perched above him. He too was struggling to keep countenance. Beside him
was the Salamander, wreathed in smiles.
[Illustration: THE GREEN TOAD, TOO, WAS STRUGGLING TO
KEEP COUNTENANCE]
"Your singing has annoyed me intensely," repeated the King Toad.
Words failed the French Frog, who could only gulp.
"Sire," he burst out at length, "it was a love-song."
"A love-song!" said the King Toad, "a love-song! and what nice-minded
English frog would listen to _your_ love-song?"
[Illustration: HIS INSIDE WAS RED-HOT]
The French Frog might have scored a point, but prudence checked him.
"I am a poor exile, Sire," he said, "and, when I sing, my heart is far
away."
"So will your voice be, soon," said the King affably. "Come out,
fire-toads." The fire-toads squirmed from underneath him.
The French Frog eyed them greedily. There are worse eatables than little
toads.
"You may have the big one," said the King.
"Sire!" screamed Bombinatrix.
But she was too late. The French Frog's mouth had closed again, and all
now visible of Bombinator was one distraught hind leg.
[Illustration: HE LAY AS HE HAD FALLEN ON HIS BACK]
"Excellent," murmured the King Toad, and watched the French Frog
narrowly. He was worth watching. He paled a dirty ochre, his eyes rolled
horribly, he scratched his sides with both hind feet, he dragged at his
own throat, he gasped and foamed and spluttered.
"Most interesting," said the King.
But there was more to follow. The French Frog straddled with his toes
wide spread; then came an uncontrollable explosion, which flung him four
feet skywards, and, at the height of this great leap, loosed Bombinator.
Two thuds were heard, the first a sounding, floppy one, the second
farther off and duller.
"I thought that would happen," said the King Toad.
The French Frog slowly pulled himself together, climbed up the slope,
and sat with mouth agape. His inside was red-hot.
The Natterjack burst into song, the Green Toad joined him, the
Salamander laughed outright, but Bombinatrix, with a heavy heart, hopped
silently away.
She was not long in finding him. He lay, as he had fallen, on his back,
his hands and feet outspread, his poor throat twitching. But he still
breathed, breathed in short, wheezy, gasping sobs, which made his whole
frame shudder.
She crept up close and whispered. I cannot tell you what she said, but
Bombinator caught the sense of it. He stretched his legs as far as they
would go, and clasped his hands beneath his chin. This seemed to ease
his breathing, and presently, from every pore, welled a bead-drop of
moisture. He lay thus for an hour, and Bombinatrix mounted guard beside
him.
At last he moved, but Bombinatrix checked him instantly. "Down, Toad of
mine," she whispered, "down for your dear life!"
"What is it now?" he groaned.
"Ducks," whispered Bombinatrix, "Great, Fat, White Ducks!"
[Illustration: "DUCKS," WHISPERED BOMBINATRIX, "GREAT,
FAT, WHITE DUCKS"]
ANIMALS' NESTS
(MARCH)
[Illustration]
When a young friend of mine told me the other day that he was going
birds'-nesting, and I told him in reply that I was going animal-nesting,
I think that, if he had not been a very polite young friend, he would
have laughed at me. As it was he laughed _with_ me--which was really
very nice of him, for he must have been thinking all the time that I was
laughing at _him_. But I was quite serious really. I _was_ going
animal-nesting. I hear you ask at once, "What animal was it?" and I
might tease you by saying, "Any animal, of course. When you go
birds'-nesting you look for any kind of bird's nest _you_ can find, and
when I go animal-nesting, I look for any kind of animal's nest _I_ can
find." But I won't do that, because there are only a few animals' nests
which can be found in the same way in which you find birds' nests. All
animals make some kind of nest for their babies, and most of them make
some kind of nest to sleep in too. They make them in such queer,
out-of-the-way places, though, that it would be quite impossible for any
boy or girl, let alone a man or woman, to find them; for the first thing
to be done would be to choose the right hole in the ground, and the next
thing to be done would be to crawl down it. Some animals, however, make
nests which are not in burrows, and though these are not nearly so easy
to find as birds' nests, they can be found if you know the sort of place
to look for them in.
There are four animals in this country whose nests can be found without
having to dig, and these are the mole, the squirrel, the dormouse, and
the harvest-mouse. Three of these build their nests above the ground,
and the fourth, "the little gentleman in black velvet," builds the
ground above his nest. I am going to tell you something about this one
(the mole) first, because his nest, I think, is the easiest to see. I
expect most of you know those queer little heaps of earth which are
sometimes dotted about the fields and are called mole-hills (I want you
to keep these in your minds for the moment), and I expect those of you
who have got a natural history book will have seen a picture of what is
called a mole fortress. I want you to put that out of your mind
altogether; it is quite wrong. Now, the little mole-hills never have a
nest in them, and I am not quite sure why the moles make so many, but if
you ever find a really big hill among the little ones, as big as six or
seven of these heaped together, and grub down into it (it is quite soft,
and you can do this with your hands if you don't mind getting dirty),
you will find a mole's nest just about the place where you would find
the grass growing if there was no hill at all. In May or June you may
find the baby moles. Have a good look at them and put them back, for you
won't be able to keep them alive, and the mother mole is sure to come
back and look after them--when you have gone.
[Illustration: FOUR MOLES' NESTS TOGETHER. THE BIG HILLOCK
OF EARTH ABOVE THEM HAS ALL BEEN TAKEN AWAY SO THAT THEY
COULD BE PHOTOGRAPHED]
Another animal's nest which is easy to find is the squirrel's, but of
course it is no use looking for this anywhere but in woods and places of
that kind where you know there are squirrels about. A squirrel's nest is
in a hole, or fork of a tree, and always, always out of reach. When it
is in a fork of a tree it looks like an untidy bird's-nest, made of
rather big twigs. It has a soft, warm lining, though, and, if you can
get up to it, you may find the baby squirrels inside in June. If they
are furry you can take them away, for then they are quite easy to bring
up and tame.
[Illustration: THE SQUIRREL. "SQUIRREL MEANS SHADOWTAIL"]
Then there is the harvest-mouse's nest, which is the most beautifully
made of all, and is usually to be found in cornfields, built some way up
the stalks, and looking just like a bird's-nest except that it is quite
round and has no opening that you can see. One can't very well walk
about in a cornfield, but you have another chance of finding a
harvest-mouse's nest in the hay-time, for they often build in the hay,
and once I found one with babies in it, on a haycock, where it had been
thrown without any one noticing it.
[Illustration: THE HARVEST MOUSE'S NEST
The most beautifully made of all]
You have two chances, too, of finding a dormouse's nest, for this mouse
builds one nest for the babies, and another to sleep in through the
winter. Both of them are rather big compared with the harvest-mouse's
nest, and they are generally made of moss and leaves, often honeysuckle
leaves, which the mother dormouse seems to like, though I can't tell you
why.
The dormouse often makes a sleeping-nest at the side of a path through a
wood, and does not seem to fasten it very carefully, for one sometimes
finds it in the middle of a path, as if the dormouse had turned over in
his sleep and sent the whole thing rolling. It may be, though, that some
hungry animal has pulled the nest out, and thinking the dormouse dead,
preferred to take the chance of finding something alive and warm, and so
left it.
If you ever find a sleeping dormouse, which will feel quite cold, you
should take the nest and all and keep it somewhere out of doors. For if
you bring it into a warm house, it will wake up before its proper time
and very likely die; but if you leave it alone until the spring comes,
it will wake up as Mother Nature meant it to, and you will have a pet
which you will like much better than one which you looked at in a shop
window, and could not resist buying.
[Illustration: THE DORMOUSE]
Now there are other things for you to learn about animals' nests besides
the kind of places in which you may hope to find them. To begin with,
you must remember that an animal has not got the beautiful little
nest-making tool which a bird has--I mean, of course, a beak. A bird's
beak is used something like a knitting-needle, to thread the little
wisps of hay and feathers and moss and things like that in and out and
round about, until they stick where the beak tells them. I expect that
animals use their teeth a little in the same way, but they use them
more, I think, in biting leaves into strips, in softening hard stalks,
and cutting thick grasses into thin ones, and I feel sure that they
would find knitting very awkward, because of their thick lips. Most
animals, instead of building a nest in front of themselves, build it
round themselves. The first thing they do is to collect a little store
of nest-material, and this they manage by biting and nibbling at
anything which they think will be nice and soft, and carrying it away in
their mouths. I expect most of you have seen a house-mouse's nest. It is
usually made of scraps of paper and wool and fluff and other little
rubbishes, which they can pick up behind the walls and under the floor.
Sometimes, though, Mousey is not content with a common kind of nest, and
gets into a hat-box and spoils a pretty hat, or into a drawer and spoils
valuable papers. Once a mouse nibbled the date and the signature off a
valuable paper of mine. That was all she took, but it gave me a great
deal of trouble, for it was a legal paper, and it had to be done all
over again. Sometimes Mousey chooses even queerer places. I will tell
you three I have heard of; the first was a tin of gunpowder, the second
was a box of cigars, and the third was a plum cake. The last sounds the
nicest, doesn't it? But mousey is very fond of tobacco, and I have often
seen her, when the house was quiet, nibbling at scraps of tobacco which
I had dropped on the carpet.
[Illustration: A DORMOUSE'S NURSERY NEST, BUILT IN A FURZE BUSH]
The first thing that animals do, then, is to collect a little store of
nest material. The next thing is to dive right into the middle of it.
When they are well in the middle, they begin turning over and over, with
a tug here and a push there, and little curls and flicks of the tail
(the Harvest Mouse has the most useful tail of any of our animals, and
that, I think, is one reason why his nest is so neat), until in a very
short time they have scooped out a hollow in the ball of grass, or
whatever it may be, and are sitting inside it. Sometimes they have to
come out and get some more grass, and then the outside of the nest,
which is quite springy, closes up like a little trapdoor behind them,
and they have to make a fresh way in.
[Illustration: THE HARVEST MOUSE]
SOMETHING ABOUT BEETLES
(APRIL)
[Illustration]
I expect that most of you have seen some of the wonderful foreign
beetles, whose wing-covers gleam and sparkle with colour as though they
were studded with jewels; and some of you, perhaps, may have envied the
small Black Folks down south, who have the chance of finding such
beautiful things. But if you have a microscope, or even a magnifying
glass, or if you know some one who will lend you either, you need not
envy the small Black Folks at all, for here, in our own dear country,
there are hosts and hosts of beetles as beautiful as any in the world.
But there is always a something, isn't there? and the something in this
case is that they are so very, very small. There is another something,
and that is that nearly all of them have such very, very long names. The
reason for this is that the young people were not the first to find
them. If they had done so they would certainly have given them names
which grownups could understand, just as the young people of long ago
christened Tom-Tit and Jenny Wren, and Daddy Long-legs and Flitter
Mouse. All these names have lived since they were first made, and they
will live, I think, long after some much more learned names for the same
things have been altogether forgotten.
Now I must tell you how to find these beautiful little beetles, and I
think that you will be able to find them very soon after you have read
these lines, for the spring-time will have come, and the May will have
flowered, and there is nothing that the little beetles like better than
May-buds. All you have to do is to find a May-tree (it doesn't matter if
it is white or pink, and it needn't even be a May-tree so long as there
is plenty of blossom on it) and hit one of the branches with a stick,
and hold a butterfly-net, or an old umbrella, or a piece of newspaper,
or even your hat (an old hat is best) underneath, and catch what falls
from the branches. You will find all sorts of things, but among them
there are sure to be some tiny long-snouted beetles which are called
Rhynchophora. That is a dreadful name, isn't it? but I think that the
English word "weevils" is just as ugly. Though they are very small
indeed, you will see at once that they have very wonderful colours.
Probably you will catch an emerald-green one, and a sky-blue one, and
perhaps a little square-shaped scarlet one, which is not very uncommon,
and there may come a red-letter day when you catch one of the most
beautiful little beetles in the world, who is green and crimson and
gold. I have done this twice myself.
[Illustration: THE STAG-BEETLE]
There are so many different beetles in our country that no one has ever
collected all of them. Most are very small indeed, like the weevils, but
a few are quite big, and I am showing you pictures of some of the
largest.
Perhaps I ought to tell you how to know a beetle when you see one. This
sounds easy enough, but it is not quite as easy as it sounds. All
beetles have six legs (beetles' bodies are divided into three parts, and
the legs grow out of the middle part); nearly all of them have strong,
horny covers for their wings, and all of them have their skeletons
outside. This sounds a very topsy-turvy arrangement, but it is quite
true. We have our bones inside, and our flesh outside, but beetles have
their bones outside and their flesh inside. Sometimes you may see
beetles crushed flat in the road, but often they are trodden on or run
over without being killed; and the reason for this is that their hard,
outside skeletons prevent their soft insides from being altogether
squashed up. Once I ran over a Stag-beetle on my bicycle--it was nearly
dark at the time, and I was over him before I could get out of his way.
Now a big Stag-beetle weighs about an eighth of an ounce, and I am
rather a heavy person--indeed, with my bicycle thrown in I should think
that I must weigh over two hundredweight, which is about thirty thousand
times as much as the Stag-beetle. You can imagine how surprised I was to
find that the Stag-beetle was not hurt. I ought to tell you, though,
that the road was soft, and that my bicycle-tyres were not blown up
hard, so perhaps the Stag-beetle did not get all my weight on his
back--but, anyhow, it was a wonderful escape for him, wasn't it?
[Illustration: THE STAG-BEETLE
This is the one that I ran over on my bicycle]
The two largest beetles in this country are the Stag-beetle and the
Great Black Water Beetle. I am not sure which should really be called
the larger of the two, for it seems hardly fair to count the
Stag-beetle's antlers, and if we leave these out, I fancy that the Great
Black Water Beetle has the bigger body. It is curious that these two
large beetles should be such quiet, easy-going things, and that they
should never dream of eating beetles smaller than themselves.
[Illustration: THE FEMALE STAG-BEETLE, WHOSE ANTLERS
ARE QUITE SHORT, AND TWO STAG-BEETLE GRUBS]
[Illustration: THE GREAT WATER BEETLE
Who looks as if he was silver-plated underneath]
But so it is, for both of them, the Stag-beetle on land and the Great
Water Beetle in the ditch, eat scarcely anything at all, and, when they
do eat, are quite content to suck the juices out of plants. One reason
for these big beetles eating so little is, I think, the very long time
which they have for feeding while they are caterpillars--beetle
caterpillars, by the way, are always called "grubs" or "larvæ," and
beetle chrysalises are called "pupæ." The grubs of the Stag-beetle live
on decaying wood (you may sometimes find them at the bottom of an old
gate post which has decayed under the ground), and take three or four
years to become "full-fed." The grub of the Great Water Beetle spends
all his time (three or four years, too, I expect) in the water, and I
think he feeds on decaying plants, but I am not sure of this. Some
people say that the Stag-beetle uses his great antlers to crush twigs
and leaves so as to get the juice. This may be so, but I have never seen
him do it.
[Illustration: THE MUSK BEETLE
Who has a very nice smell]
Another big and beautiful insect is the Musk Beetle. As you see in the
picture, he has very long horns and a narrow body. He is a beautiful
bronze green all over, and must be a wonderful sight when he is flying
in the sunshine. I have never seen him fly myself, but people who have
say that his legs and horns stream out behind him, so that he must look
like a little green Heron. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about him,
however, is his scent. I expect most of you know those little round pink
sweets which are called "cachous." He smells just like the taste of
those, and that is why he is called Musk Beetle.
Another big beetle I have to show you is the Cockchafer. You must look
at his picture carefully, because it shows you how a beetle lifts up his
hard wing-covers when he is going to fly. Some beetles, the Burying
Beetle for one, turn these wing-covers almost upside down when they are
flying, so that the hollowed side is uppermost. I expect that this helps
to keep them up when they are flying, and perhaps it helps them to start
as well.
[Illustration: THE COCKCHAFER RAISING ITS WING-COVERS
JUST BEFORE TAKING FLIGHT]
Of course you have all heard of the wonderful flying machines which are
now being made. To fly at all, you must be able to do three things: lift
yourself up, keep yourself up, and move about. If you can do these three
things just as quickly and just as slowly as you want to, you will be
able to fly perfectly. The hardest puzzle of all is how to make a
machine which will keep itself up (and the right way up too) without
moving about very quickly. This is what many birds can do so
beautifully, and I expect that in time (all great inventions take a long
time to make perfect, and they are never the work of one man alone, but
rather of one man helped by the work of many men who lived before him)
machines will be made in which men will be able to fly as perfectly as
birds. At present they only fly as perfectly as beetles, but that they
should be able to do this is a very wonderful thing. The great
difference, in flying, between a beetle and a bird like a gull, is that
the beetle has to keep going full speed all the time, or else he will
tumble down to the ground, while a bird like a gull can poise balanced
in the air, with just a flap or turn of his wings now and then to keep
himself the right way up.
[Illustration: THE CHURCHYARD BEETLE
When this Beetle is cross, he puts his head down, and rears
up backwards as if he were going to kick]
[Illustration]
BUNNY RABBIT
(LADY DAY)
AUTHOR'S NOTE
There are "go-to-bury" rabbits and "stub" rabbits. The "go-to-bury"
rabbits have the longest ears, but the "stub" rabbits, as any stoat will
tell you, are the best for dinner.
Moreover, there are rabbits and bunny rabbits--but all were bunny
rabbits once.
[Illustration]
Bunny Rabbit missed the bluebells, though these rang in his birth.
Up rose the kingly foxgloves, tier upon tier of them pink-purple, but
Bunny Rabbit missed these too.
A golden world--the ragwort blazing on the slope, below the mellowing
corn-field, and, mantling primrose hills, the dawn.
Now Bunny Rabbit was ready.
The burrow winds in four sharp turns, and, at each one, he stubbed his
nose. This through a mad desire to keep near Mother; for Mother's tail
bobbed in quick jerks, shaving each corner to a hair, and he and all his
brothers raced to catch it. They reached the entrance packed as one, but
Bunny Rabbit, squirming clear, shot past the uplifted paw, butted his
waiting Father, flung off him like a smoke-puff, and landed on his back
six feet below.
That is why he has a separate history.
It was indeed sharp change of circumstance. The nursery had been
pitch-black, though one short gleam of light had reached it daily. That
was when Mother Rabbit snatched her food, and sealed the entrance up for
fear of Father. At other times she screened her babies' eyes. So now the
sunshine blinded Bunny Rabbit, and pointed grass-stems pricked a skin
which nothing harder than breast-fur had touched.
[Illustration: AND LANDED ON HIS BACK SIX FEET BELOW]
He took some minutes to collect his wits, then twisted upright, and,
with frightened eyes, sought guidance.
[Illustration]
But for the woolscrap all would have been well.
Mother Rabbit was close at hand, feeding his brothers with small sprigs
of green. Father Rabbit was close too. The sight of his lost wife had
softened him. He purred approval. He licked the children's noses.
Assuredly the lost would have been found, but for the woolscrap. The
woolscrap fluttered, wind-borne, down the slope, and Bunny Rabbit
nature-taught, went after it.
It led him far.
It caught on brambles and then flicked away. It plunged in little
valleys. It mounted little hills. It bobbed and jerked and twisted, and
Bunny Rabbit, panting hard, pursued.
At last he caught it, checked upon a grass-stem, and--_it wasn't Mother
after all_!
[Illustration: It wasn't Mother after all!]
Bunny Rabbit sat down bewildered. He was hot with running; his ears were
prickly, his coat was rumpled. He combed his ears out, one by one,
brushed down his face, and nibbled all the fur that he could reach. Then
he felt better.
[Illustration: HE COMBED HIS EARS OUT, ONE BY ONE]
The morning breeze gained appetite and sent the woolscrap once more on
its travels. Bunny Rabbit took no heed of it--he watched and heard the
awakening of the wood. Bird notes, that in the burrow had been restful,
now screamed and whistled in his ear. Out from the shelter-side of
leaves, out from the heart of flowers, out from the grass-stems and from
earth itself, came whirring, humming, buzzing insects. In this new
myriad-peopled world there seemed small room for loneliness. A red mouse
bobbed up from his hole, stared at him curiously, then whisked about and
vanished. Bright eyes bejewelled the grass-tufts. Here a flick-footed
lizard, here a slow-trailing blindworm, here a squat toad. The day-moths
woke and flitted leaf to leaf. The bee-fly clambered up the thyme,
poised hovering, vanished slantwise, and vanishing, reappeared.
[Illustration]
This was full entertainment, and Bunny Rabbit stared round-eyed. He
stared till hunger gripped him. His brothers, a bare hundred yards away,
already had acquired the art of nibbling. He had no teacher, and no wits
by which to teach himself. So, though food lay on every side, he
starved. He felt a craving he had never known; a tightening of his
fluffy body; an ache for Mother. Mother would set things straight for
him, but where to find her was beyond his reasoning.
[Illustration]
He wandered aimlessly this way and that; he nosed the bushes aimlessly;
he stepped on Berus the Adder, because to him an adder, neatly coiled,
was merely speckled ground.
Berus the Adder, though infuriate, forebore to strike. Venom is far too
precious to be squandered, and baby rabbits are too large to swallow. He
swayed his ugly head, and slowly, very slowly, he stretched forward.
This was enough for Bunny Rabbit, who spun about and left the wind
behind.
[Illustration: HE WATCHED AND HEARD THE AWAKENING OF THE WOOD]
[Illustration]