There is scarcely anything in nature that is not interesting and in
some way useful. Perhaps you will say “How about a bat?” As a matter
of fact a bat is one of our best friends because he will spend the
whole night catching mosquitoes. But some one will say “he flies into
your hair and is covered with a certain kind of disgusting vermin.”
Did you ever know of a bat flying into any one’s hair? And as for the
vermin science tells us that they are really his favourite food so it
is unlikely that he would harbour a colony of them very long.
The subject of snakes is one in which there is more misinformation
than any other common thing. There are only three venomous kinds of
snakes in America. They are the rattlesnake, copperhead and moccasin.
All of them can be distinguished by a deep pit behind the eye, which
gives them the name of “pit vipers.” The general impression that puff
adders, pilots, green snakes or water snakes are poisonous is
absolutely wrong, and as for hoop snakes and the snake with a sting in
his tail that all boys have heard about, they are absolutely fairy
tales like “Jack and the Bean Stalk” or “Alice in Wonderland.” We have
all heard about black snakes eight or ten feet long that will chase
you and wind themselves around your neck, but of the many hundreds of
black snakes that a well known naturalist has seen he states that he
never saw one that did not do its best to escape if given half a
chance. Why so much misinformation about snakes exists is a mystery.
Nature study has recently been introduced into schools and it is a
very excellent way to have the interesting things pointed out to us
until our eyes are trained to see for ourselves. The usual methods of
nature study may be roughly divided into, 1. Keeping pets. 2. Bird
study. 3. Insect study. 4. Systematic study of flowers and plants. 5.
Wild animal life. The basis of nature study consists in making
collections. A collection that we have made for ourselves of moths or
flowers, for instance, is far more interesting than a stamp or coin
collection where we buy our specimens. If we go afield and collect for
ourselves, the cost is practically nothing and we have the benefit of
being in the air and sunshine.
One kind of collecting is absolutely wrong—that of birds’ eggs,
nests or even the birds themselves. Our little feathered songsters are
too few now and most states have very severe penalties for killing or
molesting them. A nature student must not be a lawbreaker.
The outfit for a butterfly or moth collection is very simple and
inexpensive. We shall need an insect net to capture our specimens.
This can be made at home from a piece of stiff wire bent into the
shape of a flattened circle about a foot across. Fasten the ring
securely to a broom handle and make a cheesecloth net the same
diameter as the ring and about two feet deep.
[Illustration: The cyanide bottle]
It is very cruel to run a pin through insects and to allow them slowly
to torture to death. An insect killer that is generally used is called
“the cyanide bottle.” Its principle ingredient, cyanide of potassium
is a harmless looking white powder but it is the _most deadly poison
in the world_. Unless a boy or girl knows fully its terrible danger,
they should never touch it or even breathe its fumes. One of your
parents or the druggist should prepare the cyanide bottle for you and
as long as you do not look into the bottle to watch the struggles of a
dying bug or in any way get any of the contents of the bottle on your
fingers, you are safe.
Take a wide-mouthed bottle made of clear glass and fit a cork or
rubber stopper to it. Then wash the bottle thoroughly and dry it,
finally polishing the inside with a piece of soft cloth or tissue
paper. Place one ounce of cyanide of potassium into the bottle and
pour in enough dry sawdust to cover the lumps of poison. Then wet some
plaster of paris until it is the consistency of thick cream and
quickly pour it over the sawdust, taking care that it does not run
down the sides or splash against the bottle. Place the bottle on a
level table and very soon the plaster of paris will set and harden
into a solid cake.
Sufficient fumes from the cyanide will come up through the plaster to
poison the air in the bottle and to kill any living thing that
attempts to breathe it. As you capture your specimens of moths, bugs
or butterflies afield you place them into the bottle, and as soon as
they are dead, you remove them; fold them carefully in stiff paper and
store them in a paper box or a carrying case until you get home. They
should then be mounted on boards or cork sheets, labelled carefully
with the name of the specimen, date and place of capture and any
other facts that you may wish to keep.
[Illustration: How insects are spread to dry them in a natural
position]
Considerable skill is required to mount insects properly and in a
life-like position. If they are out of shape you must “spread” them
before they dry out. Spreading consists in holding them in the proper
position by means of tiny bits of glass and pins until they are dry.
As moths are, as a rule, night-flying creatures the collector will
either obtain them in a larval stage, or will adopt the method of
“sugaring,” one of the most fascinating branches of nature study. A
favourable locality is selected, a comparatively open space in
preference to a dense growth, and several trees are baited or sugared
to attract the moths when in search of food. The sugar or bait is made
as follows: Take four pounds of dark brown sugar, one quart of
molasses, a bottle of stale ale or beer, four ounces of Santa Cruz
rum. Mix and heat gradually. After it is cooked for five minutes allow
it to cool and place in Mason jars. The bait will be about the
consistency of thick varnish.
Just before twilight the bait should be painted on a dozen or more
trees with a strip about three inches wide and three feet long. You
will need a bull’s-eye lantern or bicycle lamp and after dark, make
the rounds of your bait and cautiously flash the light on the baited
tree. If you see a moth feeding there, carefully bring the cyanide
bottle up and drop him into it. Under no circumstances, clap the
bottle over the specimen. If you do the neck of the bottle will become
smeared with the bait and the moth would be daubed over and ruined.
You will soon have all the specimens that you can care for at one time
and will be ready to go home and take care of them.
The moths are among the most beautiful creatures in nature and a
reasonably complete collection of the specimens in your neighbourhood
will be something to be proud of.
[Illustration: The Moth Collector and His Outfit (Photograph by
F.W. Stack)]
The plant and flower collector should combine his field work with a
study of botany. Like most subjects in school books, botany may seem
dry and uninteresting but when we learn it for some definite purpose
such as knowing the wild flowers and calling them our friends, we must
accept the few strange words and dry things in the school work as a
little bitter that goes with a great deal of sweet.
A collection of dried plants is called an herbarium. It is customary
to take the entire plant as a specimen including the roots. Separate
specimens of buds, leaves, flowers and fruit taken at different
seasons of the year will make the collection more complete. Specimens
should be first pressed or flattened between sheets of blotting paper
and then mounted on sheets of white paper either by glue or by strips
of gummed paper.
After a flower is properly identified, these sheets should be
carefully numbered and labelled and a record kept in a book so that we
can readily find a specimen without unnecessarily handling the
specimen sheets. The sheets should be kept in heavy envelopes of
manila paper and placed in a box just the size to hold them. The
standard or museum size of herbarium sheets is 11½ x 16½ inches.
Specimens of seaweed or leaves can be kept in blank books.
A typical label for plants or flowers should be as follows:
Common names Yellow adder’s tongue Date collected, May 16th, 1908
Dog tooth violet
Botanical name Erythronium Americanum REMARKS: John Burroughs
Family Lilies suggests that the name
Where found Rockaway Valley near be changed either to
Beaver Brook fawn lily because its
leaves look like a spotted
fawn or trout lily
because they always
appear at trout fishing
season.
A boy or girl living in a section where minerals are plentiful, can
make a very interesting collection of stones and mineral substances,
especially crystals. This should be taken up in connection with school
work in chemistry and mineralogy. To determine the names of minerals
is by no means as easy as that of flowers or animals. We shall need to
understand something of blow-pipe analysis. As a rule a high school
pupil can receive a great deal of valuable instruction and aid from
one of his teachers in this work. Mineral specimens should be mounted
on small blocks or spindles using sealing wax to hold them in place.
There are unlimited possibilities in nature for making collections.
Shells, mosses, ferns, leaves, grasses, seeds, are all interesting and
of value. An observation beehive with a glass front which may be
darkened will show us the wonderful intelligence of these little
creatures. The true spirit of nature study is to learn as much as we
can of her in all of her branches, not to make a specialty of one
thing to the neglect of the rest and above all not to make work of
anything.
We see some new side to our most common things when we once learn to
look for it. Not one person in ten thousand knows that bean vines and
morning glories will twine around a pole to the right while hop vines
and honeysuckle will go to the left and yet who is there who has not
seen these common vines hundreds of times?
No one can give as an excuse that he is too busy to study nature. The
busiest men in national affairs have had time for it and surely we
with our little responsibilities and cares can do so too. I once went
fishing with a clergyman and I noticed that he stood for a long time
looking at a pure white water lily with beautiful fragrance that grew
from the blackest and most uninviting looking mud that one could find.
The next Sunday he used this as an illustration for his text. How many
of us ever saw the possibility of a sermon in this common everyday
sight?