The Boys' Note-Book.
A Note-book was incidentally mentioned in the last chapter. Properly
speaking, it should have been mentioned long before.
On the table in the boat-house lay a large folio manuscript book, in
which the boys noted down whatever, in their reading or observation,
struck them as noticeable or worth remembering, or of which they wished
to be reminded at some future time, when they should have leisure to
look up what they wished to know concerning the matter noted. Before
therefore I close this "strange eventful history," I shall quote a few
pages at random out of their Note-book, just to show how it was kept
up.
In the left-hand margin of each sheet the date of the entry was written
opposite each note, and each jotting was signed by the one making it. So
that the book ran after this fashion:--
"They have a novel mode of netting shore birds at Lynn. They have long
nets stretched on poles about six feet high, on the sands towards dusk,
one line below high water mark and the other upon the ridge."--F. M.
"All grain-eating birds feed their young on insects--as a matter of
course because there is no grain in the spring--so they make up for the
damage they may do to the grain. I shall write a letter to this effect
to the Secretary of the Sparrow Club here. The fellows in that club are
as proud of their sparrow heads as a red Indian of his scalps."--F. M.
[Illustration: MOLE CRICKET.]
"Crickets are the thirstiest of all thirsty creatures."
"Mem. How do flies walk with their heads downwards, and how do they
buzz?"--R. C.
"Caught a lizard in the garden to-day, and when I touched it, its tail
dropped off. Curious habit some reptiles have of parting with their
tails. It is done to divert attention from the body, which makes its
escape."--J. B.
"Our keeper set some trimmers on our little lake in the park last
night, and this morning he found on one of them a great crested grebe
which had swallowed the bait, and on the other an eel of four pounds
weight with a kitten in its inside."--R. C.
"Frank's head has a permanent set to one side, from always looking into
the hedges for nests. I noticed it in church."--J. B.
"You'll get a licking, young 'un."--Frank.
[Illustration: COMMON LIZARD.]
"Bell says that he has seen an osprey resting on one of the posts in
Hickling Broad, and it was so gorged after a meal of fish that he rowed
quite close to it."--F. M.
"I saw a squirrel eating some toad-stools which grew at the foot of a
tree near Sir Richard's house. I thought they fed only on nuts."--J.
Brett.
"They say that hedgehogs will go into an orchard and roll themselves on
the fallen fruit, so that it sticks to their spines, and then they walk
off with it. Should like to see them do it, and I wonder how they get it
off again."--J. B.
[Illustration: OSPREY.]
[Illustration: CRESTED GREBE.]
"Saw a robin kill a sparrow in fair fight this morning, and it
afterwards _ate_ a portion of him! Also saw two rooks fighting like
anything, and a third perched on a branch just above them, as if to see
fair play."--F. M.
[Illustration: 1. Nest of White Ant. 2. Suspended Wasp's Nest. 3. Common
Wasp. 4. Demoiselle Dragon-fly. 5, 6. Soldiers of White Ant. 7. Hornet.
8. Worker of White Ant. 9. Wood Ant. 10. Red Ant.]
"What a curious instinct it is which leads moths and butterflies, while
you are killing them, to lay their eggs. It is their last will and
testament!"
[Illustration: HEDGEHOG.]
[Illustration: HONEY-BUZZARD.]
"I found a brood of caterpillars on a hawthorn-bush; they were the
caterpillars of the small oak-eggar. They make a silken nest in the
branches, and they come out to feed and go in to sleep. There were at
the least five hundred of them. The moth, I see, is a small, dingy brown
thing, with white spots on the wings."--R. C.
"Bell's son took a hornet's nest the other day. He was stung by one of
them, and was ill for some days, the inflammation was so bad. Bell says
that hornets are much rarer now than they used to be, and a good thing
too.
"While going to take a wasp's nest to-day, we disturbed a large
hawk-like bird, which had been digging it up and apparently eating the
grubs. The wasps were flying all about it and settling on it, but it did
not seem to mind them. Upon looking at our books we have decided that
the bird was the honey-buzzard, one of the short-winged hawks."--F. M.