I
How closely every crack and corner of nature is packed with life,
especially in our northern temperate zone! I was impressed with this
fact when during several June days I was occupied with road-mending on
the farm where I was born. To open up the loosely piled and decaying
laminated rocks was to open up a little biological and zoölogical
museum, so many of our smaller forms of life harbored there. From
chipmunks to ants and spiders, animal life flourished. We disturbed the
chipmunks in their den a foot and a half or more beneath the loosely
piled rocks. There were two of them in a soft, warm nest of dry,
shredded maple-leaves. They did not wait to be turned out of doors, but
when they heard the racket overhead bolted precipitately. Two living
together surprised me, as heretofore I had never known but one in a den.
Near them a milk snake had stowed himself away in a crevice, and in the
little earthquake which we set up got badly crushed. Two little
red-bellied snakes about one foot long had also found harbor there.
The ants rushed about in great consternation when their eggs were
suddenly exposed. In fact, there was live natural history under every
stone about us. Some children brought me pieces of stone, which they
picked up close by, which sheltered a variety of cocoon-building
spiders. One small, dark-striped spider was carrying about its ball of
eggs, the size of a large pea, attached to the hind part of its body.
This became detached, when she seized it eagerly and bore it about held
between her legs. Another fragment of stone, the size of one's hand,
sheltered the chrysalis of some species of butterfly which was attached
to it at its tail. It was surprising to see this enshrouded creature,
blind and deaf, wriggle and thrash about as if threatening us with its
wrath for invading its sanctuary. One would about as soon expect to see
an egg protest.
Thus the naturalist finds his pleasures everywhere. Every solitude to
him is peopled. Every morning or evening walk yields him a harvest to
eye or ear.
The born naturalist is one of the most lucky men in the world. Winter or
summer, rain or shine, at home or abroad, walking or riding, his
pleasures are always near at hand. The great book of nature is open
before him and he has only to turn the leaves.
A friend sitting on my porch in a hickory rocking-chair the other day
was annoyed by one of our small solitary wasps that seemed to want to
occupy the chair. It held a small worm in its legs. She would "shoo" it
away, only to see it back in a few seconds. I assured her that it did
not want to sting her, but that its nest was somewhere in the chair.
And, sure enough, as soon as she quieted down, it entered a small
opening in the end of one of the chair arms, and deposited its worm, and
presently was back with another, and then a third and a fourth; and
before the day was done it came with little pellets of mud and sealed up
the opening.