rest to the growing organs, which sleep brings them, this folding up
keeps moisture from the pollen. Also, the flowers, whose partners are
day-flying insects, keep out of the way of night insects by closing
their pretty doors.
The evening primroses, night lychnis, and others, which have
night-flying insect partners, keep shut when day insects are about.
You will notice that most of these night plants have yellow or white
petals, and a sweet perfume.
I have told you the leaves sleep also. Leaves sometimes sleep by
closing the two halves of the leaf together by the mid-vein. Other
leaves sleep by dropping the leaves down against the stem.
A young Swiss girl was one of the first to observe this sleep motion of
leaves. She saw it first in the clover. When the leaves sleep in this
way, you might think them faded and dying.
You will do well to watch this sleep of leaves. If you go into a
garden, or field, or on the road-side, you will see that the leaves
look very different after sunset from what they did in the noon-day.
The yellow sorrel and the clover are plants in which you can watch
leaf-sleep well. You will find the small leaflets hanging down against
the stalk. So if you look at the beans in the garden, you will see
their leaves falling back, and perhaps a little bent over. One kind of
oxalis, with very small, compound leaves, lifts its leaves up all in a
bunch to go to sleep.
The leaves of trees have sleep-change. The mimosa and the barberry
close their leaves at night.
Are these sleep motions of any use to plants? Yes. It has been found
that this folding up, and falling back of leaves, will help them to
resist cold and wet.
If, during a cold night, you pin the leaves out, so they cannot take
the sleep position, they are likely to freeze. Also this change in the
leaves, at night, helps to shield the plant from too much dew.
Sometimes, also, it is of use as it turns toward the dew the under side
of the leaf. This under side has the most mouths for drinking water.
Thus the flower has a good drink at night, after the dry, hot day.
Among the other motions of plants, I might speak of that of some
leaves, which curl or shrink if you touch them. But I have not space
for that now.
Perhaps you think that these lessons have told you a great many things
about flowers. If you go on with the study of plants, you will see how
much there is to tell, and how very little has here been told.
These lessons are only meant to stir up your interest in plants, and
show you what wonders are in the plant world. After that, you will be
sure to learn more for yourselves.
LESSON XV.
THE SCHOOL CABINET.
One of the wise teachers who are all the time thinking what will
help and interest children wrote me a letter. In it, he said, “If
you wish to do our school children a real service, write something
about cabinets in our schools. In each school-house there should be a
collection of natural history objects, brought together by teachers
and children. This would be of great use, and the children would take
pleasure in collecting specimens.”
So, right here, in the middle of this Third Book, I want to say a word
about cabinets of natural curiosities.
In the Second Book I told you here and there how you might catch and
keep a specimen. I told you how to dry beetles, star-fish, and a few
other little animals.
If you make a collection of this kind, you can look at the object when
you read of it in the book. That will help you to understand it and
will interest you.
In a cabinet you could keep safely for use many nice things, which
might otherwise be wasted. Also, you might spend some of your pennies
in buying specimens. I think pennies are much better spent so than for
candy and cake.
If you are collecting a cabinet of curiosities, I think you might write
letters to other schools, or far off friends to ask them to send you
specimens.
You might offer to trade objects, of which you have several, for
something which other people have, and you have not.
I think, too, you would be very happy out of doors, looking for
specimens. And I believe you and your teachers would be greater friends
than ever, if you were all helping each other to get a cabinet together.
If, at first, you cannot have a cabinet case with glass doors, have
some shelves. Have some boxes to set on the shelves, and lay pieces
of glass over the boxes for covers. Those little paper boxes--, which
jewellers and druggists use, are very nice for small objects,--as
seeds, little shells, and so on. Nearly all children have some of these
boxes.
When you have specimens in these little boxes, the teacher will write
the name of the object on the box.
I knew a boy, who made a very nice collection of many kinds of wood.
He cut the wood into wedges, with a bit of the bark left on. One side
of the wedge he polished with glass and sand paper. One side he left
rough. He wrote on each piece of wood the name of the tree from which
it came.
I once saw some lovely pictures of leaves. They were made by a little
girl. How did she make them? Could she paint? No.
She had some small sheets of stiff paper. She got some printer’s ink
in a cup. She made two little balls of woollen cloth. She would take
a nice, fresh, perfect leaf, and with one ball she would put a little
ink, very gently, over all the under surface of the leaf. Then the next
thing was to lay the leaf, inked side down, on a sheet of stiff paper,
and pat it gently all over with the other woollen ball.
When she lifted up the leaf she had a picture of its shape, and of all
its veins and edges. It looked like a nice engraving. She put the same
kinds of leaves on the same sheet,--as the leaves of the rose family on
one, the leaves of maples on another, and so on. Under each leaf she
wrote its name.
Such a collection of leaf-patterns is fine in a cabinet. So is a
collection of dried flowers,--called an herbarium. Your mother or
teacher could show you how to make one.
You will find on the way-side, or in field and garden, some of those
wonderful nests, built by spiders, wasps and bees, of which you read
in the First Book of Nature Readers. And at the sea-side, you can find
crabs, shells, and bits of coral, sponge and sea-weed.
Did you ever think what a pretty sight a row of pieces of many kinds of
stone makes? Have you thought that stones are just hard, homely, brown
things?
Have you noticed that marble is sometimes snow white, sometimes black,
or veined with many colors? The granite is gray; sandstone is red, or
gray, or purplish. Slate is black, purple, or veined in many shades.
Other stones are black, red, yellow, brown, green, in fact of nearly
all hues.
Each kind of stone has its own name. Some come from one place only,
some from another. There is a reason why each kind has its color and
grain. As you grow older, you may like to study about rocks and stones.
Then how nice it will be to have on hand a collection of specimens.
A collection of birds’ nests is very fine. As we study in this book a
little about birds, you will see how many kinds of nests there are. If
you have a cabinet you can put into it one nest of each kind that you
can find. Put into each nest one egg of the kind that belongs to the
nest. Then put into the nest a little card, with the name of the bird,
and the number of eggs commonly laid in each nest.
Be sure you do not break up the nest of a sitting bird. That is cruel.
To keep the eggs you must blow them. Make a hole with a large pin in
each end of the egg. Then blow hard, steadily in the pin-hole in the
large end. All the inside of the egg will fly out at the hole at the
other end.
Our next lesson will be about grasshoppers and their cousins. As the
bodies of grasshoppers shrink when they dry, it is well to stuff them.
How can you do that?
Put a little cotton wool on the end of a short thread, threaded in a
long, coarse needle. The grasshopper should have been dead an hour
or two, before you try to stuff it. Take it by the head and pass the
needle through from the back end of the body, and bring it out under
the breast. If you draw it gently, the cotton will go in with the
thread.
Several pieces of cotton drawn in, in this way, will fill the body
enough to hold it in shape. If the cotton is wet in alcohol, or
camphor, it is better.
Worms, spiders, toads, minnows, and such soft-bodied things, must be
kept in clear glass bottles, filled with alcohol.
Now the chief thing in a collection is to have it good of its kind. The
specimens should be as perfect as possible, and be kept neat and clean.
Especially they should be set in good order. They should all have
labels, with their names on them.
A collection well marked will be worth much more than one without the
names placed on the specimens. A collection all jumbled together,
without order, will be of little use.
If you set a bird’s nest here, a wasp’s nest there, a bright stone
next, and then a beetle, or a card of butterflies, your cabinet will
have small teaching value. Remember a cabinet is not merely made to
“look pretty” like a doll’s house, or a shop window.
Place things of a kind together. Then put kinds which are nearest like
next each other. Put your insects together, and arrange them by their
orders. Put the beetles together, the butterflies together, the wasps,
and bees, and so on. Spiders come in as one order of the insects. Your
crabs and shrimps must stand together, but be placed next the insects,
as they are of the jointed class of creatures.
Put your birds’ nests, and eggs, and any stuffed birds, or pictures of
birds that you may have, together. And so on, with all the other things.
Your cabinet may be a small one, but if it is neatly arranged, and all
the specimens are good of their kind, rightly named, and kept clean, it
will be of real value.
Do not be in such a hurry to collect, that you put in rubbish, instead
of good specimens. A butterfly with broken wings, a beetle without a
head, and a spider that has lost half its legs, are not worth a place
in a cabinet.
To get together even a small cabinet of objects in natural history,
takes time, care, and patience. I knew a girl who was carefully
collecting and mounting beetles. In a whole summer she got only
twenty-five. But each one was perfect, different from the rest,
nicely fastened in place, and had its name written beside it. So her
collection was of real value.
After you have secured a nice little cabinet, the trouble will be
to keep it safe, and in order. Specimens must be taken care of. All
specimens of plants, and insects, are very liable to be destroyed by
little bugs. Only the things kept in alcohol are really safe from being
eaten.
Camphor and red pepper are of some use to keep out these enemies. Your
teachers will know, or can easily learn, how to prepare the specimens
with poisons, which will kill the mites and not harm you or the
specimens. You must leave it to them.
It is nice to have a case with glass doors. If you cannot have that,
arrange as many of the objects as you can in boxes with panes of glass
laid over them. For open cabinets it is well to have a piece of fine
gauze to lay over each shelf, or over the whole set of shelves, when
the cabinet is not in immediate use.
Dust makes a cabinet look very ugly. But you cannot clean off beetles
and butterflies with a dusting cloth or brush. It would ruin such
delicate things.
You can gently move the boxes and specimens, and wipe off the shelves,
and the sides of the boxes. Then blow, or fan, the dust from the
specimens. Even minerals should have the dust blown from them, not
wiped off. It is easy to rub the bloom and the little fine points, and
edges, from a mineral specimen.
When you have made up your minds to have a cabinet in your school,
look about and see what your friends have to give you for it. Many
people have a few natural history curiosities, for which they do not
really care. Such persons would gladly give their treasures to a school
cabinet. But there should be some bright little lad or lass to say:
“Oh, we have a cabinet at our school. Would you not be willing to send
these things there?”
Correct pictures of birds, fish, insects, and flowers, are useful in
a cabinet, but you must be sure that they are correct before you give
them a place. You must not put the pictures into your cabinet merely
because they are pretty. If they are wrong they will give you false
ideas. I have seen colored pictures of insects with some of the legs
set upon the hinder part of the body instead of all upon the chest
part. Such a picture is of no use.
Keen eyes to see what comes in your own way, and keen wits to suggest
to other people what they can do for you, will steadily help to build
up the school cabinet.
LESSON XVI.
THE OLD MAN OF THE MEADOW.
[Illustration: THE OLD MAN AND HIS FAMILY.]
When I was about seven years old, I caught a grasshopper and put him
into a bottle.
Then I sat down outside the bottle, and looked at the grasshopper. He
sat inside the bottle, and looked at me.
It began to grow upon my mind that the grasshopper looked much like an
old man. His face, with the big, solemn eyes, and straight mouth, was
like an old man’s face.
He wore a gray coat, like a loose duster. He had a wrinkled greenish
vest. He wore knee-breeches and long red stockings.
The more I looked at him, the more he looked like a little, grave,
old-time man who came to visit my aged grandfather.
I had a cousin who at dusk would sit with me in a corner of the big
sofa, and repeat to me a poem, called the “Prisoner of Chillon.” That
sad poem had made me feel very sorry for all prisoners. I thought my
grasshopper in the bottle felt like a prisoner. I said, “Now you may
go, my Old Man of the Meadow.”
I took the cork out of the bottle. The grasshopper at once leaped
up, and sat on the rim of the bottle. Then a strange thing happened!
The Old Man of the Meadow spread out two wide brown wings. They had
a broad, lemon-colored band on them. They were gay as the wings of a
butterfly! On them he sailed away!
I could hardly believe my eyes. I ran after him to a tall stalk of
golden-rod. There he sat a plain, gray-green old man. But again he
spread out the wide wings, and was gone!
My Old Man of the Meadow had then this splendid dress-coat under his
sober overcoat! Seated at rest, he looked plain and quiet,--a creature
of the earth. Lifted into the air, he was nearly as fine as a butterfly.
Do you not wish to know something more of this Old Man of the Meadow,
the grasshopper? The name of this insect at once tells you something
about him. He lives much in the grass, and his chief motion is in hops,
or long jumps. He has another name, “the murmurer.” This is given
because of the noise or song he makes. He sings to Mrs. Grasshopper.
His song is loud and shrill. It is made by rubbing his wings one upon
the other.
He has a little piece of skin like a tight drum-head set in each wing.
As he moves his wings, this tiny drum vibrates, or trembles, and makes
the shrill sound.
Mrs. Grasshopper does not have this drum in her wings. She has,
however, at the end of her body, a nice little sword. The French call
her “the jumper with the sword.” Is her sword to fight with? No. This
little sword opens into several blades. She uses it to place her eggs
snugly in the ground. The sword blades open, and the eggs slide safely
down between them, into the little earth-bed. There they lie until the
young grasshoppers hatch out.
You will find as we study about grasshoppers, that they do not all live
in the grass. Some spend most of their time in trees.
Let us take a closer look at the grasshopper. As he is an insect,[13]
he should have a body made in rings, in three parts, with four wings
and six legs set on the second, or chest part.
Just here let us say, that if you will look closely you will see that
the head of an insect is made of four rings, and its chest is made of
three rings. They are rings grown wider than the rest.
Our Old Man of the Meadow does not lack any of the parts which a proper
insect should have.
The order which he belongs to is called the _straight-wings_, because
the insects belonging to it do not fold their wings crosswise.
The grasshopper family is called the family of “the murmurers,” from
their music.
There are six families of the straight-wings. In this book we shall
study a little about three of them,--the grasshoppers, the crickets,
and the locusts. If you wish, also, to learn about their cousin,
the cockroach, suppose you, who live in city houses, go down to the
kitchen, and catch him about the water pipes, and study him for
yourselves!
The order of straight-wings is often divided in this way: The
runners,--as the cockroach; the snatchers, a kind which have their
fore-feet something like hands, to snatch with; the walkers, who seldom
fly or jump; and the jumpers. The grasshopper is one of the jumpers.
If you look well at the grasshopper, you will see that his front pair
of legs is shorter than the others. This hinders him in walking over a
level surface. But it helps him in walking up a tree, or small plant,
or a wall.
See the hind legs! They are more than twice as long as the others. The
thigh, or upper part, is very long and strong. By means of these big
legs, the grasshopper is a famous jumper.
Now, if you have a grasshopper to look at, you will see that the feet
have four parts. The part of the leg between the foot and the thigh has
sharp points like the teeth of a comb.
The hind part of the body is long and slender, and, being made of
rings, can bend easily. In the great, green grasshopper all the body is
of a fine green tint.
Let us look at the wings. The upper pair, or wing-covers, are large
and long. Notice two things about the wings; they lap at the tips, and
are high in the middle. When they are shut, they have a shape like a
slanting roof. The upper ones are longer than the lower ones.
These wing-cases have large veins. Lift up a wing-case and pull out
a lower wing. It is folded very closely, in lengthwise plaits. Where
these wings join Mr. Grasshopper’s body, you will find his drum-plate
for making music. One kind of grasshopper has very short wing-covers.
In that kind, both Mr. and Mrs. Grasshopper make music. There is also
one grasshopper, a little, green fellow, that has no drum; he is silent.
The upper side of the grasshopper’s chest is shaped like a large, horny
collar. The head is large, and has two big, glossy eyes. There is,
also, a knob on the forehead. Between the eyes, are set the feelers.
They are very long; even longer than all the body.
The mouth of the grasshopper is wide, and it has strong jaws. But they
are not so strong as those of his cousin, the cricket.
Grasshoppers prefer vegetable food. They will sometimes eat animal
food. When shut up in a box, they will fight, and the one which gets
killed will be eaten by the victor.
A grasshopper which lost its leg while being put into a box, ate its
leg. Like the other winged creatures, grasshoppers lose their legs
easily, and do not seem to mind it.
If you could look inside the grasshopper’s body, you would see that he
has a gizzard, much like that of a chicken. It is made of little bands
set with fine teeth. These teeth chew up into a pulp the leaves which
the grasshopper has eaten.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] See Nature Reader, No. 2, Lessons 1-4.
LESSON XVII.
THE LIFE OF THE OLD MAN OF THE MEADOW.
Many years ago, a great poet wrote a song to the grasshopper. The poet
said the grasshopper was the happiest of living things. It did nothing
but dance and sing. It ate fresh leaves, and drank cool dew. When the
glad summer of its life was done, it died. It did not live to be sick,
or hungry, or cold.
This poet called the grasshopper “the earth-born,” and said that it was
man’s little brother.
Yes, the grasshopper is earth-born. The mother grasshopper makes, with
the sword of which I told you, a hole in the ground. In that she lays
her eggs, in a case made of something like glue. Then she closes up the
hole, and the eggs lie all winter, safe in the ground.
In the spring, the larvæ hatch from the egg, and creep out of the
ground. They are very small, but shaped much like the parent, only they
have no wings. They molt, or change their skins several times.
At first, the little ones are all alike, but after several changes of
skin, the larvæ become pupæ. Then you can see the coming wings under a
little sheath. You can also see Mrs. Grasshopper’s sword growing.
About six or eight weeks, after hatching, the final change is made. The
perfect insect comes out of its last-shed skin. It has now two pairs
of wings. Mr. Grasshopper plays on his new drum, and Mrs. Grasshopper
marches about with her new sword.
The young grasshoppers are very greedy while larvæ and pupæ. They eat
all the time. When they are grown, they do not give all their time to
eating. Mr. Grasshopper must sing, and he does not do this while either
flying or eating.
He stands quite still, fixes himself firmly by his fore-feet, and
presses his body downward. There is a little quiver through all his
body as long as the sound lasts.
The people of Italy call him “the screamer,” or “the squealer,” from
his shrill noise.
The grasshopper has a very odd habit. After he has eaten for a long
time, he sits quite still. He looks as if he were doing some serious
thinking. Sometimes when he sits in this way, he moves his mouth as if
chewing. From this action, people used to think that he chewed the cud,
as cows and sheep do.
But he does not chew the cud. If you watch him well, in these silent
times, you will see him gravely licking his long feelers, and his lips.
He seems to be cleaning them.
To do this, he runs out a long, limber tongue, shaped much like yours.
You remember that the ants have this habit of cleaning and dressing
themselves, after eating.[14]
The great, green grasshopper, which lives on the trees, has wings of
a gray-green. He has a little bronze, or russet color, on his feet,
and on the under part of his body. The rest of his body is a fine
leaf-green.
The color in the grasshopper does not seem to be laid on the surface
of his coat, as on that of the beetle. It is not put on in plumes and
scales, as the butterfly has it. But it is dyed through and through the
wings and body.
The wing-cases of the grasshopper, and the rings of the body, are not
hard, and like horn or shell, as in the beetle tribe. They are of a
tough skin, and are dyed with the color.
Let us have a look at some of these fine fellows. Although the color of
the great, green grasshopper is so gay, it will be hard to find him.
His coat is just the tint of the leaves he likes to live among. You can
scarcely see him even if you look straight at him.
You will find in the grass a smaller, lighter-green hopper that is very
easily caught, because in his hurry to get away he flies right up in
your face, when he hears you coming.
The grasshoppers are a very timid family, and are very sensitive to
sound. Some say that their long feelers serve them for ears. But that
is not true.
The garden grasshopper has very small wings. Its color is brownish
gray. It likes to live in the garden walls or under the leaves in the
borders. Both Mr. and Mrs. Grasshopper sing in this garden family. They
keep up fine music for those who like to hear them, as one answers the
song of the other.
I think we most of us like the cry of the grasshopper. It brings to our
mind the warm, dry, sunny days, the time of flowers.
Out in the meadow you will find our Old Man, the common great, gray
hopper. As the great, green one in the trees is hidden by his color, so
is the great, gray one hidden in the grass. His coat is the hue of the
half-dry grass, with little tinges of green along it.
He seems a very plain insect at first. But watch him and notice the
light red and yellowish bands on his legs. He has spots of soot color
on his wing cases. When he spreads his wide wings, note the brown and
yellow stripes. He is fine enough after all.
In the woods, among the pine and fir trees, you will find a
light-green, small, slim grasshopper a deal like the garden singer.
There is a very handsome, large grasshopper called the wart-biter.
The boys in Sweden give him this name, because they think he can cure
warts. They think that if he bites a wart, and puts some dark brown
juice on it, the wart will go away.
The wart-biter is nearly two inches long. It is a green-gray with
reddish legs and feet. It lays its eggs in little balls in the earth.
In South America there are very large and splendid grasshoppers. Their
wings are so gay that when they fly they look much like butterflies.
The wings, in flight, cover most of the body.