 and out of the mud ; up from the ground to the trees, and up 
 from the trees to the sky itself. They took every upward step 
 they could see to take, and grew safer and happier with each 
 new step. 
 
 But I think human beings have taken a higher and nobler 
 step even than flying. When we choose to think about this 
 world of ours and try to help make it better, we tried to do a 
 bolder deed than flying with feathered wings. We tried to fly 
 
144 Mother Nature 's Children. 
 
 with our brains, to send our thoughts back to the past and 
 learn how this world was made, so that we might understand 
 it, and be able to make it better in the future. We have tried 
 to send our thoughts flying to the moon and the sun and the 
 stars, in order to understand them. That is a far higher flight 
 than any bird has dared. So we ought to be as happy as the 
 birds, if we are only willing to take all the new and higher 
 steps that we see ought to be taken with our brain — to try to 
 help the whole world to live nobler and purer and more loving 
 lives. And we have hands to work with, while the birds have 
 lost their hands in getting their wings. 
 
 Here sits he, shaping wings to fly. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 It will be interesting in this connection to consider the difficulties which have 
 attended the efforts of man to invent something which would correspond to the 
 organs of flight in the bird. 
 
 Magazines afford pictures of the clumsy looking appliances called flying 
 machines. The uncertainty which still exists in guiding the balloon shows that 
 man's flight must for the present be chiefly in the lines of spiritual endeavor. 
 A child's ambition should lie rather in the power and will to lift himself out of 
 conditions of temptation and evil as the bird rises to higher levels promptly 
 when there is danger on the ground. This is much better than doing poorly 
 what the bird can do so well. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HELPING EACH OTHER IN THE EARLY FAMILY. 
 
 " Ring-a-Ring-a-Roundek " is what the painter of this 
 picture calls it. I suppose that is the game those merry little 
 children are playing. I am not sure that I know just what 
 game it is, but I am sure that all of yon have played such 
 
 games as this, where we all take hold of hands and sing and 
 march or dance around. I am sure, too, that you were all of 
 you a great deal happier doing that than you would have been 
 trying to have a good time all alone by yourself. In order to 
 
 145 
 
146 
 
 Mother Nature $ Children. 
 
 be as happy as those children are, we need some help from 
 others. < )nc child cannot play " Ring-a-Ring-a-ltounder " all 
 by himself. He must get some others to help him. Then he 
 can be happy, and he will find that lie is helping them to be 
 happy, too, if he docs all he can to play fair and be gentle and 
 kind and loving. 1 think he will find lie is happier himself 
 when he tries to help others to be happy, than when he is 
 trying to have them help him to be happy. 
 
 This happiness which comes from helping others is what 
 Mother Nature uses to coax all her children to take hold of 
 hands and help each other, as the children in the picture are 
 
 doing. She makes us 
 
 happy when we help 
 others, so that we will 
 want to help others 
 all we can, because 
 it is only by helping 
 others that men can 
 do much in this world. 
 When Mother Nature 
 began with this world, 
 she did not have any 
 children so large as 
 men and women, or 
 even so large as girls 
 and boys. Her largest children were like the tiny monads with 
 which she began when she tried to teach living beings how to 
 walk and fly. Those monads were so small, you remember, 
 that we could hardly see them, except when they lighted up 
 the ocean at night. *>f course such tiny creatures would need 
 to take hold of hands even more than we do. If you will look 
 
 Fig. 114. — Grandparents of the Sponge. 
 
Helping Each Oilier in the Early Family, 147 
 
 at the picture of the grandparents of the sponge (Fig- 114), 
 you will see how they began to take hold of hands and help 
 eacli other. Each one of those little black spots represents a 
 tiny creature who can live all by himself if he wants to. If 
 you should take a drop of water in which hay has been soaking, 
 and look at it through a magnifying glass, you might see one 
 of these little fellows all by himself, with his collar around his 
 neck and his tongue sticking out, to sweep in any food he 
 might find. And if you should watch him long enough, you 
 might see him grow larger and larger, until lie Mas big enough 
 for two. Then he would divide himself in the middle and } r ou 
 would see two creatures, each with his own collar and his own 
 tongue. But instead of each of these little fellows going away 
 to play by himself alone, as the monads do, you would find that 
 they would stay together, and they would look as if there was 
 a drop of mucilage or jelly holding them. And each of these 
 would divide into two more, and these into still more, while 
 the jelly drop would also keep growing, till you would have 
 something like what the picture shows you — a whole cluster 
 of little creatures living together in a drop of jelly. You will 
 notice that the outside ones alone have tongues and collars. 
 They get the food for all of them, while some of the others 
 digest the food and make more of the jelly-like matter they are 
 living in. The rest grow and divide, as you see some of them 
 doing in the centre (those marked " d "), and so make the 
 babies of the family. These babies grow up and creep out to 
 the edge, get collars and tongues, and help the rest ; while 
 those who have been on the edge sometimes take off their 
 collars and pull in their tongues and go into the centre, as 
 those marked " e " seem to be doing. 
 
 That is the way these tiny creatures take hold of hands and 
 
148 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 play their little game of helping each other, some of them 
 
 getting food while others are resting, or are caring for the 
 
 babies. And all of them are safer than they would be alone, 
 
 because by helping each other they can build up a house for 
 
 themselves. The sponge you have had in your hands so often 
 
 was the home of tiny creatures like these. It starts with one 
 
 little being, dividing himself again and again, till lie becomes a 
 
 great family of creatures. The family settles on a rock at the 
 
 bottom of the sea and spins fine fibres to make a safe house for 
 
 the millions of little creatures that live together in it. No one 
 
 of the tiny creatures by himself alone could have built up such 
 
 a large house. But even if he could have done it, just think 
 
 how lonesome he would have been in it, 
 
 like one little child in a great house. 
 
 But with the millions of little ones 
 
 crowding the sponge and helping each 
 
 other from morning till night, what a 
 
 happy time the)' must have ! 
 
 In the picture of the family of Hydras 
 
 (Fig. 115) you can see another way that 
 
 Mother Nature has taught her children to 
 
 help each other. Some of the family, or 
 
 colony as they call it, have grown up high 
 Fig. 115. — A Hydra Family. , , ' „ , . , . , 
 
 and got long ringers, winch they stretch 
 out into the water after food for the family. Those are the 
 ones marked "a," while the shorter ones, marked "b," take 
 care of the babies ; and at the bottom the thorn-like things, 
 marked " c," are the ones that help both of the other two to be 
 safe. When a dangerous fish comes swimming along and tries 
 to eat up the taller members of the family, they bend down and 
 lie flat among their shorter brothers, who bristle up so hard and 
 
Helping Each Other in the Early Family. 
 
 149 
 
 sharp above them that the fish lias to go somewhere else for his 
 dinner. When he is gone the taller brothers and sisters rise up 
 again and go on looking after food and earing for the children. 
 
 These little creatures find it so much pleasanter living 
 together than apart, that they never separate, as the grand- 
 parents of the sponges sometimes do. They have lived together 
 so long helping each other in this way that 
 they cannot change. The sponge grand- 
 parents could take off their collars when- 
 ever they wished to, and then put them on 
 again. But the hydra food-seekers cannot 
 change to baby-tenders, nor can the baby- 
 tenders change to food-seekers ; nor can 
 either of them change into the thorn-like 
 brothers. They have divided the work of 
 the family up between them, and one does 
 all of the guarding, another all of the feed- 
 ing, and another all of the earing for the 
 children. And they have taken different 
 shapes, so that they can do their different 
 kinds of Avork better than they could if they 
 staid like the grandparent of the sponge. 
 
 The plants, too, have learned how to help 
 each other by dividing their work up and 
 each one doing- something- for all the rest. 
 There are some plants that are like the 
 monads. Each one is a tiny baby living all by itself and not taking 
 hold of the hands of any other baby-plant, — something as if one 
 little leaf on a tree should go away by itself, instead of joining 
 hands with all of the rest of the leaves to build up a tree for a 
 home to live in. Such plants have never learned how mueh 
 
 Fig. 116. — A IN 
 Family. 
 
150 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 happier and safer and stronger they would he by joining hands 
 and helping each other. But the pea has learned that lesson. 
 In the picture of the Pea family on the preceding page (Fig. 116) 
 you see how a part of the family push down into the ground 
 and reach out for the food for all the family, while the others of 
 
 the family climb up into the air 
 and make themselves into leaves to 
 do the breathing and get the sun- 
 light for all of the plant. They 
 breathe for the roots, and the roots 
 suck in food for the leaves. In 
 the game the pea children play, 
 the leaves dance in the air and 
 sunlight, while the roots do their 
 dancing down in the dark ground. 
 lint I suppose they are all happy 
 because they are all helping. 
 
 You will notice that there are 
 some tiny tendrils just starting out 
 above the leaves. Those tendrils 
 are really leaves that have changed 
 themselves into twining fingers to 
 take hold of sticks or string's to 
 help raise up the rest of the plant 
 where the leaves can get air and 
 sun, as you will see if you look at the next picture of the pea 
 leaf with finger-tips (Fig. 1 17), where you will see that the upper 
 part of the many-bladed leaf has round fingers instead of flat 
 blades. If you should stand beside such a growing pea and 
 hold your pencil out against the tendril, you would see the 
 fingers bend around the pencil and clasp it tight in a few minutes 
 
 Fir,. 117. - A Pea Leaf will. 
 Finger-Tips. 
 
Helping Each Other in the Early Family. 
 
 151 
 
 and begin to pull the plant towards it, something as a little 
 baby's finger would clasp the pencil and pull himself towards it. 
 And many of the plants will reach up their tendrils above the 
 head of the plant and move them around in a circle to try to find 
 something to take hold of. 
 In the picture of the 
 fingers of the Virginia 
 creeper (Fig. 118) you 
 see another way that the 
 leaf changes itself into 
 tendrils and holds up 
 the plant. In the upper 
 part of the picture the 
 tendril is reaching its fin- 
 gers out to find something 
 to take hold of, and in 
 the lower part you see 
 it after the fingers have 
 found the smooth boards 
 
 of 
 
 house to cling' to. 
 
 Fig. IIS. — Virginia Creeper's Fingers. 
 
 Five of the fingers have 
 pushed their tips against 
 the boards and had some- 
 thing like nails grow out 
 and stick fast to the 
 boards so that you can hardly pull them loose. You will notice 
 too, how the fingers have grown thicker and twisted into sort 
 of springs, so that the hardest wind that blows cannot blow 
 the vine down. If you count the tendrils in the upper part 
 of the picture where they are new, you will find there are 
 eight, while there are only five on the lower part where it is 
 
152 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 old. What do you suppose has become of the three missing 
 tendrils ? They withered away and dropped off because they 
 did not find any place to take hold and help the plant, while 
 the live that took hold grew larger and stronger and lasted for 
 years. Mother Nature helps those to grow and live who help 
 the rest of the plant, while she lets those die that do not help. 
 So you see that the tendrils and leaves above, and the roots 
 below are all working together to build up the vine. On a great 
 tree like an oak or a maple, all the hundreds of leaflets and 
 all the hundreds of rootlets are working together and helping 
 each other to make the great tree tall and straight, just as 
 the millions of little beings are working together to build 
 up the sponge. Who do you suppose tells the little creatures 
 how to make the sponge, or the vine, or the tree'.'' Who plants 
 it for them and tells the leaves what to do for the roots, and 
 the roots what to do for the leaves? Who tells them hoth 
 how to shape the tree and build the fibre of hard wood and of 
 soft hark? Somebody must lie looking out for them all and 
 whispering to eaeli one of them the right thing to do to help 
 the others and to help the whole world, as the sponges, and 
 the vines, and trees do. When they do not listen to that voice 
 that whispers to them they are unhappy and pine away, and 
 die as the tendrils do. But when they listen and obey they are 
 happy and grow stronger and better. 
 
 Ever fresh the broad creation, 
 A divine improvisation, 
 From the. heart of God proceeds, 
 A single will, a million deeds. 
 
 Emkkson, Wuudiiotes. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HELPING EACH OTHER IN THE SISTER FAMILY. 
 
 The older sister in this picture is helping her younger 
 sister to dress in the morning, and the younger sister seems to 
 like it very much in- 
 deed, if we can tell by 
 the way she looks into 
 her sister's face and 
 hugs her sister's arm. 
 And the older sister 
 seems to think it is 
 verypleasanttoo. She 
 likes to be a sort of 
 little mother to her 
 sister, while her own 
 mother is taking care 
 of the baby. In that 
 way she can help pay 
 her mother for the care 
 she gave her when she 
 was herself a baby. 
 Even if she did not 
 remember the care she 
 had when she was 
 small, she loves her mother so much that she would like to do 
 anything to save her mother work. I think, too, that she loves 
 
 153 
 
1.14 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 her sister so much that she enjoys helping her, and is happier 
 when she is working for her sister than when she is working 
 for herself. 
 
 I have sometimes seen older sisters whose whole life seemed 
 given to their younger sisters. You can see some of those 
 older sisters among the plants in the picture of the daisy (Fig. 
 120). All of the broad white leaves circling the dark centre 
 
 of the daisy — the 
 petals, as we some- 
 times call them — are 
 the older sisters of the 
 little daisy family. 
 The flowers of the 
 daisies, instead of 
 scattering themselves 
 l/il all over the plant, get 
 
 close together inside 
 what we call one daisy 
 flower. If you should 
 cut a d a i s y i n t o 
 h a 1 v e s and 1 o o k 
 closely at it, you would see the separate blossoms ; and if you 
 should use a magnifying glass the flower would appear like the 
 piece of one of the flowers you see at the right hand of the daisy, 
 marked " B." In that you can see seven of the baby blossoms, 
 each a flower by itself, but all standing close together on the 
 same stalk. You can see that the outside flower has a long, leaf- 
 like petal which is called a ray. Each of the outside flowers 
 has such a ray as that, and all of the rays make the white rim 
 of the daisy. These outside baby daisies are the oldest of the 
 family, while those in the centre are the youngest. You can 
 
 — A Daisy and Part of a Daisy 
 Family (magnified). 
 
Helping Each Other in the Sinter Family. 
 
 155 
 
 see in the picture that the tiny blossom numbered "1 " is not 
 even open yet, while the next one, numbered " 2," is only just 
 opening. But the outside blossom, No. 7, is opened widest of 
 all. Like the oldest sister in the human family, she helps take 
 care of the rest of the children. 
 
 In some of these plants living in families, when the weather 
 looks like rain or when night comes, the fifteen or twenty 
 oldest sisters 
 who stand out- 
 side bend their 
 white rays up 
 o v e r t he i r 
 younger sisters 
 and so make a 
 little white 
 tent of them to 
 keep the little 
 ones dry and 
 warm. When 
 morning conies 
 or the r a i n 
 clears off, they 
 
 fold their rays back again, so that their younger sisters can 
 enjoy the sunshine. They put their baby sisters to bed each 
 night and tuck them in out of the cold and wet, and they 
 watch over them all day long. In the picture of the thistle 
 (Fig. 121) you can see the tiny tent which the older 
 sisters of that flower make for the baby blossoms at night or in 
 rainy weather. The tent is on the left, and on the right you 
 see the flower when the older sisters have let their younger 
 sisters go out into the sunshine. Only the oldest sisters of the 
 
 Fk 
 
 121. —A Thistle Family at Night ami a Thistle 
 Family hy Day. 
 
150 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 Fig. 122. —A Bee Caring 
 fur her Younger Sisters. 
 
 thistle are not flowers, but leaves that give- their whole life to 
 helping the mother plant care for the great family of babies. 
 The plants that, gather their babies into bands where the older 
 sisters can look after the younger ones, and 
 all of them can help each other, arc the must 
 successful plants in the world. There are 
 nioie of this family than any other, and I 
 imagine that they are more happy than any 
 other, because they help each other. 
 
 Seme of the insects, too, have learned to 
 help each other, and the older sisters have 
 learned to help the mother care for the fam- 
 ily. In the picture of the bee-sisters (Fig. 
 l^i') you sec the older sister with wings 
 helping to care for her half dozen younger 
 sisters who have not yet got their wings. The youngest 
 of the sisters — the one at the bottom — is only a tiny 
 egg, which the ^bee-mother has laid in the cell. That egg- 
 laying is all the mother does: the sisters do all the rest of the 
 work. They feed the egg when it hatches into a little white 
 worm and grows larger and larger and hungrier and hungrier. 
 In a beehive there are thousands of baby bees needing to lie 
 fed very often, so you see the older sisters are very busy 
 nursing their younger sisters. 
 
 But besides this nursing they have to build the thousands of 
 beautiful white cradles for the babies to lie in while they are 
 growing into bees with legs and wings. And they have to go 
 out through the fields hunting for honey and pollen among the 
 flowers. Of course one older sister could not do all these 
 different things, so they divide the work up between them. 
 Some of them hunt for honey, others build the cells or cradles, 
 
Helping Eaah Other in the Sister Family. 
 
 157 
 
 and others feed the babies. There are still others that stand 
 and make their wings go fast to fan fresh air through the hive, 
 so that the babies and nurses will not stifle, or the wax cradles 
 melt on hot days. Some of them, too, are watching at the 
 entrance, as you see them in the picture (Fig. 123), so that no 
 one shall come in to hurt the babies or steal their food. If you 
 should drop a caterpillar down on the board at the door of the 
 hive, you would see the guarding bees all start up and move 
 about hastily and gather around the caterpillar. The cater- 
 pillar would have to creep away at a pretty lively rate not to 
 get stung and pushed off the board by the bees. If you push 
 a piece of straw five or six inches long into the door, the bees 
 on guard would at once begin to look at it and feel of it and 
 try to pull it out of the door- 
 way. At last they would get 
 it loose, and one of them would 
 clasp her arms about it and fly 
 away with it till she got forty 
 or fifty feet from the hive, 
 when she would drop it and 
 come back again to guard the 
 door. 
 
 If you could watch one of 
 the sisters that was hunting 
 for honey, you would find that 
 she was up and at work before 
 you had your breakfast, and 
 that she was busy all day long 
 hurrying from flower to flower, to get the sweet juice and the 
 yellow dust, and flying straight back to the hive with her load, 
 and handing it over quickly to her sisters in the hive, and then 
 
 Fig. 123. — Bee Sisters on Guard 
 at their Door. 
 
Mother Nature s Children, 
 
 starting out again at mice for more honey and pollen. So the 
 beehive is a great busy family, with one mother and thousands 
 of daughters who do all they can to help their mothers and 
 each other. I suppose this is why the bee family is so large 
 and strong and the bees seem so happy. And if the brothers 
 helped as much as the sisters do, I think the family would be 
 still larger and stronger and happier. But the brothers do not 
 help at all in the work of the hive. They arc the "drones," 
 who only eat and sleep through the summer, and when the cold 
 weather comes their hard-working sisters drive them out of the 
 hive to die of cold and hunger. No doubt Mother Nature tells 
 the sisters to do it, and I think it serves the drones right. If 
 they want to be safe and happy, they must help the others. 
 
 The ants are the cousins of the bees, and like them they 
 have learned to help each other. Some of the sisters in the 
 ant fan lily nurse the baby ants, and others build tin; ant-hills 
 or guard the doors or go oft in search of food. When they are 
 hunting for food they will sometimes help each oilier by the 
 larger sisters marching on the outside of the line and doing all 
 the lighting, while the smaller sisters march in the centre of 
 the line and carry the food. And when the)" come to a stream 
 which they wish to cross, the large ants will find a. tree whose 
 branches reach over to the other side of the stream. Then they 
 make a bridge themselves, by having one ant hang down from 
 the end of the branch and another hang down from her feet, 
 and a third from the feet of the second, and so on, till the string' 
 of ants reaches the water or the other bank, as you see it in 
 the picture of the ants helping each other to make a bridge and 
 tunnel (Fig. 124), where a line of ants hangs from the end of 
 the branch to the water's edge. 
 
 In the same picture you can see the covered passageway the 
 
Helpiwj Each Other in the Sinter Family. 
 
 159 
 
 ants have built to keep off the heat of the sun. It would kill 
 the smallest sisters of this ant family to be in the hot sunlight 
 of Africa for a few minutes. So when they have to go out by 
 day they keep in the shade all they can by going under logs 
 and stones and leaves. But if they have to cross an open plain 
 like the sandy shore in 
 the picture, the larger 
 sisters who are not hurt 
 by the sun build an 
 arched tunnel for their 
 sisters to go under, made 
 of their own bodies held 
 together by clasping each 
 other's hands and 
 feet. If the space 
 is too long for 
 this, they build a 
 tunnel of sand, as 
 you see it in the 
 picture, sticking 
 the grain s to- 
 gether so as to 
 form a safe, cov- 
 ered way for their 
 smaller sisters. 
 
 The ants in this country will make such a covered way to 
 reach the little aphides — the ant-cows — which they keep on 
 the trees. They will build the covered way along the ground 
 and up the trunk of the tree, so that the birds cannot get them 
 as they go for their milk ; and they will even build a clay roof 
 over the aphides, — a sort of cow shed, — so that no one else 
 
 Fig. 124. 
 
 - Ant Sisters Crossing a River and 
 Building a Tunnel. 
 
160 Mother Nature' 's Children. 
 
 shall milk their cows. But most ants would rather dig under 
 the ground than make a tunnel over it, and sometimes they 
 will make a tunnel under a stream twice as wide as the Chicago 
 River, just to get at food beyond the water. All of the sisters 
 take hold and help each other, and by so doing they can accom- 
 plish almost anything. They have learned to do these things 
 by living together and helping each other, so that some scientific 
 men think that next to human beings the ants are the wisest 
 creatures living on the earth. They have listened to Mother 
 Nature's teaching better than any other creatures except men, 
 and she has helped them just as far as they have minded her. 
 
 For Nature listens in the rose 
 
 And hearkens in the berry's bell, 
 To help her friends, to harm her foes, 
 
 And like wise God she judges well. 
 
 Emekson, Nature. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 Get the help, and encourage pupils also to do so, of local students of science. 
 
 Encourage the children to learn the shorter passages of poetry accompanying 
 the text. 
 
 Bring in some composite flower to make the teaching real. 
 
 Make the descriptions teach the kind helpfulness of nature as well as her 
 stern refusal to help those who do not help themselves. 
 
 Do not let the. formal parts of nature obscure the truths you wish to teach. 
 Remember it is not the formal part but the spiritual part through the forms 
 which you wish to impress. 
 
 Give no more body than shows soul, as Browning says of painting. 
 
CHAPTER XX L 
 
 HELPING EACH OTHER IN FLOCKS AND HERDS. 
 
 " Off to America " is the name of this picture. Of 
 course these children are not really going to America in that 
 little boat, for they live in France, so that they would have to 
 cross the wide ocean to reach America. But they have often 
 
 seen their friends go on board the great steamers and sail out 
 over the ocean to go to America, and so they have taken their 
 dolls and got into the little boat and are playing that they are 
 "off to America." But I don't believe they would have felt 
 brave enough to start out on the water so, if they had not had 
 their older brother, or some one's older brother, with them to 
 
 161 
 
162 
 
 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 push the boat from (lie shore and manage that funny little sail ; 
 and I think they would he ;i great deal safer if that brother was 
 still older, or if they had (heir father along with them. If they 
 were really going over the vast ocean, they would need a big 
 vessel or steamboat, and a great many fathers and older 
 brothers to manage it, unless they wanted to get tipped over 
 by the big waves and drowned in the deep water. 
 
 The fathers and the older brothers have learned to protect the 
 mothers along with the babies and the younger sisters, among 
 the animals as well as among human beings. The animals 
 gather in flocks and herds, with the fathers and brothers on the 
 outside, and the mothers and sisters in the centre, and then the 
 mothers and little ones are safe. Even the timid sheep can 
 keep dogs and wolves off in this way. When the sheep are 
 living all by themselves, without any shepherd to take care of 
 them, they stay in small flocks and have one of the fathers 
 or brothers stand on guard, watching for a wolf or any other 
 dangerous animal. Tire moment the sentinel sheep sees such 
 a dangerous animal he stamps his leet anil gives a sort of 
 whistle, and all of the sheep run together into a circle, with the 
 mothers and sisters inside and the older brothers and fathers on 
 the outside. And these older brothers have such large, strong 
 horns and strike so hard with them that no wolf dares to come 
 near enough to get hit. The only way the wolf can catch a 
 sheep is by watching till one of them strays a little from the 
 flock, and then rushing upon it and carrying it off before 
 the fathers and older brothers can get. to it to protect it. So 
 the sheep all stick very close to each other when they are nib- 
 bling the grass anil when the)' are lying down to rest. 
 
 And larger animals, like the buffaloes, protect themselves in 
 the same way. They form a big herd, having the sisters and 
 
Helping Each Other in Flocks and Herds. 
 
 163 
 
 babies inside, and the older brothers outside, with their shaggy 
 heads and long horns turned towards the dangerous animals. 
 The wolves do not dare to attack them then, because the buffa- 
 loes will rush at them and toss them in the air with their horns 
 and often kill them. To get a buffalo the wolves have to do 
 just as they do with the sheep — watch till they can find one 
 at a distance from the herd. But even then the wolves have 
 to help each other, for the buffalo is too strong for one or two 
 of them. So when 
 they find a buffalo 
 that has gone 
 away from the 
 herd a lot of them 
 gather around 
 him, as you see 
 them in the pic- 
 ture (Fig. 126), 
 and some of them will attack him in front and others will 
 come up behind, till they tire him out. Then they will rush 
 in all together and drag him to the ground. But the man who 
 drew this picture rode up to the wolves and drove them away 
 from the buffalo, so that he went galloping off to try to get to 
 his herd, where he would be safe. 
 
 The next picture (Fig. 127) shows you the way the elk help 
 each other to keep the wolves off in the winter. These large 
 deer have no fear of the wolves in the summer, because they 
 can easily outrun them or toss them off by their horns. But 
 when winter comes and the ground is covered with snow, the 
 deer sink deep in the snow, so that they can neither run nor 
 use their horns. Then the) - gather together in herds and 
 tread the snow down, making an "elk-yard," as it is called, 
 
 Fig. 126. — A Pack of Wolves Hunting a Buffalo 
 
164 
 
 Mother Nature a Children. 
 
 where the sisters ami mothers can be safe on the hard snow or 
 the ground in the centre. At the bottom of the picture you 
 see a hungry wolf looking into the yard, and one of the older 
 
 brothers of the herd looking out at him. 
 You can see other deer lying down in 
 the middle of the yard, and at the top 
 of the picture there are more hungry 
 wolves looking into the yard from the 
 other side. But the deer do not fear 
 even a whole pack of wolves, because 
 they can help each other in keeping 
 them off. 
 
 The monkeys, too, have learned to 
 help each other. When an eagle tries 
 to carry one of them off, all the rest of 
 them rush to his help and beat the bird 
 and pull its feathers out, so that it is 
 glad to let go its hold on the monkey 
 and fly away. And when they have to 
 go from one place to another and have 
 to cross a river, they will make a chain by taking hold of 
 hands, something as the ants do, only it is the big brothers 
 instead of the big sisters who make the monkey bridge. They 
 climb a tree that overhangs the water, as you see them in the 
 picture (Fig. 128), and then they hang down from one another 
 till they have a string of monkeys long enough to reach across 
 the water. Then they swing back and forth till the monkeys 
 at the end of the string can catch hold of a branch and hold 
 fast. After that the sisters and the babies walk over this live 
 suspension bridge, and sometimes the roguish little monkeys 
 will slyly pinch or slap their elders who are holding fast in the 
 
 Fig. V27. 
 
 -The E 
 
Helping Each Other in Flocks and Herds. 
 
 165 
 
 bridge, so that they cannot punish them for it. When the 
 sisters and babies have all crossed over, the first monkey lets 
 go his hold on the tree, while the other monkeys hold fast and 
 pull him and all the rest of the bridge across the river. 
 
 And when the monkeys are attacked by dogs, the fathers and 
 the elder brothers will face the dogs and roar at them so loudly 
 as to frighten the dogs and keep them off, till the sisters and 
 babies can reach some safe place. A German traveller, who 
 spent his life studying animals, tells us that once when the 
 dogs rushed at the monkeys and were kept off by the older 
 brothers, one of the youngsters among the monkeys got some- 
 how separated from the rest and climbed 
 a rock, where he was surrounded by all 
 of the dogs barking and jumping at the 
 poor little fellow. But when the other 
 monkeys saw him, one of them — I don't 
 know whether it was his father or his 
 oldest brother — left the rest of the band 
 of monkeys and came alone down among 
 the dogs to help the little one. He looked 
 so brave and threatening as he came, that 
 the dogs were afraid to touch him and 
 slunk back, so that he could go straight 
 to the rock, where he coaxed the little 
 one down and carried him safely up the 
 hill to the rest of the monkeys. That 
 was a pretty good sort of a big brother 
 to have, even if it was a monkey. 
 
 The birds, too, have learned to be safer and happier by 
 helping each other. In the picture of the sociable weaver bird's 
 home (Fig. 129), you can see what a large house they build 
 
 Fir, 
 
 Vlx. — Monkeys Making 
 a Live Bridge. 
 
166 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 
 when they work together. That great pile of hay, stacked up 
 in the tree, was gathered by the birds and put into place, one 
 blade at a time. A single pair of birds could not do it, but 
 two or three hundred pairs working together can do it easily. 
 Each one of the hundreds of pairs has its own neat under this 
 roof, which keeps off the hot sun by day and makes a warm 
 shelter at night. You can see the different nests at the side of 
 
 the picture. The roof also 
 makes them safer from the 
 monkeys and hungry creatures 
 who would like to steal their 
 eggs and babies. When there 
 are so many birds together, 
 there will always be dozens of 
 them at home to join in defend- 
 ing' their house ae/ainst such 
 dangerous creatures. So they 
 are a great deal safer, just as 
 the swallows are who gather 
 in crowds to build their nests 
 in the same barn. 
 When any creature tries to hurt any one of the swallows, all 
 the rest come to the protection of that one. The English 
 sparrows will sometimes steal a nest that the swallows have 
 made bv getting into it as soon as it is finished and holding it. 
 One pair of swallows is no match for the sparrows, but other 
 swallows will come to their help and punish the thieves. In 
 one case, when a thieving pair of sparrows had driven some 
 swallows from their nest, they came back with some other 
 swallows and tiled to drive the sparrows away. When they 
 could not do that, they all went to work and tore the nest down 
 
 Fig. 12ft. — The Sociable Weaver 
 Bird's Home. 
 
Helping Each Other in Flocks and Herds. 
 
 167 
 
 and got lid of the sparrows that way, and then they helped 
 build the nest up again. In another case, a lot of swallows 
 came with clay in their bills and actually built up a wall in the 
 opening of the nest, so that the thieving sparrows were shut 
 up in prison, as it were, and could not get out but starved to 
 death there. 
 
 But the crows help each other even more than this. When- 
 ever a flock of them is busy getting food, one or two of the 
 number will always be perched up on some high point and will 
 be keeping watch. The 
 
 moment the sentinel sees 
 or hears anything that 
 seems as if it would harm 
 them, he calls out to the 
 others and they all fly away 
 to a safe place ; or, if it is 
 some great bird that is 
 prowling around to try to 
 catch their babies, they 
 will all join together to drive her away, as you see them 
 driving the owls away (Fig. 130). And the rooks, who are 
 the English cousins of our crows, will all join together to 
 punish any pair that is caught stealing the sticks from another 
 pair's nest to use in building their own. When a pair is found 
 out doing this, all the rest of the rooks cry out as if they 
 thought it wrong, and go flying to the nest of the wicked pair 
 and tear it all down and scatter the sticks in every direction. 
 It is only the young pairs who try to steal from each other ; 
 the older ones have learned that they can live in flocks only by 
 helping each other, and that the moment they begin to harm 
 each other in any way they will scatter the flock and lose all 
 
 Fig. lt!0. — Crows Driving an Owl away. 
 
108 Mother Nature '« Children. 
 
 the safety and pleasure that comes from living together. And 
 they will lose all their education, too, for it is only by living 
 together and helping each other that Mother Nature's children 
 are educated. The swarms of bees and ants, the flocks and 
 herds of birds and animals, are the school to which living- 
 beings are sent to lie educated. So we find the ant and the 
 bee family the wisest of the insects; and the crow family the 
 wisest of the birds, and the animals that go in flocks and herds 
 the wisest and gentlest as well as the strongest of the animals. 
 
 United we stand ; divided we fall : 
 It made and preserves us a nation. 
 
 Morris. 
 
 TEACHING NOTE. 
 
 The helpfulness here suggested should be made a starting point for subse- 
 quent illustration in little themes and oral exercises drawn from the natural 
 world. This teaching from time to time is the only sure means of rescuing the 
 seed sown from the " fowls of the air" that seem especially to attend children 
 in this volatile period of their lives. The reading of the book is but the initia- 
 tive in a line of careful nurture. It makes a few strong centers around which 
 its ideas of cradling, tending, feeding, clothing, etc., may radiate to fix impres- 
 sions otherwise too fugitive to be of their best value. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HOW HUMAN BEINGS HELP EACH OTHER. 
 
 Me. Henry, the man who painted this picture, calls it 
 "Women and Children First." It is a shipwreck. That great 
 vessel has been driven upon the rocks by the wind and the 
 waves. You can see the waves rising and breaking over 
 the stern of the ship, so that the people who were sailing in the 
 
 boat have had to run forward to the bow of the vessel where 
 they are crowding against the rail. In a little while the mighty 
 waves will break the vessel all to pieces, and sweep the men 
 and women and little children into the water ; and with such 
 terrible waves rolling and breaking, I fear they would all be 
 drowned. Certainly all the women ami children would be. 
 
 160 
 
170 Mother Nature '« Children. 
 
 And they have no way of saving themselves, because all their 
 small boats have been swept away by the waves. 
 
 But you see that large, strong boat in the centre of the 
 picture, that has come rowing out over the wild waters right up 
 to the stranded vessel, to save the poor shipwrecked people. 
 Those men in the boat have risked their lives to save the men 
 and women and children who were in such terrible danger. 
 Their large, strong boat was built on purpose to save ship- 
 wrecked people. The men who row it live on the shore in a 
 house called a Life-saving Station. We hire them to stay in 
 the station night and day, with their boat all ready to lie used 
 at a moment's warning. One of them is always looking out 
 for ships that may need their help, and when it is stormy' some 
 of them walk up and down the shore for miles to see if there 
 is any shipwreck. The moment one of them- sees a ship in 
 danger, lie tells the rest of them and they spring into their boat 
 and row right out into the wildest waves to help save their fellow- 
 men. You see in the picture that they have rowed up to the 
 side of the vessel, and the people on the vessel are lowering the 
 "women and children first" into the lifeboat. They have let 
 down one woman, who is sitting in the middle of the lifeboat and 
 stretching her arms up to the ship. For you see her little girl 
 is being lowered next, held fast in the strong arms of the man 
 who is slipping down the rope. When the lifeboat has all the 
 women and children and as many men as it can carry, the boat- 
 men will row to the shore and leave them there, and come hack 
 and save the rest of the men. But these brave boatmen never could 
 spend all their time helping to save others, unless we helped them 
 in turn by giving them shelter and food and clothing for their 
 wives and children. But our help does not pay them for their 
 courage, ^mly our gratitude and love and honor can do that. 
 
/fun' Human Beings //rl/> Each Other. 
 
 171 
 
 In the next picture (Fig. 182) yon see three or four men 
 rushing out of a cave to save one of their number who has been 
 attacked by the cave bear. That terrible creature has struck 
 his sharp claws into the man's shoulder and knocked him down 
 upon the ground, and I fear he would soon have killed the 
 poor fellow if the other men had not heard his cries and rushed 
 up to save him. One of them has a heavy club, and the other 
 two have stone axes, and they will drive the bear away and save 
 their friend. That 
 was the way men 
 used to save each 
 other long ages ago, 
 before they had steel 
 axes or guns, or cloth- 
 ing, or houses to live 
 in. They lived in 
 caves, as you see in 
 the picture, and wore 
 the skins of wild ani- 
 mals. But they had 
 already learned to 
 help each other. They lived in little bands of a few men, 
 women, and children together, and the men had clubs and 
 stone axes and knives to keep away the hungry animals, 
 and to kill some of them for food for themselves and the 
 women and children. That living together and helping each 
 other was the beginning of our civilization. For civilization 
 is really only the art of living together and helping each 
 other. And the greater the number of people who can live 
 together and the more they can help each other, the more 
 civilized they are, and the more safe and happy they are. 
 
 Fig. 132. 
 
 -Early Men Helping Each Other 
 against the Cave Bear. 
 
172 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 In the picture of the Fuegians (Fig. 133) you see a little 
 band of savages, like those in the last picture of the cave bear. 
 And the Fuegians are helping each other, too. They live 
 away down in South America, where it is cold and snowy, as 
 you see from the picture. They do not have much but fish to 
 eat. When the tish fail them, or the water g-ets frozen over at 
 one place, they move to another place and carry all their things 
 with them, even their house and their boats. You see their 
 
 s m a 1 1 e r b o a t 
 dragged through 
 the snow, but I 
 do not suppose 
 you can see their 
 =^J~~~~ larger boat and 
 their house. 
 Those sticks 
 they have on 
 their backs are 
 the house and 
 the larger boat. 
 When they reach the water that you can see at the right of the 
 picture, they will set up a few of the long sticks and pile a 
 little brush about it and call it a house, though the snow will 
 blow through it and cover them up when they are asleep. 
 The other long sticks they will tie together and make into a 
 sort of boat to use in fishing. I do not suppose you would 
 think much of their boats or their houses, and 1 dare say you 
 think you would be very wretched if you had to wade barefoot 
 through the deep snow, and fish in the water in a leaky canoe, 
 and sleep in the snow. But they may feel that they are much 
 better off than the people who have no boats and no houses at 
 
 Fig. IE 
 
 -Fuegians Helping Each Other to Move. 
 
How Human Beings Help Each Otlu 
 
 173 
 
 all; and I am sure they are happier than .some savages who help 
 each other even less than the Fuegians do. The Fuegians are 
 more civilized than such savages. Their canoe is the first step 
 toward building a vessel. You have to learn your letters and 
 words before you can learn to read, and so men had to learn 
 how to help each other tie rods to make a canoe before they 
 could learn to help each other put the oak planks or steel plates 
 together to make the huge vessel you see in the first picture ; 
 
 $F 
 
 
 
 mmw k 
 
 M& \V;'3 
 
 Fig. 134. — Assyrians Helping Each Other to Move. 
 
 and they had to learn how to help each other build a wigwam 
 of sticks, before they could learn how to build the great steel 
 buildings we have, fifteen or twenty stories high. 
 
 You see in the next picture (Fig. 134) how the Assyrians 
 moved the great stone image that was to make one side of the 
 door of one of their great palaces. The picture is not a very 
 good one, because it is copied from carving on a stone wall 
 made about three thousand years ago, before they had learned 
 how to make very good pictures ; but it shows how they 
 
174 
 
 Mother Nature'* Children. 
 
 helped each other to build their houses in those days. You see 
 they put the great heavy stone on a sort of sled made Of wood, 
 and a lot of men on each side held it by ropes to keep it from 
 falling- over, while a lot more men took hold of long ropes and 
 pulled it along. < )ther men put rollers on the ground for it to 
 slide over, and still others pried it along by a big timber from 
 behind ; and in the lowest row of men they are carrying the 
 rollers along and drawing the big ropes in wagons. This was 
 the way they moved the great stones into place to build their 
 houses. They did it by helping each other; and they never 
 
 could have built 
 any large houses 
 if they had not 
 helped each 
 other. 
 
 In the picture 
 of the women 
 grinding flour 
 (Fig. 135) you 
 can see how 
 people begin to 
 help each other 
 get food. When 
 
 the savage family wanted fish or meat, the men would go fishing 
 or bunting for the whole family, and when it was bread that 
 was wanted, the women would stay at home grinding up the 
 wheat by nibbing it on a stone. Each of the women at the 
 left side of the picture is stooping over a large, flat-topped 
 stone. On that stone the woman puts some grains of wheat 
 and then takes the smaller stone ami rubs the wheat till it is 
 broken and crushed into white flour, which runs down the 
 
 
 -Africans Helping: Each Other to Prepare Fowl. 
 
Mow tinman lieuujx tielp finch Other. 175 
 
 sloping stone into the big bowl sitting under the edge of the 
 stone. When they get enough of the flour they make bread of 
 it. In a large family somebody has to do the grinding all the 
 time to keep bread enough on hand, and somebody must be 
 fishing or hunting all the time to keep up the supply of flesh. 
 If the men stopped doing their share of work, the family would 
 be likely to starve, and if the women stopped doing their share 
 the same thing would happen. 
 
 As men have grown more civilized — more able and willing 
 to help each other — they have gathered in larger bands, and 
 some of the families have done all the fishing, while others have 
 raised cattle instead of hunting, so that we could have meat ; 
 and still others have made the rivers grind the wheat by means 
 of water wheels, so that we could have flour; and yet others 
 have planted the wheat, so that we might have plenty of grain. 
 So the farmers help us by giving us the wheat, the millers by 
 giving us the flour, the ranchmen and butchers by giving us 
 the meat, the fishermen by giving us the fish, the weavers by 
 giving us the cloth, the miners by giving us the iron and steel 
 and coal. Of course we have to help all these people in turn, 
 or they and their families would starve. What do your parents 
 do for all these people to pay them for what they do for us ? 
 
 In the picture of the Japanese mother buying some candy 
 for her baby (Fig. 136) you see that the mother not only does 
 not have to make the candy, but she does not have to go to the 
 store to buy it. The man brings it right to the door. If you 
 look closely, you will notice chat she is handing a. piece of paper 
 to the man. I suppose she is giving him some money to pay 
 him for the candy, and lie seems quite willing to give his candy 
 for the money, because he knows he can use it to buy bread 
 and clothing for his wife and children. Where do you suppose 
 
17fi 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 she got tin- money? Of course you will say that her husband 
 gave it In her, as all Japanese husbands do. But where did he 
 get it ? lie helped somebody else by doing something for him 
 
 and was paid in 
 money. So that 
 the use of money 
 itself is really a 
 means which we 
 have found out 
 of helping each 
 other more easily 
 than we could 
 without it. 1 1 
 is only civilized 
 people — people 
 who help each 
 other — who 
 have money, and 
 every single 
 piece of money, — if it is earned and not stolen, — means just 
 so much help that the owner of the money has done for some 
 one in earning the money. 
 
 All are needed by each one ; 
 Nothing is good or fair alone. 
 
 lie serveth the servant. 
 
 The brave he loves amain. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Fig. 136. —Japanese Helping Each Other to Get Food. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 HOW MEN AND BIRDS LAY UP FOOD. 
 
 "The Forestek's Daughter" is the name of this picture. 
 The young lady's father is the " Forester " — the man who 
 takes care of the lands 
 of a German noble- 
 man. So she lives in 
 the country, where 
 she can have birds for 
 her pets. When the 
 ground is all covered 
 with snow, so that the 
 birds could not find 
 anything to eat, she 
 gives them food. She 
 has her apron full of 
 something that they 
 like very much, so 
 that they fly light up 
 to her and even alight 
 on her shoulder to get 
 it. What do you sup- 
 pose it is, and where 
 did she get it? Perhaps it is corn, or wheat, or some other 
 grain, and I imagine that her father has a lot of it stored up 
 in his bain or his granary. He knew that when winter came 
 
 177 
 
178 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 and covered the ground with snow, he and his family would 
 want the grain for food. So he planted the grain in the spring, 
 and when it was ripe he harvested it and stored it up in a 
 building he had made for it. Wherever men are civilized they 
 lay up food in summer for the winter time, so that they may not 
 starve, as the poor Indians did here in America and as savages 
 do everywhere. Here in Chicago we have a lot of "grain ele- 
 vators," as they are called, which have been built to hold the 
 millions of bushels of grain that the farmers raise on their farms. 
 This grain is loaded on the cars and drawn to the elevator, and 
 then carried up by machinery from the car to the top of the 
 building, more than a hundred feet from the ground. From 
 there it is poured into the great bins or rooms of the elevator, 
 till we want it to eat, when it is drawn out of the bottom of the 
 bins and sent to the mills to be ground into flour. 
 
 But men did not learn to make such great storehouses as 
 these elevators all at once- They made smaller buildings first. 
 In the picture of the Egyptians storing grain (Fig. 138) you 
 
 Fig. 138. — Ancient Egyptians Laying up Wheat in a Brick Granary. 
 
 can see the granaries that they had in Egypt thousands of years 
 ago. The picture is not a very good one, because it was drawn 
 by the Egyptians themselves, who could draw no better than 
 children, but it is meant to show how they stored up their 
 wheat. They used to spread the stalks with the heads of grain 
 upon the ground and drive the cattle over them to tread the 
 
How Men and Birds Lay up Food. 
 
 179 
 
 grain out of the husks. Then they would toss it in the air, to 
 let the wind blow away the straw and chaff, as you see one of 
 them doing on the left. They did not have any threshing 
 machines as we do now, and so they had to do it that way. When 
 it was clean enough they put it into that box-like thing in the 
 middle of the picture, which is really a round brick building 
 with a hole in the top to put the grain in, and another hole at the 
 bottom to take it out, very much like one of our elevators, only 
 a great deal smaller. The 
 Egyptians used to have 
 a lot of these round brick 
 granaries built together, 
 and fill them at harvest 
 time and then draw out 
 the grain, little by little, 
 as they needed it to eat. 
 But before men had 
 learned to make bricks, 
 even, they used to store 
 up food. To keep it safe 
 they used to cut down 
 tree trunks with their 
 stone axes and drive them into the bottom of shallow lakes 
 and build rough houses on the top of these piles, out of the 
 reach of the waves and of animals and men on the shore. 
 You see one of these pile houses in the picture (Fig. 139) of 
 the South American Indians. That is the way they lived 
 in Venezuela a few years ago, and that is the way they 
 lived in Switzerland a great many centuries ago, long before 
 history began; only they did not have any white cloth to wear 
 in those early times. We can still find their piles in the bottom 
 
 Fig. 130. — An Indian House in Venezuela. 
 
180 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 of the Swiss lakes, and among the piles we can rake up the 
 stone knives and stone hatchets that they used then. In some 
 places we can find a bushel or two of grain, some nuts, and 
 some apples cut up and dried. These things are burnt by fire, 
 showing that the pile houses of these early men caught lire and 
 burnt down, and the food they had gathered for the winter fell 
 through the burnt floor into the lake, where it has lain for thou- 
 sands of years. In some of the caves where men lived even 
 before they learned how to build pile dwellings, we find little 
 heaps of grain and dried fruit tucked away in some nook to use 
 in the winter and then forgotten and left untouched all tlie.se 
 ages. 
 
 So you see how men learned to lay up food, first a few hand- 
 fuls of dried berries in a cave, then a few bushels of grain and 
 nuts in a, pile house, and then a few hundred bushels of wheat 
 in the brick granaries of Egypt, till now we have millions of 
 bushels stored up in our elevators here in Chicago alone. No 
 one need starve to death in winter now, as the Indians did in 
 the story of Hiawatha, and as they must have done still more 
 before they learned to plant corn for food. They thought that 
 Hiawatha had given them the corn. You remember how sad 
 his heart was because his people had nothing to eat but birds 
 and beasts and berries and fish. For the snow and ice pre- 
 vented the poor Indians from getting this food in winter. So 
 Hiawatha prayed the gods to give his people something that 
 they could eat even in winter, and Mondamin, the God of the 
 Indian Corn, came down and wrestled with Hiawatha, and suf- 
 fered himself to be slain. But before his death he told Hia- 
 watha to bury him and he would rise again and grow into a 
 beautiful plant with seeds for the people to eat, no matter how 
 much snow and ice there might be. 
 
How Men and Birds Lay up Food. 181 
 
 And victorious Hiawatha 
 Made the grave as he commanded, 
 Stripped the garments from Mondamin, 
 Stripped his tattered plumage from him, 
 Laid him in the earth, and made it 
 Soft and loose and light above him ; 
 Kept it clean from weeds and insects. 
 Till at length a small green feather 
 From the earth shot slowly upward, 
 Then another and another. 
 And before the summer ended 
 Stood the maize in all its beauty, 
 With its shining robes about it, 
 And its long, soft, yellow tresses ; 
 And in rapture Hiawatha 
 Cried aloud, "It is Mondamin! 
 Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin ! " 
 
 But some god has given us not only corn, but also wheat 
 and rice and a dozen other foods that we can gather and store 
 up in our great storehouses, so that all can be fed. If any one 
 lacks food anywhere, as the people of India did a few years 
 ago, we draw out the grain from our granaries and load it on 
 a ship and send it to them. By learning to lay up food we 
 can help each other better than ever before. 
 
 The birds, too, have learned to lay up food, but they have 
 learned to fly so well that they do not often need to do it. 
 When winter comes with its snow and ice they fly away to 
 the south, where they find plenty of food. 
 
 Far over purple seas 
 
 They wait, in sunny ease, 
 
 The balmy southern breeze 
 
 To bring them to their northern homes once more. 
 
182 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 been made by a knife or an auger. 
 
 But even the birds sometimes store nj> food for the future. 
 I remember how puzzled I was once by finding an acorn stick- 
 ing in a little hole made in the bark of an oak tree trunk in 
 Michigan, something as yon see it in the picture (Fig. 140) of 
 the California woodpecker, only the tree trunk was straight up 
 and down. The hole exactly fitted the acorn, yet it bad not 
 
 It looked as if it had been 
 made by a woodpecker. 
 But if it had I could not 
 understand bow the acorn 
 could have been pushed 
 tightly into the hole so that 
 only the cup end stuck out. 
 But I have learned since 
 that the hole had been 
 made by a woodpecker, and 
 that he had brought the 
 acorn and hammered it in, 
 that lie might o-et it for 
 
 o o 
 
 food whenever he needed 
 it. Our red-headed wood- 
 peckers do not do it very 
 often, but the California 
 woodpecker stores up ever so many acorns this way, just 
 filling the baik of oak and pine trees with nuts in the fall. 
 And sometimes they try to store them up in the boards of 
 houses. A man in California let the birds use the end of 
 his house for this purpose, and they sometimes made the 
 holes in the boards so deep that when they tried to cat the 
 nuts they lost one now and then by its dropping through 
 into the house. But on the ground outside lie found only 
 
 Fio. 140. — The Woodpecker Storing A us 
 
 in the bark of a Tree. 
 
How Men and Birds Lay up Food. 
 
 183 
 
 the empty shells they had thrown away after eating the 
 meat. 
 
 I suppose the woodpeck- 
 ers store up food more than 
 other birds because they 
 have such a sharp, strong 
 bill to cut into the wood 
 with. You see in the pic- 
 ture (Fig. 141) of their nest 
 
 1 1 
 
 Fig. 141. — The Woodpeckers' Nest. 
 
 how well they dig right into the 
 middle of the tree and make a large 
 hole for their eggs. One of them is 
 o-oin«' into the nest and the other is 
 
 o o 
 
 just beginning to make a nest. You 
 might think they would dig out such 
 a place as this for the nuts ; but the 
 mice and squirrels could get at them 
 if they did. So they stick them into 
 the bark one by one, or else they find 
 a hollow, reeddike plant, so hard that the mice and squirrels 
 cannot nibble it, and put them in there till they want them. 
 In the picture of the woodpeckers' storehouse (Fig. 142) you 
 
 Fig. 142. — Tlie Woodpeckers' 
 Storehouse. 
 
184 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 seethe hollow stalk that these birds use in Mexico. On the 
 right hand it is shown with the holes the birds make to put 
 the acorns in, while on the left it is cut open so you can see 
 the acorns in it. In the autumn, when the acorns are ripe, the 
 birds find these plants and drill holes in them and bring acorns 
 and drop them into the holes till the plant is full, as you see it 
 on the left. Then, as winter comes and there is no other food, 
 the birds come and thrust their sharp bills into the hole at the 
 bottom and draw the nuts out one by one, sticking each one 
 in a hole in the hark of a tree to eat it. A Swiss student 
 saw some of these birds getting and eating the acorns this way 
 in the spring at a place where they must have brought the nuts 
 thirty miles, because the nearest oak trees were as far away 
 as that. 
 
 So you see the birds have found out how to make elevators 
 for nuts and to bring the acorns from their farms miles away 
 and store them up till they need them, just as men do. I sup- 
 pose the same Wisdom that taught us taught them also. 
 
 Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure ; 
 
 Sow peace, anil reap its harvest bright ; 
 Sow sunbeams on the rock ami moor, 
 
 Ami find a harvest-home of light. 
 
 IIonar. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HOW THE RODENTS LAY UP FOOD. 
 
 Sir Edwin Landseer, who painted the first picture that 
 we had, is the one who painted this picture also. He calls it 
 " A Piper and a Pair 
 of Nut-Crackers." 
 The "piper" is that 
 little bird singing so 
 gaily, and I suppose 
 the " nut - crackers " 
 must be those two 
 pretty squirrels sit- 
 ting up in the hollow 
 of the tree and eating 
 nuts so busily. But 
 they are not exactly 
 " nut- crackers," be- 
 cause they do not 
 crack their nuts. 
 They use their sharp 
 teeth to nibble the 
 shell away till it falls 
 off and leaves the nut 
 in their tiny hands, and they then eat the nut by nibbling 
 it a little at a time. They like to make their home in the 
 hollow trees and eat their food there, as you see them doing 
 
 185 
 
186 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 in the picture. You can see some nuts scattered about them 
 in the hollow tree. They have brought those nuts into their 
 home to eat when they want them. They do not like to go 
 out to get food when it is cold or rainy. If you happened 
 to be in a forest just before a rain storm, you would see the 
 squirrels all hurrying about and gathering food as fast as they 
 could, and carrying it to their nests in the trees. But as soon 
 as tlie rain began every squirrel would disappear. Then if you 
 could look softly into their nests you would see them packed 
 cozily away, sometimes three or four in a nest, and with plenty 
 to eat till the storm was over. And you would find that all 
 the openings in their nests were carefully closed by leaves or 
 twigs to keep out the wind and rain. 
 
 But when the long, cold winter comes they have to lay up a 
 great deal more food than they do against a rainy day. So in 
 the fall you will see them very busy gathering the nuts from the 
 trees as fast as they get ripe, and .storing them away in various 
 places. The red squirrels are the ones we see oftenest in this 
 country, and they generally lay up their food in the hollow 
 trees where they live during the winter, and sometimes a single 
 pair will store up between one and two bushels of nuts. But 
 in Maine, where I used to live when I was a boy, the red squir- 
 rels used to hide the nuts they gathered in little piles under 
 the leaves near the tree they grew on. There was one oak 
 tree that had better acorns than any other tree, and the squirrels 
 used to come out of the forest to that tree and gather the acorns 
 and put them in little holes in the ground and cover them over 
 with leaves. I suppose they thought that they would not have 
 time to carry them so far while they were gathering them. I 
 have learned since that they come to get them later, when they 
 have eaten up the food they have in their nest. They remem- 
 
Hoiv the Rodents Lay up Food. 
 
 187 
 
 ber the exact spot where they hid them, so that they can dig 
 
 with their little feet down through the snow and get them. 
 
 But I am afraid that some of the squirrels that hid the acorns 
 
 near that tree were disappointed when they came to get them 
 
 in the winter, for we boys used to look under the leaves and 
 
 sometimes find the little 
 
 treasures. We thought 
 
 it was great fun to have 
 
 the squirrels gather our 
 
 nuts for us, but I don't 
 
 believe it was great fun 
 
 for the poor little fellows 
 
 when they came in the 
 
 cold and snow to get 
 
 their store of food and 
 
 had to go back without it. 
 
 But the squirrels sleep a great 
 deal during the winter, espe- 
 cially in our Northern States, 
 and so they do not need very 
 much food. In the far North 
 they make their winter homes 
 underground, because they find 
 it too cold in the trees. The 
 little striped squirrel, or " chip- 
 munk," as we used to call him, 
 
 lives under the ground summer and winter both. In the 
 picture (Fig. 144) of the storehouse of the chipmunk you can 
 see how he makes his house. Two or three feet below the 
 ground he has a large room carpeted with soft, dry leaves. 
 In this room Mrs. Chipmunk tends her little ones till they 
 
 Fig. 144. 
 
 - Nest and Storeroom of the 
 Chipmunks. 
 
188 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 get large enough to take care of themselves. But besides 
 this nursery and living room their are several other rooms 
 leading off in different directions. You see one of them in 
 the picture leading up towards the right-hand side of the 
 picture. These side rooms are the cellars or storerooms of 
 the Chipmunk family, and the members of flic family are very 
 busy in the autumn gathering their little harvest and packing 
 it away in the different rooms of their underground house. In 
 a single one of these houses a, naturalist found one quart of 
 hazel nuts, eight quarts of acorns, two quarts of buckwheat, 
 and four quarts of wheat, besides some grass seed, mak- 
 ing fifteen quarts these little 
 creatures had gathered and 
 stored away; and they had to 
 bring much of the food a long 
 distance. How do you sup- 
 pose they can carry such things 
 as wheat? Each one of them 
 has a bag in his cheeks on each 
 side of his mouth, and he can 
 pack away in these bags three 
 or four hazel nuts at once and 
 a tablespoonful or two of 
 wheat. If you could look 
 closely at one of them as he 
 was going home with his load 
 of food, you would think lie 
 bad the mumps, because his 
 cheeks stick out so. 
 Another little nibbler that lays up food is the dormouse. 
 You see how small a creature it is in the picture of the dor- 
 
 Fk 
 
 145. — Nest and Storehouse of the 
 Dormouse. 
 
How the Rode tit a Leu/ up Food. 
 
 189 
 
 mouse's storehouse (Fig. 145), for it is only a little longer than 
 
 the stag beetle ; and the younger dormouse, at the right of the 
 
 picture, seems afraid of the beetle and thinks of climbing into 
 
 its little home out of danger ; for that little bunch of twisted 
 
 leaves and grass is the summer house of the dormouse, built up 
 
 in the crotch of a bush. But the dormouse does not lay up its 
 
 winter food in the summer house. It finds some secret nook, 
 
 like the underside of a stick that is lying on the ground, and 
 
 stores its nuts 
 
 and grain up 
 
 there. You 
 
 see the larger 
 
 dormouse in 
 
 the picture 
 
 b r i n s i n g a 
 
 hazel nut down „ 
 
 from the tree 
 
 to hide it with 
 
 the little pile 
 
 heaped up at 
 
 the lower corner of the cut. When winter comes it will make 
 
 a nest for itself in some snug, sheltered place and go to sleep 
 
 and stay asleep most of the time till the warmer weather comes. 
 
 Then it will wake up hungry and will find its little store of 
 
 nuts and eat them. How do you suppose it knows that it is 
 
 going to need the food when it wakes ? Who tells it to lay up 
 
 the store ? 
 
 You will find another wise little nibbler in the picture of the 
 crying hares harvesting hay (Fig. 146). These creatures live 
 in the mountains of Asia, but they have an American cousin 
 living in the Rocky Mountains, and the cousin is called a cony 
 
 Fig. 14ii. — The Crying Hares Harvesting Hay. 
 
190 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 by the people who live there. Yon see that one of them has 
 his mouth full of grass. He lias been cutting the grass with 
 his sharp little teeth, and now he is carrying it to some little 
 nook in the rocks where lie will dry it and pack it away for use 
 in the winter when the ground is covered deep with snow. 
 These hares, or conies, live in holes in the ground and they 
 make little paths running from one hole to the other. In sum- 
 mer, when the grass has grown large and high, they cut it down 
 each side of those paths and dry it and store it away. Then 
 when winter comes they make paths under the snow from their 
 underground homes to the little rocky nooks or barns where 
 they have stored their hay, so that whenever they are hungry 
 they can run to their store and get some food. So you see 
 that they too have learned somehow to know that they will 
 need food for the winter and to lie wise enough to lay it up 
 beforehand. 
 
 But the wisest of all these wise nibblers is the beaver, who 
 lays up his food in the water. And that he may have water to 
 lay it up in, he makes a pond for himself by building a dam in 
 a stream. lie and his wife, with two or three other beaver 
 families, unite to build the dam. They must have logs to build 
 it with, and as they do not have any axe to cut with, they fell 
 the trees by gnawing around them with their sharp teeth. 
 When a tree has fallen they cut it up into pieces short enough 
 to be rolled into the stream. Then they push the pieces out 
 into the place where they want their dam and pile them up 
 there, with stones and mud on them to keep them in place. 
 When the dam is high enough, so that they have a. pond, they 
 build houses like those you see in the picture (Fig. 147) of the 
 beaver laying up food. Each pair of beavers has their own 
 house, built by piling logs together and plastering the logs over 
 
Sow the Rodents Lay up Food. 
 
 191 
 
 with mud. The houses are just about big enough for play- 
 houses for babies, but I am afraid our babies could not use 
 them very well, because the doors are under the water, and 
 they have no windows at all. But the beavers do not mind 
 that, because they like to swim and dive in the water, and Mrs. 
 Beaver has a soft, dry bed 
 
 
 in her house for the beaver 
 
 babies. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver 
 
 and the babies live in their 
 
 house in the winter, when the 
 
 pond is all frozen over, and 
 
 as their food is the tender 
 
 bark of the young shoots of 
 
 trees they must store them 
 
 up in the water before it is 
 
 frozen over. So you will see 
 
 them " working like beavers " 
 
 all through the fall, gnawing 
 
 down trees and nibbling off 
 
 the young shoots and smaller 
 
 branches to lay up for food. 
 
 As soon as a small branch is 
 
 cut up the right length the 
 
 beaver rolls it into the pond 
 
 and swims with it to a place near his house, and then he dives to 
 
 the bottom and fastens the branch there. After that he goes 
 
 back to get another branch and brings it and fastens it beside the 
 
 first, and so on till he has a great pile of tender branches lying 
 
 in the water close to the door of his house. Then when winter 
 
 comes and the water is covered with ice, he dives down through 
 
 the doorway — for that is under water, too, you remember — 
 
 Fig. 1+7. — Beavers Laying up Food. 
 
102 Mother Nature* (Jhildren. 
 
 and pulls a branch out of the mud and takes it into his house 
 through that doorway. Then he and Mrs. Beaver and all the 
 young Beavers have a nice juicy meal, for the water keeps the 
 bark on the branches from drying up. 
 
 And after all the trees near the pond have been cut down 
 the wise little creatines will dig canals from the pond to the 
 trees that are farther off, so that the water can float the heavy 
 branches and logs down to his home, just as men dig canals to 
 float the grain to the cities that need it. When the ground 
 rises they will even make locks — make stairs, as it were, in the 
 canal, to float the logs down the hill. ■ I shall not try to explain 
 how such locks are made, because you are none of you old 
 enough to understand it. Nor were the Indians educated 
 enough to understand it so as to make such locks for them- 
 selves. They always carried their canoes around such falls. 
 So you see that somebody had taught these creatures so well 
 that they were wiser in some things than the men who lived 
 about them. 
 
 Who taught the nations of the field and wood 
 To shun their poison and to choose their food? 
 
 Pope. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HOW THE INSECTS LAY UP FOOD. 
 
 " Business is Dead " is the 
 name the French artist gives to 
 this picture. You can see what 
 the little fellow's business was — a 
 business that I imagine most of you 
 would like very much. He was sell- 
 ing candy. Just now no one seems 
 to be buying of him, and so he helps 
 himself to one of the sticks. If you 
 had a lot of candy, I think you 
 would find it hard not to touch it. 
 How would you like to belong to a 
 family where they laid up candy for 
 food, where they had all of their 
 pantries filled with candy instead 
 of bread and meat ? I know of a 
 family that does this, though I am 
 afraid you cannot belong to it, be- 
 cause it is the Bee family. 
 
 All summer long the bees who 
 live in our hives are busy laying 
 up candy in the form of honey, 
 and their pantries are full of little 
 honey jars, like those you see in 
 
 193 
 
194 
 
 Mother Natui 
 
 Children. 
 
 the picture of the bee's pantry (Fig. 149). The jars are made 
 of a wax, which is called beeswax, because it is made by 
 the bees. When they want the wax, a lot of the bees hang 
 themselves up in a sort of curtain in the hive, and after they 
 have been hanging quietly for a while little plates of the wax 
 
 begin to form on the under- 
 side of their bodies. Each 
 one pulls out her plates one 
 after the other and chews 
 the wax in her mouth to 
 make it soft, and then uses it 
 to build the little honey jars 
 that you see in the picture. 
 As fast as they finish the 
 jars they fill them with 
 honey, which they get from 
 the flowers. Each of the 
 little hive bees has inside 
 of her body a tiny honey 
 sack, that will hold about 
 one-third of a drop, and 
 she fills this honey sack 
 by sucking up through her 
 tube-like tongue the sweet juices of the flowers. Sometimes she 
 has to visit very many flowers before she can get enough to fill 
 the sack ; but when she has filled it, she goes flying straight back 
 to the hive and hurries in through the doorway and climbs up on 
 the pantry of honey jars, — or honeycomb as it is called, — and 
 puts her head inside one of the jars and empties the honey out of 
 her sack into the jar. Then she goes out of the hive to fill the 
 sack again and to bring another third of a drop to put in the jar. 
 
 Fig. 149. — The Bees' Pantry of 
 Wax Honey Jars. 
 
How the Insects Lay up Food. 
 
 195 
 
 So she and her thousands of sisters work all day long and 
 all summer long, and when the cold winter comes they have a 
 good many pounds of honey laid up to feed on during the time 
 that there are no flowers. And besides the honey, they gather 
 the pollen on the flowers and store it up to use for bread to 
 eat with the honey. If you watch the bees closely in the 
 summer, as they go into the hive, you will see little yellow 
 bunches on their hind legs. Those bunches are made of the 
 pollen, which they stick to their legs as they gather it from the 
 flowers, something as you would put acorns in your pockets as 
 you gather them under the trees. When they get into the 
 hive they scrape the pollen off and put it into one of the empty 
 honey jars, pushing it down with their heads. So that they 
 have both bread and honey to feed upon in winter. 
 
 But the bees are not the only insects that lay up honey. 
 Some of the ants, who are the cousins of the bees, have learned 
 to do the same thing. But instead of making cells of wax, 
 the ants have stored their honey up in the honey sacks inside 
 of their bodies. By using the sack for this purpose it has 
 stretched so that it is as large as a pea and will hold quite a 
 lot of honey. But it makes the ant look very odd, as you see 
 from the pictures of the 
 honey ants ; and the 
 honey bag is so heavy 
 that the ant who has it 
 cannot walk about. She 
 becomes a sort of living 
 honey bag. In the pic- 
 ture (Fig. 150) of the 
 honey ants pulling a honey carrier into the house, you can see 
 how helpless the ant is. The man who drew the picture had 
 
 Fig. 150. 
 
 -Honey Ants Helping 
 Honey Bag. 
 
 a Live 
 
19fi 
 
 Mother Nature' 's Children. 
 
 cut into one of their nests to see how they lived, and in doing 
 so he left one of these honey carriers out of the nest. She 
 could not help herself hack into the nest, but two of her sisters 
 came up and one of them pulled at her big bag and the other 
 pushed to get her into a safe place. In the other picture (Fig. 
 151), one of the honey carriers has fallen 
 from her hold on the wall, in the upper 
 part of the picture, and one of her sisters 
 has come to help her up to her place 
 again. She takes her sister by the teeth 
 — or mandibles, as they call the ant's 
 pincer-shaped mouth — and pulls. In 
 the lower part of the picture you can 
 see that she has dragged her up to her 
 place. There are several hundreds of 
 these honey carriers in each nest, and 
 when they are all filled full there would 
 be quite a lot of honey stored up for 
 winter. Of course their sisters who 
 have the small baq-s must bring' the 
 honey to them and feed them with it. 
 Then when there is no honey to be 
 had out of doors they can pay their 
 sisters by feeding them in turn. 
 Another way that ants have of getting food for winter is by 
 laying up the seeds and plants, just as men lay up wheat. In 
 the picture of an ants' storehouse (Fig. 152) you see the tiny 
 underground rooms leading off from the passageway on both 
 sides. The ants dig the round passageways — or ant-holes — 
 down a few inches and then make a level, circular room, some- 
 thing like a small saucer bottom side up, and then they dig 
 
 Fig. 151.— A Honey Ant Helj 
 
 ing a Live Honey Bag 
 
 to its Plaee in tile 
 
 Pantry. 
 
How the Insects L< 
 
 ly uj. 
 
 Food. 
 
 197 
 
 Fig. 152. — The Ants' 
 Storehouse. 
 
 down a few inches farther and make another, and so on till 
 
 they go down six or eight feet into the ground. Some of these 
 
 rooms they use for nurseries, but others for storing up seeds. 
 
 The lowest room in the picture has seed in it, while the middle 
 
 room is empty. In the next picture 
 
 (Fig. 153) you can see how the ant uses 
 
 her jaws — or mandibles — in biting and 
 
 tearing the seed loose. When she has 
 
 broken the seed from the stalk she will 
 
 cany it to the nest and store it in one 
 
 of the rooms. Then she will come back 
 
 and get another seed, and so on, till all 
 
 the seeds of the sunflower are gathered. 
 
 While she is doing this her sisters are 
 
 hunting through the grass in all direc- 
 tions for other seeds and bringing them in as fast as they find 
 
 them, so that when winter comes and there are no more seeds 
 
 to be found out of doors they will have plenty of food in their 
 
 storerooms. If the rain gets into 
 
 their storehouse and wets their 
 
 grain, they will bring the seeds up 
 
 out of the storerooms and spread 
 
 them in the sunshine to dry them 
 
 y. on the first clear day, just as men 
 
 ^V would do with their grain, 
 
 f~ then pick them up and 
 
 carry them back again as 
 
 : -- J^^r-?- J soon as they are dried. 
 
 Fig. 153. -An Ant Harvesting Sunflower Seeds. For thege wisQ Uttle crea _ 
 
 tures have learned that if a seed gets wet it will sprout and grow 
 and so be spoilt for food, but if it is kept dry it will not grow. 
 
198 
 
 Mother Nature 's Children. 
 
 Of course it is hard for the ants to carry these seeds so far, 
 for many of the grains are as large as the ants themselves ; so 
 the ingenious little things make loads leading in all directions 
 from their nest and clear a space right around the nest, as you 
 can see in the picture of an ant-clearing (Fig. 154). The roads 
 are two or three inches wide at the end nearest the nest, and 
 grow narrower and sometimes divide as they get farther away. 
 
 III//. 
 
 lliiii 
 
 W\\\\ 
 
 
 up 
 
 wmmm fi 
 
 Iffeifi 
 
 lllBIlP : " 
 
 Fig. 154. — The Ants' Clearing and Farm. 
 
 Some of the ants even raise a crop of seed right on their clear- 
 ing itself. Each spring a lot of ant rice, as it is called, grows 
 up in a ring around the opening of their nest, just far enough 
 away from the nest to leave them room to move about. As 
 soon as the rice is ripe the ants gather the seeds and store 
 them underground. Then they go right to work cutting down 
 the stalks of the ant rice, as you see them doing in the picture 
 (Fig. 155) ; one of them biting at the end close to the ground, 
 
How the Insects Lay up Food. 
 
 199 
 
 and the other bending the stalk by getting at the top end of it. 
 In a short time their clearing is entirely free from the ant rice, 
 with only a stump of grass left here and there like the one you 
 see at the corner of the picture, looking exactly like the stumps 
 the human farmers leave on their fields. The ant field stays 
 cleared till the new crop comes up next year, when they har- 
 vest it and clear it away once 
 more ; they do this year after 
 year, as regularly as the far- 
 mer gathers his corn and clears 
 his ground for a new crop. 
 And so men have thought that 
 they planted the rice and have 
 called them the agricultural 
 or farmer ants ; they live in 
 America, in the southwestern 
 part of our own country, and 
 perhaps some of you can watch them and find out whether they 
 really plant the rice or not ; they are so wonderfully wise in 
 other tilings that I should not be at all surprised to learn that 
 they are really tiny farmers. Long ago they were known to 
 lay up seeds for food. The Romans, two thousand years ago, 
 noticed that these tiny insects, in the time of the harvest, 
 carried little grains down into the ground, that they might have 
 food to eat when there were no seeds to be had in the fields. 
 You remember, too, that the Jews had already noticed the same 
 tiling. One of that nation wrote to his countrymen : " Go to 
 the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways and be wise : which, 
 having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the 
 summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." 
 
 But if it should prove that these little creatures really plant 
 
 Fig. 155 
 
 — Two Ants Cutting Down 
 a Grass Stalk. 
 
'200 Mother Nature'* Children. 
 
 their seeds as well as harvest them, they are even wiser than we 
 thought. Yet, whether they are farmers or not, you see that 
 they have been taught to provide for the future by storing 
 up food just as the animals and men do, and that the same 
 Wisdom that tells us to provide for the future also tells them 
 and teaches them the way. 
 
 Seeing only what is fair, 
 
 Sipping only what is sweet, 
 Thou dost mock at fate and care, 
 
 Leave the chaff and take the wheat. 
 
 Emerson, The Jlumhle 11pp. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 HOW THE PLANTS LAY UP FOOD. 
 
 How frightened those poor little children are ! They must 
 wish their father and mother were there now, with all of those 
 deer gathered about them. They have got close to a big tree 
 for safety, and you can see how the older sister has one hand 
 
 on the tree and the other around her younger sister's neck. 
 The brave little girl is bound to protect her sister, even if she 
 is afraid. But she need not be afraid of those gentle creatures. 
 They would be afraid of her and would all run away if she 
 should start toward them. They have only gathered to see 
 
 201 
 
202 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 what these two little girls in the forest are like ; for deer are 
 very inquisitive creatures, and hunters often catch them by 
 setting up some strange object in the woods. They will 
 quickly gather about it to see what it is, as they have gath- 
 ered about these two little girls. 
 
 But how did these girls happen to get out into the forest 
 among the deer? If you will look on the ground near their 
 feet, you will see a little basket with some flowers in it, and 
 I suppose from that basket that they were out in the woods 
 gathering flowers. Their mother dressed them warmly, because 
 it was still cold weather, and let them take the basket and go 
 into the woods for the earliest flowers, like the hepatica and 
 anemone and the trailing arbutus, which wc used to call the 
 mayflower in New England, though we found it in April. 
 But these little children are English girls, and so I suppose 
 they do not And our mayflowers in their English forest. Yet 
 they have found some very much like them, as you see from 
 the picture ; and they find the flowers early in the spring, 
 because the flowers in the forest have to bloom early in the 
 year or not at all ; for when the trees have put forth their 
 leaves the forest will be so shaded and dark that the plants 
 could not get the sunshine they need for their flowers. You 
 remember that the flower is only the cradle in which the 
 mother plant tends and feeds her baby seeds, and she cannot 
 feed the babies without getting food somewhere. If she waited 
 to get it from the earth and the air through the leaves and roots, 
 she could not cradle her baby seeds until the roots and leaves 
 had been getting food and storing it up for weeks and months. 
 But by that time in the forest it would be too late for her 
 babies to get the sunshine they need. 
 
 So what do you suppose these thoughtful little mother plants 
 
How the Plants Lay up Food. 
 
 208 
 
 who live in the shady forest do? They lay up the food for their 
 flowers and their baby seeds the year before. All summer long 
 the plant is sucking up fluid matter through its rootlets and 
 using every ray of sunshine that steals through the forest 
 leaves to change such matter to food fit for its baby seeds the 
 next year. In the picture of the primrose (Fig. 157) you can 
 see, down under the leaves, the 
 thick stalk with the little roots 
 starting out from it. That thick 
 stalk is where Mrs. Primrose laid 
 up the food for her babies last 
 summer. She packed the stalk 
 full of nice food, and when the 
 cold winter came she went fast 
 to sleep. But as soon as spring 
 came she built up that long stem 
 with the cluster of flowers on 
 the top of it, filled with baby 
 seeds, and each seed with its 
 own store of food. Mrs. Prim- 
 rose could not have done that, 
 if she had not had that store of 
 last year's food to use, and as 
 soon as she gets the family of 
 baby seeds well started in the 
 world, she will begin to gather more food through her roots 
 and leaves and lay it up for her children next year. 
 
 In the picture of the crocus' storehouse on the next page 
 (Fig. 158), you can see still better how Mrs. Crocus lays up the 
 food for her family. That round ball is only a short, fat stem 
 packed full of food, as you can see on the left side of the picture, 
 
 Fie 
 
 l. r >7.— The Storehouse of 
 the Primrose. 
 
204 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 Fig. 158. — The Storehouse of the Crocus. 
 
 which shows the stem cut into two pieces. The reason the crocus 
 
 can send up its blossom so early is because Mrs. Crocus stored 
 
 up the food last year. I sup- 
 pose she must have lived in 
 the forest at first, or in some 
 place where her baby seeds 
 would not have a chance in 
 life unless she started them 
 very early in the spring. So 
 she laid up the food for them 
 the year before. She still 
 keeps up the habit, though 
 she no longer lives in the 
 forest, but has been trans- 
 planted to our open lawns. 
 The lily is another plant that stores up food for the next 
 
 year, but instead of packing it all in the stem, she puts most of 
 
 it in the leaves. You remember the picture we had of the 
 
 baby lily in winter flannels (Fig. 
 
 159), and if you could look closely 
 
 at the leaves that are packed about 
 
 the baby plant, you would rind 
 
 that they are thick and filled 
 
 with food. If jow cut open an 
 
 onion, you can see the thickened 
 
 leaves, for the onion belongs to 
 
 the same family as the lily, and 
 
 lays up food one year for its 
 
 babies the next year. And the FlG ' m — The Storehouse of the Lily. 
 
 onion does even more than the lily does to protect the baby 
 
 plants inside the thick wrappers. When you cut up the onion 
 
How the Plants Lay up Food. 
 
 205 
 
 the smell will be so strong that it will make your tears come, 
 and you will let onions alone after that. That strong smell is 
 a plan of Mrs. Onion to protect her store of food and the baby 
 plant inside. She makes the food smell so bad that few of the 
 animals will touch it, and so she keeps it safe until spring, 
 when she changes it into -»■■ -. 
 
 flowers and baby seeds. ,#5i v<\ ^A«&M. 
 
 Another plant that is 
 wise enough to lay up 
 food for the next year is 
 the potato. You see the 
 potato hill, as we call it, 
 in the picture (Fig. 160). 
 The French artist has 
 drawn it in such a way that 
 you can also see the newly 
 forming potatoes in the 
 ground, at the bottom of 
 the plant, as well as the 
 blossoms at the top of the 
 stalks. When those blos- 
 soms have cradled the baby 
 seeds and packed them away in the round potato balls, the 
 plant will work hard storing up starch in the potatoes for food 
 next year. Although the potatoes are under ground, they are 
 really a part of the stalk and not of the root, and they have 
 buds on them — the little "eyes" as they are called. During 
 the cold winter weather these eyes will be shut up in sleep, but 
 as soon as the warm sun of spring shines, they will wake up and 
 begin to feed on the white starch in the potato and grow very 
 rapidly. If they are in the cellar away from the light, they 
 
 Fig. 160. — The Store-Rooms of the Potato. 
 
206 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 will try as hard as they can to reach the light. I found a 
 potato once that had been left on the floor of the cellar farthest 
 from the window, and the new shoots had pushed halfway across 
 the cellar floor in trying to reach the light of the window. If 
 I had left it, I suppose it would have gone clear across the floor 
 and climbed up to the cellar window and spread its leaves out 
 to the sun and air, and tried to blossom and feed its seeds and 
 start them in life. I have heard of a potato that did this 
 
 through twenty feet of stalk, and even 
 tried to lay up some more food for next 
 year in new potatoes. That was hard 
 work for the poor potato, and its new 
 potatoes were rather small. But it 
 tried as hard as it could to do its duty 
 and keep its family alive by starting 
 the baby seeds and then storing up 
 food for its buds, so that they should 
 find something to eat when they waked 
 up another spring. 
 
 Another potato that lays up food is 
 
 Fig. 161. — The Store-Rooms of the SWeet potato, but its Storehouse 
 
 is not in the stalk, but in the roots, 
 where it packs away its yellowish food to start with when it 
 wakes up in the spring after its winter sleep. In the picture 
 of the dahlia's storehouse (Fig. 161) you can see how the food 
 is laid away. You can see more than half a dozen long, plump 
 bags of food hanging to the large stalk of last year's plant. 
 Each of those plump bags was only a little slender root last 
 spring. But after Mrs. Dahlia had opened her large, bright 
 blossoms and provided her baby seeds with food, she began to 
 get ready for the next year. She used all the sunshine she 
 
How the Plants La 
 
 y u f 
 
 Food. 
 
 207 
 
 could get to make food, which she packed away in those little 
 
 roots until they grew as large as you see them in the picture. 
 
 Then the frost came and pinched all the leaves, and poor Mrs. 
 
 Dahlia had to stop her work and go to sleep, something as the 
 
 potato does. But as soon as spring comes she wakes up again 
 
 and begins to eat the 
 
 food she laid away last 
 
 fall and sends down 
 
 new roots and sends 
 
 up new leaves, as you 
 
 see her doing in the 
 
 picture ; and in a few 
 
 weeks she will have 
 
 another family of baby 
 
 seeds cradled in her 
 
 gay blossoms. 
 
 In the picture of 
 the cactus' storehouses 
 (Fig. 162) you can 
 see the wise way the 
 plants lay up food in 
 the hot countries. In 
 those countries they 
 do not have any frost 
 or cold winters, but 
 they have a rainy season and then a long, dry spell of weather 
 so hot that it would burn up all of our green leaves. So the 
 plants there have found out how to get along without any thin 
 leaves, and they have made their stalks and tree trunks into large 
 cisterns of food, just as we often have cisterns to catch the 
 water when it rains and keep it to use later. So they catch 
 
 Fig. 162. — The Storehouse of the Cactus. 
 
208 Mother Nature* Children. 
 
 the water in the rainy season and store it up for use later, when 
 they open their flowers in the sunshine. 
 
 So you see that plants can plan for hot weather as well as 
 for cold weather, and can build storehouses and make the food, 
 while men and animals cannot make the food, but can only 
 gather it and store it up. And whom do you suppose they get 
 all their wisdom from, so that they can foresee the hot weather 
 and the cold weather, and lay up food to feed on when they 
 awake from their long sleep? You remember that the insects 
 have the same Wisdom, and so do the animals and the birds, 
 and men, too. The same Wisdom seems to be thinking in the 
 plant and insect that thinks in our own brain, and that Wisdom 
 seems to be helping all things to be wise, if they are willing to 
 try to learn. 
 
 I laugh at tin' lore and pride of man, 
 At. the sophist school and the learned elan; 
 For what are they all in their high conceit 
 When man in the bush with God may meet? 
 
 Emerson. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 BORROWING STRENGTH FROM OTHERS. 
 
 You all remember Mrs. Burnett's sweet and touching story 
 of Little Lord Fauntleroy. The little fellow was born here in 
 America and grew up to boyhood with very little money to 
 spend for anything but food and clothes. But when he was 
 
 seven or eight years old he found out that he was really an 
 English lord, and his grandfather took him home to live in 
 wealth and luxury and gave him everything he could think of 
 to please him. One of the presents he received was a pretty 
 pony, which you see in this picture of " Little Lord Fauntle- 
 
 209 
 
210 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 roy's Birthday Present." I suppose the pretty hoy on the 
 right of the picture is the little lord himself, very glad indeed 
 to think that he has got a pony of his own ; for, as lie told his 
 grandfather, he had often watched the hoys of New York ride 
 on their ponies and wished that he had one himself. 
 
 And why do you suppose he wanted a pony? Why would 
 you yourself like to have a pony? To ride on it, of course. 
 A pony can go a great deal faster than a boy can run, and 
 when you get on the pony's back you can use his strength to 
 carry you, and a much heavier load than you are, as far as you 
 want to go. For thousands and thousands of years, before men 
 had learned to make engines and railroads, they had to borrow 
 the strength of the beasts to carry them and their loads wher- 
 ever they wanted to go. The horse is so gentle and strong and 
 swift that I suppose men have borrowed more from him than 
 from any other living creature. 
 
 Another animal that men have borrowed much from is the 
 dog ; you can see one in the same picture that has the pony. 
 Little Lord Fauntleroy is holding the dog by the hand, and if 
 he wished he could teach the dog to draw him in a little wagon 
 or a sled, but he would rather have his pony do it, because the 
 pony is stronger than the dog. But away up north, where 
 they do not have any ponies, or where the snow is so deep that 
 the heavy horses would sink into the snow, they train the dogs 
 to draw sleds with heavy loads on them. You see one of the 
 dog sledges in the picture (Fig. 164) with five dogs drawing it, 
 but when they wish to carry a heavier load they use twice as 
 many dogs ; they can carry three or four grown people and go 
 a hundred miles a day, which is twice as fast as a horse could 
 go. The dogs are so wise, too, that if they come to a place 
 where the ice is too thin to bear them, they will spread out, so 
 
Borrowing Strength from Others. 
 
 211 
 
 that they may be farther apart and less likely to break the ice ; 
 
 and when they reach the end of their long day's journey, they 
 
 pass the night sleeping close to their master, who would freeze 
 
 without them, because the weather is so very cold. It is so 
 
 cold indeed that sometimes their master has to put boots on the 
 
 dogs' feet to 
 
 keep them ^-- 
 
 from freezing 
 
 as they draw 
 
 him over the 
 
 snow and ice. 
 
 Fig. 164. — A Russian Borrowing the Strength of Dogs. 
 
 Long ages 
 ago, before 
 there were any 
 cities on the 
 earth, or any 
 houses, or any 
 herds of cattle 
 
 or flocks of sheep to give men food and clothing, — in that far-off 
 time when men were only savages living in caves, — they borrowed 
 the strength and speed of the clog a great deal more than they do 
 now. Men had not yet learned to plant corn and wheat in the 
 earth for food, so that when the cold winter came and there was 
 nothing to eat save the flesh of the wild animals, the father, who 
 wished to feed his children, had to go out in the forest and catch 
 a bear or a deer for food ; but the bear and the deer were so 
 swift and strong that it would have been very hard for a man 
 to catch them; so man trained the dog to help him. Perhaps 
 he took some baby dog from Us wild, wolf-like mother and 
 brought it up in the cave along with his own little boys and 
 girls. When it grew large and strong it wanted to chase 
 
212 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 the wild animals of the woods and catch and cat them, as 
 its parents had done when they lived their wild lives in the 
 forests ; but the man taught the dog not to eat what it caught, 
 but to give it to its master and its master's children. So the 
 strength of the dog probably saved men from starving all over 
 the world in those early days, and helped them to live better, 
 as the strength of the dog helps the Eskimos to live better now. 
 The reindeer i.s another animal whose strength 
 tire people use who live far north in the cold 
 
 countries 
 about the pole. 
 In the picture 
 of the Laplan- 
 der (Fig. 1(35) 
 you can see 
 the sort of box- 
 like sled they 
 make to travel 
 in. They put 
 a collar around 
 
 the neck of the reindeer and fasten the sled to it by cords ; 
 nearly always, too, the driver has reins tied to the antlers, 
 or horns of the deer, though our picture does not seem 
 to show them. With their team they can go sixty or seventy 
 miles a day, which is faster than our horses can go ; and the 
 feet of the deer do not sink into the snow as the horse's would, 
 because they are made so that they spread out flat, something 
 as our hand does when we press it on a table. Besides lending 
 their strength to carry their masters about, these reindeer also 
 furnish food by giving milk : for the deer are cousins of the 
 cow. But the deer have never learned to stand still while 
 
 Fig. Hi"). — A Laplander Borrowing the Strength of Reindeer. 
 
Borrowing Strength from Others. 
 
 213 
 
 being milked ; when milking time comes the milkmaids have 
 to catch the deer by throwing a noose over her horns ; then 
 they bind the deer fast to a log so that she cannot move until 
 they have finished the milking. 
 
 Over in India the cow or the ox is the animal whose strength 
 is borrowed most. In the picture of the Hindus (Fig. 166) 
 you can see one way the)' borrow the ox's strength. Instead 
 of the mother using 
 part of her strength 
 for grinding, the ox 
 is harnessed to the 
 mill and has blinds 
 on his eyes to keep 
 his mind on his work, 
 and a bell on his neck 
 to tell when he stops ; 
 by walking round and 
 round in a circle he 
 turns the mill and 
 does all the grinding, while the mother can use all of her time 
 and strength in tending her baby, as you see her doing in the 
 picture. But besides doing all the grinding, the oxen draw 
 people about in carriages, as the dogs and reindeer do up north, 
 though the oxen do not travel quite so swiftly as the dogs and 
 deer ; but they have learned to travel much faster than our 
 oxen do, and of course they can draw a much heavier load than 
 the dog or the deer. Their masters take their strength also to 
 plough the ground as we do, and to gather in the harvest ; so that 
 a Hindu would feel lost without his cows and oxen, as our farmers 
 would witli neither oxen nor horses ; for without their strength 
 he could do hardly any of the farm work that he does now. 
 
 Pig. ltiii, 
 
 Hindus Borrowing the Strength of the Ox. 
 
214 
 
 Mother Nature 's Children. 
 
 Another animal whose strength has been used by man is the 
 great elephant which you see in the picture (Fig- 107). He is 
 lifting a big heavy timber that would be a load for several men, 
 and he is laying it on the top of the pile which you see at 
 back of the picture. He takes hold of the timber by his trunk, 
 which is a sort of nose 
 stronger than the strong 
 cate that it can pick up 
 keeper is sitting 
 neck telliner him 
 
 Fk;. 1(17. — A Hindu Borrowing the Strength of the Elephant. 
 
 and upper lip together ; it is 
 
 est man's arm and yet so deli- 
 
 a pin from the ground. The 
 
 on the elephant's 
 
 what to do, but after 
 
 he is trained 
 
 he will do the 
 
 work without 
 
 any keeper to 
 
 direct him ; if 
 
 his k e e p e r 
 
 shows him the 
 
 timbers and 
 
 where they are 
 
 to lie piled, the 
 
 animal will go 
 to work and 
 pile them up 
 
 one by one, 
 
 just as carefully and as exactly as a crew of men could do it. 
 This great animal is as gentle as he is wise and strong, and he is 
 as trusty as a dog. He loves his keeper and his keeper's wife 
 and children, so that it is not safe for any one to do them the 
 slightest harm while he is around ; the keeper's wife can even 
 leave her little baby with him before the baby can walk. The 
 elerjhant is kept chained by the foot when lie is not at work, 
 
Borrowing Strength from Others. 215 
 
 and whenever he sees the baby creeping beyond his reach he 
 winds his trunk about the baby's waist, and takes her up as 
 gently as her own mother could, and sets her down where she 
 will be within his reach. And he will amuse her by taking her 
 up clasped in his trunk, and setting her on his great shoulder, 
 which she seems to enjoy even more than she does getting on 
 her father's shoulder. Indeed, the elephant seems gentler and 
 kinder and more patient with his keeper's children than their 
 own parents are. 
 
 So you see how men have borrowed strength from the 
 animals of the world ; from the great elephant and from the 
 little dog, and from many others. We never could have done 
 as much work as we have in ploughing the earth and making 
 long roads, and building great cities, if we had not been aide 
 to borrow the strength of animals. But beside borrowing the 
 strength of animals, we borrow the strength of the 'wind to 
 blow our ships over the ocean and turn the windmills ; we 
 borrow the strength of the running water to turn our water 
 wheels and move the machinery of great factories ; we borrow 
 the strength of the fire which heats the water in our engines 
 and changes it to steam, so that it can turn our machinery and 
 draw our cars as many miles in an hour as horses could in a 
 day. And then we have learned to change the power of the 
 steam engine and the waterfall into electricity, so that we 
 borrow the strength of the lightning to draw our cars and do 
 all our work for us ; you can hardly think of any power that 
 we do not borrow from somewhere. Surely we ought to be 
 grateful to Some One for lending us all this strength which we 
 find ready for our use, for this world seems packed full of 
 powers in animals and wind and water and fire, just waiting till 
 we should get wise enough to use them. First we learned how 
 
216 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 to use the strength of dog and horse, and then we found out 
 how to use the strength of wind and water ; but it is only a 
 little while since we became wise enough to train the steam to 
 help us and "harness him down with our iron bands," yet 
 already we are finding that the strength of the lightning is still 
 better, if we can only learn how to train him to work for us. 
 And I imagine we shall find still greater and better powers as 
 we grow still Aviser, for there appeal's to be no end to the store 
 of strength in the world waiting for us to become wise enough 
 to use it. We seem like children in a Father's workshop, with 
 splendid tools all about us that we can use just as fast as we 
 grow large enough to handle them. 
 
 River, and rose, and crag, and bird, 
 
 Frost, and sun, and eldest night 
 
 To me their aid preferred, 
 
 To me their promise plight. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 One all- extending, all-preserving Soul 
 
 Connects each being, greatest with the least ; 
 
 Made beast in aid of man, and man in aid of beast ; 
 
 All served, all serving ; nothing stands alone ; 
 
 The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. 
 
 Pope 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 BORROWING CLOTHING FROM OTHERS. 
 
 What a gentle little boy that must lie in the picture ; for 
 you see that not only 
 the hen comes and 
 eats out of his hand 
 but the birds fly down 
 close to him and pick 
 up the crumbs. They 
 have found that the 
 little fellow is kind 
 to them, and so they 
 trust him ; and as the 
 ground is all covered 
 with snow, the birds 
 cannot find food else- 
 where, as they could 
 in the summer, and 
 so they come to him ; 
 they have been 
 clothed in feathers ti > 
 keep tliem warm, but 
 they must get food 
 for themselves. You 
 can see a rabbit, too, just behind the lien, looking through the 
 bars of his house ; and he, too, is warmly clothed by his covering 
 
 217 
 
218 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 of fur. And you remember that Mother Nature clothes the 
 sheep and the horse, and the dog and the cat, and the squirrel 
 and the hear, and even the buds and the trees, by fibres or fur 
 or feathers. 
 
 How do you suppose she manages about clothing men and 
 women and children? She lets them borrow clothes from her 
 other children. That little boy in the picture is clothed so 
 warmly that, though it is winter, he has taken off his jacket to 
 put on the snowy step where he sits ; yet he borrowed all his 
 clothes from the animals and the plants. His hat, his vest, his 
 thick shirt, and his coat and trousers and stockings, all came 
 from the animals, if they are all woolen, as I suppose they are. 
 •.--' . , They came from the wool 
 
 of the sheep, and that 
 wool, as you know, is 
 only the clothing which 
 Mother Nature provides 
 for the sheep ; each au- 
 tumn and winter the wool 
 grows long and warm on 
 the sheep, so that they 
 are comfortable during 
 the cold winter weather, 
 but when the warm spring 
 comes again the long wool 
 drops off, leaving the 
 sheep cool and comfort- 
 able in the hot summer. 
 And men take this wool to make woolen clothes of, but instead 
 of waiting for the wool to fall off, men cut it off with shears, 
 as you see them doing in the picture (Fig. 109) of the sheep. 
 
 FlQ. 1G9. —Borrowing the Clothes of the Sheep. 
 
Borrowing Clothing from Others. 
 
 219 
 
 In that way they get the wool all at once instead of having to 
 pick it up little hy little from the ground or bushes ; then they 
 take the wool to the mills and have it spun into woolen yarn 
 and woven into woolen cloth, 
 or knit into stockings, to 
 keep the men and women and 
 children warm in the cold 
 weather. 
 
 But men did not always 
 have sheep. Long, long be- 
 fore they had learned how to 
 keep sheep, or to spin yarn 
 or weave cloth, they used to 
 keep themselves warm as you 
 see them doing in the picture 
 (Fig. 170) of men in the bor- 
 rowed clothes of the deer and 
 the bear. They took off the 
 skin of the bear or the deer 
 with the fur all on it, and 
 threw it over their shoulders 
 to keep them warm in the 
 winter ; they used it, too, as a roof for their houses, standing 
 up poles as you see in the picture, and spreading the skin of 
 the animals over them with the hair outside. That would keep 
 off the wind and rain and snow, and they could build a fire inside 
 to warm them and let the smoke go out of the hole in the top of 
 the tent, just as the Indians do still with their wigwams. 
 
 But men found it hard to keep the bear skins on their 
 shoulders without sleeves or buttons, so they cut the skins into 
 coats with the stone knives they had, and sewed them up with 
 
 Fig. 170. — The Borrowed Clothes of the 
 Bear arid the Deer. 
 
220 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 the needles of hone which they learned to make. In that way 
 they had suits of clothes made of the skins of the animals, like 
 the suits you see the Eskimos wearing in the picture (Fig. 171) 
 of the clothes borrowed from the seals ; for the Eskimos still 
 clothe themselves in skins, and they find the skin of 
 
 the seal the best jm if and easiest to get. So, instead 
 
 of having only a sealskin cloak 
 as the women do 
 among us, both the 
 men and the women 
 have complete suits 
 of sealskin — boots, 
 trousers, jacket, and 
 cap ; and the suits 
 of the men and the 
 women are so much 
 alike that you could 
 hardly tell them 
 apart, if it were not 
 for the fur bag on 
 the back of the 
 women where they 
 carry the baby, as 
 you see one of them 
 doing in the picture. 
 The people who live in cold countries, as the Eskimos do, 
 may get along by borrowing the clothing of seals, but those 
 who live in hot countries would be altogether too warm with 
 sealskin suits ; yet they want some clothing to keep off the 
 sun and the rain, so they borrow the clothing which Mother 
 Nature gives the stems and leaves of the plants living in those 
 
 Fig. 171. - 
 
 ■ 111 the Borrowed Clothes 
 of the Seal. 
 
Borrowing Clothing from Others. 
 
 221 
 
 warm countries. You remember that the bark is the clothing 
 of the tree, and if you should look at the inside of the bark of 
 the elm or the basswood you would find a soft, stringy material 
 there ; that is the lining of the tree's jacket, and it is such 
 soft, strong fibres as these that men use to make cool clothing, 
 just as they use the fibres of wool to make warm clothing ; but 
 they generally use the jacket lining of the flax instead of the 
 jacket lining of the basswood for their clothes. In the picture 
 (Fig. 172) of some early 
 cloth, you see the way 
 men used to make their 
 cloth when they were 
 just learning how to 
 weave and spin. For 
 that rough bit of woven 
 string is one of the old- 
 est pieces of cloth in the 
 world ; it was found in 
 the bottom of a lake in 
 Switzerland among the pile-dwellings, where people lived long 
 ages ago ; it fell into the lake and the water kept it safe so that 
 now we can see from it how they used to weave then. 
 
 But we do not know how they wore their clothes in that 
 far-off time ; they probably just wrapped the cloth about their 
 shoulders, as you see the Sandwich Islanders doing in the picture 
 on the next page (Fig. 173). These people take the long leaves 
 of the flax and get out the fibres and twist them into coarse 
 strings, and then stretch the strings out just above the ground, 
 and weave by hand a sort of coarse mat about as large as a sheet ; 
 it is very slow work and takes a year and a half for a woman 
 to weave herself one of them. She weaves in a pretty border, 
 
 Fig. 172. — A Piece of Early Cloth. 
 
OOO 
 
 Mother Nature & Children. 
 
 as you see in the picture, and then she wraps it about her 
 shoulders, and she is dressed. Her little boy behind her has a 
 different sort of mat, one that will shed the water and keep him 
 dry when it rains ; it is woven like the other one, but it lias 
 
 rows of flax leaves woven in, one above 
 
 r, just as if you should have 
 
 nned one above the other all 
 
 )ur coat. Of course the rain 
 
 would run off from the 
 
 leaves without wetting your 
 
 coat ; and so the rain runs 
 
 off from the little fellow 
 
 and he keeps dry — all but 
 
 his head ; if it rains very 
 
 hard, I suppose he pulls his 
 
 rain-coat up over his head 
 
 and keeps that dry too. 
 
 But I dare say he does 
 not care very much about 
 keeping his head dry. Per- 
 haps the hair of the head 
 itself is a sort of cap which 
 Mother Nature herself gave 
 her human children to keep 
 the wet and the cold and 
 the heat from hurting their 
 heads, long before they 
 learned to wear any hats or caps or clothing of any kind. You 
 know the old Romans used to travel about all over the world 
 with their heads bare, except when the)' wore helmets in 1 tattles 
 to ward off the blows. The American Indians were going 
 
 Fig. 17:;. 
 
 - In the Borrowed Clothes 
 of the Flax. 
 
Borrowing Clothing from Others. 
 
 223 
 
 ,'/r 
 
 around bare-headed in the same way when this country was 
 discovered ; and there are still even to-day more people who 
 go bare-headed than wear hats or bonnets. 
 
 Those Sandwich Islanders have not yet learned how to cut 
 out their clothes to fit them and sew them up, any more than 
 the Greeks and Romans had two thousand years ago. But we 
 have begun to learn how to do it, though I suppose we have 
 still a great deal more to learn about it ; we have also learned 
 how to borrow the clothing of other plants besides the flax. The 
 flax gives us all of our linen cloth, but all of our cotton cloth 
 comes from the cotton ...-, L . 
 
 plant. The soft fibres 
 that we use for our cloth 
 are really the baby 
 clothes which the mother 
 plant makes for her baby 
 seed, as you can see in 
 the picture of the cotton 
 baby (Fig. 174). Mrs. 
 Cotton wants her baby to have a light and airy dress, and so 
 she covers him with a lot of delicate downy fibres ; and men 
 pick off this downy dress as they shear off the fleece of the 
 sheep, and use it for their own clothing. 
 
 So you see that all of our clothes are borrowed — our woolen 
 clothing from the sheep, our linen from the flax, and our cotton 
 from the baby cotton seeds ; while our silk is borrowed from the 
 silkworm, and is really the silk quilt which he spins to wrap 
 himself in when he goes to sleep. Our clothing seems to be 
 borrowed from others just as much as our strength is, and I 
 think we ought to be grateful to Some One for teaching the 
 animals and plants how to spin such fine, soft fibres for us. 
 
 Fig. 174. — A Cotton Baby in his Baby Clothes. 
 
224 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 Perhaps we may sometime learn how to make such things as 
 cotton and wool and linen without the help of the animals and 
 plants, when we find out how they do it ; and men are study- 
 ing them very carefully and finding out more and more about 
 them every year ; but we have not learned the secret of making 
 fur and fibres yet, so that we still have to get them to do it 
 for us. 
 
 And what they call their city way 
 is not their way, but hers, 
 And what they say they made to-day, 
 They learned of the oak and the firs. 
 
 Emerson, Nature. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 A practical following out of the human side of this subject might lead to the 
 study of fabrics made by man and the methods of making them. 
 
 Examples of simple primitive clothing and its manufacture in the home 
 give, picturesque teaching of the customs of earlier times, and the perfection 
 of modern machinery shows how much of civilization has centered about that 
 which was provided outright in the life of animals. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 BORROWING FOOD FROM OTHERS. 
 
 Poor little fellow ! He has n't any father or mother of his 
 own to give him food, and so he has to go out in the cold win- 
 ter weather and ask 
 others for something 
 to eat, and this kind 
 woman has given him 
 a bowl of milk and 
 some of the bread that 
 she had for her own 
 little girl. You can 
 see the little girl 
 clinging to her 
 mother and looking 
 with wonder at a boy 
 that does not have 
 any mother of his 
 own to give him food. 
 Where do you sup- 
 pose her mother got 
 the bread and milk 
 she is giving the 
 poor little boy? Of 
 course she got the 
 milk from the milkman, and the flour for the bread from the 
 
 225 
 
226 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 grocer. But the milkman had to get his milk from the cow, and 
 you remember that the cow's food is the grass and grain that 
 grows out of the earth ; so that the milk was really borrowed 
 from the plants, while the flour or meal is made of the seeds of 
 wheat or barley or corn. The miller has to get these seeds 
 from the farmer, and the farmer gets them in turn from the 
 plants ; so that our bread also is borrowed from the plants. 
 
 The grain, too, out of which we make our flour and bread is 
 really the food which the wise plant mother lays up for its baby 
 seeds. You remember the picture of the baby 
 corn and its food (Fig. 176), which shows 
 you at the top the little baby corn plant and 
 the food which Mrs. Corn packs away with 
 her baby in the autumn, that it may have 
 something to eat as soon as it wakes up in 
 the spring. You see her doing it in the lower 
 part of the picture. That food which the 
 corn mother lays up for her baby is just as 
 trood for animals and men to eat as it is for 
 the corn. So men plant their fields with corn, 
 and when the corn mothers have stored up 
 hundreds and thousands of kernels full of 
 food for their babies, the farmers borrow the 
 food to feed their cattle or themselves ; so 
 that we borrow the baby food of the corn and the wheat and 
 the oats to make our food of, just as we borrow the baby clothes 
 of the cotton plant to make our clothing of. 
 
 And when our food is meat we borrow it from the plants 
 just the same ; for the animals from whom we borrow the meat 
 borrow their food from the plants, as the cow does who gives 
 us our beef, and the sheep who gives us our mutton. All the 
 
 Fin. 170. — The Corn 
 Baby and its Food. 
 
Borrowing Food from Others. 
 
 227 
 
 animals borrow their food from the plants, even those that 
 never eat the plants themselves. The lions and tigers feed 
 wholly on other animals, like the giraffes of Africa ; but the 
 giraffes in turn live on the plants. Their tall bodies and long 
 necks make them able to feed on the tender leaves of the trees, 
 as you see them doing' in , 
 
 the picture (Fig. 177) ; for 
 they are three times as high 
 as a man. They are really 
 the cousins of the deer and 
 the second cousins of the 
 cows, and I suppose they 
 got their long neck by try- 
 ing to reach as high as they 
 could. They stretched it 
 little by little, till now 
 they can eat all the leaves 
 and fruit off from an or- 
 chard, where a cow could 
 not get any food at all. 
 
 In the picture on the 
 next page (Fig. 178) you 
 see how the monkeys bor- 
 row the food of the corn ; 
 for that is a cornfield the 
 monkeys have entered, and they are having a nice feast on 
 the corn. The home of these monkeys is in Central Africa, 
 and their food used to be such insects and buds and wild fruits 
 as they could pick up in the forests ; but since men have begun 
 to plant corn there the monkeys have learned that the easiest 
 way to get food is to borrow it from the cornfield. When 
 
 Fig. 177. - 
 
 -The Giraffe Borrowing 
 o£ the Acacia Tree. 
 
 the Food 
 
9.9* 
 
 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 the corn is ripe, a band of these monkeys will make their way 
 along the forest by climbing from branch to branch and tree to 
 tree, till they get close to the cornfield ; then they will come 
 down to the ground and go scampering into the cornfield, and 
 begin to pull down the stalks and break off the ears and husk 
 
 Fig. 17b. — Monkeys Borrowing the Food of the Corn. 
 
 them and eat the corn. P5esides what they swallow, they 
 stuff their cheeks full on both sides of their mouths, for they 
 have big pockets in their cheeks, just as squirrels have ; and 
 they are as full of fun as the squirrels are, chatting and frolick- 
 ing all the time. You see from the picture that the mothers 
 take their baby monkeys along with them ; one Mrs. Monkey 
 has her baby clinging to her breast, and another leads her little 
 
Borrowing Food from Others. 
 
 229 
 
 one along by having him take hold of her tail, as you might 
 take hold of your mother's dress. 
 
 When they have got all the corn that they want to eat, they 
 break off more ears 
 to take away with 
 them. They are very 
 particular about get- 
 ting the best ears, so 
 that they will often 
 tear open and throw 
 away ten times as 
 much as they take 
 with them. In the 
 front of the picture 
 you can see two ears 
 that they have husked 
 and then thrown 
 away. While they 
 are getting the corn 
 their leader is watch- 
 ing to see that no 
 danger happens to 
 them ; for they choose 
 the strongest and old- 
 est of this number to 
 lead them, and they 
 follow him closely. 
 1 le stands up and looks 
 around while they get 
 the food, and the moment he sees any one coming lie tells them, 
 and the mothers seize their babies in their arms, and the rest 
 
 Fig. 179. — Fish Borrowing 
 
 the Food of Sea Plants. 
 
'230 Mother Nature 's Children. 
 
 grab four or live ears of corn apiece, and then they all rush away 
 to the forest and clamber up the trees again and disappear among 
 the branches, chattering as gaily as if they were so many children 
 out of school. 
 
 The fish in the water, too, as well as the animals in the 
 forests, borrow their food from the plants ; for plants grow in 
 the water as well as in the air, as you can see from the picture 
 on the last page of the fish borrowing food (Fig. 179). If 3^011 
 have ever floated over the salt water when it was perfectly still 
 and onlj r a few feet deep, you must have seen that the bottom 
 was all covered over with strange and beautiful plants, like 
 those 3*011 see in the picture ; for the water plants can have 
 very long leaves and very slender stalks, because the wind 
 never blows down there. No matter how wild the winds and 
 waves may be on the surface, it is always calm at the bottom of 
 the ocean. And the fish go swimming in and out among the 
 water fields, nibbling at the plants or eating the creatures that 
 live on them, just as the birds do among our orchards and forests. 
 
 The insects also have to borrow their food from the plants. 
 If you watch a caterpillar's nest, you will see that the growing 
 babies eat a great many of the leaves of the tree, and if you 
 take the leaves away from them they will soon die. They can- 
 not make food for themselves any more than you can. If you 
 give a silkworm mulberry leaves enough, it will grow from a 
 tiny worm no bigger than the head of a pin to a large cater- 
 pillar three inches long, as you see it in the picture (Fig. 180) ; 
 and then it will spin itself a silken cocoon, as you see the lower 
 caterpillar doing. He first spins some loose threads for the 
 outside of this nest, and then bends his head clear back to his 
 tail and turns it round and round, spinning and winding a 
 thread of silk, something as it is wound on a spool of twist ; so 
 
Borrowing Food from Othi 
 
 281 
 
 that he makes of himself a sort of spool wound about with a 
 silk thread a thousand feet Ions'. Then the little fellow gfoes 
 to sleep in his silk spool, and in a couple of weeks he changes 
 into a moth like that you see in the top of the picture ; hut he 
 could not do all this with- 
 out borrowing the food 
 of the mulberry tree. 
 
 "We see, then, that all 
 living creatures — insects, 
 fish, animals, and men — 
 must borrow their food 
 from the plants ; without 
 food we should all grow 
 weak and die. The horse 
 would have no strength 
 to lend us if we did not 
 give him the food of 
 plants ; for somehow in 
 borrowing food from 
 plants we borrow strength 
 too. The sheep would not 
 have any wool to give 
 us, nor the silkworm any 
 silk, if they did not both 
 of them first borrow the 
 food of the plant ; so that 
 somehow in borrowing food we borrow clothing as well as 
 strength. The plants alone seem to know how to change air 
 and earth and water into food that shall keep us all alive and 
 strong, from the worm up to the man. The worm knows how 
 to change mulberry leaves to silk, but only the mulberry tree 
 
 Fig. 180. 
 
 -Silkworms Borrowing the Food 
 of the Mulberry. 
 
232 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 knows how to change earth into the food of the leaf. The 
 horse knows how to change oatmeal into muscle that shall draw 
 your wagon, but only the oats know how to make the food. 
 And though men have studied the plants very carefully, they 
 have not yet found out this wonderful secret of making food 
 nut of the rock and the water and the air. How do you sup- 
 pose the plants found it out ? Some One who was very wise 
 must have taught them how to do it, and must have told them 
 to work all the summer long making food and laying it up for 
 all the rest of the creatures that must have it to live and be 
 warm and strong. Surely we ought to be grateful to these 
 busy little plants that wake up at the earliest dawn and labor 
 for us every hour of the whole day ; and we ought to be still 
 more grateful to the Wisdom that is working in them. 
 
 When the forest shall mislead me, 
 When the night and morning lie, 
 
 When sea and land refuse to feed me, 
 'Twill l>e lime enough to die. 
 
 Emerson, Woodnotes. 
 
 There 's not a sparrow or a wren, 
 There's not a blade of autumn grain, 
 Which the four seasons do not tend 
 And tides of life and increase lend. 
 
 Kmkksun, Threnody. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 SLEEPING AND WAKING DAILY. 
 
 That dog has got tired of waiting for his little master to 
 wake up ; so he has stolen into his room and jumped upon his 
 bed, and he looks as if he would bark to him softly, or kiss 
 him, to rouse him from his sleep, that lie may get up and dress 
 and have a romp with him before school time. I do not believe 
 
 that the little boy's mother knows that the dog is trying to 
 wake her son ; if she did she would drive him away, for she 
 wants the little fellow to have all the sleep he needs. She has 
 got that nice soft bed for him with its handsome spread, and 
 when evening comes she helps him to undress and put on that 
 pretty nightgown, and then tucks him in so that he shall be 
 warm, and I dare say she kisses him good night, and perhaps 
 
 233 
 
234 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 she looks into his room the last thing before she goes to bed 
 herself to see that lie is all right. For she knows that while 
 he is asleep lie cannot look out for himself, and he might kick 
 the clothes off and get cold, or roll out of bed and hurt himself. 
 She would be very busy if she had a hundred little ones to put 
 to bed every night, and had to keep them all covered up and 
 safe in bed till morning, and then had to wake them and dress 
 them all again ; and if she had to put all the creatures in the 
 world to sleep every night, — all the birds and all the beasts 
 and all the insects, — and watch over them through the night 
 to keep them safe, and wake them at the right time again every 
 morning, I think she would be very much busier than even 
 with a hundred children. I do not know of any woman who 
 would be able to do it, and I do not believe all the women in 
 the world could do it. 
 
 Yet Somebody puts all these creatures to bed and to sleep 
 each night and keeps them safe while they are asleep and uncon- 
 scious, and then wakes them all up again when the morning 
 comes. When the birds have been working and playing and 
 singing all day long and are tired out at night, they perch 
 themselves on the small swaying branches up high on a tree, to 
 be out of the way of any hungry cats that may come prowling 
 around to get something to eat ; then they go to sleep perched 
 on the twigs and stay as safe as the leaves on the trees. How 
 do you suppose they are kept from falling when they are asleep 
 and no longer remember to hold on to the branch? If you 
 will look at your canary bird's feet, you will see that the toes 
 clasp the perch something as our hand would — three of the 
 toes in front and one behind ; and the bird's legs are so made 
 that when he sits down close to the branch and doubles up his 
 legs, those toes clasp the support without any effort on his 
 
Sleeping and Waking I)aily. 
 
 235 
 
 part. He really has to make an effort to unclasp them, so that 
 when a bird is asleep he cannot fall from the branch ; his feet 
 hold him, just as our feet hold us on the ground when we stand 
 up. We should have to make an effort to get off the ground. 
 We should need to jump in order to do it ; and in the same 
 way the bird would have to rise up on the branch in order to 
 get his feet loose from it. 
 All a bird has to do, then, is 
 to clasp his feet about the 
 branch, sink down close to it 
 and tuck his head under his 
 wing, and he is as safe as if 
 you stood by him and held 
 him on. 
 
 But the birds can sleep 
 hanging down from the 
 branch as well as sitting on 
 it, as you see from the pic- 
 ture of the parrots asleep 
 (Fig. 182). Their curved 
 claws shut around the branch 
 so fast that they would have 
 to climb up on the branch to 
 unhook them. So they can clasp one leg and curl the other up 
 in their feathers, and put their beak in their feathers, too, and 
 then sleep without any danger of falling out of bed. The bats 
 sleep the same way, as you see from the picture on the next page 
 (Fig. 183). Their claws are so sharp and so crooked that they 
 have to pull themselves up by the claw on each wing in order 
 to unhook their feet, as you see one of them doing at the upper 
 left>hand corner of the picture. The one in the centre of the 
 
 Fig. 182. — Putting the Parrots to Bed. 
 
236 
 
 Mother Nature's Chilclre, 
 
 picture shows you how they use their large soft wings to wrap 
 themselves up in. They do not have a feather Led to sleep in 
 as the birds do, but they have a fine warm quilt, and it has one 
 
 _ great advantage over the 
 
 ^JJ^^H^M^^*' feathers; it will hold 
 
 their babies safe. The 
 
 • birds have to build nests 
 
 for their babies, but Mrs. 
 
 Bat just folds her wings 
 
 about the baby, and he 
 
 is just as safe as if he 
 
 were in a hammock; 
 
 £<!*($ZL qBiKFWh if there he and his mother 
 
 (W'f^rmA KHmife ;; *aA\ sleep all day, tor she 
 
 %/ ij'->4r~ fPilllJllk'lW g oes ou t flying only by 
 
 night. 
 
 But even when ani- 
 mals have no feathers or 
 wings to wrap themselves in, and when they cannot hang them- 
 selves from the branches, they are still put to bed and kept 
 comfortable by Mother Nature, as you can see from the pic- 
 ture of the fox asleep (Fig. 184). lie has bent himself into a 
 ring, so that his long heavy fur is all on the outside and his 
 bare legs are folded up inside where they will keep warm, while 
 his mouth, nose, and eyes are nicely provided for by his large 
 bushy tail. Of course be could not have long thick hair over 
 his eyes and mouth, because that would prevent his seeing or 
 eating, so he carries the hair on his tail instead. That is his 
 quilt and his pillow, and he always has it at hand wherever 
 he may be, when he wants to go to sleep. All lie has to do 
 is to find a quiet place where no one will be likely to disturb 
 
 Fig. 1H3 
 
 • Putting the hats to Bed. 
 
Sleeping and Waking l)aily. 
 
 237 
 
 him. But before lying down in his bed lie goes round and 
 round several times, sinking lower and lower with each turn, 
 
 Fig. 184. — Putting the Fox to Bed. 
 
 till lie almost spins about on the ground in the place where he 
 is going to sleep. By doing this he smooths down the twigs 
 or the grass that may happen to be under him, and he strokes 
 all of his long hair the right way, so that it will keep out the 
 cold and the wet. 
 
 If you watch your dog as he goes to sleep some night, you 
 may see him turn round in nearly the same way. The dog, 
 you know, is a cousin of the fox, and used to be wild and 
 live in the forest, and so he had to make himself a bed every 
 night in the grass and the twig's and smooth clown his hair the 
 right way to keep out the cold and the wet. After he learned 
 to live with man he no longer needed to level his bed or 
 smooth his hair, but he had been in the habit of doing it so 
 long that he still sometimes turns around, even on the floor 
 
238 
 
 Mother Natur 
 
 Children. 
 
 close lo the, liif. And when he has to sleep out in the cold 
 he always coils himself up like a fox. 
 
 But the insects are put to bed as well as the higher animals. 
 In the picture of the ants getting ready for bed (Fig. 185) you 
 can see how they close the door of their house at nightfall. 
 Their ant-hill is made of little pebbles which they have piled 
 up around their hole. When it comes night they take the 
 pebbles in their mouths, as you see one of them 
 doing, and carry them to the hole and pile them 
 up one on the other, as men pile up stones when 
 they make a wall. After the hole is all filled 
 excepting one little place at the top, the last ant 
 crawls in throuq-h that hole, as you see her doing- 
 at the bottom of the picture, and then with her 
 head she pushes sand up against the hole from 
 inside, thus stopping it all up. Then there are 
 no signs of any ants all uight long, till about 
 eight o'clock in the morning. At that time, if 
 Fit:, is.-,. — Putting you should watch the closed door carefully, you 
 would notice a pair of tiny feelers thrust out 
 through the chinks between the stones. Then an ant pushes 
 out and begins to cany the stones away, and then another ant 
 appears, and another, till the whole family comes pouring out. 
 What do you suppose they were doing during the night? If 
 you were small enough to creep down into their little house 
 and spend the night with them, you would see one ant after 
 another taking naps three or four hours long. When one of 
 the tiny creatures gets tired she lies down on the ground, curls 
 her six legs up close to her body, and goes to sleep so soundly 
 that you can brush her with a feather without waking her. 
 When she has had her sleep out, she gets up, stretches her 
 
Sleeping and Waking Daily. 
 
 239 
 
 Fig. 18li. — Tutting the Leaves to Bert. 
 
 limbs and yawns, just as you and I might in the morning, and 
 then she washes herself carefully all over. After that she is 
 ready for her day's work again, and sets about tending the 
 babies, or making new rooms, 
 or getting food for the numer- 
 ous family. 
 
 But the Sleep-Giver does 
 not seem to forget even the 
 plants. In the picture of a 
 plant awake and asleep (Fig. 
 186) you will see on the left 
 side how the leaf-stalks 
 stretch out from the plant and hold the leaves out level to 
 catch the sun's rays for making food ; while on the right side, 
 when the plant is in the darkness of night, the leaves fold up 
 close to the plant. There is nothing for them to catch but cold, 
 and so they cozy up close together to keep warm. They rest 
 from their work till morning comes, when they stretch out their 
 green faces to the light again, and work all day making food 
 for us. If you should fasten some of the leaves so that they 
 could not cozy up together, and then should put the plant out 
 of doors some cool autumn night, you would find in the morn- 
 ing that the leaves you fastened had been frozen to death, like 
 poor little babies left out in the cold, while the leaves that were 
 free to lie up close to each other and to the mother plant would 
 wake up all right. 
 
 So you see that Some One gives sleep to all the creatures on 
 the earth, from the birds and animals down to the insects and 
 plants. Some One knows when they are weary and gives them 
 the rest they need. Some One remembers them when they are 
 unconscious and unable to care for themselves, and Some One 
 
240 Mother Nature s Children. 
 
 wakes them again, made strong and able to work for another 
 day. 
 
 [lis dews drop mutely on the hill, 
 His cloud above it saileth still, 
 Though on its slope men sow and reap. 
 More softly than the dew is shed 
 Or cloud is floated overhead, 
 " lie giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 TEACHING NOTES. 
 
 Opportunity should be made in this connection for teaching the conditions 
 of healthful, restful sleep, which may not be safely trifled with ; the benefits of 
 sleep by the effects of being deprived of it ; the newness of life which each new 
 day should bring ; the influence of right thoughts as last thoughts at night — 
 and other features of sleep that modern science is bringing to expression. 
 
 Disabuse the minds of children of the idea that the influences that lift their 
 lives are limited by their own conscious efforts ; and lead them to trust in the 
 Power working always within them toward good, and especially active in 
 healthful sleep. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 SLEEPING AND WAKING YEARLY. 
 
 What do you suppose that roguish-looking girl has in hei 
 hand? Of course you will say that it is a snowball, and that 
 she is going to throw 
 it at some of her play- 
 mates, hut I wonder 
 if you know what a 
 snowball really is. It 
 is a little piece of the 
 great blanket which 
 Mother Nature 
 spreads over her plant 
 children when they 
 go to sleep in the fall. 
 You know how she 
 puts all of her great 
 family to bed every 
 night — from the 
 plants up to men — 
 and watches over 
 them during the 
 night, and wakes 
 them in the morning 
 rested and ready for 
 another day of life 
 
 241 
 
242 
 
 Mother Nature a Children. 
 
 and love and labor. But some of her children are like new- 
 born babies ; they need to sleep more than just at night. If 
 you ever watched a family of little kittens just born, you know 
 that they want to sleep much of the day as well as the night, 
 but when they grow larger and older they can keep awake more 
 of the time. So in Mother Nature's great family the plants seem 
 to need more sleep than the animals ; they do not seem so much 
 grown up as the animals are. When autumn comes the lilies 
 
 and violets and grasses and all 
 the plants living in our cold 
 climate £ro to bed for a nice 
 
 long nap, lasting all through 
 the cold winter months. You 
 remember how the mother plant 
 wraps up the baby bulbs to 
 keep them as warm as she can, 
 as you see the mother lily doing 
 in the picture (Fig. 188) which 
 we have had before ; but when 
 the mother lily has done all 
 that she can to keep her babies 
 warm, and all the other plant mothers have wrapt their 
 garments about their own babies, then Mother Nature spreads 
 over them all a great white blanket of snow, as soft and light 
 and warm as the comforter which your mother spreads over 
 your little lied in winter. 
 
 But where do you think this great white blanket comes from? 
 What is the snow made of? If you should look carefully at 
 some freshly fallen snow you would see a lot of tiny, stai-like 
 crystals, as they arc called, like those represented in the picture 
 of the snowliakcs (Fig. 180) ; and if you should hold these 
 
 Fig. 188. 
 
 — Baity Lilies in their 
 Nightgowns. 
 
Sleeping and Waking Yearly. 
 
 243 
 
 tiny crystals in your hand or breathe on them with your warm 
 breath, each one of them would melt into a little drop of water, 
 showing you that snowrlakes are only frozen raindrops. When 
 the cold weather comes the particles of water, instead of cling- 
 ing together in a round drop, 
 march off in different direc- 
 tions, though still holding fast 
 to each other, something as 
 people form different figures 
 in a dance ; those different 
 figures that the particles of 
 water form are very beautiful, 
 as you see from the picture ; 
 but besides being beautiful 
 they are light and feathery, 
 so that they keep the sleeping 
 plants warm and comfortable. 
 If those of you who live in 
 the north should dig away 
 the snow from your violet 
 bed, or from your lawn, and 
 keep the place bare all winter, 
 you would find the violets 
 and the grass frozen to death 
 in the spring ; but if you keep the flower lied and the grass 
 covered with snow the sleeping plants will be safe, and when the 
 warm sunshine wakes them again, they will open their mouths 
 and drink in the melting snow, and begin to grow at once. 
 
 But besides the plants, Mother Nature puts to bed all the 
 insects that live in cold countries and gives them an all-winter 
 nap. You remember the picture of the ants and aphides at 
 
 Snowflakes (magnified). 
 
241 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 dinner (Fig. 100). If you should mark the .spot where the ants 
 lived in the summer and should dig the ant-hill out in the mid- 
 dle of the winter, you would find all the ants sound asleep — 
 the baby ants, the mothers, the nurses, and all the other 
 workers ; and in some of the ant-hills you would find the 
 aphides, or ant-cows, also asleep. You know in the story of 
 
 the Sleeping Beauty how every one 
 fell asleep, — the princess, the king 
 and queen, the cooks and the stable 
 boys, and even the horses and cows, 
 — and all slept till the bold prince 
 came and kissed the princess ; and 
 then they all woke up just as they 
 fell asleep. That was a fairy story, 
 but the ants and their babies and their 
 slaves and their cows all go to sleep, 
 and really sleep motionless for months 
 under the ground and under the 
 blanket of snow, till some day 
 the bright sun peeps into their 
 hill and kisses them, and then 
 they all awake and begin to 
 tend the babies and milk the 
 cows again, just as if they had 
 slept only a night instead of a whole winter. 
 
 But the snails will sleep even longer than a winter, and 
 longer even than a whole year. You see them in the water 
 (Fig. 191) with their bodies outside of their shells ; if you 
 should take one of them out of the water, he would draw him- 
 self into his shell and shut the round door and seal it fast, so 
 that he would keep moist and comfortable for a long time. A 
 
 Fie 
 
 s^Sg- 
 
 l'JO. — Ants and their Cows 
 in Summer. 
 
Sleeping and Waiting Yearly. 
 
 245 
 
 snail was sent from Egypt to the British Museum and stuck 
 fast to a board for people to look at in the collection, and he 
 staid there for four long years ; at the end of that time some- 
 body happened to take the snail down and washed him in water, 
 when the creature woke up and opened his door and came out. 
 I suppose he thought spring had come again, after his four 
 years' nap ; 
 the people of 
 the Museum 
 were so sur- 
 prised and 
 pleased to 
 find him alive 
 that they 
 gave him 
 food and put 
 him in a moist 
 place, where 
 he lived a 
 long time. 
 
 Mother Nature puts turtles to sleep through the winter just 
 as she does the snails ; when the weather grows cold enough for 
 them to begin their long nap, they dig down a foot or so into 
 the ground ; then they pull their head and legs into their shell 
 and go to sleep for the winter. Sometimes they get waked up 
 too early. I knew of one who was sleeping underground in a 
 forest, when he began to feel the earth grow warm about him ; 
 it grew so warm that it waked him, and he thought it must 
 surely be spring, so he pushed out his legs and began to dig his 
 way up to the top of the ground to enjoy the newly arrived 
 spring. But when he reached the surface of the earth, he 
 
 Snails Awake. 
 
246 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 found that the warmth came from a lire some men had kindled 
 in the woods, and instead of its being spring it was still the 
 middle of the winter ; so after a little the poor fellow dug his 
 way back again into the ground, pulled himself into his box 
 and went to sleep once more to wait till spring really came, 
 when he and all i of his brothers and sisters came scrambling 
 out of their beds. | ^, f Some of the higher animals even 
 
 >S'i / oL- seem to need this long nap in 
 the winter, and so 
 Mother Nature gives 
 it to them. The 
 hedgehog that you 
 see tending her babies 
 (Fig. 192) will make 
 herself a nest under 
 the roots of the trees 
 in the autumn, and 
 line it with leaves ; 
 and then she will curl 
 herself up into a 
 round ball with the 
 bristles outside, look- 
 
 - Mrs. Hedgehog and her Family. iQg ^ & ^^ chest . 
 
 nut bur ; there she will sleep month after month, all through 
 the winter. She sleeps much more soundly than she does at 
 night — so soundly that she seems to be quite dead, just as 
 people do who go into a trance or a fit ; but after a while, when 
 spring comes again, Mother Nature remembers her child that 
 is sleeping so soundly, and wakens her, and she comes out of 
 her nest as wide awake as ever. 
 
 In the next picture (Fig. 193) you will see another of 
 
 Fig. 192. 
 
Sleeping and Waking Yearly. 
 
 247 
 
 Mother Nature's children who is put to Led for the whole 
 winter. It is the jumping mouse that lives in our fields ; 
 when autumn comes he burrows down into the ground a foot 
 or two, so that the frost cannot reach him, and then he curls 
 himself up in a little round ball and goes to sleep so soundly 
 that you would think the little creature dead, if you should dig 
 him out of his bed in the middle of the winter. But if you 
 
 Fig. 193. — The Jumping Mouse Waking up. 
 
 should take him home and warm him gently, he would stir first 
 one tiny foot and then another, and then he would begin to 
 breathe and would finally open his eyes and sit up and com- 
 mence washing himself, as you see him doing in the picture ; 
 for that mouse was dug out of his bed in the winter and waked 
 up in this way and then put under a glass case, when he began 
 to make his toilet. I suppose he thought the morning had come 
 after his long winter night underground and he wished to get 
 himself ready for the new day. 
 
248 Mother Natures Children. 
 
 So you see how kind Mother Nature is to all of her children. 
 She seems to like to have them wake up and help her all thev 
 can, but when they need sleep she gives it to them and tucks 
 them safely away in their beds for a whole winter, and spreads 
 her great warm blanket of snow over them all — plants and 
 insects and reptiles, and all of the animals that are not grown uj 
 enough yet to keep awake during the winter ; then when spring 
 comes she wakes them all up again. 
 
 When the fierce northwestern blast 
 Cools sea and land so far and fast, 
 Thou already sluniberest deep; 
 Woe and want thou canst outsleep. 
 
 E.mekson, The Humble Bee. 
 
 TEACHING NOTE. 
 
 The expression of the rising scale of life in terms of degrees of wakefulnes; 
 may require some help from the teacher. The phrase in the paragraph ahove 
 " not grown up enough yet to keep awake during the winter," may he madi 
 the subject of conversation. What if the cow and horse and dog had kept tin 
 habit of taking long vacations for sleep? On the other hand, how difficul 
 would be the conditions for the snail, turtle, and dormouse with their presen 
 powers, if no such kindly provision were made for them as is afforded by slee] 
 during the period when food could not be had. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 SLEEPING AND WAKING FOR A LIFETIME. 
 
 Her sweet little baby is fast asleep, and now she is going to 
 lay him down in his dainty crib. She looks as if she would 
 much rather hold him 
 in her arms and have 
 him wake up and 
 smile into her face, 
 hut she knows he 
 needs a great deal of 
 sleep, and so she lets 
 him sleep nearly all 
 the time. He is just 
 waking up into life 
 and lie has n't got 
 really awake yet. He 
 is only just beginning 
 to know his mother 
 and smile back into 
 her face ; but in a lit- 
 tle while he will wake 
 up enough to smile 
 at his father, too, and 
 stretch out his hands 
 to him; then in a few months more he will he wide enough 
 awake to get up on his feet and walk about, and in another year 
 
 249 
 
250 
 
 Mother Nature's Children- 
 
 he will learn to talk. Pretty soon he will have waked up enough 
 to go to school and learn to read and write and play ball ; then 
 his mother will begin to feel that she is losing her little baby, but 
 he will be so strong and helpful that she will not be sorry that 
 he has waked up into a young man. Then he will work early 
 
 and late for his 
 own little boys 
 and girls for 
 many years ; 
 but at length 
 he will begin 
 to grow tired 
 and sleepy 
 again in his old 
 acre, as he was 
 in his baby- 
 hood, and will 
 find it hard 
 work to walk 
 and to remem- 
 ber people and 
 w o r d s, and 
 then at last he 
 will go to sleep 
 
 again in the great Mother's arms as softly and quietly as he 
 slept in his mother's arms when he was a tiny baby. All 
 over the world the little babies are waking in this way — 
 waking first into boys and girls and then into men and 
 women, and after that are growing drowsy once more with old 
 age and sinking like tired children into sleep again, just as we 
 all wake each morning to the work and play of a new day and 
 
 A Kitten not Waked up. 
 
Sleeping and Waking for a Lifetii. 
 
 251 
 
 then sink at night into a sweet and restful sleep once more, if 
 we have lived the day as we ought and done the best we could. 
 
 All the other animals are being wakened into life in this 
 same way. You see that anxious mother with her baby kitten 
 in her mouth (Fig. 195). Mrs. Puss had her babies in a tree, 
 because she thought it was safer than a house full of boys and 
 girls ; but she saw a terrible thunderstorm ^^^ 
 coming up one day and she feared her kittens A/V/j 
 would get wet, so she brought them one by 
 one in her mouth from the tree to the house. 
 She had to do it because the little thing's were 
 not yet waked up enough to do it for them- 
 selves. Only a week or two before, they had 
 waked up so little that they had not even got 
 their eyes open ; but in a few weeks they will 
 be wide awake enough to take care of them- 
 selves and not need to be carried in their 
 mother's mouth any longer, and in another 
 year they will be so wide awake that they will 
 be caring for babies of their own and catching 
 mice for them. Yet in a few years they, too, 
 will begin to grow tired and drowsy and weak, 
 and at last they will drop into sleep again, as 
 men and women do, and the great Mother will take them 
 tenderly in her arms and lay them away to rest. 
 
 The plants, too, are being wakened into life in this same 
 way, some of them for a very short lifetime and some for a very 
 long one. You remember the picture of the baby pea waking 
 up (Fig. 196). His mother has packed his little cheeks full of 
 food, and as soon as the first warm day of spring comes he 
 wakes slowly out of his sleep and begins to push his tiny root 
 
 Fir;. 19fi. - A Pea 
 Waking up. 
 
25: 
 
 Mother Nature 's Children. 
 
 down into the ground, and in a week you will see him breaking 
 the soil for his first pair of leaves to come out into the .sunshine 
 and get the air. Then lie will stretch his slender fingers up 
 and clasp the bush you put there for him and climb higher and 
 higher every hour; but in a month he will get as high as he 
 can go, and in another month he will have 
 raised his family of baby seeds, and soon he will 
 begin to look pale and tired, and then he too 
 will sink into Mother Nature's arms to sleep 
 and rest after his three months' life. But the 
 baby acorn that you see waking up in the other 
 picture (Fig. 197) will live as long as 3 r ou or I. 
 Year after year he will go to sleep each fall for 
 an all-winter nap and wake up in the spring for 
 another summer of work. But even he will 
 begin to grow old, and after a hundred years or 
 so he will sink into the deeper and longer sleep 
 that Mother Nature gives to her children when 
 they need it. 
 
 So you see that the great Mother does not 
 make any of her children live and work forever 
 without getting any time to rest and sleep. She 
 lets them all sleep at night, and those that need 
 it she lets sleep in the winter as well as at night ; 
 get tired out with life she gives them a still deeper 
 sleep. And she allows some of her children to divide their lives 
 in such a way that they seem to have two lifetimes with a sleep 
 between. When the caterpillar that you see in the picture 
 (Fig. 198) has finished his life-work as a caterpillar he sinks 
 into a sleep so sound that it seems as if he was no longer alive; 
 but after a few weeks or months the seemingly lifeless chrysa- 
 
 Fig. li)7.— An Oak 
 Waking up. 
 
 and when they ; 
 
Sleeping and Waking for a Lifetir. 
 
 253 
 
 lid opens and out comes a beautiful creature with wings, who 
 looks no more like a caterpillar than a bird does like a snake. 
 
 If the butterfly remembers that 
 he was a caterpillar once, and 
 used to creep on the earth, he 
 must think that he has some- 
 how got a second life and one 
 much better than the first. lie 
 might wonder who gave him 
 his wings. But you know how 
 
 Fig. 198. —Caterpillars Waked up 
 into Butterflies. 
 
 the water-baby, out of which the 
 gauzy-winged mayfly comes, gets 
 his wings. He gets them by 
 climbing out of the water and 
 trying as hard as he can to fly, 
 as you see him doing in the 
 picture (Fig. 199). If he did not climb out of the water, he 
 never would have any wings, and he never would know any- 
 thing about the bright and beautiful world of air, but would 
 
 Fig. 199. 
 
 A Water-Baby Waking up 
 into a Mayfly. 
 
254 
 
 Mother Nature's Ohildre; 
 
 think that (hero was nothing but water and mud anywhere. 
 And the butterfly must have got his wings in the same way, by 
 trying to fly when he was a caterpillar. Long ages ago the 
 earlier caterpillars must have climbed the bushes and trees and 
 stretched out their lungs into the air and boldly tried to fly. 
 And when they had succeeded in getting wings, so that each 
 new caterpillar found them growing, as we find our power to 
 think and understand growing, then Mother Nature did a very 
 kind thing for them. When the caterpillar had finished his 
 caterpillar life and was all ready to have his wings come, she 
 lulled him to sleep in her arms for a long nap, and during the 
 sleep his body was made all over for him, so that when he woke 
 he w r as no longer a creeping worm but a flying insect. He got 
 
 only what he deserved, 
 but he got it in a 
 pleasanter way than 
 the mayfly does. 
 
 And so, I suppose, 
 when we — her larger 
 children — have fin- 
 ished our human life 
 . and done all we can 
 for her here, she lulls 
 us to sleep in her ten- 
 der arms, and while we 
 sleep she makes over 
 those of us who have 
 tried to stretch forth 
 the wings of the soul, and gives us bodies better fitted to our 
 growing powers. Therefore, the sleep at the end of life is even 
 more kind and helpful than the sleep at the end of the day, or 
 
 Fig. 200. — A Moth partly Waked up. 
 
Sleeping and Waking for a Lifetime. 255 
 
 at the end of the .summer. But if we wish to wake up with 
 wings next lifetime we must try all we can to fly this lifetime. 
 
 You remember the poor little moth-mother (Fig. 200), who 
 waked up with stunted wings that she could not use to fly 
 with, while Mr. Moth, who came from the same sort of a cater- 
 pillar, had the beautiful wings which you see in the picture. 
 I suppose the only difference between them was that Mrs. Moth 
 did not try so hard to fly as Mr. Moth did, and so her wings 
 did not grow out so large and strong as his. But your wings 
 and mine do not grow out of our body so that we can see them 
 with our eyes or feel them with our hands. They grow out of 
 our mind and soul, and if we try to think clearly and kindly, 
 and try to help the whole world in every way that we can, we 
 may lie down to sleep in the great Mother's loving arms without 
 any fear but that she will give us just what we have deserved, 
 and treat us as kindly as she treats any of her smaller children. 
 
 There is no death ! What seems so is transition. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 A dim capacity for wings 
 Degrades the dress I wear. 
 
 Emily Dickinson. 
 
 Life ! we 've been long together, 
 
 Through pleasant, and through cloudy weather. 
 
 'T is hard to part when friends are dear, — 
 
 Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear ; 
 
 — Then steal away, give little warning, 
 
 Choose thine own time ; 
 
 Say not Good Night, — but in some brighter clime 
 
 Bid me Good Morning. 
 
 Barbauld. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Acorn, long life of, 252. 
 
 Air, as a garment, 110; sliding 
 through the, 130. 
 
 Alligators, maternal love of, 53 ; nest 
 of, 52 ; tending the baby, 53. 
 
 Anatto, winter jackets for the seeds 
 of the, 117. 
 
 Angler-fish, 69. 
 
 Animals, flying, 130 ; nests of, see 
 nests ; parental love of, 2, 3, 11, 13, 
 14, 16, 34, 35, 38, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 
 46, 47, 50, 51, 09, 101, 102, 132, 
 143, 228, 256, 257 ; protecting the 
 mothers and children, 162 ; under- 
 clothes of, 98. 
 
 Ants, agriculture among the, 198 ; 
 cattle-herding among, 79 ; civil 
 engineering among, 159 ; getting 
 ready for bed, 238 ; helping each 
 other, 158 ; storehouse of the, 196 ; 
 during the winter, 244. 
 
 Aphides, the cows that ants milk, 79. 
 
 Archer-fish, 68. 
 
 Armadillo, six-banded, 102 ; scaly 
 coat of the, 103 ; three-banded, 103. 
 
 Ash tree starting the child in life, 123. 
 
 Assyrians, early architecture among, 
 173. 
 
 Barbauld, quotation from, 255. 
 Bats, maternal love of. 135 ; parental 
 love of, 132, 1.36 ; wings of, 133. 
 
 Bear, clothes given us by the, 219; 
 maternal love of, 47 ; parental love 
 of, 99 ; sleep of, 235 ; winter clothes 
 of, 99. 
 
 Beavers, construction of locks by, 
 192 ; dam-building by, 190 ; home 
 of, 190. 
 
 Bees, Brazilian, 77 ; cradle of, 22 ; 
 candy-eating among, 193 ; caring 
 for the young, 155 ; feeding the 
 babies, 77 ; furnishing the table 
 among, 157 ; hive, 77 ; making the 
 honeycomb, 194 ; marketing among, 
 77 ; method of carrying food, 195 ; 
 nest of, 20, 22 ; storing winter 
 supplies, 195. 
 
 Bird-land, domestic differences in. 8. 
 
 Birds, caring for the children, 34; 
 form of the ancient, 141 ; feathered 
 arm of, 139 ; feeding the young, 36 ; 
 great-grandparents of, 138 ; molt- 
 ing, 92 ; necessity for clean clothes 
 of, 93 ; need no granaries, 181 ; 
 sometimes helped by men, 177 ; 
 where they sleep, 234. 
 
 Bird-snake, 138. 
 
 Blackbirds, parental love of, 38. 
 
 Bobolinks at dinner, 63. 
 
 Bonar, quotation from, 184. 
 
 Borneo, flying frogs in, 130. 
 
 Bread, source of, 226. 
 
 Browning, E. B., quotation from, 240. 
 
 257 
 
258 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 Browning, R., quotation from, 16,24. 
 Buffaloes protecting the family, 163. 
 Butterflies, how they eat, 75 ; market- 
 ing among, 74. 
 
 Cactus, storehouse of, 207. 
 
 Canaries, toes of the, 234. 
 
 Caterpillars, how they got their wings, 
 254 ; resurrection of, 253 ; spinning 
 the cocoon, 230. 
 
 Cats, foster-mothers among, 44 ; ma- 
 ternal love of, 43, 251 ; slow awak- 
 ening of the baby, 251. 
 
 Chipmunk, home of the, 187. 
 
 Civilization, beginning of, 171 ; defi- 
 nition of, 171. 
 
 Clams, clothes of, 110 ; footprints of, 
 110. 
 
 Clothes, sources of man's, 218 ; suit- 
 able nature of, 139. 
 
 Coleridge, quotation from, 8. 
 
 Conies storing up food, 180. 
 
 Corn, providing for the baby, 226. 
 
 Cotton, making cloth from, 223 ; 
 starting the baby in life, 126. 
 
 Cow tree, milking the. 83. 
 
 Cows, man's use of, 213 ; maternal 
 love of, 42. 
 
 Cradles, of the bee, 22 ; of fish, 15 ; 
 of the flower, 26 ; of the human 
 baby, 1 ; of the humming-bird, 3 ; of 
 the oriole, 4 ; of the rose bee, 23 ; 
 of the spiders, 14 ; of the squirrels, 
 9; of the swallow, 19; of the tit- 
 mouse, 6 ; of the wasps, 20 ; of the 
 weaver bird, 7. 
 
 Crocus, storehouse of the, 203. 
 
 Crows, cooperation among, 167. 
 
 Dahlia, storerooms of the, 206. 
 
 Daisy, composite nature of the flower, 
 
 154 ; older sisters of the, 154. 
 Dandelions starting the babies in life, 
 
 125. 
 Deer, clothes given us by the, 219 ; 
 
 gives us house-building material, 
 
 219. 
 Dickinson, quotation from, 255. 
 Dog, cousin of the wolf, 237 ; going 
 
 to bed, 238 ; useful to man, 260. 
 Dormouse, storehouse of the, 189. 
 Dove's wings, 139. 
 Dragon, flying, 131. 
 Drones, nature's treatment of the. 
 
 158. 
 
 Egyptian granaries, 178; threshing 
 
 machines, 178. 
 Elephant's clothing, 99 ; usefulness 
 
 to man, 214. 
 Elk and wolves, 163. 
 Elk-yards, 163. 
 Elm trees starting their children in 
 
 life, 123. 
 Emerson, quotations from, 56, 64, 72, 
 
 80, 96, 112, 120. 136, 152, 100, 176, 
 
 20O, 20K, 216, 224. 232, 248. 
 Eskimos' clothing, 220. 
 
 Filial love, 25. 
 
 Eire, making use of, 215. 
 
 Fish, cradles of the, 15 ; feeding on 
 
 plants, 230 ; house-building, 15 ; 
 
 marketing, 68 ; maternal love of, 
 
 50 ; method of fishing of the, 69 ; 
 
 nests of, 15 ; raising the family, 16 ; 
 
 tending the babies, 50. 
 Flax, linen cloth from, 222. 
 Flowers, as children, 26 ; baby clothes 
 
 among, 27 ; cradles of the, 26 ; of 
 
Index. 
 
 259 
 
 early spring, 202 ; nests of the, 20 ; 
 
 providing against rain, 155. 
 Flying, human methods of, 143. 
 Food, early efforts to obtain, 171 ; 
 
 storing up, 178 ; where does it 
 
 come from, 232. 
 Fox, how he sleeps, 230. 
 Frog, flying, 130. 
 Fuegians, house-moving, 172. 
 
 Gall-fly, aided by the oak in raising 
 its family, 24 ; cradle of the, 23. 
 
 Giraffe gets a long neck, 227. 
 
 Goldfinches, house-hunting, 39 ; pa- 
 rental love of, 40. 
 
 Goose, maternal love of the, 36. 
 
 Grebe caring for the babies, 95. 
 
 Hares, the crying, harvesting hay, 189. 
 
 Hedgehog, winter sleep of the, 240. 
 
 Hen, clothing of the baby, 91 ; mater- 
 nal love of the, 34. 
 
 Heron, flight of the, 140. 
 
 Hiawatha, the legend of, 180. 
 
 Hindus getting the help of the cow, 
 213. 
 
 Hippopotamus, maternal love of the, 
 46. 
 
 Horse, man's use of the, 210. 
 
 Human family, cave-dwellers, 171 ; 
 helping each other, 169, 175. 
 
 Humming-birds, cradles of the, 3 ; 
 marketing, 61. 
 
 Hydra, division of labor and family 
 life of the, 148. 
 
 Indians, pile-dwellings of the, 179; 
 scarcity of food among the, 180. 
 
 Japanese travelling stores, 175. 
 
 Laplanders borrowing from reindeer, 
 212. 
 
 Lemur, flying, 131. 
 
 Lilies, in their night-gowns, 242 ; 
 storehouses of, 204 ; winter cloth- 
 ing of, 116. 
 
 Lime trees caring for their babies, 119. 
 
 Lizards, flying, 131 ; grandparents of, 
 138. 
 
 Longfellow quoted, 225. 
 
 Lowell quoted, 56. 
 
 Lumpflsh, parental love of, 50. 
 
 Mammoths, clothing of, 100. 
 
 Maple trees, milking the, 83 ; starting 
 
 their children in life, 123. 
 Mason bees' cradles, 19. 
 Maternal love, making the baby's 
 
 clothing, 90 ; of the alligator, 53 ; 
 
 bat, 135 ; bear, 47 ; cat, 43 ; cow, 
 
 42 ; fish, 50 ; grebe, 36 ; hen, 35 ; 
 
 hippopotamus, 46 ; opossum, 45 ; 
 
 plants, 30 ; spider, 55 ; tiger, 45. 
 Mayfly, former existence of the, 253. 
 Mice, parental love of, 13. 
 Milk, sources of, 82. 
 Mondamin, the god of Indian corn, 
 
 180. 
 Money an agent in helping each 
 
 other, 176. 
 Monkeys, at a corn-feast, 228 ; caring 
 
 for the baby, 101 ; big brothers 
 
 among, 165 ; bridge building, 164 ; 
 
 dinner table of, 71 ; clothes of, 106 ; 
 
 helping each other, 164. 
 Morris quoted, 168. 
 Moths, polyphemus, 76 ; who do not 
 
 eat, 76. 
 Mouse, winter sleep of the, 247. 
 Mussels, clothing of the, 110. 
 
260 
 
 Mother Nature's Children. 
 
 Nest, of the alligator, 52 ; bee, 20, 
 22 ; tisli, 15 ; flowers, 26 ; humming- 
 bird, 3 ; mice, 12 ; oriole, 4 ; spiders, 
 14; squirrels, 0; tailor birds, 37; 
 titmouse, 6 ; wasp, 20 ; weaver 
 birds, 7. 
 
 Onion protecting its storehouse, 205. 
 Ophiocephalus, parental love of the, 51. 
 Opossum, parental love of the, 45. 
 Orioles, courtship and home-building 
 
 among, 5 ; nests of, 4, 
 Oxen, man's use of, 213. 
 Oysters, clothing of, 109. 
 
 Parental love, see Animals, parental 
 love of. 
 
 Parrots, sleep of the, 235. 
 
 Pea, awakening of the baby, 251 ; 
 family duties of the, 150 ; short life 
 of the, 252. 
 
 Pelicans, marketing, 62 ; tending their 
 clothes, 95. 
 
 Pine trees starting their children in 
 life. 124. 
 
 Plants, cradling the baby, 25 ; dinner 
 table of, 87 ; division of labor in, 
 149; going to bed for the winter, 
 242 ; how they sleep, 23!) ; need 
 more sleep than animals, 242 ; stor- 
 ing up food, 203 ; the only food- 
 producers, 232 ; variety in length 
 of life, 251. 
 
 Pope quoted, 104, 192, 216. 
 
 Porcupines, parental love of, 101 ; 
 useful clothing of, 101. 
 
 Potatoes, storehouse of, 205 ; the 
 sweet, 206. 
 
 Primrose, storehouse of the, 203. 
 
 Ptarmigan, clothes of the, 91. 
 
 Reindeer, man's use of, 212; milking 
 
 the, 213. 
 Robins marketing. 63. 
 Roots, intelligence of, 86. 
 Rose bees, cradles, 23 ; nest of, 23. 
 
 Sandwich Islanders, clothing of,-221. 
 
 Seals give us clothing, 220. 
 
 Seashells, listening to the, 106. 
 
 Seeds, awakening of, 31; flight of, 122. 
 
 Sheep, clothes of, 98 ; making clothes 
 from the wool of, 218 ; protecting 
 the family, 162. 
 
 Silkworms feeding on the mulberry 
 tree, 230. 
 
 Sleep, death but a kind, 254 ; first 
 awakening from, 249; last falling 
 to, 250. 
 
 Snails, long sleep, 244 ; walking suits 
 of the, 107; in the water, 108. 
 
 Snow, a blanket, 241 ; as a winter 
 garment, 119 ; construction of, 242 ; 
 usefulness of, 243. 
 
 Soap-bubbles, why they ascend, 122. 
 
 Sparrows, house-stealing, 166. 
 
 Spiders, cradles of, 14 ; flying machine 
 among, 127 ; marketing, 70 ; mater- 
 nal love of, 14, 55 ; tending the 
 baby, 54. 
 
 Sponge, grandparents of, 147 ; growth 
 of the family of, 147. 
 
 Squirrels, nest of, 9 ; nut-crackers 
 among, 185 ; flying, 132 ; house- 
 building, 10 ; parental love of, 11 ; 
 raising a family^ 11 ; storehouses 
 among, 186. 
 
 Sticklebacks tending the baby, 52. 
 
 Sunfish tending the baby, 50. 
 
 Swallows, autumn trip of, 142 ; house- 
 building, 18 ; feeding the young, 36 ; 
 
Index. 
 
 261 
 
 French and American, 17 ; market- 
 ing, 59. 
 
 Swans, cooperation with the hen, 05. 
 
 Switzerland, early habitations in, 179. 
 
 Tailor birds, nests of, 37. 
 
 Teaching Notes, 8, 10, 24, 32, 40, 48, 
 50, 04, 72, 80, 88, 00, 104, 112, 120, 
 136, 144, 100, 108, 224, 240, 248. 
 
 Tennyson quoted, 32, 144. 
 
 Thistles caring for their babies, 155. 
 
 Tigers, maternal love of, 45. 
 
 Titmice, cradles of, 0. 
 
 Toads, dinner tables of, 60. 
 
 Trees, bark clothing of, 115 ; cork, 
 115 ; low, 82 ; making clothing from 
 the, 221 ; marketing, 84 ; sugar- 
 maple, 83 ; starting their children, 
 123; winter clothing, 117. 
 
 Turtles, winter sleep of, 245. 
 
 Vampires, wings of, 134. 
 Virginia creeper, fingers of, 151. 
 
 Wasps, cradles of, 20 ; house-build- 
 ing, 21. 
 
 Wasson quoted, 48, 128. 
 
 Water lending its strength to man, 
 215. 
 
 Weaver birds, cooperative house-build- 
 ing of, 166. 
 
 Whittier quoted, 40, 88. 
 
 Wind lending its strength to man, 215. 
 
 Wings, how made, 130 ; how used, 
 137, 140, 142. 
 
 Woodpeckers, marketing, 59 ; storing 
 food, 183. 
 
 Workers, nature's care for the, 152. 
 
^