Birds in Winter

The
“LOOK ABOUT YOU”
Nature Study Books

BY
THOMAS W. HOARE
TEACHER OF NATURE STUDY
to the Falkirk School Board and Stirlingshire County Council

BOOK III.

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
AND EDINBURGH

Printed by M‘Farlane & Erskine, Edinburgh.

PREFACE.

This little book should be used as a simple guide to the practical study of Nature rather than as a mere reader.

Every lesson herein set down has, during the author’s many years’ experience in teaching Nature Study, been taught by observation and practice again and again; and each time with satisfactory result. The materials required for most of the lessons—whether they be obtained from the naturalist-dealer or from the nearest hedge, ditch, or pond—are within everybody’s reach.

There is nothing that appeals to the heart of the ordinary child like living things, be they animal or vegetable, and there is no branch of education at the present day that bears, in the young mind, such excellent fruit as the study of the simple, living things around us.

Your child is nothing if not curious. He wants to understand everything that lives and moves and has its being in his bright little world.

Nature Study involves so many ingenious little deductions, that the reasoning powers are almost constantly employed, and intelligence grows proportionately. The child’s powers of observation are stimulated, and his memory is cultivated in the way most pleasing to his inquiring nature. By dissecting seeds, bulbs, buds, and flowers, his hand is trained, and methods expeditious and exact are inculcated. By drawing his specimens, no matter how roughly or rapidly, his eye is trained more thoroughly than any amount of enforced copying of stiff, uninteresting models of prisms, cones, etc., ever could train it.

The love of flowers and animals is one of the most commendable traits in the disposition of the wondering child, and ought to be encouraged above all others.

It is the author’s fondest and most sanguine hope that the working out of the exercises, of which this booklet is mainly composed, may prove much more of a joy than a task, and that the practical knowledge gained thereby may tempt his little readers to study further the great book of Nature, whose broad pages are ever open to us, and whose silent answers to our manifold questions are never very difficult to read.

T. W. H.

CONTENTS

LESSON PAGE I. [Birds in Winter] 7 II. [Seed-Eaters and Insect-Eaters] 12 III. [Buds] 16 IV. [A Baby Plant] 25 V. [How a Plant Grows] 30 VI. [More about Seeds] 36 VII. [The Horse Pond in Spring] 44 VIII. [Uncle George’s Tank] 49 IX. [Tadpoles] 54 X. [Frogs, Toads, and Newts] 61 XI. [Underground Stems] 66 XII. [Caterpillars] 76 XIII. [The White Butterfly] 82 XIV. [The Toiling Caddis] 88 [Appendix] 95

“LOOK ABOUT YOU.”
BOOK III.

I.—BIRDS IN WINTER.

“When we look out there, it makes us feel thankful that we have a nice cosy room to play in and a warm fire to sit beside.”

It was Uncle George who spoke. His two nephews, Frank and Tom, stood at the window watching the birds feeding outside, while Dolly, their little sister, was busy with her picture-blocks on the carpet.

“Yes, it is better to be inside in winter,” said Frank, the elder boy. “These poor little birds must have a hard time out in the cold all night.”

“I should not mind being a bird during the rest of the year, though,” said little Tom. “It must be so jolly to be able to fly wherever you like.”

Uncle George smiled, and said, “Birds are very happy little creatures, Tom, but they have many enemies. Their lives are in constant danger. They must always be on the look-out for cats, hawks, guns, and cruel boys. Those birds that stay with us all the year round have often a hard fight for life in winter-time. In fact, many of them starve to death.

“Most of our birds fly to warmer countries in autumn, and come back to us in spring. These miss the frost and snow, but a great number of them get drowned while crossing the sea. I think, as a little boy, you are much better off.

“Let me see; have you put out any food for the birds this morning?”

“Yes, Uncle George, we have done exactly as you told us,” said Frank. “Mother made a little net, which we filled with suet and scraps of meat for the tomtits. We hung it on the ivy, quite near the window. We also put plenty of crumbs and waste bits from the kitchen on the space you cleared for the birds yesterday.”

“Very good,” said Uncle George, “and I see your feathered friends are busy in both places.”

He looked out and saw a crowd of birds hopping on the frozen lawn round the well-filled dish. The little net, which hung just outside the window, was alive with hungry tomtits. They pecked eagerly at the suet, and chattered their thanks between every mouthful.

“What a lot of birds we have to-day,” Uncle George remarked. “Do you know the names of them all, boys?”

“We know those you pointed out to us yesterday,” said Frank. “There is the chaffinch, the thrush, the greenfinch, the blackbird, and the hedge-sparrow, but I don’t know that one with the bright red breast, black velvet head, and grey wings. And there is a new one among the tomtits. He has a very long tail, and is like a small parrot.”

“Oh,” said Uncle George, “the first you spoke of is the bullfinch. He is so easily tamed that he makes a splendid pet. The hen bullfinch is there too, I see. She has a dull brown breast, and is not quite so pretty as her husband. The bullfinch is very fond of berries. If we could get some hawthorn or rowan berries, we should have all the bullfinches in the district around us. The other bird is the long-tailed tit. He is also a very amusing little chap.”

Bullfinches.

“Why do the tomtits make such a fuss about the suet?” asked Tom. “The bullfinches do not come near it.”

“That is because the tomtit is a flesh-eater, Tom. He lives on insects. The bullfinch feeds on berries and seeds. He is also blamed for eating the young buds of fruit-trees in spring-time, but I am not quite sure that he does this.”

“Where are all the insects in winter, Uncle George?” asked Frank.

“Well, most of them are buried deep in the ground. Some of them are tucked up in warm cases, and hidden in the chinks of trees and walls.”

“Then why don’t the birds that feed on insects search those trees and walls for them,” Frank asked.

“So the birds do, but the sleeping insects are very hard to find. The cases which hold them are often coloured exactly like the tree or wall which they are fixed to; so that even the sharp eyes of a hungry bird cannot see them.”

Exercises on Lesson I.

1. Write out the names of all the wild birds you have seen. 2. Some of these we do not see in winter. How is this? 3. Why should we remember the birds in winter-time? 4. Describe the robin. How does he differ from the bullfinch?

II.—SEED-EATERS AND INSECT-EATERS.

The snow did not go away for some days. While it lasted, Frank and Tom watched the birds very closely. They learned many new and curious things about them.

The sparrows and robins had grown so tame that they would fly right up to the window-sill, and eat the crumbs and seeds that were placed there for them; while the tomtits paid great attention to the little net bag that hung quite close to the window. So long as they stood back a short distance from the window, the two boys could watch the funny tricks of these hungry little visitors.

Amongst other things, they learned to tell a seed-eating bird from one that feeds on insects.

Tomtits.

Seed-eating birds, as their uncle told them, have short, stout, hard bills, just the thing for shelling seeds. The insect-eaters have longer and more slender bills; while birds that live upon both seeds and insects have bills hard enough to shell seeds and yet long and sharp enough to pick insects out of their hiding-places.

So many birds came to the feast, that Uncle George cleared the snow from another part of the lawn and spread some dry ashes upon it. Upon one patch he scattered seeds and crumbs, and on the other he placed a large flat dish.

In this dish were put all sorts of waste scraps from the kitchen, such as bones, potatoes, and pieces of meat. Uncle George did this so that the boys could tell flesh-eating birds from those that lived upon seeds.

Starling.

The starlings came to the dish first, and fought among themselves for the food, although there was much more than enough for them all.

Then came a few rooks, who walked about the dish in quite a lordly way. Every now and again one of them would seize a huge crust of bread or a potato in his clumsy bill and fly with it a short distance away. The starlings, thrushes, and blackbirds hopped nimbly about, picking up a choice morsel here and there.

The new patch was often crowded with finches of all kinds. The boys noticed that many of the birds fed at both places. Among these were sparrows, robins, chaffinches, thrushes, and starlings. These birds, their uncle explained to them, fed on a mixed food of insects, seeds, and fruits.

It amused them very much to watch how the rooks and jackdaws always dragged the food away from the dish, as if they were stealing it; while now and then a blackbird would fly away with a loud chatter, as if he had been suddenly found out whilst doing something very wrong.

“These birds,” said Uncle George, “are looked upon as enemies by farmers and gardeners. They are scared out of our fields and gardens by every possible means. That is what makes them steal even the food that is given to them.”

Rook.

“But they pick the newly-sown seeds out of the ground, and steal the fruit when it is ripe,” said Frank. “That is what the gardener says.”

“If the gardener only knew how much they help him, by eating up the grubs and beetles that damage his plants, he would not grudge them a few seeds and berries, Frank,” Uncle George replied. “The rook is one of the farmer’s best friends; and if it were not for thrushes, starlings, blackbirds, and such insect-eating birds, our gardens would be overrun with insects. If these insects were allowed to increase, we should not be able to grow anything. Even the sparrow is the gardener’s friend. He eats the caterpillars that would spoil our fruit trees and bushes.”

Exercises on Lesson II.

1. Why do we put out suet and scraps of meat for certain birds in winter? 2. How can you tell a flesh-eating from an insect-eating bird? 3. Write down the names of all the birds which belong to the crow family. 4. What makes the jackdaw steal all his food? 5. Why are jackdaws, rooks, sparrows, starlings, and blackbirds said to be “the farmer’s friends”?

III.—BUDS.

Uncle George and the two boys had been for a long walk. They brought home a lot of twigs which they had cut from trees at the roadside.

Uncle George placed some of these twigs in bottles filled with water. These bottles were placed in the window, so that they could get plenty of sunlight. The rest of the twigs were laid upon the table.

“Now, boys,” said Uncle George, “we are going to find out what buds are. Here is a twig of the horse-chestnut tree, and here is one of the beech tree. Do you notice any difference between them?”

“Oh, yes,” said Frank, “they are very different. The beech buds are longer.”

“Anything else?” his uncle asked.

“The horse-chestnut buds have sticky stuff all over them,” said Tom.

“Quite right,” said Uncle George. “On the beech twig the buds are placed singly on opposite sides. On the horse-chestnut twig the buds are in pairs.”

Then Uncle George cut one of the buds through with his knife, and they saw that a great number of thick scales were folded round a little green thing in the centre. They saw also a mass of woolly stuff between the scales and the little green object.

Uncle George gave each of the boys a twig, and showed them how to take the scales off the top bud with a large needle. The outside scales were not easily removed. They were so sticky—they stuck to everything that touched them, and soon the boys’ fingers were covered with the sticky stuff. As they went on with their work, they found out that the inner scales were not sticky. At last they got all the scales off, and there was nothing left but a tiny woolly mass. On teasing out, this woolly bundle was found to be a little branch bearing small leaves. Every part of it was covered with wool.

Twigs of Beech and Chestnut, showing Buds.

“Now,” said Uncle George, “you can perhaps tell me what a bud is.”

“It is just a little baby branch, snugly tucked up in a tiny blanket and well covered over with many scale-leaves,” said Frank.

“Very good,” said Uncle George. “Now tell me why it is tucked up in this warm blanket, and perhaps Tom can tell us what the sticky stuff on the outer scales is for.”

“I am sure I cannot tell,” said Frank.

“Just think,” said his uncle kindly. “Why did you call it a baby branch? Is it because it is so small, or because it is so snugly wrapped up? Why are babies wrapped up in soft warm clothing?”

“Oh, I know now,” said Frank, “The woolly stuff is to keep out the winter cold.”

“And the sticky stuff on the outside,” said Tom, “must be for keeping out the rain.”

“You are both right,” said Uncle George. “Buds are formed in autumn and early winter. They are, as you have seen, very tender little things. Frost or wet would kill them. But rolled up in soft woolly clothing, covered in with many thick scale-leaves, and made quite waterproof by a thick coat of the sticky stuff, they do not fear the cold.

“If you look at your twigs again, you will find that in taking off the scales you have left a thick ring of marks right round the twig.

“Now, if you look down the twig, you will notice another ring of such marks. These are the scale-marks of last year’s bud. The part of the twig in between these two ring marks is a year’s growth.”

“There is a third ring on mine farther down the stem,” said Frank.

“Yes, and another farther down still,” said Uncle George. “These are the bud marks of former years. Let us measure the distance between them, for in this way we can tell the kind of summers we have had in past years.

Hedge and Trees in early Spring

Plants protected by Thorns and Prickles

“Last year’s growth, you see, is two inches. The growth of the year before is three inches, and the one beneath that is four and a half inches. This tells us that there was very little sunshine during last summer or the summer before, and that three years ago there was a warm summer, causing much growth.”

“I see some other strange marks on the twig,” said Tom.

“Oh, you mean the horse-shoe marks. These are the scars left by the big green leaves which fell off in autumn. You will find one of these curious horse-shoe marks under each bud.

Hawthorn Twigs.

“Here is a hawthorn twig. I brought it to let you see another way in which plants protect their buds. In the hawthorn the buds usually occur in pairs together. Between each pair of buds there is a long sharp thorn.

“The reason why every pair of buds is guarded in this way is very clear. The horse-chestnut and beech have tall, stout stems, which rear up their branches far out of the reach of grazing animals. The hawthorn is a low growing tree. Its branches are within easy reach, and its tender buds would be nipped off by sheep and cattle if it were not for these sharp thorns.

“The thorns also prevent the buds from being knocked off by anything rubbing against the hawthorn hedge. You will notice that each thorn is very much longer than the buds beside it. These thorns can give a very cruel prick, as every boy knows who has tried to cut a twig from the hawthorn hedge.

“By and by we shall see that there are many plants which arm themselves against animals in this way.”

Exercises on Lesson III.

1. Take in twigs with buds on them in December. Place them in water, and watch them from day to day. 2. Select one bud, and make a drawing of it every third day from the time it begins to open. Keep your drawings. 3. How are buds protected? (1) from cold; (2) from animals. 4. What causes the “horse-shoe” marks on horse-chestnut twigs? 5. Make a drawing of a small beech twig, showing buds and leaf-scars.

IV.—A BABY PLANT.

“To-day,” said Uncle George, “we are going to try to find out something about seeds.” And he placed upon the table a saucerful of beans which had been soaking in water for two days.

“First let us look at the seeds as they are when we get them from the shop,” he said, laying a handful of hard, wrinkled beans upon the table.

“They are as hard as stones, and very much smaller than those we soaked,” said Frank.

“Yes, that is one thing we have learned about them already. Seeds take in water and swell greatly.” As he spoke, Uncle George gave Frank, Tom, and Dolly each a small knife and a needle mounted in a handle. He then laid a small magnifying glass on the table.

“Take a soaked bean and look at it well,” he said. “First we will look at the outside of it, then we will see what it has inside.”

“My bean is covered all over with a smooth skin,” said Dolly.

“And there is a long black mark on one side of it,” Tom added.

“Come on, Frank,” said his uncle, “haven’t you got something to say.”

“It is sort of kidney-shaped,” said Frank.

“Nothing more?”

Frank shook his head.

“Squeeze it,” said Uncle George, “and tell me what you see.”

“Oh, there is water oozing out of a little hole at the end of the black mark,” said Frank.

“That shows us that the seed is not quite covered by its skin,” said their uncle. “That little hole is there to allow a tiny root to grow out.

“Now let us remove the skin, or skins rather, for there are two of them. Begin as far away from the black mark as you can. You see that the outer skin is tough like leather, while the inner one is soft and silky. Now, if you pull the skins off gently, you will find something like a stout little root pointing towards the little hole you have already noticed. If you look at the edge of the seed you will notice a thin line or crack. Putting the knife into this crack, we find that the seed consists chiefly of two large, flat, white parts or lobes, with a very small object in between them. Let us remove one of these white masses, and have a look at this small object with the glass.”

Seed of Runner Bean.
(1) outside; (2) inside; (3) baby plant, enlarged.
a, shoot; b, root; c, seed coat or skin; d, junction of seed-leaves.

Each of the children had a look through the glass in turn.

“Why,” said Tom, “it is very like what we found inside the horse-chestnut bud. I can see two tiny leaves.”

“Remove the little object on the point of your needle and look at it again,” said Uncle George. “It has got something that your little horse-chestnut shoot did not have, I think.”

“There is a little thing like a root,” said Tom.

“It is a little plant with a very fat little root,” said Frank.

“That is just what it is,” said his uncle.

“Has every seed got a little plant inside it, Uncle George?” Dolly asked.

“Every seed, Dolly, no matter how small.”

Uncle George split up one of the hard seeds that had not been soaked, and showed them a little plant of the same kind inside; but it was so hard and brittle that he could crumble it up into powder between his fingers.

“And what are the two large white lobes for?” asked Frank.

“These are the seed-leaves. They are stores of plant-food. The young plant is fed by these until its root grows far down into the soil and its shoot grows high up into the air—until it is old enough and strong enough to find food for itself, in fact.

“In the bud, the little shoot is fed by the sap of the mother-plant. Here, in the seed, we have a baby plant wrapped up in two coats, one thick and leathery and the other soft and warm; and, in place of a large feeding-bottle, there are two huge masses of plant-food wrapped up with it.”

“Why do we put seeds in the ground to make them grow?” asked Frank.

“A seed requires three things to make it grow. These three things are—water, air, and warmth. We can grow seeds without soil at all if we give them these three things. But if either water, air, or warmth be wanting, your seeds cannot grow.”

“That is why seeds won’t grow outside in winter, then,” said Frank.

“That is the reason,” his uncle answered. “In winter there is not enough heat to make seeds grow. If you sow seeds in a pot of dry soil in summer, and do not give them water, they will not grow.”

“I think a seed is a most wonderful thing,” said Tom.

“It is,” said Uncle George, “wonderful indeed. The most wonderful thing about it is that there is life in it—sleeping life, awaiting these three things I have told you about.

“Dried up, and as hard as a stone, it will keep for years; but when air, warmth, and moisture are given it, it springs into life and becomes a plant, which grows, produces seeds, and dies.

“Now, we will plant the rest of the soaked beans—not in ground, for I want to let you see that the seed-leaves contain far more food than the tiny plant requires to feed it until it is old enough to take care of itself.

“We will plant these seeds in damp sawdust, from which they can get no food. We will see that they get water, air, and warmth, but no food except what is in the big seed-leaves.”

Uncle George then got a box filled with sawdust, and placed the beans in it. He arranged them in different ways. Some beans he placed edgeways, others longways, others lying on their sides.

“I am doing this,” he said, “to show you that, no matter how a seed happens to lie in the soil, its root will always grow down and its shoot will always grow up.”

He then covered them up with a thin layer of sawdust, and placed the box in a warm corner of the kitchen. The boys promised to water the seeds every day, and to watch them as they grew.

Exercises on Lesson IV.

1. Soak some seeds of broad bean (or pea) and maize (or wheat) for twenty-four hours. Plant some in damp sawdust. 2. What do you see when you open a bean seed? 3. Pick off the little baby plant, and try to draw it big. 4. Cut down through the centre (flat side) of a maize seed. Try to make out the little seed plant and the food store. 5. Every third day dig up a growing seed and draw it. Put the date beneath each drawing. Keep your drawings carefully.

V.—HOW A PLANT GROWS.

Every day the boys watched their buds and seeds bursting into life.

It was slow work; but, as winter passed slowly away and they were able to go out for walks more often, they had much to amuse them. They brought home all sorts of curious things, and soon had quite a host of living things to watch.

Four Stages in the opening of Horse-Chestnut Buds.

Three weeks passed before the horse-chestnut buds showed any signs of opening. By this time they had swelled out very much. First the sticky scales moved apart, then folded themselves backwards out of the way, and at last fell off altogether.

This moving apart of the scales was caused by the shoot or branch inside the bud, which was growing rapidly.

Before the scales fell off, it had burst its way through them. It was now a large mass of thick leaves all folded together, and covered all over with a sort of wool.

Soon these thick leaves moved apart, the woolly covering came off, and what a month ago was a little woolly body, so tiny that it had to be picked apart with a needle, was now a large stout branch, smooth and green, and bearing beautiful broad leaves.

Some of the buds brought forth small clusters of little green balls. These the boys at first thought were berries, but they afterwards found out that they were flowers.

After all the buds had quite opened out, they began slowly to wither. Uncle George told them the reason of this. It was because the branch had been cut away from the mother-tree, which drew its food from the soil and air.

The growing buds had used up all the sap which the cut branch contained.

But by the time their twigs had withered, the buds outside had began to open—for spring was now at hand.

The hedges were becoming greener every day. The birds were heard singing in the woods, and little green shoots were springing up everywhere under foot.

Frank and Tom brought home opening buds of all kinds, and watched the hedges and trees as they walked daily to school.

Two of the bean seeds were dug up out of the sawdust every second or third day. In this way the boys were able to see exactly how a bean plant grows from seed.

Stages in the Germination of the Runner Bean.
In 1 and 4, inside of seed, growing baby plant is shown.

First the seed swells out; then the skin bursts, and the little plant in between the two masses of plant-food begins to grow.

The root always grows down straight. The little shoot always grows upwards.

After the root has grown about an inch it begins to branch; and in about two weeks these branch branch-roots are searching the soil for food all around the main root.

The shoot meanwhile is growing in length and thickness. It remains folded up until it reaches the air and light. Then its leaves open out and turn from a creamy colour to bright green.

One small box of seeds was placed in a dark cupboard. These beans grew much more quickly than those grown in the light; but they were pale, lank, and sickly. They never turned green.

From this the boys learned that the green colour of leaves and stems is due to the action of light.

Uncle George took a few grains of wheat and placed them upon wet blotting-paper. A tumbler turned upside down was placed over them.

In a few days the children saw that a few small roots had grown out from the end of each grain.

When these roots had grown to about half an inch in length, great tufts of long slender hairs sprang out all round them near their tips. These, their uncle told them, were “root-hairs.”

The root-hairs of a plant are so fine that they are always torn off when we dig or pull a plant out of the ground. It is by means of these slender root-hairs that the plant is able to suck water out of the soil; and this water always contains a very little plant-food in it.

The boys noticed that the wheat grain did not sprout in the same way as the bean seed. Instead of one stout little root, three usually came out. The tiny shoot seemed to grow from the outside of the grain, and the two large masses of plant-food were missing.

Stages in the Germination of Wheat.

Some wheat seeds were soaked and cut down the middle. With the aid of the glass, the boys saw that in the wheat seed the baby plant is attached to one large mass of plant-food, made up of flour with an outside layer of bran.

Their uncle then told them that all the flowering plants in the world are of two great families, namely, those whose seeds have only one food store, like the wheat grain, and those whose seeds have two, like the bean.

Exercises on Lesson V.

1. Explain all that happens when a horse-chestnut bud opens. 2. Why do the buds which you force indoors wither after they open? 3. What changes come over your bean seeds as they grow? 4. Do the young plants draw any food from the sawdust? If not, what feeds them? 5. What three things does a seed need in order to start growing?

1. Magnified sections of Maize and Wheat Seeds, showing Young Plant, Food Store, etc. 2. Germination of Maize. 3. Maize growing in Sawdust. 4. Maize growing in Tap Water. 5. Bean growing in Bottle over Water.

VI.—MORE ABOUT SEEDS.

It was raining in torrents outside, and the boys were a little upset inside, for it was Saturday. They always looked forward to Saturday, for it was their great rambling day.

“I’m afraid we can’t get out to-day,” said Frank, sadly.

“I’m afraid not,” said his uncle. “But that is no reason why we should sulk. We have those maize seeds to look over, you know, and by the time we have done that perhaps the rain will have stopped.”

While Frank and Tom were bringing the boxes of seeds, Uncle George and Dolly were busy getting out knives, glasses, mounted needles, and the books they made their notes and sketches in.

There were four small boxes in all. Each box had been sown with maize or Indian corn at times a week apart, so that the plants in one box were five weeks old, in the next four weeks old, and so on.

“We will begin as we did with the bean. Let us cut the seed open first.” As he spoke, Uncle George laid some soaked maize seeds on the table.

“If you look at these seeds carefully, you will notice a large mark on one of the flat sides of each.”

“I see it,” said Frank. “It is shaped something like a cone, and its broad end is at the narrow end of the seed.”

“It is lighter in colour than the rest of the seed,” said Tom.

“You are both right,” said their uncle. “Now I want you to cut the seed longways, right down through the middle of that mark. Then use your glass, and tell me what you see.

“Look closely,” said Uncle George, “first into one half and then into the other.”

“Oh, I see something like a tiny plant,” said Tom. “It is shut off from a great mass of what looks like plant-food, just like our wheat grains.”

Tom made a rough sketch of it, and showed it to his uncle.

“That is the baby plant, and the great mass above it is plant-food,” said his uncle.

“Come on, Frank. Don’t let Tom do all the finding out. What have you to say?”

“The maize seed has only one mass of plant-food, and it does not seem to have two seed coats like the bean,” Tom replied.

“You are right,” said Uncle George; “but if you look again you will see that there is a thick layer of food stuff outside, which is of a different colour from the rest.

“This is like the bran layer which is round the food store in the wheat grain.

“This food store is starch, or, as we call it, flour.

“Now, let us look at the growing seeds. We will take a few seeds out of each box and see how they differ.

“The seeds in this box, the last sown, are just a week old. You see the root and shoot are just beginning to show.

“Make a sketch, drawing it as large as you can, and write under it, ‘Maize seed after a week’s growth.’

“Do the same with a seed from each of the other three boxes, and when you have drawn them all, tell me of any differences you notice between the growth of maize and that of the bean.”

“They do not grow in the same way at all,” said Frank, as he drew his last sketch. “In the maize seed the baby plant seems to be stuck on to one of the flat sides of the seed.”

“What about the roots, Frank?”

“Oh yes, I see that,” Frank went on. “The root branches out all at once in the maize seed. In some of these seeds the main root has scarcely grown at all. Their roots are all branch-roots.”

“And, in the oldest plants, one great leaf rolls round the shoot and hides it,” said Tom. “In the bean shoot we saw two leaves quite plainly.”

“Quite right, Tom. Now, boys, compare your drawings with those you made of the bean. I will grow a maize and a bean seed together, so that you can watch the growth of both, and compare them day by day.”

Uncle George then got an empty pickle bottle, and poured some water into it. Then he took a soaked bean seed, and, having run a thread through it with a needle, he hung it inside the bottle. He then corked the bottle, and placed it in the window.

He next took an old lamp chimney, and made a roll of blotting-paper to fit the inside of it. This roll of paper was stuffed with moss. A few maize seeds were pushed in between the glass and the paper, and the lamp chimney was placed in a saucerful of water in the window.

Plants that grow like Maize.
These plants have but one food mass in each of their seeds.

The Horse Pond in Spring.

“Now, boys,” said Uncle George, “I want you to watch these seeds every day. If you do so, you will learn how a seed grows into a plant; and you will learn this not from me, but from the plant itself.”

Uncle George filled a wide bottle with water from the tap, and fixed one of the five-week-old maize plants in it by means of a split cork.

“I want you to watch this plant growing,” he said, as he placed the bottle in the window. “You ought to draw it once a week. Most people think that plants draw their food chiefly from the soil. This is a great mistake.

“Plants take most of their food from the air, as you will see if you watch the growth of this plant. Of course, it has a good food store in the seed; but I think you will be surprised at the growth it makes from that food store, the bottle of tap water, and the air.”

Exercises on Lesson VI.

1. Make sketches of a soaked bean and of a soaked maize seed. 2. Place a few beans (or peas) and a few maize (or wheat) seeds in a box of damp sawdust. Water regularly. After a week dig up a seed of each and draw them. 3. Dig up a seed of each at intervals of two weeks, three weeks, and four weeks; draw and compare them. 4. Sow in a box of sawdust a few of each of the following—date stones, orange pips, walnuts, chestnuts. Keep the box in a warm place, and watch how these seeds grow.

VII.—THE HORSE POND IN SPRING.

When Frank and Tom came home from school one afternoon, they found their uncle very busy finishing a net he had made of green gauze.

It had the shape of a shallow bag, and was fixed to a stout wire ring. This ring was fastened to a walking-stick with a piece of strong string.

On the table there were three wide glass jars, each with a piece of cord tied round the neck to serve as a handle.

“Now,” said Uncle George, as he finished tying the net to the stick, “now we are all ready for a visit to that pond of yours.”

Pond-Net and Glass Jars.

The pond was about half a mile away, in the corner of a field near a wood. A small stream ran out of it, and joined a larger one a short distance away. The last time the boys had seen this pond it was covered with ice, and they had a merry time skating upon it. When they reached it on this afternoon, it looked quite different. The grass around its banks was fresh and green, and rushes were peeping up through the water.

“Listen!” said Uncle George.

“Croak, croak, cr-roak” came from beyond the rushes, while here and there a little head would bob up and down in the water.

Frog and Spawn in Water.

“Frogs!” said Frank.

Uncle George nodded, and, stepping to the edge of the pond, he pulled the net out, and with it a large mass of what looked like clear jelly, having a large number of black dots in it.

“Bring the largest jar, Tom,” he said, “we are going to take this home.”

“What is it, Uncle George?” both boys asked at once.

“It is a mass of frog’s eggs, called the spawn of the frog,” their uncle replied. “Now, Frank, hold the jar over the water while I try to pour it in.”

It was no easy matter getting it into the jar. It fell back into the pond several times before it was at last got in the jar.

“There,” said Uncle George, as he placed the jar, now filled with frog spawn, upon the bank. “Now, let us go to another part of the pond and look for something else.

“Keep quite still and look into the water. That is the only way to study pond life. If you move about you will see very little. Now tell me if you see anything moving at the bottom of the pond.”

“I see things like little pieces of stick moving slowly about,” said Tom in a whisper; “but perhaps it is the water that is moving them.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Uncle George. “They are not pieces of stick. There is a living creature inside each of them. We must have some of them, Tom. They are very interesting creatures.” And Uncle George put his hand carefully down and picked several of them up.

“These are caddis ‘worms,’” said Uncle George. He placed them in the second jar, and filled it up with water.

Tom then saw that each of the “sticks” was really a little house, in which was an insect of some sort.

The cases were built of all kinds of odds and ends, glued together by the clever creatures that lived inside them.

Some were built of little pieces of rush or water-weed, others of tiny shells, and others of very small stones.

Each case was open at one end, and from this end the little dweller came almost half-way out. They could see his head, his legs, and the fore part of his body as he moved along, dragging his little house after him.

“Uncle George, come here please,” Frank shouted from the other side of the pond. “Oh, such a funny animal—a fish with legs.”

“A fish with legs?” said Uncle George, laughing. “Oh, we must come and see that.”

“Why, that isn’t a fish, Frank. It is a newt.” And Uncle George put in the net to catch him. But the creature was too quick for him. It darted out of sight.

“Here are two others. Oh, such big ones,” said Tom, in a loud whisper.

This time Uncle George was luckier. When he drew up the net there were two large creatures like lizards in it.

“This is a lucky find, boys,” said their uncle. “Great crested newts, and what beauties they are!”

The boys were surprised to see him take one of the newts out of the net in his hand. He turned them over and looked at them closely before putting them into the jar.

“Aren’t you afraid they will bite you, Uncle George?” Tom asked.

“No, they cannot bite, and for a very good reason. They have got no teeth. They are most harmless creatures.

“But we must be getting home, boys. We have done well for our first visit to the pond. I will tell you all about what we have found when we get home, and you must watch them closely for yourselves.”

“Are we going to keep all these animals?” Frank asked.

“We will keep them for a little while, so as to find out what we can about them, then we will put them in the pond again.”

Exercises on Lesson VII.

1. What did the boys find in the pond? 2. What other living things may be seen in ponds? Make a list of all the pond creatures you know. 3. Why do caddis “worms” build cases round themselves? 4. Can newts bite? Give reason.

VIII.—UNCLE GEORGE’S TANK.

Uncle George’s tank was very simple. It was made up of several large glass bells, such as the gardener uses for covering tender plants.

Uncle George’s Aquarium.

Each glass bell had a nob on the end of it. Uncle George got a large block of wood for each bell-jar. This block he hollowed out with a chisel.

He next bored a large hole in the centre of the hollow to hold the nob. Then he cut a piece of thick green cloth into a round shape, with a hole in its centre.

This piece of cloth was placed over the hollowed out part of the block, and the bell-jar, turned upside down, was placed in the block so that the glass nob fitted into the hole.

Uncle George fitted up four of these tanks and filled them with fresh water. The frog spawn was put into the first vessel. The next was for the newts. The third one held the caddis worms and some other curious creatures that had been found in the ditch.

In the fourth vessel were half a dozen pretty little fishes called stickle-backs, which the boys had caught in the brook.

Some water weeds and a few water snails or whelks were put into each vessel, except that with the frog spawn in it.

Every other morning Uncle George changed the water by means of a tube which he called a siphon.

This was a piece of lead pipe, about two feet long, and bent in the middle into the form of the letter U.

“The water weeds are very pretty,” said Frank.

“They are,” replied his uncle, “and they are also very useful. They help to keep the water pure. I should have to change the water every day if there were no weeds in it.

Stickle-backs, Pond Weed, etc., in Aquarium.

“The whelks also are most useful. They are the road-men of our ponds and streams. They eat up all the waste matter, and so keep the water clean and healthy.”

It was great fun feeding those little fishes. They were fed sometimes on raw meat chopped very fine, sometimes on little pieces of biscuit. At first they were very shy, but they soon got over that. In less than a week they were quite at home, and would come up to the top of the water and take tiny pieces of beef from the boys’ fingers.

They would swim after Frank’s finger as he drew it round the tank, and would even leap out of the water for food that was held out to them.

At times they darted about as if playing “hide and seek” among the water weeds.

By and by the boys noticed that every time one of the little fish darted at another, the three cruel spines rose up on his back, and that he was really trying to spear his neighbour.

One morning a dead stickle-back was found in the bottom of the tank. A few days later another little fish was picked out pale and stiff.

“They are killing one another,” said Frank. “What shall we do?”

“If any more of this fighting goes on we shall have to put them back into the brook,” said Uncle George.

“Do they always fight?”

“No, not always—only in spring-time when they are mating. Look! there is one of them getting very pretty. He is the victor—the bully of the pool.”

“Let us call him Bully,” said Dolly; “he is bigger than the others, and oh, so much more beautiful.”

Next day another stickle-back was found dead, and Bully’s colours were much brighter. He darted about as if the whole tank belonged to him.

He was really a lovely fish now, and he seemed to know it by the proud way in which he dashed about, showing off his fine slender body all shiny with crimson, blue, and gold. He was, as Dolly said, “Just like a little bit of rainbow.”

But before the evening a very curious thing took place. Bully seemed to have suddenly lost all his fine colours; and instead of swimming proudly at the top of the tank, he slunk sulky to the bottom.

The strange thing was that another stickle-back—a smaller fish than Bully—was now brightly coloured, and seemed to be lord of the tank.