GIFT OF 
 
 Of 
 
INTERESTING 
 NEIGHBORS 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER P. JENKINS 
 
 Emeritus Professor of Physiology, Stanford University, California 
 
 81 ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 W. S. ATKINSON 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 P. BLAKISTON'S SON & CO. 
 
 1012 WALNUT STREET 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY P. BLAKISTON'S SON & Co. 
 
 PRINTED INT U. S. A. 
 BY THE MAPLE PRESS YORK PA 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The stories that follow in this little book began 
 with some that were prepared for a small group 
 of children in whom the author was affectionately 
 interested. The reason for the stories being 
 written is that some members of this group resided 
 elsewhere. Through these children the stories 
 became known to a larger circle and there arose a 
 desire on the part of the new acquaintances 
 (among them some teachers) to have them 
 compiled and published. 
 
 Despite the efforts of those who have great 
 faith in the educational value of a knowledge of 
 nature, there still remains much to> be accom- 
 plished. Consequently, no one need apologize for 
 an honest attempt, no matter how humble, to 
 bring young children in contact with the wholesome 
 intellectual stimulus and satisfying knowledge that 
 comes from an acquaintance with the wonders of 
 out of door life. 
 
 One might well ask what principle should guide 
 one in making a selection, from the great wealth of 
 material that is available, when but a very few 
 subjects can be presented in this form. The con- 
 fession must be made, that no great principle has 
 been conscious in the author's mind in the selection 
 of subjects, unless that of taking up what is near 
 
 V 
 
 4 8 G o ] j I 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 at hand, or more or less easily available and easily 
 understood, may be called a principle. Many 
 other selections equally as good as those that follow 
 might have been made. 
 
 As may readily be seen, no attempt has been 
 made to introduce what might be called the tech- 
 nical science of the objects treated. That valuable 
 knowledge of nature can come to better advantage 
 when the children are older and it will then be 
 entered into with greater intelligence and zest by 
 them if they have had already a happy experience 
 and familiarity with the objects and phenomena all 
 about them. 
 
 It was thought best to use enough detail to make 
 a clear picture of some phase of the life of an object, 
 and this has been attempted with the milkweed 
 butterfly. If, in the opinion of some, this has 
 been carried too far, the explanation is, that by 
 giving a fuller account of the life of at least one of 
 the butterflies the children would have a guide 
 to the deeper study of these attractive creatures. 
 The one chosen is widely distributed and the 
 teacher can find excellent accounts of its life in 
 many books. 
 
 While this and the other little books to follow 
 are termed readers, the author perhaps need not 
 insist that the value of each lesson is greatly 
 enhanced by having before the pupils when possible 
 the real object read about. It will be noted that 
 the majority of the objects can be found in most 
 parts of our country. 
 
PREFACE Vll 
 
 A list of reference books has not been given, for 
 the reason that at the present time there is such a 
 large number of excellent works on entomology, 
 zoology, botany and nature study, that any teacher 
 who wisely wishes to be informed in regard to these 
 and similar subjects can readily get the titles. 
 This might be said to be a matter of common 
 knowledge. 
 
 The drawings are the work of Mr. W. S. Atkin- 
 son to whom acknowledgment is here made for 
 his interest hi the work and the excellence of 
 the illustrations. 
 
 OLIVER P. JENKINS. 
 
 Stanford University, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE MAGIC HOUSE ...... ,,;,...,> 1 
 
 THE LEAF-CUTTER BEE ; ,. . 9 
 
 THE CARPENTER-BEE ..<.....*. 4 - 14 
 
 How THE TEACHER WAS TAUGHT . ..;,, . .; . 21 
 
 A CATERPILLAR REGIMENT. . * . '>,!./ ', : > > . 27 
 
 MUSHROOMS ,.<>; 34 
 
 SOME TOAD STORIES: 
 
 A Homely Friend ... , .... 46 
 
 Little Wilbur and His Toad Troubles . . . 51 
 
 An Innocent Pet. .^ ..... * . .- . 55 
 
 Where the Toads Come From. A Picnic . 56 
 
 How a Toad Begins Life . . < -] -, >. . , \ . 62 
 THE SILKWORM: 
 
 Its Great Work ;|./^. > . . 69 
 
 A Queen Discovers the Silkworm . . ; . . 71 
 
 Our Family of Silkworms 75 
 
 Spinning the Silk 78 
 
 Silkworm Cocoons 80 
 
 The Silkworm Moth. . . . , . . .... 81 
 
 A SMALL BUT VALUABLE FRIEND 84 
 
 A SKILFUL MASON 93 
 
 THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY. THE MONARCH : 
 
 A Tree Blossoming with Butterflies . , . 100 
 
 The Life of the Milkweed Butterfly . . , . J , 102 
 The Caterpillar on Its Milkweed Home . .105 
 
 ix 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 The Chrysalis 112 
 
 The Coming out of the Butterfly . . '. . . 114 
 
 The Monarch's Migrations 116 
 
 Studying Butterflies. . . . . . . , . . . 117 
 
 THE TOMATO-WORM. . . .......... 120 
 
 The HUMMING-BIRD MOTH. . .,.;. . \ . . 126 
 A GENTLE TIGER . ... . . .'. .... 133 
 
 EGGS ON POLES . : . / . . . . . ' 139 
 
 THE ANT-LION. ...... ....... 147 
 
 SOME WAYS OF THE DANDELION : 
 
 The Children Learn Some of Its Tricks . . 152 
 THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS : 
 
 BaUoon Seeds , 160 
 
 Seeds that Steal Rides . . . . . . Y . . 164 
 
 Seeds with Wings. ... .'. ;/ . v. . 168 
 
 Sling Seeds V. . . . . . 170 
 
 Seed Story Night. ... . V .' '.'-. . . 173 
 
 Bessie's Acanthus. . ... . . - 173 
 
 John's Cocoa-nut Trees ,.',*>/. ... . . 174 
 
 Nancy's Seed-carrying Birds . .... . 176 
 
 Tom's Squirting Cucumber. .... . 177 
 
 FLOWERS: 
 
 The Parts of the Flower Work to Form the 
 
 Seeds V/. : 182 
 
 Getting the Pollen on the Stigma . v .. . . 187 
 A HUMMING-BIRD FLOWER. THE SCARLET 
 
 SALVIA. . . 190 
 
 BUMBLE-BEE FLOWERS: 
 
 The Snapdragon 195 
 
 Butter-and-eggs 198 
 
 The Columbine and Larkspur 199 
 
CONTENTS XI 
 
 The Iris Blossom . 202 
 
 Butterfly Flowers 205 
 
 FLOWERS FOR VARIOUS INSECTS . ... . . 207 
 
 Buttercups and Apple Blossoms . ... . 207 
 
 The Sunflower ;, . '. . . 207 
 
 NANCY'S LETTER ABOUT: 
 
 Moth Flowers and Other Matters . . . , 211 
 
 A PLANT THIEF. . . . . . ,^. . , . . . . 219 
 
 PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS. . : v . ... 224 
 
 Pitcher Plants '/(.',/. . 225 
 
 The Sundew .". . . /;U ... - ' .1.''... * 233 
 
 Venus Flytrap \. ... 237 
 
 THE CAMPUS SICKLE-BILL. THE CALIFORNIA 
 
 THRASHER: 
 
 Bird Life on the Stanford Campus . ." v . 241 
 
 The Sickle-bill "". . . . . : I . .243 
 
 Feeding the Sickle-bill 245 
 
 Relatives of the California Thrasher 247 
 
THE MAGIC HOUSE 
 
 Sometimes people have a hard time getting a 
 house to live in. They search all over town 
 only to find that the houses are occupied by 
 somebody else, so they have to build one for 
 themselves. They get boards, bricks, nails, mor- 
 tar, stones, iron, pipes, wires and many other 
 things together. Then they have to get men with 
 hammers and saws, spades and trowels who 
 hammer and pound and saw and dig, and work 
 hard for many weeks to build the house. And 
 then they must find painters to paint it and 
 finish it up to look nice. That is a lot of trouble 
 and bother. 
 
 But there is one little animal that can build her 
 house by what looks just like magic. This is the 
 little gall-fly. There are many kinds of gall-flies 
 which can" do this, but this story is about one that 
 builds her house on the White Oak tree. 
 
 She lays eggs, from which the baby gall-flies 
 are hatched, and this is the way she goes about it. 
 
 She alights on the White Oak in the spring 
 time and searches over the branches until she 
 finds a new bud that is just about to grow into a 
 new branch. She lays her eggs in the bud, and 
 gives them some kind of charm so that just when 
 the babies hatch out and begin to grow, they use 
 

 ' 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 * ^.ft-o- 
 
 the charm on thfe bad. This then, instead of 
 growing into a twig or branch, grows like magic 
 into a ball-shaped house which covers over the 
 gall-fly babies. So down deep in this new house, 
 in tiny round rooms, the gall-fly babies live and 
 feed and grow. At first the gall-fly babies are 
 little white things called grubs or larvae. Their 
 ball-shaped house we call an oak-gall. The food of 
 the babies is the juice of the oak tree which is 
 called sap and which comes from the twig of the 
 oak tree into the oak-gall and seeps to them 
 through the walls of their tiny rooms. Thus you 
 see that they not only find the house all fur- 
 nished for them, but also that their food is brought 
 right to their rooms. The oak sap is the same to 
 them as milk is to human babies. 
 
 The outside of the gall is hard and smooth and 
 keeps most of the bad things away from the little 
 fellows. Each little grub eats the food that comes 
 to it, and gets fat. Its little white fat body would 
 be fine food for other little animals if they could 
 get at it. 
 
 Now there is the little lizard which hunts around 
 for just such food. To the gall-fly baby he is a 
 real hobgoblin. I think he is the one the gall-fly 
 mother means when she says: "The goblins will 
 get you if you don't watch out." But when the 
 lizard comes up to the gall house he finds it so hard 
 and smooth that he cannot bite into it or do a 
 thing to it, so the goblin has to go away and get his 
 dinner, somewhere else. 
 
THE MAGIC HOUSE 
 
 
 \w 
 
 - 
 
 FIG. 1. The bird (a crested flycatcher) cannot harm the grub of 
 the gall-fly secure in its house. 
 
4 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 And there are the birds. Now the birds that 
 alight on the oak tree are very nice looking ani- 
 mals. They dress in fine feathers and keep them- 
 selves neat and clean. Some twitter very sweetly; 
 others sing beautifully and no doubt all of them 
 think themselves very lovely, but let me tell you 
 that some of them hunt up and down the limbs 
 of the trees for little insects and their babies, and 
 whenever they catch them, gobble them right 
 down, just like you would a chocolate drop or a 
 marshmallow. They think a nice white grub is 
 about the tastiest thing there is. But when a bird 
 comes to a gall house, no matter how badly he 
 wants the gall-fly baby, he can't touch it. The 
 gall house is too hard for him to pick into and he 
 might as well try to scratch into a rock as to 
 scratch the gall-fly out of it. While this spry 
 little bird thinks he is pretty smart, he is not smart 
 enough to get ahead of the gall-fly. I suppose 
 that if the gall-fly told her children any stories, 
 she would call the bird a big ogre. 
 
 Then there is another animal that must look 
 to the little gall-fly like a terrible griffin. It is the 
 tree-frog. She sneaks around the leaves and bark 
 of the tree ready to snap up with her big mouth 
 any poor insect that is not on the look-out. But 
 when the tree-frog hops and crawls about amongst 
 the branches and leaves and comes upon the gall 
 house, she crawls all over it but can't find a 
 window or a chimney to sneak in. She stares at it 
 with her big eyes as much as to say, " What do you 
 
THE MAGIC HOUSE 5 
 
 think of that?" But she has to pass on and make 
 her supper on insects which have no houses. 
 
 When there comes a heavy rain storm which 
 soaks the trees and ground and everything through 
 and through the water runs right off the gall house 
 and does not touch the gall babies. There they lie 
 tucked up nice and dry and as snug as a bug in a 
 rug, or snugger. 
 
 And when the wind blows, it only swings the 
 house up and down and does not hurt anything. 
 No doubt the gall-fly mother could have been the 
 first to sing: "Rock a bye baby in the tree top, 
 When the wind blows, the cradle will rock." 
 The gall-fly baby's cradle grows so tightly to the 
 tree branch that it does not fall except, of course, 
 when the bough breaks. 
 
 Now do you not think that the gall-fly people are 
 like fairies, since the tiny gall-fly baby, when it is 
 first hatched out of the very tiny egg, can, by 
 touching the leaf bud with something, make it 
 grow up to be what, to it, is a very large and well 
 furnished house with just the right kind of food 
 for it? 
 
 While the gall-fly egg and later the baby is well 
 cared for by the house and food, prepared as if by 
 magic, still it has trouble sometimes. There are 
 some other insects which are bad to it if they get a 
 chance. As they have no home of their own, they 
 manage to pierce a small hole in the gall while it is 
 tender^and still very small, and lay their eggs in it 
 too. When these eggs are hatched, these robber 
 
6 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 grubs steal the gall baby's' food and, sad to say, 
 some times eat the gall baby too. But they do not 
 always get the gall children. 
 
 When the gall-fly babies, called larvae, eat 
 enough and grow big enough, they change into the 
 form of the mother gall-fly and have wings. They 
 have good strong mouths and gnaw their way out of 
 
 FIG. 2. The giant oak ball. The gall-fly has just come out of its 
 
 home 
 
 the house and come out of the little round holes 
 you can see in the picture of a gall (Fig. 2). 
 They then fly away and lay eggs on other oak 
 buds, and these will grow up into other gall houses. 
 There are many kinds of gall-flies and each makes 
 its own kind of gall. The kind I have been telling 
 you about is the largest kind and for that reason 
 is called the giant oak-gall. Sometimes they are 
 called oak apples because they look like apples. 
 
THE MAGIC HOUSE 7 
 
 Gall-flies make galls on other sorts of trees and 
 plants and sometimes they make them on the 
 leaves or on the roots instead of on the twigs or 
 branches. 
 
 If you wish to gather galls and watch the gall-flies 
 come out, the best time is, of course, in the spring 
 and summer when the gall-flies are laying their 
 eggs and the galls are growing. They grow 
 through the summer, but most of them come out 
 in the fall. 
 
 Of course if you wish to obtain live gall-flies the 
 galls should be taken only when they are about 
 fully grown. Otherwise the food sap would be stop- 
 ped and the gall babies could not finish their grow- 
 ing. You can cut open some of the dry galls and 
 see where the little grubs lived and when you get 
 fresh galls you can cut them open and find the 
 live grubs. 
 
 There are a few other insects which make galls 
 but most of the galls are made by gall-flies. 
 
 A very good way to catch the gall-flies as they 
 come out is to put the galls into a paper box with a 
 good lid. A shoe box or a candy box will do. 
 In one end of the box make a small hole into which 
 the neck of a small bottle is tightly fitted, leaving 
 the wide part of the bottle out of the box. After a 
 while, the new gall-flies gnaw their way out of 
 their dark home and get into the box instead of the 
 open sunshine, so they hurry to the place where the 
 light gets in, which is the neick of the bottle, 
 and crawl into it and then you see them in the 
 
8 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 bottle. A test tube can be used instead of a 
 bottle. 
 
 Another good way to catch them is to put the 
 galls into a glass jar and tie over its mouth a piece 
 of fine netting or cloth that will let air in but will 
 not let the gall-flies get out. 
 
 Of course the box and bottle, or glass jar, can be 
 used for other insect eggs and also for cocoons. 
 
THE LEAF-CUTTER BEE 
 
 In the garden there grows a lilac bush which 
 everybody loves for the beautiful sweet smelling 
 flowers it gives us early in the spring. One day 
 after the lilac flowers were all gone, we were looking 
 at the plant, when some of the leaves looked a 
 
 FIG. 3. A lilac leaf with pieces cut out by a leaf-cutter bee. 
 
 little strange. They had pieces taken out of 
 them, just as if some one had done it with small 
 sharp scissors. That was quite a puzzle, for why 
 should anyone wish to do that? 
 
 By watching the bush day by day the mystery 
 was solved. A little insect, which looked some- 
 
 9 
 
10 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 thing like a bee, came to the bush. She alighted 
 on a leaf and began cutting out a round piece of 
 the leafwithherjaws. She worked quickly and soon 
 had the piece out and then flew away with it, 
 holding it tightly with her two hindmost legs. 
 After a time, back she flew and began to cut out 
 another piece. This time the piece was a little 
 longer with rounded ends. When she flew away 
 
 with it, she looked funny 
 with this bit of leaf waving 
 in the air like a tiny flag. 
 What was she up to? That 
 was the next puzzle. Well, 
 quite a way off she came to 
 
 FIG. 4. The leaf-cutter ,, , , . ,, , 
 
 bee a small hole in the ground. 
 
 She alighted near it and ran 
 
 to its mouth and disappeared down the hole with 
 the piece of leaf. Soon she was out again and off 
 for another piece. She went back and forth from 
 the lilac bush many times for pieces of leaves. 
 
 In the hole was her nest in which she would lay 
 her eggs. From these would be hatched the 
 white grubs which would, in time, turn into bees 
 like their mother. 
 
 People who have spent much time watching 
 these bees have found many nests and have taken 
 them apart to see how they were made. The bee 
 first digs a hole in the ground a few inches deep. 
 Or she may clean out a place in some rotting post 
 or tree, or she may even use a crack between two 
 boards that just suits her. 
 
THE LEAF-CUTTER BEE 
 
 11 
 
 After getting the place all ready she seeks for the 
 kind of leaves that suit her. Our bee used Jilac 
 leaves, but this kind of bee very often uses rose 
 leaves. 
 
 Then she begins to cut out the pieces of leaves. 
 Because she does this she is called the leaf-cutter 
 bee. She has sharp strong jaws 
 which work like a pair of scissors. 
 She alights on the edge of a leaf 
 and very quickly cuts out either a 
 round or oblong shaped piece. It 
 is cut very neatly and true. She 
 takes hold of the piece with her 
 two hindmost legs and flies away 
 to her nest. The round piece she 
 presses down with her head to the 
 bottom of the nest. The oblong 
 piece she uses to line the sides of 
 the nest. 
 
 Then she visits some flowers and 
 gathers a little honey and the dust, 
 called pollen, that comes off the stamens, and mixes 
 them together into a sort of sweet cake. She puts 
 this in the nest and then lays an egg on it. Then 
 she flies to the bush again, this time for a round 
 piece of leaf. She pushes this down to cover over 
 the sweet cake and egg. Now she has provided 
 for one egg. 
 
 On top of the lid of this first room of the nest, 
 she builds another with pieces of leaves, just like 
 the first. She gathers honey and pollen and 
 
 FIG 5. Nest of the 
 leaf-cutter bee. 
 
12 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 makes another sweet cake, lays another egg and 
 puts a round leaf top on and she has number two 
 done, so that she has now cared for two of her 
 children. 
 
 She works away in this manner until she has the 
 hole she made in the ground filled with little nests 
 one on top of the other. Each one with an egg 
 and a sweet cake in it. 
 
 Then she may make other holes in the ground 
 and fill them in the same way, for she is a very busy 
 bee and works fast and hard. 
 
 In making up these nests she sometimes uses 
 hundreds of pieces of leaves and must visit hun- 
 dreds of flowers for honey and pollen. One man 
 took apart the nests of one bee and counted one 
 thousand pieces of leaves which she had cut 
 out and carried to her nest. No one knows how 
 many flowers she had to visit to get the things 
 with which to make sweet cakes for her babies. 
 
 The eggs in these snug little nests lie still quite 
 a while and then tiny white grubs are hatched, 
 just like the grubs of all other kinds of bees. 
 Each little grub soon finds the sweet cake its 
 mother made and begins to eat away on it. As 
 this is fine and nourishing, it grows well on it, and 
 needs no other food. In time it gets to be about 
 as big as its mother but does not look like her yet. 
 It looks like a short fat white worm. Then it 
 stops eating and spins a thin silk cocoon about 
 itself and lies still as if asleep. But like most 
 insects while in the cocoon it changes to another 
 
THE LEAF-CUTTER BEE 13 
 
 strange form called a pupa. Then after some 
 time, the pupa changes into a leaf-cutter bee. 
 Each of these new bees has strong jaws and is 
 able to gnaw its way out of the nest. Soon then, 
 there comes out of the rows of nests a little group 
 of leaf-cutter bees ready for work. Then those 
 amongst them that are to be mother bees fly forth 
 in different directions to find good places to start 
 the work which we found the first mother doing, 
 that of making nests and cutting leaves, gathering 
 honey and pollen and laying eggs for new families 
 of leaf-cutter bees, just as they have been doing 
 for thousands of years. 
 
 While mother bees are so hard-working and take 
 such good care of their eggs and children we shall 
 always have the interesting leaf-cutter bees with us. 
 
 You may not be able to find any nests of the 
 leaf-cutter bee because they are hidden away very 
 carefully. But you can often find rose leaves or 
 lilac leaves neatly cut out, as in the picture. When 
 you find a leaf like that you can press it and put 
 it in your scrap book and pretend that the little 
 leaf-cutter bee marked her name that way. 
 Whenever you look at the leaf you can think of the 
 careful busy little bee that cut it. We have 
 pressed and kept our lilac leaves so as to remember 
 our bee. 
 
THE CARPENTER-BEE 
 
 We were walking about the garden, enjoying the 
 sight and scents of the healthy growing plants. Soon 
 we stopped before a bed of flowers. All over it were 
 a number of busy insects. Brown and yellow 
 honey-bees, bright colored wasps, and beetles, 
 black, green and red, were flitting from flower to 
 flower. Here and there a butterfly came to add 
 more beautiful colors to the scene. Each of these 
 strange little beings seemed to be getting some- 
 thing from the brilliant and fragrant bed of 
 flowers that made them lively and happy. 
 Suddenly, a big black bee-like insect, as big as a 
 
 bumble-bee, flew in 
 with a rush. It hur- 
 riedly thrust its head 
 into one flower after 
 another and before we 
 could see it fairly well, 
 
 FIG. 6.-The carpenter-bee. ff ' li buZZ6(1 llke a - 
 
 black streak. 
 
 Well now, what was that? It looked like a 
 bumble-bee, but it certainly was not a bumble-bee. 
 For that easy going old thing rolls along more 
 slowly and takes more time to push its nose into 
 the different cups of nectar which the flowers are 
 holding up for it to sup. But this new one went 
 racing along at such a rate that it must have just 
 
 14 
 
THE CARPENTER-BEE 15 
 
 gobbled up whatever it got from the flowers. 
 Well, whenever anybody makes a great stir 
 everybody else wishes to know right away 
 what it is all about. 
 
 So we got curious to know who this little whirl- 
 wind was. We waited for the black buzzing 
 streak to come back but it wouldn't do it. No 
 doubt one who seemed to have so much business to 
 attend to and could fly so fast had other flower- 
 beds far away to visit. 
 
 So we appealed to a friend standing near, who 
 knows much about insects, to help us out. She 
 told us that that was the big carpenter-bee. A 
 carpenter-bee? Well, we had seen and heard of 
 mason-bees which make mortar and build houses 
 with it; and tailor-bees which cut out pieces of 
 leaves, like cloth, with which to line their nests; 
 now here is a carpenter-bee. "Yes," said the 
 friend who knows insects, "and there are miner- 
 bees which bore holes in the ground like miners 
 do." The miners dig for gold and silver but the 
 miner-bees bore holes in the ground to make 
 themselves nests to lay eggs in. If we will only 
 take the trouble to find out, we will be astonished 
 at the wonderful things the different kinds of bees 
 and many other kinds of insects are doing right 
 under our feet, over our heads, and all around us. 
 
 But just now we are concerned about this big 
 carpenter-bee. It is called a carpenter-bee because 
 it works in wood. It has a big head and very 
 sharp, strong jaws. For its nest, it bores' a hole 
 
16 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 right into solid wood, large enough to put your 
 finger in. It may pick out a fence post, a timber 
 in the house or barn, or the trunk of a fallen tree. 
 If the wood is of a hard kind, it has to work very 
 slowly and with great labor. But it has great 
 patience and great industry and works away day 
 after day until it has made a hole 
 several inches deep. The hole is 
 straight for a little way and then 
 makes a turn down the post or log. 
 When done, it may be as much as 
 a foot long. That is great work for 
 so small an animal. 
 
 This hole is its house and nest and 
 is ready for the egg laying. Now its 
 work changes. Just like the leaf- 
 cutter bee it plans to put a sweet 
 cake of honey and pollen, made from 
 the flowers, beside each egg that it 
 lays. This is to be the food for the 
 little worm-like grub that will hatch 
 from the egg. The grub, you know, just the same 
 as with other bees, at last becomes a bee. 
 
 It must be quite a rest from the hard jaw-aching 
 work of gnawing wood to go out after honey and 
 pollen among the flowers. This was what the big 
 black buzzer was doing when we first saw her. 
 She gives her jaws a rest and uses her tongue to suck 
 up the nectar. Then she has a nice brush with which 
 to gather the pollen. When she gathers enough 
 of both to make a cake for one grub, she puts 
 
 FIG. 7. Nest of 
 a carpenter-bee. 
 
THE CARPENTER-BEE 17 
 
 it in the very bottom of her nest and lays an egg 
 on it. 
 
 Next she takes some of the tiny chips she saved 
 from the boring work and with some liquid from 
 her mouth she glues them together and makes a 
 thin but strong little roof across the hole above the 
 cake and egg. The egg and cake are now safely 
 shut up in a tiny room. 
 
 Off she goes for more pollen and nectar for 
 another cake. This is placed just above the first 
 room and another egg is laid with it. A roof or 
 cover is built over them and she has a second 
 room. 
 
 She works quickly at this until she has the hole 
 she bored filled with little rooms one above the other, 
 an egg and a cake in each. When the grub is 
 hatched out of the egg, it finds the cake ready for it 
 to feed upon. 
 
 The hard-working mother has done all she could 
 to give her children a well-protected home and 
 provide them with plenty of just the right kind of 
 food for them to live on until they grow up to be as 
 big as their mother. 
 
 I am sorry to say that some other insects, and 
 birds too, know how delicious the sweet cakes are 
 and how tasty the fat white grubs are. And they 
 have learned ways of stealing them, although 
 the mother bee takes care to place the eggs and 
 sweet cakes deep down in a hard wood tunnel. 
 The birds can't reach very far down the hole, 
 because she made a turn in it as you, no doubt, 
 
18 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 recall when she bored it out. But certain insects 
 have a very evil way of acting against her. When 
 she is off getting honey and pollen to make a cake 
 for a room, these sneaking insects slip in and lay 
 eggs with the egg she has laid.. They know 
 that their babes will hatch out along with the 
 grub that comes from the bee egg. 
 
 This puts these enemies right there in its own 
 little room all ready to eat up the poor bee grub 
 as soon as it is fat enough. It must be frightful 
 to wake up in your bed to find an ogre ready to eat 
 you up, and your room shut up so tight that no one 
 can come to help you. 
 
 But the invading insects do not always get into 
 the nest of the mother bee and so the eggs may all 
 hatch and soon the grubs grow to be bees. When 
 they do, the one in the lowest room is ready first, 
 then the one above and so on until the hole is full 
 of new carpenter-bees eager to go to work as their 
 mother did as soon as they get out. 
 
 This big carpenter-bee, with its noise and impor- 
 tant ways, made us first take notice of carpenter- 
 bees. We soon learned that there are many other 
 kinds of carpenter-bees. 
 
 By careful watching, we saw a very pretty little 
 blue-green bee very modestly hovering over the 
 flowers and alighting on them. She was pretty 
 shy and darted away at the least motion toward 
 her. 
 
 She, too, has strong jaws, but being so small she 
 does not attempt such tough jobs as does the big 
 
THE CARPENTER-BEE 19 
 
 carpenter-bee. She searches out stems of plants 
 that have pith in the center. This is soft and 
 easy to bore out. She makes a tunnel in the pith 
 center of the stem and uses this as her home. She 
 makes tiny rooms in this tunnel just as the big bee 
 does in the hard wood and lays an egg in each, 
 provided with a honey cake in the same way. 
 
 It is said that this little mother bee acts differ- 
 ently from other carpenter-bees, for when she has 
 finished her work, she waits at the top of the tunnel 
 for her children to come out. 
 
 Just as it was in the nest of the big carpenter-bee, 
 so in this, the lowest one in the tunnel changes into 
 a bee first, because the first egg was laid there. 
 Because all the other nests are above it this first one 
 must stay down there cooped up in its room, until 
 the others are changed into bees. 
 
 This they do, one after the other, but all must lie 
 quietly until the uppermost one is ready. This 
 one then gnaws his way out with his new strong 
 jaws, then the next one below him does likewise 
 and so on until the lowest one is set free and the 
 whole of the family comes forth. 
 
 Now the waiting little mother bee can be proud 
 of her little flock of children in their new shining 
 blue-green clothes. The children must be happy 
 to get out into the bright sunshine and stretch 
 their pretty wings for the first time. But for 
 them life is to be full of work and they soon fly 
 away to repeat the kind of busy life their pretty 
 little mother lived. Were they not fortunate in 
 
20 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 having her with them to start them off in life? 
 One little girl friend of mine told me that she likes 
 this bee best because it waited for her children 
 instead of rushing off and leaving them to shift 
 for themselves. 
 
HOW THE TEACHER WAS TAUGHT ' 
 
 Once upon a time; many years ago in a little 
 town in the far away country, France, there was a 
 little school full of boys of all sizes. The boys 
 were full of life and mischief, so that the teacher 
 had all he could do to keep them down to their 
 lessons. The teacher was a very young man and 
 did his best to interest the children and do them 
 some good. 
 
 One day in the week they had school out of doors. 
 Teacher and pupils tramped off to a field to practice 
 measuring land. This gave them a chance to learn 
 about squares, triangles and polygons and to 
 make up problems in arithmetic. The pupils 
 thought it great fun, for there were many things 
 to interest them besides what they came out 
 for. And the teacher had all he could do to keep 
 them down to their task. 
 
 Once when he was at one end of the measuring 
 line, some of the boys who had the other end 
 seemed to have dropped it and were busy with 
 something else. Of course the teacher had to 
 hurry down to look into the matter. He found 
 that the boys had left the measuring line and stakes 
 and were picking up, here and there, a stone, and 
 were poking straws into it and sucking something 
 through them. They were getting honey from a 
 hard rock. 
 
 21 
 
22 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 This time the pupils could teach the teacher 
 something they knew very well and which he had 
 never heard of. They gladly showed him a new 
 trick and he gladly learned it from them. They 
 now all joined in searching for stones containing 
 honey. The teacher learned for the first time that 
 
 
 
 FIG. 8. Mason bee and nests. 
 
 a large black bee made a little house of a sort 
 of mortar. She built it on the side of a stone. In 
 the rooms of this house she had placed the honey, 
 of which the boys were robbing her. 
 
 Well, they had their play then went back to work 
 and to school. But the teacher could not forget 
 
HOW THE TEACHER WAS TAUGHT 23 
 
 the bee and its strange house. The pupils had 
 taught him about the honey, but the teacher 
 wished very much to learn more about the won- 
 derful ways of a bee that could make mortar and 
 build a house with it. So later he returned 
 to the field to find out what he could. He did find 
 out many curious things about the life of this 
 strange bee. Then he tried to find books to help 
 him. He was fortunate to learn of a fine book with 
 beautiful pictures of many kinds of bees besides 
 this one, by a noted student of bees and other 
 insects. 
 
 This was the beginning of a life-long study of 
 insects by a man who is known as one of the most 
 famous of those who have found out a great number 
 of the wonderful things that go on in the insect 
 world, and has described them in many interesting 
 books. This teacher was the noted French student 
 and writer of insects, Dr. J. H. Fabre. I hope you 
 will have the pleasure of reading some of his 
 charming books. 
 
 The bee that started this fine student at work 
 was one of the mason-bees. The home of this one 
 is in France. But there are mason-bees in other 
 countries as well. We have them in the United 
 States. The mason-bee that Fabre first studied 
 builds her house on the surface of a small boulder. 
 She starts it first by building up a cell, a sort of 
 little jug about big enough to hold her body. She 
 uses little bits of sand and gravel which she 
 cements together very neatly to form the little 
 
24 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 jug. She makes the cement or mortar by selecting 
 just the right kind of dirt and sand which she 
 mixes with juices from her mouth. Her jaws are 
 shaped just right to mix and lay on and 
 smooth the mortar. She uses them just like a 
 mason uses a trowel when he builds a wall with 
 stones and mortar. 
 
 When she gets her little jug finished, she, like 
 other kinds of bees, visits the flowers for nectar 
 and pollen. She puts the honey in the jug, then 
 mixes the pollen with it and thus makes a honey 
 cake. It was while the jugs had honey in them, 
 but not yet closed, that the boys found them. 
 When it is about half full she places an egg on the 
 cake. She next makes a neat cover to the top of 
 the jug. Now the little grub that is to hatch out 
 will find a fine store of delicious food to live and 
 grow on. 
 
 The bee next builds another cell, just like this 
 first one, right beside it and cemented solidly to it. 
 This is also furnished with honey cake and an egg 
 puib on top and the cell sealed up with cement. 
 She keeps making these little cells until there is a 
 group of from six to ten, each with its honey cake 
 and an egg. 
 
 Now to make things more safe for the little 
 family, the bee mother builds a thick covering of 
 cement over the whole group of cells. When 
 finished, the whole house is about the size of half 
 an orange. The thick, hard round cement roof 
 keeps away the rain, frost and snow. It protects 
 
HOW THE TEACHER WAS TAUGHT 25 
 
 them from wasps and other insects that go hunting 
 around for fat grubs. It keeps out birds that are 
 always on the lookout for just that kind of food. 
 It may be a long time before the family can come 
 forth, therefore, especial care must be taken to 
 protect it. 
 
 When they are hatched out, the tiny grubs 
 quickly grow to be big ones. Then they spin soft 
 linings for their little rooms and go to sleep to 
 await the time when they will wake up full grown 
 bees, with legs, wings, eyes, jaws, and all the parts 
 of a beautiful flying insect, instead of fat white 
 grubs. This family is made up of both brothers 
 and sisters. They must next work their way out 
 of their little cells. Then they are free to begin 
 new bee life. 
 
 Soon new mothers start in as masons, first 
 selecting a stone for a foundation, and building 
 the house and filling the rooms with food and eggs 
 as their mothers did. 
 
 There are many kinds of mason-bees found in 
 different countries. That is, bees which make 
 their houses with the use of cement or mortar 
 which they make themselves. But they do not all 
 build their houses like the one which Fabre and his 
 pupils found. Each kind has its style of house, 
 and its own choice of the kind of place to build it in. 
 
 In this country one kind makes little cells on the 
 underside of a flat stone. There are some kinds 
 that do not build their nests wholly out of mortar, 
 but use holes in fences, buildings, trees or stone 
 
26 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 walls. These holes they clean out and use their 
 own mortar with which to finish them. One kind 
 makes tiny vases out of its cement which it fastens 
 to stems of plants. A honey cake and an egg is 
 placed in each vase. Because it makes these 
 vases, it is called a potter-bee. 
 
 Each of these sorts of bees, has wonderfully 
 interesting ways of doing things. There are great 
 numbers of the different kinds. So many, that 
 people have found out the ways of but a few of 
 them. There are sure to be some kinds living about 
 every home. Many are so small and go about 
 their work so quietly and quickly, that we never 
 see them. If any one would watch and study 
 some of them as carefully as Fabre did his mason- 
 bee, he could certainly tell wonderfully interesting 
 stories about them. 
 
A CATERPILLAR REGIMENT 
 
 Not long since, Elizabeth received a letter, part 
 of which is given here. The things spoken of in 
 the letter are shown in the pictures. 
 
 " While searching among the trees and bushes 
 with Alice, I found on a twig of a white oak tree a 
 small thickened band wrapped about the twig. 
 On looking at it very carefully you can see that 
 the band has an outside layer which you can see 
 through and that it covers a great number of little 
 dots. These dots are little eggs standing on end 
 and packed closely together. There are something 
 like four hundred of them or even more. Now 
 what kind of an animal can lay four or five hundred 
 eggs in one nest? Well, it is the moth of the tent- 
 caterpillar. All the kinds of moths and butterflies 
 lay some kind of eggs from which are hatched 
 some kind of caterpillar. 
 
 "I am sending you a twig on which is a band of 
 eggs of the tent-caterpillar. I cut it off an oak 
 tree near here. 
 
 "If you tie the twig, which has the band on it, 
 tightly to one of the small branches of a tree near 
 your home where you can watch it, you can see 
 what happens when the eggs hatch. You can use 
 an oak, an apple, a cherry, a prune or an apricot 
 tree. In tying the twig on be sure to tie it firmly 
 
 27 
 
28 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 and use fine thread. If a coarse string is used it 
 might be hard for the tiny caterpillar to get over 
 when it first hatches out. 
 
 "At this time of year (spring) if you look 
 carefully among your oak trees and fruit trees you 
 may find a nest of eggs of the tent-caterpillar which 
 you can watch on its own tree, or if it is too far 
 away, you can cut off the nest twig and tie it to a 
 right kind of tree near your home. Most people 
 do not like these tent-caterpillars on their trees but 
 just one nest won't matter much. And if we can 
 learn something about the way those little animals 
 live and manage to take care of themselves, I think 
 it will do us some good." 
 
 STORY OF THE TENT-CATERPILLAR 
 
 The tent-caterpillar moth lays her eggs in a band 
 around the oak twig in the summer time. She 
 carefully covers the eggs with a substance which 
 when dry gets hard and will turn the water off, so 
 that the eggs are kept dry through the winter. 
 
 There they stay through the fall and winter 
 tucked away in their well made nest. About the 
 time the oak leaf buds begin to open in the spring 
 into leaves, the little tent-caterpillar eggs hatch. 
 They are very tiny little caterpillars at first but 
 Oh, there are so many of them. Small as they 
 are, they seem to know just what to do to take care 
 of themselves in the big world into which they have 
 just come. 
 
A CATERPILLAR REGIMENT 
 
 29 
 
30 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 They are sociable little people right from the 
 start. They stay together in a great company, 
 just as soldiers do, so we might call it a regiment. 
 They all dress alike in a uniform and that is like 
 soldiers. Down the limb they march until they 
 find a corner which seems to them good enough 
 in which to build their tent. Such a corner is 
 where one limb of the tree branches off from 
 another. There they busily work at weaving a 
 web that looks like some kind of a spider's web. 
 They use it for a house or tent. This is the 
 reason they are called tent-caterpillars. The cloth 
 of the tent is woven from a fine silken thread 
 which they spin from their bodies as do spiders. 
 They spin this thread wherever they go. 
 
 When they first make their tent it is rather 
 small, but big enough for the tiny little people to 
 get into. They crowd in at nights and on cloudy 
 days. There they keep warm and are sheltered 
 from wind and rain and any insect enemies which 
 may be after them. When the sun comes out 
 warm, the little fellows crawl out and go off to the 
 ends of the twigs or branches of the tree for the 
 green leaves which are their food. They eat 
 away on the leaves until they are unable to eat 
 any more, then they crawl back to the tent to rest 
 and sleep in safety. 
 
 How do they find their way back to their tent? 
 Well, I am not sure, but it looks as if they had a 
 good way since they spin a thread wherever they 
 go. They could follow that line of thread back. 
 
A CATERPILLAR REGIMENT 31 
 
 Then they go over the way so often that there gets 
 to- be a good silken trail on every limb back to the 
 tent. 
 
 That little thread is sometimes of great use to 
 them. If ever you find one of these caterpillars 
 swinging at the end of its rope you can see how it 
 uses its mouth and feet to gather up the rope as 
 it climbs back to its place on the limb. 
 
 As each little caterpillar goes out every nice day 
 and feeds on the leaves it grows very fast and soon 
 becomes a big caterpillar, more than an inch long. 
 The whole company keep making the tent bigger 
 and bigger to suit their larger size. It might get 
 to be as much as two feet across. 
 
 But after some time when they have eaten a lot 
 and grown all they are going to, they do not go 
 back to the tent. Each one then goes off by 
 itself. It seeks a good place to hide in. Then it 
 spins a silken bed for itself. This is fastened by 
 silk threads to the sticks or leaves where it is 
 hiding. The silken bed is called a cocoon. Inside 
 of it the caterpillar slowly changes into a moth. 
 This takes some weeks, perhaps as much as three. 
 The moth comes out of the silken cocoon and at 
 first it is very quiet, but soon it is strong enough to 
 fly. It hides away in the day time and flies about 
 at night. One may fly into your room through the 
 window some time when the light is shining. 
 
 Many other moths and other insects besides this 
 one may come in through the window at night 
 drawn by the light. 
 
32 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 After some time, when it is ready for egg laying, 
 it seeks a tree that will give the right kind of 
 leaves .for food for tent-caterpillars. It likes the 
 white oak best, but some others will do. It lays a 
 band of eggs around a small twig and covers it over 
 with something that is hard when it gets dry and 
 protects the eggs through the winter. This band 
 is like the one which was sent to Elizabeth. It 
 stays on the tree till next spring and the story 
 begins again with the tiny caterpillars marching 
 down to find a good place in which to make a tent. 
 
 If you find any eggs watch them and you will 
 see that they do just what this story tells you. 
 
 There are several kinds of tent-caterpillars. 
 But they act much in the same way. Some make 
 their tents somewhat different from the others, or 
 they may have different likes and dislikes about 
 their food leaves. One likes oak leaves the best, 
 whilst others seem to prefer apple or cherry leaves. 
 
 There is one thing sure, if the mother moth 
 puts her eggs on a certain tree the caterpillars must 
 eat just that kind of leaves or go without. They 
 have learned the lesson of "Eat what is set before 
 you and ask no questions." Mother seems to 
 know just what the children need and she does her 
 best to manage that they get it. But suppose she 
 should make a mistake and lay the eggs on a 
 wrong tree, a tree tliat had leaves which the little 
 children could not eat. That would be terrible. 
 There would be about four hundred little cater- 
 pillar babies that would starve to death. But the 
 
A CATERPILLAR REGIMENT 33 
 
 mother moth seems to be very careful. I have not 
 found any eggs on the wrong tree. I think it is 
 wonderful that such little people with such small 
 heads know how to take care of themselves in 
 such clever ways. 
 
MUSHROOMS 
 
 When winter has gone away the ground begins 
 to get warmer. The soft spring rains come. 
 The warmth and rain wake up the seeds and the 
 roots of the plants and they all start to grow. 
 
 Soon the hills and fields are green. In the forest 
 the buds of the trees are opening and will soon 
 cover the branches with fine green leaves. There 
 is plenty of food for the birds and insects and so 
 they come forth to begin their lively and joyful 
 summer life. 
 
 One spring morning, after showers of rain, we 
 took a walk through the fields and woods. On 
 every side there seemed to have just popped 
 out of the moist ground many kinds of plants that 
 are not green. They are called mushrooms. 
 Because they grow so quickly, it is sometimes said 
 that they " spring up in a night." We found that 
 some of them do seem to grow up in a night, but 
 not all of them spring up so quickly. Some kinds 
 grow so slowly that it may be a long time, even 
 months, before they reach their full size. 
 
 There were many different shapes. Some w r ere 
 like umbrellas; some were round balls and others 
 shaped like stars. Some did not grow from the 
 ground but from the sides of logs or trees. Many 
 of these were like shelves growing out from the log. 
 
 34 
 
MUSHROOMS 
 
 35 
 
 They were of many different colors but only a very 
 few were green and their green was not like the 
 green of grass or of the leaves of trees. 
 
 The umbrella shaped ones were the most numer- 
 
 y Jfa 
 
 FIG. 10. The common edible mushroom. The ground is shown as 
 if cut away to show how the mycelium grows in it. 
 
 ous. These were not all alike, some being large 
 and some very small. 
 
 We were told that many kinds are good to eat 
 but that some kinds are very poisonous. Now 
 since some that are poisonous look like those that 
 are good to eat it is dangerous to make a choice 
 unless you know them very well. As we did not 
 
36 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 know how to tell a good mushroom we asked a man 
 who has studied mushrooms and knows, to tell us 
 about them. He showed us some of the good 
 kinds and we gathered them to take home and look 
 at more carefully. 
 
 We first examined some of the umbrella kind. 
 One of the first things we learned, and this surprised 
 us, was that this umbrella part which grows up out 
 of the ground so quickly is by no means all of the 
 plant. There is a part that grows in the ground. 
 By digging the earth away very carefully from the 
 bottom of the umbrella stalk we found it fastened 
 to a delicate white stuff which looks like cotton. 
 This runs from the umbrella stalk into the ground 
 like roots but not strong like the roots of other 
 plants. These threads are so fine and delicate 
 that it is hard to find them in the ground except 
 at the very bottom of the umbrella stalk. But 
 people who have studied very carefully how mush- 
 rooms grow, tell us that these fine cotton-like 
 threads grow a long way in the ground or log on 
 which the mushroom is growing. This is the 
 main part of the plant. It is called the mycelium. 
 It lives and grows sometimes for more than a year 
 before the umbrella part springs up out of the 
 ground and its purpose is to gather food for the 
 mushroom. The white cotton-like mycelium gath- 
 ers food from rotting leaves, wood or grass roots 
 that -may be in the ground. If the mushroom 
 grows on a log, the mycelium grows in the rotting 
 part of the log to get its food. 
 
MUSHROOMS 37 
 
 When the mycelium has gathered enough food 
 to nourish the growth above the ground, a part 
 will grow up from the surface of the earth or out 
 from the side of a log in the form of a little 
 umbrella. On the under side of the umbrella part 
 are the tiny things that act as seeds of the mush- 
 room. They are called spores and are so small that 
 they seem like very fine dust when touched. The 
 top of the umbrella is called the cap and the handle, 
 the stem. Most of the umbrella kinds that we 
 gathered had little short thin curtains on their 
 under side which run from the stem out to the edge 
 of the umbrella. These little curtains are called 
 the " gills" of the mushroom. The fine dust%of 
 spores is formed on these gills. 
 
 The spores, being so small, are carried away by 
 the wind before we can see them properly, so we 
 took some of the umbrella shaped mushrooms home 
 and cut off the stem of one close up to the umbrella 
 top and laid it carefully, with the underside down, 
 on a sheet of paper. We then covered the mush- 
 room top with a glass tumbler to keep the air from 
 blowing the spores away. After some hours the 
 spores had fallen down from the gills just right to 
 make a beautiful picture of the gills on the paper. 
 This is called a spore print. 
 
 A single spore is so small that we cannot see it 
 by itself. But when a lot are gathered together they 
 look like colored dust. If you look at them with a 
 microscope, they are seen to be little round or oval 
 things. 
 
38 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 If one of them gets in the right place it will grow 
 into a tiny white thread. New threads will branch 
 out from this and these threads will branch again 
 and again until it makes the cotton-like mycelium. 
 In this way the fine threads of the mycelium grow 
 through the rotting log or decaying matter in the 
 ground gathering food for the quick growth of the 
 
 FIG. 11. The mushroom called boletus. 
 
 umbrella. Thus the spore grows into the myce- 
 lium and the mycelium makes the umbrella above 
 the ground, and the umbrella makes the spores and 
 the spores wafted away by the wind to a new place 
 start new mycelium which is ready to go on with 
 the program once more. 
 
 One kind of umbrella shaped mushroom has on 
 its underside, instead of little curtains, a number 
 
MUSHROOMS 
 
 39 
 
 of little holes and the spores come out of these tiny 
 holes. We made a spore print of this one also. 
 The name of this one is the boletus. 
 
 The umbrella shaped mushrooms are not the 
 only ones which bear spores. Every kind of 
 mushroom has spores. The part that grows up 
 
 FIG. 12. The morel. 
 
 out of the ground or from the side of a log or trunk 
 of a tree is the part that forms the spores. It is 
 sent out on purpose to make the spores which are 
 generally found somewhere on the surface of the 
 mushroom. 
 
 The mushroom called the morel, instead of an 
 umbrella top has a pointed top. Its surface is 
 wrinkly and the spores are on this surface. 
 
40 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 The coral mushroom has a branched top looking 
 like some kinds of corals. The spores are on the 
 surface of the branches. 
 
 The puff-balls are mushrooms which have in the 
 place of the stalk and umbrella top, a ball shaped 
 
 FIG. 13. Coral mushroom. 
 
 part. The spores are formed inside of the ball. 
 When they are ripe the ball is easily broken. If 
 you step on a ripe puff-ball a little cloud comes out 
 with a puff. This is really a little cloud of spores. 
 We found one very curious kind of mushroom 
 called the geaster, or earth star. It is really a 
 
MUSHEOOMS 41 
 
 kind of puff-ball with a star shaped collar around 
 its base. When the geaster is wet the rays of the 
 star open and stretch out wide. As it drys up the 
 rays rise up and close tightly around the ball 
 in the center. If you put the dry one in a saucer 
 
 FIG. 14. Puff-balls. 
 
 of water the rays will again open and stretch out 
 right before your eyes. 
 
 Thus every kind of mushroom has a place on it 
 where the tiny spores are formed in very great 
 numbers. Why are the spores so very small and 
 why are so very many made? Well, as nobody 
 takes care to plant all these different kinds of 
 mushrooms, each mushroom must see to that for 
 itself. The spores are made very small so that, 
 
42 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 like very finQ dust, the wind can carry them 
 away long distances. There are such large num- 
 bers of them formed so that some of them can be 
 sure to get planted in just the right kind of a place 
 to grow. 
 
 Every kind of mushroom needs a certain kind of 
 place where it can grow best. If thousands upon 
 thousands of the spores of a mushroom are scat- 
 
 FIG. 15. The geaster opened when moist. The star shaped collar 
 closes on the ball when dry. 
 
 tered far and wide some will be sure to fall in the 
 right places for that kind of a mushroom. In that 
 way each kind keeps itself alive year after year. 
 If there is a good place over in another woods for a 
 certain kind of mushroom the wind will very 
 likely carry some of its spores over there and a new 
 lot will spring up. 
 
 Just a few kinds of mushrooms are talked about 
 in this story but there are hundreds of others. 
 
MUSHROOMS 43 
 
 You will find it great fun to look for the different 
 kinds and find out the places each one likes best. 
 Sometimes the umbrella shaped mushrooms are 
 called toadstools. I suppose that name was given 
 them long ago when some people thought that 
 the toads used them for stools. I think they would 
 make better umbrellas than stools. Don't you? 
 
 FIG. 16. A fairy ring. 
 
 Sometimes one kind of mushroom is found 
 growing in the lawns or fields in such a way as to 
 make beautiful rings. People call them fairy 
 rings. Long ago it was thought that the fairies 
 made them come up in rings so that at midnight 
 they could come and dance in the center of the 
 ring. It does look mysterious to see a lot of 
 mushrooms standing up in the grass in the form of 
 a ring like a lot of children playing a game. 
 
 One explanation of how they come to grow in a 
 ring is this. 
 
44 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 The sort of mushrooms shown in the picture 
 is not the only one that grows in a ring. Why 
 mushrooms should come up in this way is such an 
 interesting question that our Government's Agri- 
 cultural Department set some of its scientific men 
 to study it at one of its experiment stations. The 
 explanation given is that some spores of the 
 mushroom drop in a good place hi the lawn or 
 field. They start the mycelium to growing in the 
 ground. From this spot as the mycelium grows it 
 finds good fresh ground in front. What is behind 
 is not so good because the mycelium has just used 
 it. As it grows away from the starting point it 
 soon becomes a circle. This growth may go on for 
 years before it bears any mushrooms but when 
 they do come up of course they are in a ring. 
 These rings where the mycelium is growing is often 
 shown in the lawns long before any mushrooms 
 come up. They make rings of brighter colored 
 grass under which the mycelium is growing. 
 There are a number of such rings in the lawns of 
 the University Campus. 
 
 The rings can only form where the ground is not 
 disturbed for a long time such as in lawns, per- 
 manent pastures or woods. In some places the 
 rings are so large that it is thought it has taken 
 hundreds of years for them to grow this way. 
 I am sure if I had a fairy ring in my lawn or 
 anywhere I would not let any one destroy it. 
 
 I have said that very many kinds of mushrooms 
 are good to eat. I must now tell you that some 
 
MUSHROOMS 45 
 
 are very poisonous. You should never try to eat 
 any kind of mushroom without knowing for certain 
 that it is one of the good kind. It is best to learn 
 this from some grown * up person who knows 
 mushrooms well. Some of the most dangerous 
 ones look so much like some of the good ones that 
 any one not knowing them well could easily be 
 mistaken. Some people say that you can tell a 
 poisonous kind by boiling the mushroom with a 
 silver coin. They say that if the silver turns 
 black, it is a poisonous mushroom. This is a 
 mistake so don't trust it. One of the most common 
 of the good kinds comes up in the pasture fields. 
 Many people know this kind well and go out in the 
 spring after warm rains to hunt for it in the fields. 
 This is the kind that is planted for the market. 
 Perhaps some one near you raises this mushroom. 
 It would be interesting to visit the place and see 
 how the mushroom gardner makes them grow. He 
 uses a cellar or cave where it is cool and damp. He 
 gets very rich earth and starts the mushrooms by 
 planting in it a block of dirt which has the myce- 
 lium in it. This block of dirt with the mycelium 
 in it is called spawn. When it is planted in the 
 moist rich earth, the mycelium grows out from the 
 block of dirt. The mycelium spreads all through 
 the rest of the rich earth the same as it does in the 
 ground in the fields and when it gathers enough 
 food it puts up the umbrella shaped part in large 
 numbers. These are gathered to sell for food. 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 
 
 A HOMELY FRIEND 
 
 The boy was helping Aunt Hannah prepare her 
 flower beds. They were both down on their knees 
 planting seeds, and crumpling up the clods with 
 their hands, to cover the seeds with fine soil. Aunt 
 Hannah got hold of a clod that was soft but would 
 
 FIG. 17. A common California toad. 
 
 not crumble as she rolled it in her hand. "What 
 a funny clod," she said, "Oh it's a toad' 7 and she 
 let it drop in a hurry. Of course the boy laughed, 
 and Aunt Hannah, after making a wry face 
 and saying an "Ugh" or two, laughed too. The 
 poor toad wasn't hurt very much and hopped under 
 
 46 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 47 
 
 a plant and snuggled down among the clods. As 
 he looked just like a clod again, he thought he 
 had hidden himself once more. 
 
 Aunt Hannah did not try to drive the old toad 
 away. She was very glad to have it stay, even if 
 it were so ugly that she did not like to touch it. 
 For the good old toad was a great help to her 
 flower beds. She had had great trouble with the 
 insects and slugs eating her plants as soon as they 
 came up. But after the toad came it caught 
 hundreds of the insects and slugs and this gave the 
 plants a chance to grow. Indeed she thought 
 so much of it, that you could hardly buy it from 
 her. But you might think, why is such a good 
 fellow so very ugly? Well nowj there is a very 
 good reason for the toad's being ugly. 
 
 You see it is such a harmless animal, it couldn't 
 take care of itself by fighting as some animals do. 
 It has no sharp teeth to bite with nor sharp claws 
 to scratch with. So almost any animal can whip 
 it in a fight. Then it can not run fast so as to get 
 away from trouble. But if you look at it carefully 
 you see its body is dark mud-color, with dirty 
 looking blotches, and the skin is rough with warts. 
 This makes it look like a lump of dirt. Thus, 
 when it sits low down and very still among 
 clods or on rough ground, you would have to look 
 closely or you would not see it at all. When 
 hawks, cats, dogs and other animals are hunting 
 for food they are likely to miss seeing the 
 toad. Then it hardly ever comes out of its hiding 
 
48 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 place till it begins to get dark, and that makes it 
 still harder to be seen. A very curious thing 
 further helps it hide itself. It has a strange 
 way of changing its color a little, so that it may get 
 a lighter grey on light colored ground or a darker 
 brown on darker ground. Then there is another 
 thing that helps guard it against some of its enemies. 
 When an animal touches it, a liquid comes out of 
 its skin that is very bad to taste and it is somewhat 
 poisonous, so that if a dog or other animal picks 
 it up with its mouth, it is glad to drop it and not 
 to try it again. So you se6 this quiet, helpless, 
 ugly, slow toad is taken care of by nature. 
 
 But it is not altogether ugly for it has beautiful 
 eyes. They are bright yellow and gleam from his 
 homely head. 
 
 While the good old toad cannot harm children 
 and animals, even if they are no bigger than itself, 
 it is a hobgoblin to insects, worms and slugs. 
 Here is where its ugliness helps it again. As it 
 looks like an unsightly clod, the bugs and flies 
 crawl and fly close to it thinking there is nothing 
 around, but clods. But they are greatly deceived 
 when one of the clods turns out to be alive and 
 snaps up the poor insect as quick as lightning. 
 
 The toad is a slow sleepy fellow, but there is one 
 part of it that is quick as a flash. That is its 
 tongue. 
 
 The children caught an old toad and put it in a 
 box. They caught some flies and caterpillars and 
 slugs and put them in the box with the toad. 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 49 
 
 Then they put a sheet of glass over the box to keep 
 the flies in, and watched what would happen. 
 A slug was crawling along the side of the box and, 
 quick as a wink it was gone. No one saw how it 
 went away. They watched more closely. This 
 time Bess said she saw the toad's mouth fly open. 
 Tom said he saw a pink flash and a fly disappeared. 
 Well, then they watched still more closely and 
 found that what happened was this. When a 
 fly or a caterpillar moved near the toad its big 
 mouth flew open and a long pink tongue shot out, 
 caught the insect and shot back again and the 
 mouth snapped shut. It was all so quickly done 
 you could not see it if you did not look very 
 sharp. 
 
 Then I took up the toad and opened its mouth 
 and there at the front part of the bottom of the 
 mouth was the tongue drawn up in a little lump. 
 When pulled out, it was long and slender and 
 covered over with a sticky stuff. To catch a fly, 
 the toad would open wide its big mouth and throw 
 out this tongue, like a long ribbon, against the fly 
 and the sticky stuff would hold the fly fast, and 
 the toad would jerk it back into its mouth which 
 closed with a snap . What a fine fly-trap ! Though 
 its body is like a clod that is not easily seen, it has 
 a good bright eye, a big mouth and a long sticky 
 tongue, that is as quick as lightning. Strange to 
 say, the toad does not seem to see an insect until 
 the insect moves. If the fly keeps perfectly still 
 the toad does not try to catch it, but if the fly 
 
50 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 9 
 
 makes the slightest move then it is swept off in a 
 wink. 
 
 There is another pleasing thing about a toad. 
 It has a nice little song. Not a coarse and rough 
 one like the croaking of some kind of frogs. Its 
 song is like a very soft and gentle whistle. 
 
 In countries where the winter is cold, many 
 plants go to sleep in the fall until spring. Some 
 animals also hide away for the winter sleep. 
 The toad is one of them. It finds some hole in the 
 ground, or digs down into the earth and in its 
 hiding-place, sleeps till the warm spring rains 
 come. Then it wakes up with the other winter 
 sleepers and then you can hear its gentle song. 
 It, like every body else, is glad when winter is over 
 and spring has come. This song is one of the early 
 signs that plants, insects, flowers, squirrels and 
 many other animals are waking up and soon the 
 grass and flowers, birds, butterflies and bees will 
 all be busy again. 
 
 The toad is generally quiet the rest of the 
 year. But you can make it sing a little song if 
 you stroke it gently with your finger in just the 
 right way. 
 
 The toad is a great friend to the gardener, 
 because it catches such great numbers of insects, 
 caterpillars, slugs and worms. People who under- 
 stand this, are very careful that no harm comes to 
 the toads. They may go to lots of trouble to get 
 toads for their gardens. A little boy friend of 
 mine, learned that toads are fine for gardens. 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 51 
 
 He thought he would find some and try them, and 
 here is the story of his troubles. 
 
 LITTLE WILBUR AND His TOAD TROUBLES 
 
 There was a pond near little Wilbur 's school. 
 At noon and recess the children would often play 
 and "splash" along the edge of the water. In the 
 spring hundreds of toads came to the pond to 
 lay their eggs. When the eggs were laid, the toads 
 would come out of the water and start for their 
 old homes. Some went this way and some went 
 that. Some of the boys who did not understand 
 toads and all the good they do, would run after the 
 poor things with sticks and stones and I am very 
 sorry to say killed very many of them, before they 
 got back to their homes in the different gardens. 
 
 I suppose that that year the insects and slugs in 
 many gardens, had a jolly time eating up the 
 plants, because the poor toads, that had homes in 
 those gardens, never went back. 
 
 A little boy, named Wilbur, had read in his 
 story book, how in France the gardeners kept 
 toads in their gardens to keep the plant-bugs and 
 slugs from eating every thing. Well, when he saw 
 the toads hopping around on the banks of the pond 
 he thought about the French gardeners. At his 
 home, there was only a very small front yard. 
 His mother had a few flower beds in it. He 
 thought "I'll just take home some of these toads 
 and put them in the flower beds as the French 
 gardeners do and leave them there to take care of 
 
52 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 the flowers." He did not tell anybody what he was 
 going to do for fear he would be laughed at. So he 
 slipped away from the other boys with whom he 
 was going to school, some of whom were stoning 
 the poor things and caught two of the toads, to 
 take them home, and put one in each of his trousers' 
 pockets. To keep them quiet he carefully covered 
 each one with a small bunch of grass. 
 
 Well he had to stay in the school-room with those 
 toads in his pockets all the remainder of the 
 afternoon, till school was over for the day. 
 
 Now, the toads behaved very well and kept very 
 quiet down in the bottom of the pockets. But 
 Wilbur could not keep his thoughts off those toads. 
 He slipped his hand carefully down into one of the 
 pockets to see if that toad was still there. It was 
 there sure enough. Just to see if it were all right 
 he gently smoothed its back with his fingers. 
 The toad must have liked that for it answered by 
 singing its soft toad song. When the children 
 heard the toad song of course they all looked up. 
 But as the song came smothered out of the bottom 
 of the pocket, nobody could tell just where it came 
 from. Soon they all got busy again. 
 
 At first Wilbur was startled to have the toad 
 sing right out in school. He was afraid something 
 would happen to him if it were found out that the 
 sound came from him. 
 
 So he kept very quiet for a time. But he could 
 not keep from trying if that toad would sing again 
 if he stroked it. He tried it and sure enough 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 53 
 
 out came the song again. This time every one 
 knew that there was certainly a toad in the 
 school-room. The next thing was to find out 
 where it was. 
 
 Now as Wilbur wanted to get those toads home 
 he should have kept very quiet and let them alone, 
 but he just couldn't do it. He wished very much 
 to find out if the other toad would sing if he stroked 
 it. So when he thought he was safe, he rubbed the 
 other toad's back with his finger. Sure enough 
 toad number two sang out louder than the other. 
 
 When Wilbur thought he was safe he didn't 
 notice that Fanny Jones was watching him and 
 saw him reach into his pocket just before the toad 
 sang out. So up went her hand. The teacher 
 asked what was wanted. She went right up to the 
 teacher and told her that Wilbur Jackson had a 
 toad in his pocket. 
 
 The teacher thought that it was a horrid thing 
 to have toads in one's pocket and right in school 
 too. So she made Wilbur march up and take the 
 toads out of his pockets. She gave him an old 
 crayon box to put them in. Well, he put one in 
 and while he tried to put the other in, the first 
 one hopped out and across the room. Then while 
 he went after that one the second one hopped out 
 and across the room in another direction. This 
 made the teacher jump up on a chair and most of 
 the little girls get up on top of the desks. The 
 boys of course, laughed and shouted while they 
 had a chance. 
 
54 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 Wilbur kept after one toad then the other. I 
 am afraid that he was only pretending to catch 
 them. At any rate they hopped all over the room 
 and it was quite a while before he got both toads 
 safely in the box and the racket in the schoolroom 
 quieted down. Then the teacher, before the whole 
 school told him what a disgraceful thing it was to 
 have those ugly toads in his pockets, and to bring 
 them into the school. 
 
 Then she sent him up to the principal of the 
 school, to have him punished. As he went sorrow- 
 fully along by the other rooms on his way to the 
 principal's room, the other teachers who had heard 
 the news, looked daggers at a boy who would have 
 toads in his pockets. Ugh ! The principal switched 
 him and sent him back to his room in disgrace. 
 
 Word was sent home to his mother, how he had 
 toads in his pockets in school. His mother felt the 
 disgrace also. She had him take off his little 
 trousers and put them into a tub of soap and water, 
 and pound them with a stick. 
 
 You see how all this trouble came about. It was 
 because all these people did not understand about 
 the toad, how useful and innocent it is. And they 
 misunderstood a little boy, who was kind to the 
 innocent animal and was to trying do good in 
 following the ways of the wise gardeners of France. 
 When I saw the little boy, I felt very sorry for 
 him and tried to help him get some other toads for 
 his garden. But I felt sorrier for people who do not 
 know better about good old useful toads. 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 55 
 
 AN INNOCENT PET 
 
 Toads make very innocent pets. All you have 
 to do is to have a good place for them to live in and 
 they will take care of themselves. They like a 
 dark damp place to hide in, in the daytime. A 
 hole in the ground under some bushes or a board, 
 under which they can crawl suits them. I had one 
 that stayed under a doorstep in the daytime. 
 When it began to be twilight, it would come out to 
 look for its food. As no one ever hurt it and it 
 often got some petting it became quite tame. 
 
 Toads live many years if no hard luck comes to 
 them. One was known to be in a garden for 
 thirty-six years. 
 
 A toad is very fond of its own home. If it is 
 carried away, it will do its best to get back to its 
 old home. This makes it hard to start an old 
 toad in a new place. If you find a toad and wish 
 to keep it in your garden, you may be disappointed. 
 For it is pretty sure to try to get away to find its 
 old home. You will have to keep it penned up 
 some way till it gets to feel at home in the new 
 place. 
 
 The better way would be to get some little young 
 toads that are just leaving the pond where they 
 were hatched. At that time they are starting out 
 to find a home and if you have a good place, they 
 may stay in it. 
 
 A still better way to do, if you can, is to get some 
 toad's eggs from a pond in the spring and put them 
 
56 INTEEESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 in a glass jar or dish in your garden and let them 
 hatch and live there till they get to be little toads. 
 Then some of them will stay in your garden. 
 
 Then too you will have the fun of seeing how 
 toads grow from eggs. It is an interesting story. 
 For as stupid as toads look, like all other animals, 
 they must know enough to provide for their young. 
 This is a story of how the children tried to find 
 out about the way toads get their start in life. 
 
 WHERE THE TOADS CAME FROM. A PICNIC 
 
 We learned that toad's eggs were laid in water 
 and hatched there. So off we started to find a 
 ditch or pond where some eggs might be found. 
 
 It was a beautiful spring morning. Toads lay 
 their eggs in the spring-time. We took along a 
 lunch so as to make a picnic of our tramp. We had 
 a glass jar to put the eggs in, if we found any, 
 and a little net on the end of a stick, like a butterfly 
 net with which to catch a toad or two. Tom 
 carried the jar, Bessie the net and I carried the 
 lunch. 
 
 Well, we had a long tramp and saw many interest- 
 ing things that there is not time now to tell about. 
 For the birds and insects and butterflies were start- 
 ing up their spring work. By and by we got to the 
 top of a hill and away down at the bottom through 
 the trees, we saw a pond. It was still a good way off. 
 It wasn't near noon yet, but I could see that the 
 children were a little tired and began hinting about 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 57 
 
 the lunch. Tom was afraid the cake would get 
 smashed if we climbed over any more fences. 
 Bessie thought that it would be better to eat the 
 lunch before we got our hands on the toads and 
 eggs. We were under a nice tree so we decided 
 it was a fine place for a lunch. We spread it out 
 on a bit of gound with a readymade moss table- 
 cloth and saved the cake from being smashed 
 while climbing a fence. 
 
 While we were eating, Tom kept looking over at 
 the pond and talking about the toads laying eggs 
 in it. He was puzzled about one thing. If it be 
 true that toads like their own homes and will 
 not stay anywhere else if they can help it, how is it 
 they ever go to ponds so far away? 
 
 Well, that is one of the most interesting things 
 about a toad. The common garden toad's eggs 
 are of a kind that can only hatch in water. With 
 some other kinds of toads it is different. But 
 our old toad must find water in which to lay its 
 eggs. Without water they would all dry up and 
 never hatch. So when the toads in spring come 
 out of their hiding places, they soon get ready 
 to lay their eggs. 
 
 The first thing to do is to find a pond. Now 
 how can a toad find a pond? Some people have 
 thought toads are so interesting that they have 
 watched them and studied them year after year. 
 They tell us that when the toad wishes to lay its 
 eggs, it tries to go back to the same pond where it, 
 itself was hatched. 
 
58 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 You see when the little toads leave the pond 
 where they started life, they hop and crawl away 
 from it to find a good home to stay in the rest of 
 their lives. They, in their slow way, sometimes 
 get a long distance from the pond before they find 
 a home to suit them. Then it may be three or four 
 years before they are old enough to lay eggs, but 
 when that time comes they start back for that 
 same pond. 
 
 Bessie said that she couldn't understand how a 
 toad could find its way back to the pond because 
 it was so low down on the ground that it couldn't 
 see very far. There were so many sticks and stones 
 and logs bigger than it that it couldn't look over. 
 Besides it has no path back to the pond. I think 
 myself, that it is hard to understand how they can 
 do it. Tom thought that perhaps the toad climbed 
 up on a high stump and looked all around. 
 But that can't be, for our old garden toad can 
 not climb like a tree toad. Then they say toads 
 cannot see very far, any way. " Well then," Tom 
 said, "I don't believe they can find their way 
 back." 
 
 We decided to hurry down to the pond and see 
 for ourselves if any toads had gone back there. 
 As we got up I must say that there were only a few 
 crumbs left from the lunch for the birds to find. 
 We gathered the papers up and rolled them into a 
 tight wad and buried it in a hole in the ground, 
 so that our lunch place would look as clean as we 
 found it. 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 59 
 
 We pushed on and before long came to the pond. 
 Off came shoes and stockings, of course. If there 
 were no toads or eggs the wading would well pay 
 for the long walk. But soon Bessie cried out 
 " Here's a toad. " The toad was a big one and was 
 crouched down in the edge of the water and before 
 we could catch it, it swam out into water too 
 deep for us and dived down to the bottom. We 
 could see it through the clear water. It soon came 
 up and floated and swam around at the top of the 
 water. But it was so far out we could not get it. 
 
 While the children were wading around Tom 
 called out, "What's this stuff sticking to these 
 water weeds?" I answered, "It looks to me like 
 toad's eggs. Bring some of it in." Tom grabbed 
 at the queer stuff two or three times with his hands 
 but shouted back, "It is so slippery that it slides 
 through my fingers." I told him to be careful 
 with it and come and get the glass jar. He put the 
 glass jar under some of it and let it slip in and then 
 brought it to the shore. Sure enough it was a lot of 
 toad's eggs. But if some one who knew about it 
 had not told you, you would never guess it. 
 
 The eggs were a row of tiny black dots in a string 
 of something that looked like a clear jelly. The 
 strings of eggs were very long and hung to the 
 water weeds in loops. Tom got some pieces of the 
 slippery strings of eggs into the jar. 
 
 The children thought that they could be sure 
 that these things were toads eggs if they could see 
 some toad laying them. So putting the jar into a 
 
60 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 safe place we went along the shore to look for 
 toads. We soon found that there were plenty of 
 toads in the pond. This looked as if toads do 
 come to the pond. But Bessie said "perhaps these 
 toads always live here." Tom declared that he 
 was " going to come back to this pond when the 
 toads were through laying eggs, to see if they still 
 lived here." That was a good idea. It did not 
 take long to catch three nice big toads. Then we 
 were ready for our march home with our jar of 
 eggs and the toads wrapped in the net. 
 
 As we were starting Tom said "Why can't we 
 see some toads coming to the pond?". We decided 
 to look through a part of the woods and a field 
 near the pond. Sure enough we found many toads 
 going toward the pond. . But they traveled so 
 slowly, and would often stop and snuggle down 
 trying to hide when we came near, that we could 
 not wait long enough to follow them all the way to 
 the pond. But I may say here that several days 
 after, we made this visit again and we found only a 
 few toads in the woods and field and very few 
 at the pond. These few may have been those 
 which have their homes in those places. All this 
 looked as if the people were right who say toads 
 came from distances to the pond and then go back 
 again. 
 
 Then we picked up our jars of eggs and net of 
 toads and trudged home. That was easy for us to 
 do because we can see a long distance and have 
 good memories to help us to find the way back. 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 61 
 
 But it is hard to understand how a poor little 
 toad can do it. But it just must do it, or soon 
 there would be no more toads. So it has its way of 
 knowing and it is for us to find out what it is. 
 
 There is another thing worth remembering and 
 that is when egg-laying time comes the timid old 
 toad must become very brave. For think of all the 
 dangers it must meet when it leaves its snug 
 hidden hole under the bush or door-step and starts 
 out alone for a long journey. There are hawks and 
 owls ready to pounce down on it, skunks and 
 'possums, coons and weasels and many other kinds 
 of animals and worst of all, snakes. And the poor 
 toad can't fight or run away fast enough from any 
 of them. Snakes are especially bad for it, for they 
 seem to like toads very much and they can catch 
 them so easily. I once found a snake with a toad 
 fast in its mouth too big for it to swallow. There 
 they lay neither toad nor snake able to do anything. 
 But how much they suffered. Of course I took 
 them apart and sent the snake about its business and 
 carried the toad far away hoping they would not 
 meet again. 
 
 Then there are other dangers. For example, 
 we saw on a road we had to cross, some toads that 
 had been crushed by wagon wheels. Those toads 
 were most likely on their way to the pond, and got 
 run over when they were crossing the road. Thus 
 many a poor toad which starts out on his pond 
 journey, never lives to get back again. 
 
 We reached home all right, tired but happy that 
 
62 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 we had secured what we had gone after and that 
 we had had the good luck to really see the toads on 
 their spring festival of pond rinding and egg laying. 
 Our next fun was to take care of our toads and 
 watch the eggs hatch. 
 
 How A TOAD BEGINS LIFE 
 
 Tom and Bessie each filled a glass jar with 
 water, and put some eggs into them. I put a few 
 into a tumbler and put it on my desk. In each 
 we had scattered some sand over the bottom, 
 and put in some water-plants and green scum 
 brought from the pond, so that when the eggs 
 hatched) the little tadpoles would feel at home. 
 
 The children told their teacher about it next day 
 and she was delighted and wished them to bring 
 some of the eggs to put into the nice little aquarium 
 which they had in the school-room. That was all 
 very fine, for now we had four different places in 
 which to watch the hatching. Next the three 
 toads had to be taken care of. We were very 
 anxious to see if any of them would lay eggs. One 
 was very fat and we guessed it was a mother toad 
 full of eggs. 
 
 We found a large glass jar and filled it about 
 half full of water. We put two bricks into it. 
 The bricks were placed in such a way that they 
 rose out of the water a little; these were little 
 platforms for the toads to sit on when they became 
 tired of swimming around in the water. Then the 
 jar was covered, so that they could not get out. 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 63 
 
 We watched and waited but the lazy things didn't do 
 a thing but just sit around. Of course after awhile 
 bed-time came and we gave it up for the night. 
 
 But next morning, Oh my! There were the 
 strings of toad's eggs, long jelly-like strings, each 
 with a row of black dots in it. They looked like 
 long slender bead necklaces. The toad that was so 
 fat yesterday was now quite thin. She must 
 have been the mother toad which laid the strings 
 of eggs. They must have been just freshly laid, 
 for the jelly part was very slender. But after 
 a while, it soaked up water and was a good deal 
 thicker. When the whole mass of strings swelled 
 with water they looked so big that it did not seem 
 possible that one toad could have laid them all. 
 
 The children started to count the eggs. When 
 they got up to 357, they saw that they could not 
 carry it through, there were so many. And no 
 wonder, for some grown people who have taken 
 great care in counting toad's eggs, tell us that one 
 toad sometimes lays many thousands, sometimes 
 even more than ten thousand eggs. 
 
 What could we do with so many eggs? We had 
 already as many as could live in the jars, and no 
 one wished to see these eggs die so I suggested that 
 they take them back to the pond. That plan was 
 hailed with joy for it meant another picnic and wad- 
 ing fun and another sight of the pond-life. This 
 was done as soon as we could get away next day. 
 
 But it was now time to look after the eggs in the 
 jars. The eggs when first laid, were about the 
 
64 
 
 INTEKESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 FIG. 18. A single strand of toads eggs hanging from a water weed. 
 Four tadpoles newly hatched, three hanging to a blade of water weed. 
 Tadpole with gills showing. Four figures of tadpoles showing changes 
 to a toad. 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 65 
 
 size of a pin-head. In a day or so they were 
 larger. Then in another day or two we could see 
 that instead of a little round egg, there was a 
 something a little longer and it wriggled. Then in 
 another day out swam a little black tadpole. The 
 egg had grown into that little animal. These 
 little tadpoles, which the children also called 
 polliwogs, swam out and fastened their heads to 
 the water-plants and hung there very quiet till 
 disturbed. By looking very closely, we could see 
 that each one looked like a round head with a thin 
 flat tail hanging to it. 
 
 They were not eating, but just hanging on by two 
 little suckers near where their mouth ought to be. 
 
 Out of the side of the head very delicate thread- 
 like branches grew. These were the gills. In this 
 they were like little fishes, which you know breath 
 by means of gills. 
 
 It was nearly two weeks before the little things 
 had mouths to eat with, then they were ready 
 for tadpole business. That business is to eat and 
 grow. Now they became very active, swimming 
 about and eating constantly the tiny plants of the 
 green scum and the slime on the sides of the 
 jar and surface of the waterplant. This slime is 
 full of very tiny plants and animals, so small you 
 can only see them with a good microscope. This is 
 rich food for tadpoles. 
 
 As we watched them day after day they grew 
 larger. The gills gradually became hidden under 
 folds of skin that grew over them and protected 
 
66 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 them while the tadpole still breathed as a fish. 
 What at first looked like a round bead, was seen to 
 be the head and body. One day Bessie came run- 
 ning to say that she believed one of her tadpoles had 
 some little legs. Tom laughed at the idea. But 
 sure enough, on the hind part of the body on each 
 side of where the tail joined on, was a tiny but a 
 real leg. It was small to be sure but a little leg is 
 as much a leg as is an elephant's leg. 
 
 Then of course we looked over all the other tad- 
 poles more carefully. We found others with tiny 
 legs that we had missed seeing before. Those that 
 did not seem to have legs at first, were found to 
 have in their place little knobs sticking out which 
 is the way the legs begin. Then Tom said "Of 
 course if the tadpoles are going to be toads they 
 would have to have legs grow on them." So now 
 we watched more closely. 
 
 So as time went on, we "saw the hind legs grow 
 larger, then the front legs came in their proper 
 places. While this was going on the tail became 
 smaller and sm aller. The body gradually became 
 more like a toad's body. 
 
 We noticed that the tadpole began to come up to 
 breathe air. As it grew more like a toad, it 
 breathed air all the time. It kept its head out of 
 water most of the time. If it dived it would soon 
 have to come up to get a breath of air, as it no 
 longer breathed through gills. 
 
 Finally they became real toads. Very small it is 
 true but with good legs, no tail, with bright eyes 
 
SOME TOAD STORIES 67 
 
 and a big mouth with a toad's tongue ready to 
 catch insects instead of eating plants. They were 
 now ready to leave the water for life on the land. 
 
 What wonderful changes are these for an animal 
 to pass through! Hatched from an egg into a 
 fish-like animal, swimming in the water and 
 breathing like a fish with gills and living on plants. 
 Then changing to a land animal with four legs to 
 hop and crawl with and with a mouth like an 
 insect trap with which to catch and eat animal 
 food and with lungs with which to breath air. We 
 had the good fortune to see all these wonderful 
 changes. 
 
 The children wished these little toads would 
 make their homes in their garden. They dug 
 some holes in a dark shady spot and placed the jars 
 down in the ground just as if they were ponds. 
 They thought that perhaps when the little toads 
 left the jars, they would only go a little way to find 
 homes to stop in. 
 
 What became of the three big toads we had 
 caught? Well, we dug a hole in a cool damp place 
 in the garden and put them in and covered it up 
 with a board. We thought if we kept them there 
 some time, they might get to thinking it was home 
 and stay. After a week we let them out. The 
 first night two of them disappeared, perhaps looking 
 for their old homes, the other one still staid around 
 the garden greatly to the delight of Tom and Bessie. 
 
 As to the little toads they were so tiny that it 
 could not be told if any remained in the garden. 
 
68 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 But I think some of them did. When they get 
 to be big I am sure some of them will be seen. 
 
 There is one thing worth thinking about. If a 
 toad mother lays ten thousand eggs every year 
 and they all live to be toads, would not the world 
 be full of toads in a few years? It surely would be 
 full and running over. 
 
 But as toads are of about the same number now 
 as they have been for years, there must be only one 
 or two toads grow up out of all the eggs one toad 
 lays. What becomes of the rest of them? Well, 
 many kinds of animals feed on toad's eggs and 
 tadpoles, such as fishes, turtles, ducks and other 
 water birds, also insect larva? in the water. Then 
 those that escape all these enemies and live to 
 become toads still have to meet many Jdnds of 
 animal enemies in the woods and fields. 
 
 So for every toad living, thousands and thou- 
 sands of its brothers and sisters meet some sad 
 fate before they are grown. 
 
 Now, since only a few of the eggs escape their 
 enemies, therefore, nature arranges that the mother 
 toad lay thousands of eggs, so that, at least a few 
 may grow up and become mothers and fathers. If 
 there were no bird or animal enemies and no bad 
 luck no thoughtless little boys with sticks, no 
 wheels to run over and crush them then each 
 pair of toads would live long and each mother need 
 only lay two eggs to take their place when they die 
 and in this way there would always be as many as 
 we have now from year to year. 
 
THE SILKWORM 
 
 ITS GREAT WORK 
 
 Before Alice starts to school in the morning I 
 notice that her mother puts a nice silk bow on top 
 of her head fastened in some way to her hair. 
 She calls it her hair ribbon. And I notice that 
 nearly every little girl I see has a big bow on top 
 of her head. Some have silk sashes around their 
 waists. 
 
 The boys that I meet seem to think that when 
 they dress up they must at least have silk neck ties. 
 If all the silk hair ribbons and sashes and all 
 the silk neck ties of just this small city were brought 
 together what a large pile it would make. But if all 
 the hair ribbons and all the sashes and neck ties 
 of the whole world could be brought together 
 what an enormously big mountain it would make. 
 
 As large as that mountain would be, there would 
 be a much larger lot of things left that are made of 
 silk. There are all the silk waists and dresses, 
 ribbons, silk hats, silk flags and many, many 
 other things made of silk. Then too satin is made 
 of silk and there are many things made of satin. 
 Then again the fine velvets and finest damasks 
 are of silk. 
 
 Silk is so fine and soft and beautiful that people 
 like to have clothing and many things about the 
 
 69 
 
70 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 house made of it. But it is so expensive that we 
 can not have all our clothes made of it. Then too 
 other kinds of things make better clothing for 
 warmth or rough use. But every body likes at 
 least some silk or velvet things to wear. 
 
 Human beings have to go to a great deal of trouble 
 to provide clothing for themselves. The animals 
 which we know, big and little, have their clothing 
 grown right on their bodies. Some have coats of 
 hair like dogs or cats or wool like sheep or fur like 
 the rabbits. The birds have dresses of feathers 
 and the fishes have a covering of scales on their 
 bodies. 
 
 But, as you know, we have to get our clothing 
 made for us. Most of what we wear is made from 
 three things: wool, cotton and silk. Of course, 
 some is made from other things as linen, rubber and 
 leather but most of it is made of wool, cotton or silk. 
 
 The sheep gives us the wool, the cotton comes 
 from the beautiful cotton plant and the silk worm 
 spins the silk for us. It takes very, very large 
 piles of wool, cotton and silk to make clothing for 
 all the peoples of the world. So the shepherds 
 have many flocks of sheep in many countries for 
 wool. The farmers plant many many fields of 
 cotton plants for cotton. Then think what very 
 great numbers of little silkworms it must take to 
 spin all the silk for the silk and velvet and damask 
 that is used to make the finest and most beautiful 
 clothing, ribbons, curtains, and ornamental trim- 
 mings of all kinds. 
 
THE SILKWORM 71 
 
 Thinking about these things makes us curious to 
 know the story of this important little animal. 
 This is our story of the silkworm and its work of 
 spinning the silk used to make the finest of all 
 kinds of clothing. We wish to learn how such a 
 little animal has done such great things as to make 
 something useful and beautiful for peoples all over 
 the world. Of course, the little silkworm does 
 not know she is spinning the silk for people. She 
 spins it for her own soft cocoon or bed where she is 
 to lie until great changes come to her. People 
 have learned how to take this cocoon and unwind 
 the fine silk thread of which it is made and weave 
 it into silk cloth for themselves. 
 
 A QUEEN DISCOVERS THE SILKWORM 
 
 The story of the silkworm is like a fairy story. 
 The people who first learned the secret of the silk- 
 worm lived thousands of years ago hidden some- 
 where in that great country, China. 
 
 There is a story in the old Chinese books that 
 more than four thousand five hundred years ago a 
 Chinese queen whose name was Si-ling first thought 
 that the beautiful soft silk thread that the silk- 
 worm winds into a cocoon might be unwound and 
 made into fine cloth. She had the ladies in her 
 court and maids in her house help her. She found 
 the way to unwind the thread. She next had a 
 loom made to weave it into cloth. Then she 
 taught her people what she had learned. 
 
 They thought that this was such a wonderful 
 
72 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 thing that they kept the secret very carefully 
 hidden so that the people in the rest of the world 
 could not guess how silk was made. When a piece 
 of silk was brought out of China people who saw it 
 would marvel at its softness, its fineness and 
 its beauty and wonder how it was made? It was a 
 great puzzle. They guessed and guessed but all 
 their guesses were wrong. They never dreamed 
 that it was made by a little caterpillar. 
 
 In that far away time there were no railroads 
 and very poor roads of any kind. There were no 
 telegraphs nor telephones. China was very far 
 away and few travelers ever went into that distant 
 land. So China was to other countries like a 
 hidden world. 
 
 The silk that was made in China was mostly 
 used in that country itself. What did come out to 
 other countries came in packs on the backs of 
 donkeys and camels; mostly the camels were led in 
 groups or bands called caravans. Sometimes it 
 took many many months for the silk from far away 
 China to be brought to the other countries. 
 
 All this made silk very expensive. A silk dress 
 would cost as much as its weight in gold. Only 
 rich kings, queens, princesses and princes could 
 have any clothing made of silk. No hair ribbons 
 or neck ties for school children could be thought of 
 in those far away times. 
 
 But the great country of China could not keep 
 her secret about silk hidden forever. So after 
 some thousands of years the secret was found 
 
THE SILKWORM 73 
 
 out by a few other people. Then the hidden silk 
 makers of far away China were not the only ones 
 who knew what wonderful stuff the little cater- 
 pillars could produce. Stories are told of three 
 ways by which the secret slipped out. 
 
 One is that once upon a time, long ago, a beauti- 
 ful princess in China hid some of the tiny silkworm 
 eggs in her hair and head dress and in that way 
 carried them to a far away country called India. 
 You know Chinese princesses have their hair put 
 up into very large and beautiful head dresses. 
 It takes so much time and trouble to do them up 
 that they let them stay that way a long time. 
 This made a good safe way by which the silkworm 
 eggs could be taken out of China. When the 
 Princess reached India she gave the eggs to the 
 Emperor and explained about them. He was 
 delighted and had her teach his people how to rear 
 the silkworms and get the silk from them. 
 
 There is a story that Japan just took the secret 
 by force from the Chinese. It is said that the 
 Emperor of Japan sent some soldiers and captured 
 four Chinese girls who knew all about silkworms 
 and how to make silk. He had them teach his 
 people the secret. After a time Japan got to be a 
 great silk making country. The Japanese were so 
 grateful for what these girls did for them that they 
 made temples in their honor. 
 
 Another way by which the silkworm secret got 
 out of China is this. A long time ago two Persian 
 monks went as missionaries to China from a city 
 
74 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 now called Constantinople, in the country of 
 Turkey. While in China they learned about the 
 silkworm and how the people made silk. When 
 they started back home they made themselves 
 some walking canes out of bamboo which is 
 hollow. They secretly hid some silkworm eggs and 
 seeds of the mulberry tree in the hollow canes and 
 walked out the long distance to their home city. 
 When they got back they went to the Emperor 
 whose name was Justinian and told him the story 
 of the silkworm and explained how the silk was 
 made. The Emperor was very much pleased. 
 He had the monks teach some of his people how to 
 hatch the silkworm eggs they brought and how to 
 care for the caterpillars and make silk from the 
 silkworm cocoons that they spun. 
 
 After a long time, peoples of other countries 
 learned from this country about the silkworms and 
 their work. Some of these countries are France, 
 Italy, Spain, England and the United States. 
 The peoples of these countries planted mulberry 
 trees for leaves for the silkworms to feed upon 
 and got eggs of silkworms and hatched them and 
 made silk. 
 
 Just from the eggs which the monks brought in 
 the hollow canes from China to Constantinople, 
 came the many hundreds of millions of silkworms 
 in all those countries. 
 
 China and Japan still breed as many silkworms 
 or more than they ever did. And now hundreds 
 of thousands of men, women and children in many 
 
THE SILKWORM 75 
 
 parts of the big world are caring for the little 
 silkworm, finding it mulberry leaves and getting 
 it to spin its silken cocoon. Then from these 
 they are getting the silk threads and making the 
 silk cloth always saving enough eggs to keep the 
 work going. 
 
 OUR FAMILY OF SILKWORMS 
 
 Alice and I, when we heard what an important 
 little animal the silkworm is, wished at once to get 
 some and watch them at work. 
 
 We have a fine mulberry tree in our yard and 
 there are a number of others near us. Thus we 
 did not have to plant mulberry trees and wait 
 years for them to grow before we could begin. 
 Silkworms should have mulberry leaves to feed 
 upon. They can also live on osage 
 orange leaves. They will not eat 
 any other than these two kinds of 
 leaves unless they are just starv- FIG. 19. silk- 
 ing to death and then they may worm eggs. A small 
 try to eat some other kinds, but they 
 get along best on mulberry leaves. 
 
 A kind friend gave us some silkworm eggs. 
 They were small as small as little pinheads. 
 They were in a round group, close together and 
 sticking to a sheet of paper. There were about 
 three hundred of them in one group. 
 
 We put the slip of paper with the eggs on it into 
 a tray made of a paper box lid and watched them 
 day by day. It was not long before some tiny 
 
76 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 little caterpillars hatched from some of the eggs. 
 They were dark in color and covered with fine 
 hairs. They were no bigger than this line -. 
 We quickly put mulberry leaves in the tray with 
 them. They seemed to have some way of knowing 
 what the leaves were, for they went over to the 
 leaves at once, and began eating them. 
 
 They were so very small that they could not eat 
 much in a day, and as the leaves soon dry up, fresh 
 ones are given once or twice each day. 
 
 After feasting this way for about four days each 
 little caterpillar stopped eating and became very 
 quiet. It seemed as if it were asleep for about a 
 whole day and night. 
 
 Then the covering of its head came off. Its 
 skin was loose from its body and out it crawled 
 from the old skin covering. It was quite a bit 
 bigger than it was and had on a fresh new skin. 
 
 This is the way all other kinds of caterpillars 
 grow as well as the silkworm. The outside skin 
 does not grow larger as does the body inside the 
 skin. So the body soon gets too large for the old 
 skin. The body forms a new skin over it just 
 under the old skin. Then the old skin breaks and 
 the caterpillar crawls out. This is called moulting. 
 
 Soon after the little fellow had moulted it seemed 
 hungry and began eating heartily again on the 
 mulberry leaves. It ate away this time for about 
 five days more and then seemed to go to sleep 
 again. It was getting ready for another moult. 
 At the end of this moult it was bigger than ever. 
 
THE SILKWORM 77 
 
 It was large enough so that we could now see 
 plainly its head and mouth and its legs. It had, 
 near its head, three pairs of legs. At the back 
 part of the body were four pairs of feet and at the 
 very end was one pair. On these five pairs of feet 
 
 FIG. 20. Silkworm on mulberry leaves nearly ready to spin its cocoon. 
 
 there are many very small sharp claws. With 
 these it can hold to the leaf very firmly. 
 
 In about five more days there was another 
 moult. The caterpillar was bigger than ever, and 
 eating more and more. 
 
 Then in about five more days was the fourth 
 moult. When the silkworm came out of this 
 moult it was quite a large caterpillar. It was 
 
78 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 from three to four inches long. This big silk- 
 worm was very hungry and ate all the time. We 
 had to get many leaves for the large number of 
 caterpillars we had and change the leaves three or 
 four times a day. In watching one, you could 
 see its jaws biting off the edges of the leaf. It 
 quickly made a hole in a leaf and soon chewed up 
 the whole leaf. 
 
 It kept up its lively eating for a week or more. 
 Then it became quiet and seemed to sleep again. 
 It crawled off a little way as if it were seeking a 
 quiet place. It was getting ready to spin its silk 
 bed or cocoon. 
 
 The mulberry leaves it had been eating were 
 partly used in its body to make it grow and partly 
 to make the stuff that forms the silk. Just as 
 when a cow eats grass, some of the food it takes in 
 is made into the flesh of its body and some is made 
 into milk. So now this big silkworm is full grow^n 
 and is ready to give out its silk. 
 
 SPINNING THE SILK 
 
 The worm now needed some quiet snug corner 
 in which to spin its bed. The bed of a moth 
 caterpillar is called a cocoon. Well, we made some 
 cozy corners out of paste board and placed them 
 about on the tray where the silkworms were ready 
 to spin. 
 
 Soon one of them found one of these corners and 
 we had the good fortune to see it begin its work and 
 finish it. The very fine silk thread is spun from 
 
THE SILKWORM 79 
 
 two places called glands that are near its mouth. 
 It first fastened the silk thread on one part of the 
 paste-board corner. Then it carried it across 
 to another place wide apart from the first place. 
 Then it carried the silk thread to other points and 
 fastened it all around until it had a loose net 
 
 FIG. 21. Silkworm cocoon. 
 
 work scattered across the corner. All the while 
 it kept itself inside of this loose net. 
 
 Then it began to weave the silk thread round 
 and round closer to its body until it had a beautiful 
 veil-like curtain all about itself nicely hung in the 
 loose net work of silk with which it had first filled 
 the corner. 
 
 This delicate curtain was so thin that when we 
 held the paste-board corner up to the light we 
 
80 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 could see the worm plainly and watch it put the 
 thread down and around it. Busily it kept up its 
 weaving until the curtain covering about it got 
 closer to its body and became thicker and thicker 
 until we could no longer see the worm through it. 
 Then it had its silken bed done where it was to 
 sleep "until it changed into a moth. 
 
 SILKWORM COCOONS 
 
 It was very interesting to see this little fellow 
 working so hard and going through all its wonderful 
 changes. We often thought of the great Chinese 
 Queen who watched these same changes four 
 thousand five hundred years ago and first thought 
 how she could make use of them for human 
 beings. 
 
 All of our silkworms made white cocoons. 
 Sometimes they make yellow cocoons. 
 
 If the silkworm is well cared for and has a' quiet 
 place, the cocoon may be made of one unbroken 
 thread. This has been known to be as much as 
 a mile in length. It is often as much as a half a 
 mile of unbroken thread. 
 
 The silkworm, like other caterpillars of moths, 
 spins a cocoon as a bed in which to sleep while it 
 changes to a moth. As a moth it lays its eggs. 
 The eggs hatch out into caterpillars and in this way 
 start the life over again. 
 
 But man, who wishes to get the finest silk for 
 clothing, takes the cocoon before the moth cuts its 
 way out. When a moth does get out the silk 
 
THE SILKWORM 81 
 
 thread is broken and can not be unwound in a 
 very long single piece. To keep the cocoons 
 from being cut by the moth they are heated so as 
 to kill the little sleeper inside. The cocoons that 
 are cut are not thrown away as people know how 
 to get some silk out of them. The silk makers only 
 save enough cocoons to bring out live moths 
 enough to lay eggs for the next year's lot of silk- 
 worms. As a mother moth will lay about three 
 hundred eggs, people can use a great number of 
 cocoons for silk and still have enough left to raise 
 the next year's supply of eggs. 
 
 As we were not going to make silk, but wished 
 only to watch how the little animal lives we kept 
 the cocoons until the moths came out of them. 
 
 THE SILKWORM MOTH 
 
 In about a month after the cocoons were made, 
 one day a moth came out of a hole it had cut in 
 one end of the cocoon. Then another appeared 
 from another cocoon. A little later the others 
 came forth. 
 
 When a moth comes out of a cocoon its wings 
 are wrinkled and damp. But they very soon dry 
 and smooth out and become firm. The moth 
 keeps fluttering them nearly all the time but it 
 is never strong enough to fly. 
 
 Other kinds of wild moths are good fliers when 
 their wings get dry. We often see them flying 
 about the flowers in the evening, or they may 
 come in the window at night and fly about our 
 
82 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 lamp in a very lively manner. But the silkworm 
 moths, for so many thousands of years have been 
 cared for by people who brought their food to 
 them, mated them, and cared for their eggs that 
 they seem to have lost the strength to fly about 
 as other kinds of moths do. 
 
 We mated our moths on clean sheets of paper 
 and after a short time each of the mother moths 
 
 FIG. 22. The silkworm moth. 
 
 laid a group of eggs which she glued fast to the 
 paper. 
 
 Now we have a picture in our minds of the way 
 the silkworm lives and makes the silk for all the 
 world. 
 
 It is wonderful to think of the hundreds of 
 thousands of people in the far away countries of 
 China, Japan, India, France, Italy, Spain and 
 England, and even in still other countries, every 
 year, who raise the silkworms and cocoons and the 
 
THE SILKWORM 83 
 
 thousands and thousands of others who take 
 the cocoons and unwind them and weave them into 
 silk. To do this they make use of many small and 
 many large machines and many large buildings. 
 
 The children in most of these countries help in 
 taking care of the silkworms. How interesting 
 it would be to visit these countries and see the 
 children of different peoples at this work. When a 
 girl puts on her silk hair ribbon or a boy his silk 
 tie we may wonder if the silkworm was fed by a 
 French, an Italian, a Turkish, a Chinese, a Japa- 
 nese, a Persian or some other far away country 
 child. When the child of a far away country, 
 in its strange dress, and speaking a strange lan- 
 guage, gathers mulberry leaves for the silkworms 
 in his home, he does not dream that he is helping 
 to produce silk for a ribbon for little girls away 
 across the ocean in far off America. 
 
A SMALL BUT VALUABLE FRIEND 
 
 "Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home, 
 Your house is on fire and your children will burn." 
 So sang Alice as she leaned over a little ladybird, 
 as it was crawling across a rose leaf. Sure enough 
 the ladybird quickly raised its wing covers and 
 unfolded its filmy wings and flew away. But it 
 was so quickly out of sight, that you couldn't tell 
 
 FIG. 23. The ladybird. 
 
 if it went to its home. This old song to the 
 ladybird has been sung by children in many 
 countries and for many years. I suppose our 
 grandmothers sang it to ladybirds when they were 
 little girls, and, no doubt, their grandmothers 
 sang it too. Some of them may have called them 
 ladybugs and some ladybirds, but it is all the same, 
 though ladybird sounds nicer. 
 
 Everybody knows the ladybird and likes it too 
 and never thinks of harming it. It is so pretty 
 
 84 
 
A SMALL BUT VALUABLE FRIEND 85 
 
 and innocent looking. But every one would like 
 it still better if he only knew the very great 
 good it does for us. 
 
 But how can such a little thing as this tiny 
 beetle do any great good? Well, it often happens 
 in this world that very little things can do a very 
 great good or can do a very great harm. The little 
 ladybird does us an immense amount of good by 
 fighting some very little things that do an immense 
 amount of harm. 
 
 There are a number of kinds of very small 
 insects which fasten themselves tight to the stems 
 or leaves or fruit of many kinds of trees. They 
 fit so closely to the stems that they do not appear 
 as insects or any thing alive. They look like 
 little scales or scabs on the bark. For this reason 
 they are called scale insects. They pierce down 
 into the plant with a sharp beak and suck out the 
 juices. Just a single one may have so many 
 children that soon there may be thousands all 
 over the bark, leaves and fruit. Although each 
 scale is very small, the very great numbers take 
 so much juice out that they make the plant weak 
 and sick and spoil the fruit. They may get so bad 
 that the plant dies. 
 
 The number of kinds of scale insects is so great, 
 that there is one kind for almost every kind of 
 plant. They are very harmful to the different 
 kinds of fruit trees. If left alone they would spoil 
 most of them and kill great numbers of them. The 
 orchard man has to fight them all the time. Now 
 
86 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 this is where the little ladybird comes in to do its 
 great good. It helps rid the fruit trees of the 
 ruinous scale insects. 
 
 The neatly dressed little ladybird looks very 
 charming and innocent as she busies about over 
 the stems and leaves. And she is so harmless to us. 
 But the trim little lady is really a terror to the 
 scale insects. She lives on their eggs and on the 
 scales themselves. She knows how to 
 hunt them out. Although the scale 
 insects have clever ways of hiding 
 their eggs and of making themselves 
 look like any thing but a live insect, 
 they can not deceive the ladybird. 
 
 The ladybird's children are just as 
 FIG. 24. The destructive to the scale insects and 
 larva of the their eggs as is the grown up mother. 
 
 (En ~ The y do as much S ood for the or- 
 chard trees as the grown folks of the 
 ladybird family. 
 
 Of course Alice wished to see some of the children 
 she had been singing about. Well, they were very 
 easily found, for they are as common as the grown 
 ups. But when we found some on the plants, 
 Alice could hardly believe such ugly little things 
 belonged to such a tidy little mother. They are 
 somewhat flat, and about half an inch long. The 
 surface of the body is rough and hairy. It is dark 
 with some reddish spots on its back. It has six legs 
 and as it slowly crawls about it gives you a creepy 
 feeling. 
 
A SMALL BUT VALUABLE FRIEND 87 
 
 After searching through the garden and orchard 
 we found a number of ladybirds, but they were not 
 all alike. Their shape is very much the same, but 
 they differ in size and color. Some are red, some 
 black, some red with black spots on the wing 
 covers. Some kinds are more common in one 
 part of the country and some in another. 
 
 The different kinds of ladybirds live in much the 
 same way. But some kinds like one sort of scale 
 insect better than the others do. So you will 
 probably find ladybirds on the plants that have 
 their favorite scale. Different kinds of 
 ladybirds have different ways of placing 
 their eggs. Some hide them one by one 
 on the plant. Others place them in 
 little clusters near where the tiny young FIQ 25 _ 
 ones can find the scale insect food as p u pa of the 
 soon as they are hatched. Of course ladybird, 
 the little children of the different kinds 
 of ladybirds are also somewhat different, but they 
 all look more or less like the one we found, whose 
 picture is given here. You can see that it looks 
 something like the aphis-lion and it is about as 
 greedy in eating scale insects and plant lice, no 
 matter where it finds them. 
 
 Like the caterpillars of butterflies and moths, the 
 children hatched from the ladybird's eggs must 
 change their skins as they grow. This changing of 
 skin is called moulting. All insects grow in this 
 way. The young that hatches from the egg of an 
 insect is called a larva. The caterpillar is the larva 
 
88 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 of the moth or butterfly. The aphis-lion is the 
 larva of the lacewinged fly. Thus it is said that 
 the larva of the ladybird moults four times. 
 Every time it moults, it is a little bigger and a 
 little uglier and kills more scales than ever. 
 
 When it comes time for the larva period of life 
 to end, it hangs by its tail and humps up into a sort 
 of ball. This is something like the chrysalis of the 
 butterfly. It is then called the pupa. There it 
 awaits the change that goes on inside the ball, and 
 when it comes out it is a complete little ladybird, 
 fitted up with wings, covers, and all the other parts 
 that make up this pretty little beetle. 
 
 Many interesting stories could be told to show 
 how important some ladybirds become. In some 
 parts of California there are many orange and 
 lemon orchards. From them car loads of oranges 
 and lemons are sent to all parts of the United 
 States and other countries. Perhaps every boy 
 and girl has eaten an orange or has drunk a glass 
 of lemonade made with lemons from the orchards of 
 California. Now there is a kind of scale insect 
 that lives on orange and lemon trees. Its name is 
 the cottony cushion-scale. It is given that name 
 because its eggs are laid in bunches that look like 
 little pieces of cotton, which lie under the scale 
 like a cushion. This scale lives on other plants as 
 well as orange trees. But it seems to like orange 
 trees very much. One mother scale may lay as 
 many as a thousand eggs. In the summer there 
 may be several broods. Thus the increase in 
 
A SMALL BUT VALUABLE FRIEND 89 
 
 number is very very fast, as you can see. When 
 once the scale gets started on a tree the whole tree 
 is soon covered with thousands, then the tree gets 
 sick, the fruit spoils, and, at last the tree is killed. 
 Well, some years ago the cottony cushion-scale 
 attacked the orange and lemon orchards of Cali- 
 fornia and increased to such great numbers that 
 
 FIG. 26. FIG. 27. 
 
 FIG. 26. The cottony cushion-scale. The fluted part looks like 
 cotton and is filled with its eggs. 
 
 FIG. 27. The Vedalia. The great fighter of the cottony cushion- 
 scale. (Enlarged.) 
 
 people thought all their orange orchards would be 
 destroyed. They did every thing they could to 
 kill off the scale insects but they came on too fast 
 for them. Finally a gentleman by the name of 
 Mr. Albert Koebele went to the far away country of 
 Australia, and there found a tiny ladybird which 
 eats only cottony cushion-scale eggs. He caught 
 a number of these and brought them on the long 
 trip across the great Pacific Ocean to California. 
 He set them free in a California orange orchard. 
 Then the great fight began. A few spunky little 
 
90 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 ladybirds against the millions of cottony cushion- 
 scales that were eating up the thousands of orange 
 and lemon orchards of the state! This little 
 Austrailan ladybird lays many eggs and raises 
 children very fast herself. The children, the 
 larvae, are great eaters of cottony cushion-scale 
 eggs as well as are their mothers. They both 
 worked hard eating eggs, the mothers rearing more 
 and more children till at last they checked the 
 increase of the scale and the orange orchards are 
 safe. One name for this ladybird is the Vedalia, 
 which is rather a pretty name. A picture is given 
 of it. The color is red with black markings. It 
 has a fuzz of fine hairs over its back. All the 
 orange men in California know about this little 
 friend and think it is worth many times its weight in 
 gold. 
 
 There are other enemies of the cottony cushion- 
 scale. In addition the orchard men keep fighting 
 this scale and other insect enemies with poison 
 gas and sprays of poisonous liquids, but they believe 
 the little Australian Vedalia ladybird was the real 
 savior of the orange orchards. They trust to the 
 Vedalia to keep them safe. Whenever a boy or 
 girl gets a big California orange to eat, he may 
 thank the little friend that Professor Koebele 
 brought from the other side of the world. 
 
 Professor Koebele found another ladybird which 
 he brought to the orange orchards and let loose at 
 the cottony cushion-scale. This one helps the 
 Vedalia fight the scale and is an immense help. 
 
A SMALL BUT VALUABLE FRIEND 91 
 
 This one has been named the Koebele ladybird, to 
 honor the man whose eyes were sharp enough to 
 find these great cottony cushion-scale fighters. 
 
 Many other interesting stories could be told of 
 other kinds of ladybirds and their fights against 
 many kinds of scale insects and plant lice to save 
 our fruit trees and other plants that we value 
 highly. 
 
 I once saw an interesting sight that astonished 
 me greatly. One winter day I was tramping in 
 
 FIG. 28. FIG. 29. 
 
 FIG. 28. The Koebele ladybird, another great enemy of the cottony 
 cushion-scale. (Enlarged.) 
 
 FIG. 29. A common kind of ladybird. This is the kind that 
 sometimes gathers in great numbers in California in winter. 
 (Enlarged.) 
 
 the foot hills of Black Mountain near Stanford 
 University in California. In a deep canyon filled 
 with a growth of trees and ferns, I came upon a 
 large stump that had a reddish color. On examin- 
 ing it more closely, I found it covered with 
 thousands of ladybirds, piled up several inches 
 deep. They not only covered one side of the 
 stump, but a thick layer of them was stretched 
 out on the ground, at the bottom of the stump. 
 
92 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 Near this was a great log. One side of it was also 
 covered with ladybirds. If they had all been 
 gathered up there would have been several gallons 
 of them. 
 
 Later I learned that in the mountains of Califor- 
 nia, such great gatherings of ladybirds have been 
 found in various places every winter. In some 
 other parts of the United States, it is said that 
 bunches of ladybirds have been found in winter 
 time, although not in such large numbers as 
 those sometimes seen in the mountains of Califor- 
 nia. It is said that in the spring, the ladybirds 
 leave their companies and scatter to the valleys 
 where they can find scale insects and plant-lice. 
 They were just here spending the winter together. 
 
 But why they select those places, and how they 
 select them and find them and how they tell one 
 another about it so that they can get together is a 
 mystery that has not yet been solved. 
 
 Not all ladybirds spend their winters in great 
 companies. Some hide in cracks and crevices and 
 in other sheltered places, either by themselves or a 
 few together where they remain quietly, until the 
 winter is over. When Spring comes, they come 
 out and fly forth to find their hunting grounds and 
 raise their great broods of homely but hard working 
 children, to carry on the great summer fight 
 against plant lice and scale insects. 
 
A SKILFUL MASON 
 
 One September day in looking through an old 
 trunk that had been stored in the attic, I came 
 upon a shirt that had a large piece of dried mud 
 sticking fast to it. That certainly looked like a 
 strange place for mud to be. I peeled it off and 
 took it down to show the children. "Oh, that is a 
 
 FIG. 30. A mud-dauber wasp's nest. 
 
 mud-dauber's nest/' cried Andrew, "I have seen 
 lots of them sticking to the rafters of the barn. 
 They are made by wasps." "What -do you think 
 is in this one?" I asked. "I don't know. I never 
 opened one but I suppose young wasps and I don't 
 care to open one" said he. 
 
 Then I proposed to open it for them and take the 
 risk of getting stung. So they gathered around 
 the table to get a good look. I carefully cut away 
 
 93 
 
94 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 the hard mud from one side and found a little tube 
 about an inch long. The children watched intently 
 but were ready to dodge if a wasp flew out. But 
 no wasp flew out. Instead out rolled a half 
 dozen little things. " Spiders" called out Ella. 
 
 FIG. 31. A mud-dauber's nest .opened showing the spiders taken out 
 
 of it. 
 
 And sure enough they were spiders and not all of 
 the same kind. 
 
 They were examined again and again, and then 
 came the questions: How could spiders get into 
 such a place? What were they doing there? 
 Arthur was sure he had seen wasps carrying mud 
 and making the nests so spiders could not have 
 made it. Any way, he said, the spiders were 
 dead. 
 
A SKILFUL MASON 95 
 
 Andrew had been turning the spiders over with 
 a straw when he said "I don't believe they are 
 dead. They act as if they are asleep.' 7 He argued 
 that a dead spider would be all dried up and its legs 
 drawn up to its body. But the legs of these 
 spiders fell about as if their owners were asleep 
 or dazed. 
 
 Then Arthur touched one with a stick and was 
 sure it moved a little. Then they all tried it and 
 found that, true enough, some 
 of them moved just a little 
 bit. It all seemed quite a 
 mystery. 
 
 While Ella was examining 
 them, she cried " What is this 
 little thing hanging to one of FIG. 32. The kind of 
 the spiders?" All eyes were J that made the 
 then turned toward this spider 
 and it was seen that the little thing hanging to it 
 was a tiny grub that was eating the spider. 
 
 People who have watched very carefully the 
 mud-dauber at work give us the true explanation 
 of the mystery. 
 
 The wasp gathers little balls of mud and with the 
 skill of a master mason, patiently builds a tube 
 such as we had before us. Before she puts the cap 
 on, she goes hunting for spiders. The spiders 
 which live by pouncing on insects are pounced on 
 in turn by this clever little wasp. She stings the 
 spider just enough to benumb it but not kill it and 
 stores it in the tube. 
 
96 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 She keeps on doing this until the tube is full of 
 spiders and then she lays an egg. Then she puts 
 a cap over the tube. When the wasp's egg hatches 
 into a little grub, it has enough spiders stored with 
 it to last it as food until it grows large enough to 
 almost fill the tube. Then like many insects it 
 makes a cocoon and lies asleep through the winter, 
 until it is ready to come out as a full grown wasp 
 in the spring. 
 
 When this change takes place the new wasp cuts 
 a hole in the end of the tube and crawls out, and is 
 ready to fly about and start in making a mud nest 
 of its own. 
 
 Now to look again at the nest. There was more 
 than one tube. The mother wasp makes one and 
 fills it, then she goes to work on another, and 
 plasters it to the side of the first one. This is 
 stored with spiders and one egg is laid on one of the 
 spiders and the tube is sealed up. Then others are 
 built. When she has a number finished she 
 plasters them over with mud so that the whole 
 group looks like one lump of dried mud. 
 
 There are very many kinds of mud-daubers and 
 they do not all finish their nests in just the same 
 way. So if you find one, it may be a little different 
 from the one the children saw but still they 
 are all very much alike. Afterward a number of 
 nests were opened and it was found that some of 
 them were filled with only one kind of spider 
 while other nests were stored with different kinds 
 in the same nest. The number of spiders in the 
 
A SKILFUL MASON 97 
 
 nests were not the same for the different nests. 
 The largest number found in one nest was twenty 
 five. 
 
 These wasps differ from most other wasps by 
 having very long slender waists. That is, the 
 hinder part of the body is joined to that part which 
 bears the wings by a very slender, long stem, which 
 we might call the waist. The picture was made 
 from a wasp caught building one of the nests. 
 
 Is it quite fair to call them mud-daubers? 
 They do not daub the mud about, but build very 
 skilfully the neatly made tube, just the right size 
 for the body of the cocoon. They skilfully make 
 the outside look like a rough daub of mud, no 
 doubt to deceive some animal looking for the 
 wasp's grubs to eat. 
 
 Then although they work in the mud, they do it 
 very daintily and do not smear themselves with it. 
 Sometimes children are seen making mud pies and 
 they get the mud on their hands, faces and clothes 
 and do not even make pretty shaped pies. They 
 might well be called " mud-daubers. " But the 
 wasps should be called masons from their workman- 
 like way of doing things. 
 
 Arthur thought, and we all agreed with him, 
 that the most wonderful thing about this wasp was 
 the power and skill of stupefying the spiders so 
 that they would continue to live, yet be helpless 
 for so long a time. If the spiders died they would 
 dry up and not be fit for food. If they were put 
 into the tube alive but not made helpless, the 
 
98 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 savage creatures would eat up the little grubs, 
 instead of the grubs eating them. 
 
 Well, we are not the only ones to consider this a 
 wonderful thing. Scientific students of insects, 
 think it one of the most wonderful facts in nature, 
 that an insect should have such a remarkable 
 poison and know just in what part of the spider's 
 body to place it, and just how to put it there to 
 benumb the spider, but not kill it. There are 
 some other kinds of wasps that have this way of 
 preserving the creatures .they catch for food for 
 their grubs. 
 
 Man has tried many ways to preserve the plants 
 and animals he wishes to store away for food. 
 The Indians used to cut the flesh of the deer they 
 had killed, into strips and dry them. This has 
 been called jerked venison and it may be kept a 
 long time. 
 
 In countries where they have cold winters, people 
 sometimes kill their chickens, pigs and sheep and 
 freeze them. They would in this way be good 
 as long as it was cold enough to keep the meat 
 frozen. Some people keep their turnips, beets and 
 cabbages by putting them in cellars that are cool, 
 but not cold enough to freeze. 
 
 Nowadays, great warehouses are built which can 
 be made very cold like a big refrigerator. They 
 are called cold storage houses. Into these, various 
 kinds of meats, eggs, fruit and vegetables can 
 be kept until they are needed. 
 
 Then again great quantities of fruit and vege- 
 
A SKILFUL MASON 99 
 
 tables, as well as meats, are canned or dried. 
 These are the inventions of man. But long before 
 man ever invented these ways, the mud wasps had 
 found a way that man does not understand well 
 enough to copy. I hope human beings will never 
 learn that way for it seems to me to be a cruel one. 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 
 
 A THEE BLOSSOMING WITH BUTTERFLIES 
 
 A pine tree has many charms for us. It stands 
 up straight and stretches out its arms loaded with 
 tufts of needle leaves and cones of seeds. With a 
 great army of its fellows, it makes a noble forest 
 
 FIG. 33. The milkweed butterfly. The Monarch. 
 
 which covers the hills and mountains with a dark 
 green mantle.. In its depths many a bird and beast 
 and insect finds its home. A path that winds 
 through a pine forest leads you to a thousand 
 interesting sights and sounds. 
 
 100 
 
THE MILKWEED BTJTTERFLY , J.Q1, 
 
 But as much as we love a pine tree, we can 
 hardly claim for it that itjs a bright object. No, 
 it is quite a sober looking tree, except sometimes, 
 when the rising sun may light up the dew-drops 
 hanging to its needles, or when the rays of the 
 setting sun may, just after a shower of rain, make 
 brilliant the drops of water still clinging to the 
 tips of the pine needles. 
 
 But once, while strolling along a path in the pine 
 woods near Pacific Grove, on Monterey Bay, 
 California, I saw a pine tree gay with bright colors. 
 It looked as if it had burst into the bloom of a 
 thousand bright flowers. I was filled with aston- 
 ishment at the sight and quickly went nearer to 
 find out what wonderful thing had happened to the 
 sober-colored pine tree to paint it up so gorgeously. 
 
 On coming near, the mystery was solved. There 
 were hanging from the branches and needles thou- 
 sands of large, brightly colored butterflies. The 
 mystery of the color of the pine tree was explained, 
 but there was another mystery. That was, where 
 did this great company of brilliant creatures come 
 from, and why did they gather together here in 
 such vast numbers? 
 
 It was an easy thing to catch these butterflies. 
 It was just like picking peaches from a peach tree. 
 All you had to do was to take them off with your 
 fingers. They were hanging quietly as if taking 
 a rest after a long journey to this meeting place. 
 Here is a picture made from one of the visitors to 
 this butterfly convention. 
 
102 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 , 
 
 THE LIFE OF THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 
 
 This butterfly is called by several names. The 
 most common are the Milkweed Butterfly and the 
 Monarch Butterfly. In the scientific books about 
 it, it has the name Anosia plexippus which for 
 some reasons is a useful name and Anosia at least 
 has a pleasant sound. But milkweed butterfly 
 is a good name and easy to remember. It is 
 called that because it always lays its eggs on some 
 kind of milkweed where they hatch into cater- 
 pillars which feed on the leaves. 
 
 The milkweed butterfly is very beautiful and it is 
 quite large. The one in the picture was four 
 inches from tip to tip of its front wings, but some 
 are as much as five inches across. The upper side 
 of the body is black with some small white dots on 
 the front part. The borders of the wings and the 
 lines on the wings are black. The spaces between 
 the lines are dark orange. There is a double row 
 of white dots on the margins of the wings. The 
 underside of the wings is about the same as the 
 upper only the orange spaces are of a lighter 
 shade, and there are rows of white dots on the body. 
 
 This beautiful butterfly may be found all over 
 the United States during the summer time. 
 Wherever there is some kind of milkweed on 
 which to raise its children we may look for the 
 milkweed butterfly. As the butterfly does not 
 eat the leaves of the milkweed but sips the nectar 
 of many kinds of flowers as its only food, it flies 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 103 
 
 over the gardens and fields and along the edges 
 of the woods, low down in the valley and high up 
 in the mountain, wherever flowers are found. 
 
 It visits so many places and is so large and 
 showy, that those who look for butterflies are 
 pretty sure to find this one in their rambles. It is 
 a beautiful sight to see it flying. It has a small 
 light body and such large wings that its flight is 
 easy and graceful. It does not have to flutter 
 or violently flap its wings but softly fans the air or 
 glides smoothly along by sailing. When it wishes 
 to do so it can make a strong flight. If a wind 
 springs up it may veer right into it and fly bravely 
 against it, sometimes rising as high as the tree tops. 
 We know that it can fly long distances as it has 
 been seen flying along by people on ships more than 
 one thousand miles from land. It is hard to 
 understand how such a light frail thing can show 
 so much strength and courage as to face a storm 
 or to venture so far in its flight. Because it does 
 so it is called the Monarch and makes every one 
 admire it. 
 
 Dressed up so gaily, sailing about, sipping nectar 
 from beautiful flowers, opening and shutting its 
 gaudy wings to show them off or resting on the 
 soft petals of some bright bloom, you might think 
 this beautiful thing very lazy and frivolous. But 
 it has its very important work to do and if it did 
 not do it there would be no milkweed butterflies 
 in a year or so. 
 
 It must find a milkweed and lay eggs on it. It 
 
104 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 must be careful and make no mistake and get its 
 eggs on any other plant, for if it did, when the 
 little caterpillars hatched out, they would starve 
 to death. 
 
 How does the mother butterfly know milkweed 
 from other plants? She has fed on nothing but 
 nectar of flowers all her butterfly life and could not 
 bite into a milkweed leaf to taste if it she wished to 
 do so. That is a hard question to answer. Per- 
 haps she remembers back to the time when she was 
 a caterpillar and feasted herself on milkweed. 
 Perhaps she got so much smell and taste and feel of 
 milkweed in those days of feasting on it, that she 
 can't forget it and can still tell milkweed from all 
 other plants. At any rate she has some way of 
 telling, and it is a very good way, for she has never 
 been known to make any mistake about it. 
 
 When she finds a milkweed, her next work is to 
 fasten one egg to it, usually on the underside of a 
 leaf. As you might expect, from one with such 
 charming manners and dresses, she is very delicate 
 and neat in her work. The egg is not as large as a 
 pin head. But if you look at it with a magnifying 
 glass you will see that it is a very beautifully 
 shaped object. It is like a cone-shaped piece of 
 jewelry carved with many fine delicate lines which 
 are arranged in a very neat pattern. 
 
 She may place more than one egg on this plant, 
 but not many, for two or three caterpillars are 
 about all that can get enough food to live on out 
 of one plant, as they are quite large when grown 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 105 
 
 and they are very hungry people. She then flies 
 to another milkweed and then on and on to many 
 places far apart. 
 
 THE CATERPILLAR'S LIFE ON ITS MILKWEED HOME 
 
 The life of this milkweed caterpillar is like the 
 life of all butterfly caterpillars. If you could find 
 one of these caterpillars it would be a very interest- 
 ing sight to watch its ways of living and growth. 
 In seeing the life of this little animal from the 
 egg to the butterfly, you learn the way by which 
 every other kind of butterfly becomes the beauti- 
 ful visitor of flowers that it is. They differ in that 
 each kind picks out its own kinds of plants for 
 its caterpillars to live on. 
 
 A box or a glass fruit jar with a cover on it will do 
 for a cage to keep the caterpillar in. Or you 
 might make a cage like some of those shown in 
 books about insects. When a caterpillar is found, 
 it is placed in the cage with some milkweed leaves. 
 Then every day give it some fresh pieces of the 
 stems of milkweed with leaves on it. If you are 
 lucky enough to find an egg, so much the better, 
 for then you may have the good fortune to see the 
 very beginning of the story. 
 
 Four or five days after an egg is laid, it hatches 
 into a tiny caterpillar. The first thing this little 
 fellow does is to eat up its own egg shell. It has its 
 reasons for such a breakfast but it has never told 
 me what they are. After that it is milkweed, 
 and always milkweed, without even trying what 
 
106 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 the other kinds of leaves taste like. That is the 
 way it is with some other kinds of caterpillars. 
 
 FIG. 34. Caterpillar of the milkweed butterfly. 
 
 They live on only one kind of leaf all their days. 
 While still some other kinds will eat every kind of 
 green leaf they can get. 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 107 
 
 This little caterpillar's work is to eat and grow 
 as big as it can. When full grown it is almost two 
 inches long and is fat and roly-poly. Now there is 
 one thing about a caterpillar that causes it a little 
 trouble once in a while as it gets bigger, and that is 
 its skin, which is a thin hard covering that will not 
 stretch. Now, as the caterpillar grows, the skin 
 gets very tight and must be got rid of if the animal 
 is to be any bigger. Nature, however, has 
 arranged for all this very nicely. Every few days 
 a new skin grows over the body just under the old 
 skin and loosens the old skin, which breaks and 
 lets the caterpillar come out with a clean new suit 
 of clothes on and ready for another time of feasting. 
 
 Caterpillars and butterflies do not breathe 
 through their mouths nor do they have lungs. 
 Along the side of our caterpillar you can see, 
 plainly, a row of eight dots. Looking very closely 
 you will find that these are curious little openings 
 into the body. They are the breathing holes of 
 the animal. They are called spiracles. Each one 
 is the opening of a tube that divides into smaller 
 tubes that spread out into all parts of the body. 
 The air is taken in by these spiracles and goes 
 through the air tubes to every little part of the 
 body. Every movement of the body causes the 
 air to move in and out the spiracles. Not only 
 caterpillars but all kinds of insects breathe in this 
 way. 
 
 The shedding the old skin is called moulting. 
 The milkweed caterpillar goes through this change 
 
108 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 four times before it attains its full growth. It is 
 said to have four moults. If you have a caterpillar 
 in a cage, you will be sure to see one or more of the 
 moultings. When it feels one of these changes 
 coming on, it finds what it thinks is a good place 
 on a leaf and spins a silk rug, which it glues fast to 
 the leaf. This rug is just the thing for the hun- 
 dreds of fine sharp hooks of its back feet to fasten 
 into. Then it takes its place on the rug, fastens its 
 hind feet into it and quietly waits for something to 
 happen. 
 
 It will stay perfectly still in this way for a long 
 time and then perhaps after a whole day it begins 
 to make motions with its body from side to side 
 and in other ways, still holding tightly to the silk 
 rug. These movements get 'the new skin loose 
 from the old skin. First the head is drawn back 
 from the old head covering. Then the old skin 
 splits just behind the head covering and that gives 
 the caterpillar its chance to crawl out of its old 
 skin which it gets rid of by making many move- 
 ments of its body, as if it were a great deal of hard 
 work. After it is over, the head covering lies in one 
 piece and the old skin of the rest of the body shrinks 
 up very small. The caterpillar with its new soft 
 skin then rests quietly awhile, waiting for the new 
 skin to get firmer so that it can move about more 
 safely. 
 
 Then strange to say, it turns about and eats up 
 the old skin before it begins on the milkweed leaf 
 again. That does not look like a nice thing to do, 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 109 
 
 but it must be all right for caterpillars, or they 
 wouldn't do it. All this can be seen best in the last 
 moult when the worm is large and the parts more 
 easily seen. 
 
 The caterpillar, when it is first hatched out is not 
 so brightly colored as it gets to be later. But as it 
 becomes larger it is quite a beautiful object. 
 When grown, it is nearly two inches long and has 
 bright black, yellow, and green stripes running 
 crosswise over the body, which are so plain that the 
 caterpillar is easily seen on the plant while feeding. 
 
 There are two long black thread-like horns 
 rising up just a short distance behind the head. 
 These wave back and forth as it crawls. There 
 are two smaller ones near the tail end of the body. 
 They give the caterpillar an important look. Per- 
 haps the horns are thought by them to be stylish, 
 like feathers in a cap. It has very strong jaws 
 for biting off and crushing mouthfuls of the leaf. 
 And at the mouth is a tiny spinning machine from 
 which silk is spun when it makes its silk rug to 
 fasten to when it moults. 
 
 Just back of the head are three pairs of jointed 
 legs, each ending with little claws. It uses them 
 just as if they were hands with fingers. They 
 hold the leaf to the mouth with them and also use 
 them to handle the thread of silk. These six legs 
 grow into the six legs of the butterfly later. 
 
 Besides these six jointed legs it has five pairs of 
 very short ones without joints on the back part of 
 the body, One pair is at the very hind tip of the 
 
110 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 body. These are short stubs more like mere feet 
 than legs. They are little knobs of skin furnished 
 with rows of hundreds of very fine little hooks 
 which they can fasten into or loosen from the rough 
 surface of the leaf or the silk rug which they spin. 
 If you let the caterpillar crawl on your hand, it can 
 hold on to your skin by these feet, the hooks of 
 which you can feel as tiny scratchings. 
 
 These five pairs of unjointed feet are for use 
 while it is a caterpillar and are lost when it changes 
 into a butterfly. They are so very useful to the 
 caterpillar, that it could not get along without 
 them. It uses them to crawl safely on both the 
 upper and under side of the leaf. Then it must 
 have them in moulting, to hold firmly to the silk 
 rug. Of course the surface over which it crawls, 
 has to be a little rough for it to fasten the hooks in. 
 If it comes to a smooth place on the plant's stem, 
 or if it had to climb up a piece of glass, it has 
 to stop until it spins up a pathway of silk which 
 it glues fast to the smooth surface. It can then 
 walk up this pathway because its feet with the 
 hooks can lay hold on the silk. This makes the 
 crawling up the side of a glass jar very slow work, 
 but there is no other way to do it. 
 
 Since milkweed caterpillars are so clearly marked 
 with gay stripes of bright colors and sit in plain 
 view on top of their milkweed towers, you would 
 think that the caterpillar eating birds would not 
 leave one of them alive. But for some reason the 
 birds do not seem to like this kind of caterpillar 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 111 
 
 very well. Perhaps they have a smell or taste 
 not pleasant to the birds. At any rate the birds 
 let them pretty well alone. 
 
 But they do not have such good luck with some 
 kinds of insects, especially when they are little. 
 Then spiders and crickets and other insects 
 pounce upon them. There are too, certain kinds 
 of insects that have a horrible way of alighting on 
 the backs of caterpillars and stabbing a hole in 
 them and laying their eggs right in the caterpillar's 
 body. These eggs hatch out in the caterpillar's 
 body as tiny larvae that gradually eat the poor 
 caterpillar alive. 
 
 When our milkweed caterpillar gets scared by 
 rough handling it tries the trick many insects and 
 some other animals know. That is of pretending 
 to be dead. It will roll itself into a ball and drop 
 down into the grass and keep perfectly still for 
 quite a while. This is a pretty good trick for it is 
 certainly hard to find this lifeless little thing among 
 the trash on the ground. 
 
 If our caterpillar escapes all its enemies it must 
 be a happy life that it leads, dressed in gay colors, 
 with plenty of nice juicy cream of milkweed to eat 
 and riding on the top of its pretty plant as it 
 "nods and bends in the breezes." But a short 
 time after the fourth moult the caterpillar part of 
 its life must come to an end and it must get ready , 
 to become 'a butterfly. 
 
 To pass from a crawling worm-like animal, 
 gorging itself with milkweed leaves to a big beauti- 
 
112 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 ful butterfly, that can fly fast and far and feed on 
 the nectar of flowers, requires such great changes 
 that you would think them impossible if you did 
 not see them happen. 
 
 THE CHRYSALIS 
 
 That the caterpillar may grow into a butterfly, 
 it first changes to what is called a chrysalis. In 
 the stories of the silkworm and the tent-caterpillar 
 it was seen that the caterpillar wove about itself a 
 room of silk called a cocoon in which to lie while 
 the changes went on that made it into a moth. 
 
 Most moth caterpillars weave 
 silk cocoons, but most butter- 
 fly caterpillars do without the 
 silk curtains and hang as a 
 chrysalis from a limb of a 
 tree or a leaf or other solid 
 support. 
 
 If you should find a chrysa- 
 lis of the milkweed butterfly, 
 without knowing about it, 
 you would never guess that 
 it had any thing to do with 
 either the caterpillar or the butterfly. But if you 
 have the caterpillar in a cage you can, by watching 
 the changes, prove the truth. The chrysalis is 
 found as a little barrel-shaped thing, a little more 
 than an inch long and about half an inch through. 
 It hangs by a slender black stem ending in many 
 little hooks caught in a minute button of silk, 
 
 FIG. 35. Chrysalis of the 
 milkweed butterfly. 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 113 
 
 fastened to the support. And you would not find 
 any thing in a jewelry store more beautiful. 
 
 It is more beautiful than any watch charm or 
 locket. It is a delightful green with golden dots. 
 Around about its middle is a row of tiny knobs in a 
 band of black and yellow. How our caterpillar 
 makes this astonishingly fine covering and manages 
 to hang it so neatly to a stick is something that 
 cannot well be told but better to be seen and 
 wondered about. Of course it has to moult again 
 to do it. 
 
 For this moult it gets ready by leaving the 
 milkweed and crawling away some distance to look 
 for a good quiet place where it hopes it will not be 
 disturbed, and where there is something on which 
 to hang the chrysalis. On the stick or fence rail 
 which it has chosen, it first spins a little knob or 
 button of silk. In this it fastens the hooks of the 
 pair of feet at its very tail end and hangs head 
 downward. Now it is ready to get rid of its cater- 
 pillar skin and come out with its new and charming 
 chrysalis covering. 
 
 As you watch it, it does not seem at all an easy 
 thing to do. But by many movements and split- 
 ting of the old skin and wriggling out of the old 
 sheh 1 , it finally gets over the difficult task. It 
 manages, too, to slip out the little black rod with 
 hooks on the end and fasten the hooks in the- 
 button of silk that the feet of the old skin held on 
 by. Now it is good bye to the old skin and instead 
 there is a briUiant new chrysalis hanging like a 
 
114 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 jeweled lantern or chamber, which will open before 
 long to let a butterfly come out. 
 
 The chrysalis is so still and rigid that you might 
 think the caterpillar had died and this was its 
 coffin. Perhaps you have seen pictures of the 
 coffins that the ancient Egyptians used for their 
 mummies that were found in the great Pyramids, 
 where they were placed thousands of years ago. 
 Or you may have seen the coffins in museums. 
 Their surfaces were painted with many colors. 
 But this quiet beautifully colored chrysalis is no 
 coffin with the body of a dead caterpillar in it. 
 The little animal in it is very much alive and is, 
 in its way, hard at work. 
 
 There is going on in its body, silently, a wonder- 
 ful work. All the beautiful and curious parts of a 
 large and charming butterfly are being finished in 
 this pretty house. There is nothing more won- 
 derful than the things that go on inside of the 
 exquisite chrysalis hanging to an old fence rail. 
 
 THE COMING OUT OF THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 When the caterpillar went into this decorated 
 covering, it already had started to form itself 
 into a butterfly. In its body were tiny little 
 beginnings, we might call them buds, some of which 
 grew into wings, some into the eyes, the legs, 
 the curiously formed tongue and, indeed all the 
 other parts of the full grown butterfly. Put a 
 caterpillar by the side of a butterfly. How 
 different they look! The changes that made one 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 115 
 
 into the other went on inside of the jeweled case of 
 the chrysalis. In fairy stories we read that a 
 fairy may change one thing into another by the 
 touch of her magic wand. Is there any thing more 
 magical .than the making a butterfly out of a 
 caterpillar? 
 
 The butterfly at first is very much cramped in the 
 chrysalis case. It's coming out is really moulting 
 once more. As in the other moults, the covering 
 of the chrysalis, which is the old skin, splits and 
 slowly out comes the butterfly with the beautifully 
 colored new skin covering wings, body and legs. 
 
 At first our butterfly is very soft and pamp and 
 weak. It hangs by its claws to the first thing it can 
 catch hold of, not yet able to fly. Its wings are at 
 first short and thick and wet. But they gradually 
 stretch out to their full size and become thin and 
 dry. The covering of the rest of the body also 
 becomes more firm. 
 
 In one way the new skin of the wings is wonder- 
 fully different from the skin of either caterpillar 
 or chrysalis. It is covered with what looks like 
 dust, which rubs off on your fingers if you touch it. 
 If you see this dust under a microscope you will 
 find that it is made of beautifully shaped scales, 
 which cover the wings. They are all attached in 
 rows. One row overlaps the one below it like 
 shingles on a house. They are of beautiful colors 
 and of many fantastic shapes. The butterfly works 
 away, carefully fitting together two long pieces 
 that are to be its tube-like tongue. When that is 
 
116 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 done the tongue is coiled up in a spiral, like a watch 
 spring, and tucked up neatly under its head. It is 
 now ready to unroll and thrust down into a flower 
 to pump out the nectar. 
 
 Now that it can move its feelers, its long tongue, 
 its legs and its beautiful wings, it is fully ready to go 
 forth on its life of egg-laying, nectar sipping and 
 travel far and wide. No more troublesome moult- 
 ing. It has become perfect and remains so the rest 
 of its life. 
 
 THE MONARCH'S MIGRATIONS 
 
 Those who have watched the milkweed butter- 
 fly for years tell us that the birds seem to let it 
 pretty much alone. Like its caterpillar, it seems 
 to have a taste and smell that birds do not like. 
 Now, as many birds are quite fond of most butter- 
 flies, it is a fine thing for our monarch to be left 
 alone by them. We already know what a splendid 
 flier it is. Since some kind of milkweed is found in 
 most parts of the United States and in many other 
 countries, there is always plenty of food. This, and 
 the fact that it is not molested by birds, as well as its 
 power of flight, gives the monarch much better 
 chances of living than most butterflies get. These 
 are the reasons its kingdom is so large. 
 
 When we started to learn about this butterfly 
 you remember that we were surprised to find a 
 great company of thousands, clinging to a pine 
 tree near Monterey Bay, on the coast of California. 
 It was learned later that about the same time in the 
 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 117 
 
 fall, there were gatherings like this in places as far 
 away as in New England and other places on the 
 Atlantic coast, also in other parts of the United 
 States. Some of these gatherings were much 
 larger than the one I saw. Some think that in this 
 way they are getting together to journey south, as 
 many kinds of birds do before the winter comes on 
 Such a journey is called migration. There does 
 seem to be proof that the milkweed butterflies 
 of the northern parts of the United States, do fly 
 to the Southern States just before winter. Still it 
 is a great puzzle as to why they should get together 
 in such great numbers on their way. Then how 
 do they get word to each other over such wide dis- 
 tances telling where the meeting place is? How do 
 they plan their movements? How do they know 
 the way south? 
 
 In parts of the country where crows live in 
 numbers, we know they sometimes gather in a 
 great company before going south. But they are 
 very intelligent birds and can shout and chatter so 
 loud and so much, it is easier to guess how they 
 might do it. But it is certainly a mystery how 
 this mild, quiet little butterfly manages it. The 
 other kinds of butterflies have not yet learned to 
 have such great conventions. 
 
 STUDYING BUTTERFLIES 
 
 No doubt you have many questions in mind 
 about our butterfly, which are not answered in 
 this story. Perhaps you may answer some of 
 
118 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 these yourself by trying to watch some of the 
 many kinds of butterflies about the woods and 
 fields of your home. Or you may get eggs or 
 caterpillars and raise some butterflies in cages 
 for yourselves. 
 
 This story has been about one butterfly, the 
 milkweed butterfly or monarch. It was chosen 
 because it may be found in most places in the 
 United States and most likely near to your home. 
 But all butterflies go through about the same 
 program of life. That is : egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, 
 and butterfly. The eggs of the different kinds are 
 of different sizes and shapes and are laid in different 
 kinds of places. The caterpillars of the different 
 kinds feed on plants of their own particular 
 tastes. The chrysalis of each kind has its own 
 particular size, shape and color and its own kind of 
 hiding place. 
 
 The butterflies also differ in form and habits of 
 life. But any one of them is a very interesting 
 little animal and can be watched in about the 
 same way as we have watched the monarch in this 
 story. 
 
 The beauty of butterflies has given pleasure to 
 many people even in olden times. Their charming 
 dress and interesting ways have led many persons 
 to explore our own country and many far away 
 lands in quest of them. So there are many 
 beautiful books written about them. People have 
 traveled far to find the many kinds and learn their 
 ways. You may see in museums fine collections of 
 
t THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 119 
 
 them brought from many foreign countries. So if 
 you get interested in butterflies you can easily find 
 much help from the books and collections. Thus 
 the watching and study of one butterfly like our 
 Milkweed Butterfly, may lead you to learn much 
 of many countries beside our own. Your thoughts, 
 may, like the butterflies, fly to many strange and 
 beautiful regions to get pleasure from them. 
 
THE TOMATO-WORM 
 
 It was a beautiful bright warm summer morn- 
 ing. The garden was a delight, for the plants 
 were green and healthy and growing fine. Mary 
 stepped down from the kitchen and went through 
 the garden gate with her basket, on her way to 
 gather some beans, cucumbers and tomatoes 
 for our dinner. I don't blame her for going slowly 
 past the flower beds where the bees, wasps and 
 and butterflies were buzzing and fluttering over the 
 flowers, gathering their delicious dinner ready 
 prepared for them. It was set out in hundreds of 
 beautifully shaped and beautifully colored cups and 
 saucers and dishes. These were finer than are ever 
 seen on a table full of china and silver sets. 
 
 Then all at once, Mary remembered how hungry 
 we soon would be and hurried on. But in a 
 minute she came rushing back, her eyes wide 
 open with excitement. " What's the matter?" 
 cried Tom. "You'll just have to go without 
 tomatoes before you catch me in that tomato patch 
 again," she answered quickly. "Why, what has 
 happened?" asked Bessie. " When I stooped down 
 to pick a tomato, there sitting up on the vine 
 were three big green worms, that looked like 
 dragons. Each had a big horn on its tail and it 
 raised up on its hind feet and shook its head and 
 
 120 
 
THE TOMATO-WORM 121 
 
 snapped its jaws. It looked like it was saying, 
 'You just dare to touch me and HI hurt you/ ' 
 Mary was surely in earnest. Dragons! Well 
 that word excited Tom and Bessie and, of course, 
 they were impatient to see them. But I noticed 
 
 FIG. 36. The tomato-worm. The caterpillar of the humming-bird 
 
 moth. 
 
 they held back a little and turned to me to know 
 if I would not show them the monsters, as it was 
 quite plain that Mary was not going to do it. 
 I said I would gladly go and that there was 
 nothing to be afraid of, for I knew pretty well that 
 if the dragons were on the tomato plants, they 
 were just some old friends that were up to their 
 old tricks of making a big bluff. 
 
122 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 We were soon searching the tomato vines. At 
 first we could see no signs of the frightful beings 
 that had caused Mary to beat such a quick 
 retreat. But soon we found them, crawling on one 
 of the top branches of a tomato vine. They were 
 just nothing but three big tomato-worms. They 
 are perfectly harmless, except to tomato leaves but 
 these they do gobble down pretty fast. But for all 
 that they certainly did look quite fierce, and Mary 
 was not to be blamed for being afraid of them 
 before she understood them. While they were 
 surely big for worms, they were rather small for 
 dragons. 
 
 The largest of the three was nearly four inches 
 long. Its body was big and fat. It was a bright 
 green with seven white stripes running obliquely on 
 its side. There was a brightly colored spot on each 
 breathing hole or spiracle. The color was so 
 much like the tomato leaves, that it is no wonder 
 we did not see the worms at first. It was quite 
 true what Mary had said; each one had a large 
 horn rising from its tail. It was sharp and looked 
 as if it might be a big sting. Some people think 
 that the worm does use it as a sting, and that it 
 is very poisonous. But that is a great mistake. 
 It is harmless and the caterpillar does not seem to 
 use the horn for anything at all. 
 
 When we shook the vine or touched the worms, 
 they did as Mary had said. They raised their heads 
 and front part of the body, high, shook their bodies 
 and made a little snapping noise with their jaws. 
 
THE TOMATO-WORM 123 
 
 They acted as if they were trying to frighten you 
 away. But when you know that they will not, 
 and can not, do you any harm, you feel like laugh- 
 ing at their pretending. Whenever they quieted 
 down the children thought it great fun to stir 
 them up again. 
 
 The next question was where did these monster 
 caterpillars come from? And as we had learned 
 from the silkworm and the milkweed caterpillars 
 that caterpillars in time change to either moths or 
 butterflies, the children were anxious to find out 
 what the tomato-worm would change into. 
 
 Tom made a cage like the one we had put the 
 milkweed caterpillars in. I suggested that he 
 put three or four inches of moist dirt in the bottom, 
 for this kind of caterpillar would need it later. So 
 the three were taken to their new home and every 
 day were given fresh tomato stems with leaves on 
 them. 
 
 These caterpillars were full grown so we did not 
 have to feed them many days before they showed 
 signs that they had eaten tomato leaves long 
 enough and that their caterpillar days were about 
 over. 
 
 They crawled down from the tomato stems and 
 began to dig holes in the earth and soon buried 
 themselves out of sight. "Well," said Bessie, 
 "that is a strange thing for a caterpillar to do. I 
 think it much nicer to spin a cocoon like the silk- 
 worm or hang up a beautiful chrysalis in a hidden 
 place like a milkweed caterpillar." They did not 
 
124 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 like the idea of "not seeing what was going on. 
 They wanted to know how long they would have 
 to wait to see what would come out of the ground. 
 They were much disappointed when told they 
 would have to wait till the next spring. Then they 
 put the cage away in a safe place for the long delay. 
 Two or three weeks after this, Tom said to us, 
 "Couldn't we dig down just to see 
 what has happened to one of those 
 tomato-worms? We can put back 
 what we find just the same as we 
 find it and maybe it will be all 
 right for next spring." 
 
 That seemed to be a very good 
 idea. 
 
 So out came the cage and he very 
 carefully dug down, where one of 
 the caterpillars had hidden. And 
 this is what he found buried in the 
 dirt. A little brown jug, something 
 more than two inches long, with a 
 handle on one side. When looked at more closely 
 the little jug was seen plainly to be a sort of 
 chrysalis. Through the hard brown skin you 
 could see the divisions of the body at the tail 
 end. Then at the head end were the parts that are 
 to be wings and eyes and the jug handle was to be 
 the tongue. This brown chrysalis showed itself 
 to be alive by a slight movement of the tail end 
 whenever it was touched. 
 
 Well, we felt well repaid in seeing this curious 
 
 FIG. 37. 
 Chrysalis of the 
 humm i n g b i r d 
 moth. 
 
THE TOMATO-WORM 125 
 
 object. While it was not a beautiful chrysalis like 
 that of the milkweed caterpillar, still it was a 
 chrysalis all the same. 
 
 The tomato- worm had learned to hide its chrysa- 
 lis out of sight and where it would be protected 
 from the cold of the winter. Tom put it back very 
 carefully and the children were now more contented 
 to wait for the outcome of this homely but interest- 
 ing chrysalis. 
 
THE HUMMING-BIRD MOTH 
 
 A few evenings later we were sitting on the steps 
 of the porch looking over the garden. The sun had 
 set and it was just becoming dusk. We were 
 watching the big yellow evening primroses popping 
 out. As a new one would flash out its golden 
 
 FIG. 38. The humming-bird moth. 
 
 petals, one of the children would shout " There's 
 one," and "There went two," and " There's 
 another." They were opening so fast we could 
 hardly keep count. " There's a humming-bird," 
 called out Bessie. Tom said "Why, how's that? 
 I thought humming-birds did not come around 
 this late in the evening." Well of course this was 
 something that needed looking into. So we 
 
 126 
 
THE HUMMING-BIRD MOTH 127 
 
 quietly slipped along the flower beds to get a good 
 look at whatever it was, whirling so rapidly up and 
 down and around among the flowers. It cer- 
 tainly acted just like a humming-bird and seemed 
 about as big. But as it whizzed past close enough 
 to be seen better, it was shown to be no humming- 
 bird but a magnificent big moth. 
 
 It flew by like a shot until it stopped at a flower 
 to get nectar. Then it did not alight on the 
 flower as butterflies do, but hovered in front of it 
 with rapidly whirring wings, just as a humming- 
 bird does. It very quickly unrolled a wonderfully 
 long tongue, which quivering with vibration, was 
 thrust, like a dark streak, down the tube of the 
 primrose to pump out the syrup. Then, in an 
 instant, the moth whirred to another flower and 
 then to another. That tongue was surely a 
 marvel. It must have been all of four inches 
 long and it managed it with a quickness and skill 
 that astonished us. 
 
 That tongue could reach the bottom of the 
 flowers that have deep tubes in them and the 
 moth still remain far enough away to hover with 
 whirring wings in front of the flowers without 
 touching them. It tried our honeysuckles and 
 primroses in the flower beds and visited the 
 "jimson" weeds along the road. It got its sweet 
 drink in the same way that children suck up 
 icecream soda with a long straw out of a deep 
 glass. More than one came to our garden that 
 evening, and we tried to catch one. But they took 
 
128 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 fright so easily and flew so rapidly and with such 
 great strength, that it was only after hard work 
 that we finally caught one. 
 
 It struggled with such great strength, much 
 greater than we ever felt with any other butterfly 
 or moth in our hands, that after a good look we let 
 it go. We were somewhat ashamed to find that 
 quite a bit of its beautiful scale dust, was left in our 
 fingers, but it flew off so rapidly that it did not 
 appear to be hurt. We hope not. 
 
 Now I thought it time to tell the children that 
 this marvel of "a moth is called the humming-bird 
 moth. They agreed that that is a good name for it. 
 Then, as a surprise for them, I could say further 
 that the humming-bird moth came from the very 
 same kind of caterpillar that they had found on the 
 tomato vine. And that next spring they would 
 have three like this splendid moth all their own. 
 They then went to see if the cage in which 
 the chrysalides were buried was all right and they 
 looked on it with the tenderest care. 
 
 And now again we had the same cause for wonder 
 as with the other caterpillars we have watched. 
 How could such a big fat fierce looking caterpillar, 
 gorging itself on tomato leaves, turn into such 
 a fine large creature, clothed with the softest coat 
 possible, painted with the most delicate shades of 
 colors, furnished with fine big eyes and with such a 
 marvelous tongue, that can reach and sip the 
 sweet nectar down at the bottom of the long 
 shaped flowers, and, most wonderful of all, 
 
THE HUMMING-BIRD MOTH 129 
 
 move with an especially swift, strong and true 
 flight? Surely no one looking at the big green 
 tomato worm, and then at this moth among the 
 flowers, could ever imagine that one animal could 
 change to another so very different. 
 
 The fine beauty and strong flight of the 
 humming-bird moth, stirred up our interest in it 
 enough to make us try to find out more about it. 
 It was our good fortune to have a friend who has a 
 collection of moths. There, amongst them was 
 our beauty of the garden. We could examine more 
 closely its size and color. The largest one meas- 
 ured from tip to tip of the fore wings five inches. 
 The colors were not brilliant as in some butterflies, 
 but were of the most beautiful shades of gray and 
 black, most delicately arranged. Across the back 
 wings were some wavy black lines. The body was 
 gray and on each side was a row of five yellow 
 spots. For this reason, it is sometimes called 
 the five spotted Sphynx. It is also sometimes 
 called the tomato Sphynx. 
 
 In the collection were other moths that might be 
 cousins since they are somewhat like our moth. 
 We learned that our moth with its cousins, are 
 called Sphynx moths, or sometimes Hawk moths. 
 They have been given the name Sphynx because 
 their caterpillars, when they raise their bodies and 
 heads and look solemn, are thought to look like 
 the great statue near the pyramids in Egypt 
 called the Sphynx. They are called Hawk moths 
 because they have, such strong wings and splendid 
 
130 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 power of flight. They are of different sizes. 
 All come out about dusk and have a strong rapid 
 flight. Some of them are even more .beautiful 
 than our humming-bird moth. The caterpillars 
 of the different kinds are usually green and have the 
 habit that our caterpillar had, of raising up its head 
 and looking fierce. They feed on different kinds 
 of plants. Most of the moths are not as large as 
 ours was. They burrow in the ground to make 
 the chrysalis. We may find some of these others 
 in our garden. On page 213 is given the picture 
 of the white lined Sphynx. Its caterpillar feeds 
 on many kinds of plants. 
 
 When we talked to a man who has a big garden 
 of vegetables and flowers about our tomato- 
 worms and humming-bird moths, he was interested 
 but he was somewhat perplexed as to what to do, 
 now that he had learned that they were the same 
 animal. He said that the tomato-worms were such 
 big greedy things that it did not take them long 
 to eat up a whole plant. That sometimes they 
 came in such great numbers as to destroy a big 
 patch of tomatoes. But then the Sphynx moths 
 did a lot of good. When they visit flowers and 
 thrust their tongues down the tubes, they carry 
 the pollen from one to another and this is very 
 necessary. For without pollen the flower will not 
 make its seeds. 
 
 Now if he killed the worms there would be no 
 humming-bird moths. If he did not kill them 
 the moths would lay eggs in the tomato vines 
 
THE HUMMING-BIRD MOTH 131 
 
 which would hatch into tomato-worms. So there 
 was his puzzle. I think he finally killed all the 
 tomato-worms he could and trusted to the luck 
 of having some other kinds of moths carry the 
 pollen about. He says that every year he plows 
 up many of those "jug handle chrysalis things. " 
 He didn't know what they were before. He has 
 not yet decided what to do with them. 
 
 This kind of caterpillar also feeds on potato vines 
 and tobacco plants. For this reason it is not 
 liked by potato and tobacco farmers any better. 
 
 There are some enemies of this caterpillar which 
 help the farmer to kill it. They are the kind that 
 destroy the milkweed caterpillar. You, no doubt, 
 remember that we told you about its sharp piercing 
 probe, with which it makes a hole in the back of the 
 poor caterpillar and then lays its eggs deep in its 
 body. The eggs hatch in the caterpillar's body, 
 and the larvae eat its flesh, and then at the right 
 time come out and spin their little cocoons which 
 they fasten to the skin of the poor caterpillar. It 
 is no pleasant sight to see the caterpillar carrying 
 around the parasites who are eating the life out of 
 it, and are ready to fly away as the poor thing 
 dies from their cruelty. These insects are called 
 Ichneumon flies. 
 
 Tomatoes are good to eat and we do not wish to 
 do without them. But I hope that when the 
 farmers and the Ichneumon-flies get after the 
 tomato worms that they will miss a good number of 
 them, so that the beautiful and very useful hum 
 
132 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 ming-bird moths will still be numerous enough to 
 make us glad and help out the flowers in their 
 work. At any rate the tomato-worm learned to 
 eat the tomato vine ages before human beings found 
 out tomatoes were good to eat. So doesn't it have 
 some rights about tomato plants? 
 
A GENTLE TIGER 
 
 There roams in the forests of India in Asia, a big 
 savage cat-like beast. It has glaring eyes, great 
 sharp teeth and claws. Its body is tawny or 
 yellowish with black stripes. It will steal out at 
 night and pounce upon and carry away a sheep, 
 a calf or a man. We all know of this terrible 
 animal as the Tiger. Men have caught them and 
 put them in strong, iron cages and brought them to 
 this country to show in the circus or the Zoo. 
 Nearly every one has seen this fierce animal and 
 admired its beautiful coat. Just think what a 
 terrible thing it would be to meet it, alone in the 
 forest. 
 
 In the country where it lives, no one would dare 
 to take a walk alone through the Jungle. 
 
 In our woods we have a Tiger too. But it is 
 beautiful and harmless, and as lovely as a flower. 
 It is the big, beautiful butterfly that goes by the 
 name of the Tiger swallow-tail. It gets its name 
 because, like the tiger of India, it is yellow with 
 black stripes. And that is the only thing in which 
 they are alike. The fine tiger swallow-tail draws 
 or attracts you to the woods, instead of driving 
 you from them. 
 
 It is a splendid flier. Its great wings are more 
 than four inches across. Its bright yellow color 
 
 133 
 
134 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 and its lively movements make it appear to be 
 very happy. It seems to be saying, " Isn't this a 
 nice place?" as it floats about joyously flapping its 
 great wings. 
 
 Its large size and bright color allow you to see it a 
 long distance away. It is a bright spot of yellow, 
 
 FIG. 39. The tiger swallow-tail. 
 
 now moving over the bushes, next high among the 
 trees. It is not easy to catch when flying about 
 among the trees. It may come into our garden 
 seeking flowers. It is very fond of lilacs and when 
 it settles down on a blossom to sip the nectar it may 
 easily be captured. A curious thing about this 
 beautiful butterfly, so fond of lilacs, a thing you 
 would hardly believe of it, is that it will also alight 
 on badly smelling decaying matter and take a sip. 
 
A GENTLE TIGER 
 
 135 
 
 If you can get one to remain quiet, you can then 
 see its markings better. The main color of the 
 wings is a bright yellow. The borders are black 
 with a row of yellow spots in them. The fore 
 wings have each four black 
 stripes and the hind wings one 
 black stripe across them. The 
 edges of each of the hind wings 
 are scalloped and each wing 
 ends in a sort of long narrow 
 piece like a tail. These give 
 the name swallow-tail to this 
 butterfly. 
 
 There are other kinds of 
 butterflies that have their hind 
 wings end in tails in this way. 
 This group is called the swallow- 
 tailed family. There are some 
 other very large and beautiful 
 swallow-tails beside the Tiger 
 Swallow-tail. 
 
 Since we have learned that 
 all butterflies come from cater- FIG. 40. The cater- 
 pillars, it would be interesting P illar ? f the ti g er SW&1 - 
 to learn what kind of cater- 
 pillar makes the Tiger swallow-tail. 
 
 In the first place, its caterpillar is not so 
 particular about what kind of leaves it eats 
 as some caterpillars are. It does well on the 
 leaves of many different kinds of trees or bushes. 
 So the tiger may lay her eggs on fruit trees 
 
136 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 or the wild cherry, among many other kinds 
 of trees. 
 
 When the caterpillar of this butterfly is fully 
 grown, it is odd looking and certainly not beauti- 
 ful, Just behind its head the body is very thick. 
 This makes a sort of hump. On the top of the 
 hump are two yellow spots that look like two large 
 staring eyes. They are not eyes but only colored 
 spots on the skin, as if false eyes were painted 
 there. Just behind the hump is a white band that 
 helps to make it look threatening. Then to help the 
 fierceness of the look more than ever, it has two 
 yellowish colored horns which, when it is disturbed, it 
 brings out from a hidden place just behind the head 
 and waves back and forth. Indeed it looks as if this 
 caterpillar was made up as a scarecrow. To 
 make things more disagreeable, the horns give out 
 a very bad odor when they are waving. It is 
 thought that all this display is to keep birds and 
 other enemies away. And it is true that this 
 caterpillar is not troubled by birds as much as some 
 kinds are. Here is a case where it pays to be ugly. 
 
 This caterpillar knows how to make a very 
 comfortable and curious sort of hammock to rest in 
 when it gets tired of eating. It finds a good leaf 
 and spins a quilt of silk and fastens the edges of it 
 to the opposite sides of the leaf. The quilt is in 
 this way stretched tight and makes a fine place 
 to lie on. The painted face seems to glare at you 
 and say, "Don't dare step on me if you know what 
 is good for you." 
 
A GENTLE TIGER 137 
 
 We have seen that the silk-worm spins a cocoon. 
 That the milkweed caterpillar makes a beautiful 
 case for a chrysalis. That the tomato-worm 
 buries itself in the ground to form its chrysalis. 
 The caterpillar of the Tiger swallow-tail has a still 
 different way. When it comes time for it to form 
 a chrysalis it crawls away to a place of safety. 
 Like the milkweed caterpillar it spins a button of 
 silk and glues it fast to a support. It fastens the 
 hooks of its hindmost pair of feet in the button. 
 While it hangs from this, it spins a band of silk 
 fastened at each end to the support. The band is 
 about at the middle part of its body. It then 
 manages to get its head through the loop of the 
 band. It then rests its body in the loop as if it 
 were a little swing. This silk loop holds the cater- 
 pillar while it is shedding its skin to become a 
 chrysalis and while the chrysalis fastens its rod of 
 hooks in the silk button. The silk band and but- 
 ton hold the chrysalis till the butterfly comes out. 
 Many other kinds of caterpillars spin a silk loop 
 to hold up the chrysalis in this way. 
 
 If you could have the good luck to find a chrysa- 
 lis or rear one from a caterpillar, you would see a 
 fine sight in the coming out of the new tiger 
 swallow-tail from the narrow walls of the chrysalis. 
 Like all butterflies it is at first very damp and weak. 
 Its wings are small, thick and wet. But soon they 
 stretch out to their full size and color and the 
 tiger is ready for its happy life. 
 
 Tiger swallow tails are found in most parts of the 
 
138 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 United States, so wherever your home is, in this 
 country you are pretty sure to find it. There are a 
 number of butterflies that belong to the swallow- 
 tail family. The largest one is the Giant swallow- 
 tail which may grow to be as much as five and 
 one half inches across. It is the largest butterfly 
 known in North America. It is mainly found in 
 
 FIG. 41. Chrysalis of tiger swallpw-tail. 
 
 the Southern States. Its caterpillar likes orange 
 and lemon trees. Another fine large one is the 
 Black swallow-tail. It is found in every state of 
 the Union . Its caterpillar is always found on plants 
 of the parsley family, such as carrot, celery, cara- 
 way and parsley. 
 
 The swallow-tails are so beautiful that lovers of 
 butterflies are always on the lookout for them. 
 They have a large place in the collections in the 
 museums, and the libraries have many books with 
 beautiful pictures of butterflies found in many 
 countries beside our own. 
 
EGGS ON POLES 
 
 \ jjgj 
 
 On a warm summer's day, I sought the shade 
 of a cozy corner in the garden. In this cool nook, 
 a seat had been placed where the lover of out-door 
 life could enjoy not only the charming fragrance 
 of the flowers, but the sturdy growth of the garden 
 food plants and the busy life of the thousands of 
 insects that rushed about their work, as if the 
 garden was made for their especial uses and 
 belonged to them. 
 
 Footsteps crushing the gravel on the walk and 
 lively voices, foretold that the children were 
 coming, and in a hurry. They had found a leaf, 
 on the upperside of which was what seemed to be a 
 strange kind of growth. This growth was a group 
 of about a dozen very delicate white stalks half 
 an inch high. On the top of each stalk was a tiny 
 white body, looking like a little pearl. 
 
 The children wished to know if it were some 
 kind of mould. Or might it be some kind of 
 tiny mushroom. Whatever it was, it was cer- 
 tainly a very dainty thing to look at and a mystery 
 worth investigating. It so happened that I had 
 been wishing to find this very thing to show the 
 children as another one of the strange and curious 
 ways of insects. 
 
 They were highly pleased on learning that this 
 
 139 
 
140 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 tiny forest of little pearls, was a group of the 
 eggs of a very beautiful little insect that had 
 the charming name of Golden Eyes. This little 
 
 FIG. 42. Eggs on stems laid by the lacewinged fly are on the top 
 leaf. They hatch into Aphis-lions. A grown one is on the leaf at the 
 lower right. This forms the little round cocoon on the leaf next to it 
 out of which in time will come a lacewinged fly. 
 
 animal was not only beautiful but wise. 
 
 Now, many kinds of insects lay their eggs on the 
 leaves, stems or bark of plants. Most of them 
 glue the eggs right down flat on the surface. 
 
EGGS ON POLES 141 
 
 There are many other kinds of insects that think as 
 highly of these little eggs for food as we do of hen's 
 eggs. 
 
 So they go egg hunting all over the plants, very 
 carefully searching every leaf and every crack and 
 corner of stem and bark. But Golden Eyes is up 
 to all their tricks and does one of her own that they 
 do not know about. 
 
 She spins a very delicate white silk thread-like 
 rod or stem, about half an inch long and places 
 her pearly white egg on top of it. The stem, 
 although very fine and thin, is quite firm and strong 
 and holds the egg very securely, high above the 
 heads of the egg hunters. She erects about a 
 dozen poles in a group. The insect egg-eaters do 
 not seem to have very good eyes. At any rate, 
 they are not clever enough to look up, but go 
 nosing around on the surface of the leaf and even 
 right among the silken poles and miss the little 
 pearls on the top of the poles. Some people are 
 that way. They miss many fine things by keeping 
 their eyes always on the ground instead of looking 
 up once in a while. 
 
 Well, of course, the next thing to do was to give 
 the children a sight of Golden Eyes. That would 
 be easy, as the little beauty was rather common and 
 sure to be found somewhere among the plants. 
 
 They were told that she was also known by 
 another name, the Lace-winged Fly. Well, either 
 name showed that the animal must be worth seeing. 
 So we began a journey around the garden world, 
 
142 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 searching for a being with golden eyes and lace 
 wings. 
 
 It was not long before I spied one perched upon 
 the leaf of a lilac bush, and called the children, 
 who lost no time in coming to where I was. "Go 
 .slowly/' said I "and be perfectly quiet or she 
 
 FIG. 43. Lace-winged fly. 
 
 will get her golden eye on you, then spread her 
 lace wings and bid you good bye. We wish to have 
 a good look at her first. " Well, there she was in 
 plain view and her beauty was no disappointment. 
 She is a small person, about one half inch long. 
 
 The body is a light green, the feelers (antennae) 
 are very long and slender. The eyes are well 
 named golden. They are bright as polished gold. 
 Her large wings are of the most delicate lace-like 
 
EGGS ON POLES 143 
 
 pattern, and finer than any made by the best lace 
 makers. They are of a beautiful shade of green 
 and almost transparent, and as they move show 
 tints of rainbow colors. The whole insect is most 
 daintily formed and may well claim to be one of 
 the most beautiful of the insect world. 
 
 "01 isn't she a darling," cried Bessie. "Let 
 me hold her in my hand." " Just wait" said Tom, 
 "I'll catch it for you." So just as Golden Eyes 
 made a start to fly, Tom grabbed her with his hand. 
 
 "Phew! what do you know about that?" ex- 
 claimed Tom and added with some vigor, " The little 
 skunk" And that, I am sorry to say, is about the 
 correct word for her. For, among insects, she holds 
 a place similar to that of the skunk among the 
 larger animals. When caught she throws out a 
 very disagreeable odor. Bessie ran to Tom with 
 her handkerchief to wipe the smell off his hands. 
 But it only made the handkerchief have a bad 
 odor for a day or two, and it couldn't be used again 
 till it was washed. 
 
 Tom gladly let the lady with charming looks and 
 very bad manners, spread her fairy lace wings and 
 fly away with her golden eyes. It is astonishing 
 how any one who looks so nice, could turn out to be 
 so disagreeable when you come to know her better. 
 But we must not blame dainty Lace- wing, for 
 since she cannot bite or sting like some other 
 insects, she is given this way to take care of herself. 
 To her, no doubt, Tom looked like a giant with big 
 eyes and enormous hands which seemed ready to 
 
144 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 crush her and forever spoil her exquisite lace-like 
 wings by crumpling them up. 
 
 But there are other things to be learned of the 
 Lace- winged Fly. We wished to find out what the 
 children hatched from such dainty pearl-like 
 eggs, laid by such a charming looking mother, 
 would turn out to be. 
 
 Well, this is their story. A tiny dark colored 
 insect baby comes out of the egg. Its first work 
 is to climb down its silken pole. And then what? 
 Eat, eat, every insect egg it can find and catch 
 every little insect it can lay hold of, slay it and 
 suck its blood. It is just a savage little beast. 
 Why it would even eat its sister eggs if they had 
 not been placed up on poles. 
 
 It does not take after its mother in good looks. 
 When it grows big enough to be seen well, about 
 half an inch long, you find it has a rough, homely 
 body, with dark yellow and reddish color marks. 
 Its mouth is armed with two curved, sharp pointed, 
 hooked jaws, that come together like pincers. 
 
 With these pincers it seizes any insect it meets 
 and holds it until it sucks out its blood. It is 
 especially fond of plant-lice but is such a greedy 
 creature that it does not stop at plant lice, but will 
 seize any insect it meets that is not too big for it. 
 So it may destroy some eggs and young of insects 
 that are our friends, such as the lady-bugs. But it 
 is such a good plant-lice killer we must think of it 
 as our friend in the garden. 
 
 Because it is very fond of plant-lice gardeners 
 
EGGS ON POLES 145 
 
 who understand it are very glad to have it on their 
 plants. But many have not learned what a friend 
 they have here. People who have studied the 
 savage little children of the Lace- winged Fly, tell of 
 the enormous number of plant-lice a single one will 
 eat in its short life. Because of its savage work 
 on plant-lice, it is called the Aphis-lion. Aphis is 
 the name of plant-lice. Since it takes only the 
 blood of its prey and throws the body away, it 
 takes a great number to satisfy its hunger. 
 
 After about two weeks of vigorous hunting and 
 slaying, the Aphis-lion feels a change coming over 
 it. It finds a comfortable place on a stem or leaf 
 and rolls itself into a small ball. It then spins a 
 small round cocoon of shining pearly white about 
 the size of a small pea and then waits for the great 
 change that is to come to it. 
 
 Before many days have passed, the little thing 
 inside of the pearl-like cocoon cuts a neat round 
 lid in the top and, wonderful to tell, first there 
 peers out a pair of golden eyes and then follows 
 the dainty green body and beautiful lace wings. 
 Our little lady, Golden Eyes, elegantly dressed 
 just out of a bandbox, is now ready to take her 
 flight and take up the work of staking out poles, 
 each with a pearl egg on top, and things in Lace- 
 winged Fly life are beginning over again. You 
 must agree that to change an ugly savage Aphis- 
 lion into an elegant Lace- winged Fly, is as wonder- 
 ful as turning a homely caterpillar into a beautiful 
 butterfly. 
 
 1U 
 
146 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 So the mystery of the eggs on poles was solved 
 and we have here a great friend. Tom now only 
 laughs at the way Golden Eyes tried to keep him 
 from rumpling up her wings. 
 
 Now when the children find any more eggs on 
 poles, or hatched-out Aphis-lions, they bring 
 them in and place them on rosebushes and plants 
 that are infested with plant-lice. They have for- 
 given the bad manners of Golden Eyes and still 
 admire her dainty beauty. 
 
THE ANT-LION 
 
 If you were asked to name the most savage and 
 frightful animal you would almost surely say the 
 lion. Of course tigers and wolves are also very 
 terrible, but the lion is so large and strong and has 
 such great claws .and teeth, that he seems more 
 frightful than any other animal. Then he has 
 
 FIG. 44.T Pit of the ant-lion. An ant-lion on the surface of the 
 ground at the left. The jaws of one are rising from the bottom of 
 the pit. 
 
 such a savage look with his great mane and has 
 such a fearful roar, that he strikes terror in the 
 hearts of those who live in the lion's country. 
 
 Around us, we see the world of insects crawling 
 and flying about hunting their food on the ground, 
 through the grass, or on the bark and leaves of the 
 trees. We might think that they are always 
 happy and having a good time. But when we 
 come to know them better we find they have their 
 
 147 
 
148 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 troubles as well as we. It gives us an unpleasant 
 feeling to find that many of them are as savage to 
 other insects as lions are to antelopes, deer and 
 men. 
 
 One is so fierce towards ants and other small 
 insects, that it is called the ant-lion. It is not 
 only fierce but you will think it very crafty 
 because it digs a pit to trap the poor ant and when 
 it catches its victim it pierces its body and sucks 
 its blood. 
 
 The pits of the ant-lion are very pretty and look 
 very innocent. No doubt you have seen them. 
 If not, you can very easily find .them in most 
 parts of the country. 
 
 The first I ever saw, were in the woods where I 
 used to ramble. They were made in the fine dust 
 that came from a log that had been rotting a long 
 time. They may be found in sandy places, such 
 as may be found at the bottom of cliffs. They 
 may be seen under houses or at the edge of sand 
 banks. Sometimes there are a number of them 
 close together. 
 
 The ant-lion must have fine dry sand or dust, 
 in which to make its pit. The pits are round at the 
 top an inch or two in diameter, and each tapers 
 down to a point at the bottom of the pit. That 
 is, the pit is cone shaped, only the cone is upside 
 down, like a funnel. The sides of the cone are as 
 steep as the fine sand will allow. 
 
 But where is the ant-lion? When I was a child, 
 when we found some ant-lion pits, we would bend 
 
THE ANT-LION 149 
 
 our heads close down over them and cry "Mooly 
 up, mooly up," and we thought sometimes some- 
 thing made a motion at the bottom of the pit. 
 We used to call them " Mooly ups." Well if you 
 look closely, you do not need to shout any thing to 
 see sticking up at the bottom of the pit, a pair of 
 curved pincers. Those pincers belong to the ant- 
 lion which is buried in the sand waiting to do a 
 savage piece of work. 
 
 This is how it uses its 'pit. Here comes an ant 
 hunting for food. She comes to the edge of the pit. 
 The sand is so loose, that it gives way under her 
 feet and down she slides. When she tries to 
 climb out, the fine dry sand slides her further 
 down. If she almost gets to the top, the ant-lion 
 from the bottom of the pit throws piles of sand 
 over the poor ant and she is bound in time to slide 
 down to the bottom of the pit and the ugly lion 
 pierces her with its curved pincers, and sucks out 
 her blood. When the ant's body is sucked dry the 
 ant-lion throws it out of the pit, and makes ready 
 for another victim. 
 
 It is easy to dig an ant-lion out of its pit and have 
 a look at it. It is not a pretty thing to look at. 
 It is something like an aphis-lion, which we 
 learned about on page 140, but it is larger and its 
 body is thicker, and about half an inch long. 
 
 It is grey with some specks on it. Its body is 
 rough and has little bunches of short hairs on it. 
 The most striking thing about it, is the pair of 
 jaws that stand out from the head. Each has a 
 
150 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 sharp, curved tip meeting the other and the inner 
 side of each is furnished with a row of sharp teeth. 
 They are pincers that no insect can get away from. 
 Through the sharp curved points, it sucks out 
 the blood of its victim. 
 
 There are a number of kinds of ant-lions. They 
 differ somewhat from one another but they are all 
 much the same as here described. 
 
 It is a very interesting sight to watch the ant- 
 lion make its pit-fall. This you can do by digging 
 
 FIG. 45. The winged adult of the ant-lion. 
 
 out an ant-lion and placing it on some dry sand 
 placed in a box. 
 
 It first marks out the plan of the pit by ploughing 
 out a furrow in the form of a circle which is to be 
 the size of the top of the pit. It uses its body for a 
 plough, crawling backwards. It next ploughs out 
 a circle inside of this. For a shovel, it uses its 
 head. It pulls a load of sand on the top of its head, 
 with its fore legs and then with a quick jerk, 
 throws the sand clear out of its pit. 
 
 It keeps up this ploughing and shoveling until it 
 has a beautiful smooth pit. Then it buries itself, 
 
THE ANT-LIO N 151 
 
 in the very bottom, leaving in sight only a part 
 of the terrible pincer jaws, ready to seize the poor 
 ant that slides down to them. 
 
 When it throws sand up on the ant as it tries to 
 crawl out it uses its head for the shovel in the 
 same way as when digging the pit. 
 
 We have seen how caterpillars become beautiful 
 butterflies and how the homely aphis-lion changes 
 into the beautiful golden eyes. Well, this ugly 
 ant-lion makes as remarkable a change. After a 
 life of hiding in the sand to carry on its murderous 
 work, it becomes quiet, spins a cocoon and takes a 
 long sleep, still buried in the sand. Then it comes 
 out a large slender bodied flying insect, with large 
 and very delicate beautiful wings. It looks some- 
 thing like a dragon fly. It hides among the limbs 
 and leaves of trees and plants. Its main work is to 
 find a good sandy place m which to lay eggs, which 
 are to hatch out into ant-lions. 
 
 These, if they are in'a good place, soon begin to 
 make their pit-falls and the children of the beauti- 
 ful lace-winged insect, become the homely murderers 
 of innocent ants. 
 
SOME WAYS OF THE DANDELION 
 
 THE CHILDREN LEARN SOME OF ITS TRICKS 
 
 Company had come. Every body was busy 
 preparing for a good time. The most important 
 members of the company were two cousins by the 
 names of John and Nancy. This visit had been 
 long wished for by Tom and Bessie and now they 
 were really here. Things long planned for, were 
 actually going to happen. There were new games 
 to be tried. There were to be picnics. The 
 hickory nuts in Sleepy Hollow w^ere to be gathered. 
 The Robber's Cave over in Miller's Gulch must be 
 explored. 
 
 These delightful things followed one another in a 
 procession of beautiful and happy days. The 
 bright memory pictures of the good times are 
 now stored away where they can be taken out and 
 enjoyed, even when years have slipped by. 
 
 One bright morning, the children were sitting 
 around on the grass under a tree, planning how to 
 spend the day, for the visit was fast coming to an 
 end. When the gardener, passing by said, " Just 
 look what the dandelions have been doing while I 
 have left the lawn to cart you little people around 
 on your excursions." The children looked up and 
 glanced over the lawn . Sure enough, the dandelions 
 seemed to be having a celebration. All over the 
 
 152 
 
SOME WAYS OF THE DANDELION 153 
 
 FIG. 46. The dandelion. 
 
154 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 lawn, they were holding up tall round stems 
 bearing aloft the soft round balls that everyone 
 knows so well. 
 
 The children jumped up and ran helter-skelter 
 over the lawn, each one grabbing as many stalks 
 with the balls as he could. Each one of course 
 trying to out do the others in the number he or she 
 could gather. Then came the old game of seeing 
 who could blow off the most down from a head with 
 a single breath. As you might well know they 
 soon began blowing the down into one another's 
 faces, with much dodging and laughter. Then 
 they split the hollow stems to see them curl up as 
 dandelion stems know how to do, each one trying 
 for the longest curl. These the girls hung over 
 their ears and shook their heads to make these 
 dandelion curls dance in a lively frolic, in the way 
 girls know how to manage their real curls. 
 
 The gardener enjoyed seeing the romping, but 
 when they settled down a little, he said to them, 
 "The dandelions are great fun to you children, 
 but I can tell you that they are no fun to me. 
 Do what I can, I can not get rid of them." "Why 
 don't you dig each one up," said John. "I think 
 that would finish them." 
 
 "Well, that has been done more than once, but 
 they soon show up again," answered the gardener. 
 He went on to say "The dandelion is a very 
 clever little plant in many ways. One of them is 
 the way it plans to get its seeds planted far and 
 wide. I was just thinking when you were having 
 
SOME WAYS OF THE DANDELION 155 
 
 your fun with the down heads, that the dandelions 
 were laughing down in the grass at the way you 
 were helping them out. Bring me one of the down 
 heads, and let me show you the dandelion's 
 plan/' 
 
 Nancy was quick to get a nice big one on which 
 the down was still perfect. The gardener took the 
 stalk, and taking the head apart carefully, showed 
 them that the downy part was made up of a large 
 number of tiny downy heads. Each little downy 
 head stood on a very slender little stalk and at the 
 bottom of this is a very small seed. The tiny seed 
 is really the passenger of a beautiful little balloon. 
 The gardener blew a crowd of the little balloons 
 high up in the air. A good breeze that was blowing 
 at the time, carried them away till they were out of 
 sight. 
 
 " There" said the gardener, "some of those seeds 
 may land on the lawns in the next town, if this wind 
 keeps up. Why," he continued, "who knows but 
 that some of the dandelions in this lawn were 
 planted by balloons which sailed all the way from 
 those growing in the lawn at John's and Nancy's 
 house, fifty miles away. For with a high wind the 
 dandelion-balloons might travel very much farther 
 than that. This is the way the dandelion plants 
 its seed over the United States every year." The 
 children were greatly interested and rushed out 
 to gather heads and blow the down up in the air 
 and then each tried to guess in which town his 
 balloons would land. Not knowing geography 
 
156 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 very well, I think they made some poor guesses 
 but that did not bother them very much. 
 
 Tom got to thinking about those balloons. 
 He wished to know how a plant could build a 
 balloon to carry seeds so perfectly. The gardener 
 had them gather some downy heads, some flowers 
 and some flower heads just opening. They sat 
 down on the grass under a tree, the children press- 
 ing close about him. 
 
 He showed them first that the yellow flower as 
 we call it, is really a bunch of many tiny flowers 
 crowded closely together. If one of these tiny 
 flowers is looked at by itself, it is a pretty flower 
 with all the flower parts. At the bottom is the 
 part that is to become the seed. Just at the top 
 of this is a very small bunch of fine fuzz. As the 
 seed ripens, a thin delicate stem stretches up 
 between the seed and the fuzz. The fuzz grows 
 to be the downy top of the balloon. 
 
 In this way the bunch of tiny flowers makes a 
 group of little balloons ready to sail away. While 
 the balloons are growing, the big hollow stalk 
 that holds the whole bunch, rises up pretty straight 
 and brings the bunch of balloons higher up in the 
 air ready to catch the breeze. 
 
 The children Oh'd and Ah'd to find that such a 
 common old plant as the dandelion could have such 
 wise ways. They could now understand how it 
 was always ready to turn to you a bright golden, 
 smiling face, no matter how rudely you treated it. 
 For it knew it would get ahead of you at last. 
 
SOME WAYS OF THE DANDELION 157 
 
 Bessie said that she was glad to learn that 
 dandelions were smart enough to beat the gar- 
 deners. For she thought the bright yellow spots 
 on the lawn were as beautiful as the green grass. 
 And then too in the countries where they have 
 cold, snowy winters, the jolly smile of the dandelion 
 is the first flower to tell you Spring has come. 
 
 The gardener laughed and said that he still had 
 to be careful and not let the dandelion smile too 
 much on the lawn, or Bessie's mother would not 
 smile very much on him. John asked the gardener 
 if it would not stop the scattering of the seeds if he 
 would run the lawn mower often enough to cut 
 off all the flowers, before they went to seed. He 
 thought the lawn mower might even get the buds 
 before they had blossomed. "Come" said the 
 gardener, "let me show some more of the artful 
 ways the dandelion has of taking care of itself." 
 
 He then showed them how the leaves of the plant 
 that came out of the top of the root, turn back and 
 lie very flat against the ground, so that the lawn 
 mower would pass right over most of them. 
 The flower buds too, lie down flat much as the 
 leaves do, to dodge the lawn mower until they 
 are ready to bloom and ripen the seeds. Then the 
 flower stems grow tall and straighten up, for then 
 they do not care who knocks them over for that 
 would set the balloons flying any way. 
 
 Everybody agreed that these were truly wonder- 
 ful ways for a mere plant to have. But the gar- 
 dener said that there are still other wonderful 
 
158 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 ways that this common plant has. Now there is 
 the flower, that is, the big flower. It has all the 
 little flowers in it. What wise ways it has! 
 
 In bright sunshine, when it is very important 
 for the plant that bees visit it to get the pollen 
 and carry it from flower to flower, it opens wide. 
 When storms arise or when cold night comes on, 
 the row of little green things that make its border, 
 shuts together over the bunch of little flowers, 
 holding them tight from danger. Then when the 
 seeds are ripening and the balloons are growing, 
 this green border-row closes in and shuts them up 
 securely, so that they don't get knocked off till 
 all is ready. Then they open wide and let the head 
 of little balloons stand up to be blown away. 
 
 The gardener then told them that since they 
 now know something of the ways of the dandelion, 
 they think it wonderful. But that every other 
 plant has ways of its own as artful as those of the 
 dandelion. "They have just got to have them" 
 he said, "or they could not keep themselves going 
 on the earth. Now just take the ways of getting 
 themselves planted. You think the dandelion 
 has a wise way. So it has. But every plant has 
 some way to scatter its seeds, and some of the ways 
 they practice are as clever or even more so than 
 are those of the dandelion." "Tell us about them," 
 cried John. "Yes tell us,"all joined in. 
 
 The gardener thought a moment and then said 
 "I'll teU you what I'll do. I've got to cut 
 this lawn this afternoon. But tomorrow we'll 
 
SOME WAYS OF THE DANDELION 159 
 
 \ 
 
 take a tramp into the fields and woods and I will 
 show you where you can see for yourselves, how 
 some other plants manage to sow their seeds/ 7 
 
 " Hurrah! That's a bargain/' they shouted and 
 all joined hands and danced a ring around the 
 gardener. He grinned and looked foolish but 
 you could see he was pleased. The party broke 
 up, he to work on the lawn, they to do the thousand 
 and one things that happened along before night. 
 When bed time came, the general question was, 
 "What do you suppose we will find tomorrow?" 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 
 
 BALLOON SEEDS 
 
 A chance for a tramp through the fields and 
 woods, even if it were after nothing at all was 
 always hailed with joy. There was no trouble 
 about getting up early and down to breakfast in 
 good time. The mothers were glad to have the 
 children go on such a good outing. The gardener 
 had no trouble in getting a day off to plant seeds of 
 knowledge in the children's minds instead of 
 pulling up weeds in the garden. There was a fine 
 lunch put up, for of course it must be a picnic if 
 you go to the woods. A good number of little 
 paper bags and boxes were taken along to put the 
 new seeds in. Of course there was no thought of 
 going on a tramp without Gyp, the collie. And 
 you may be sure that Gyp never for a moment 
 thought that they would go without him. So with 
 him running on ahead, the gay little company 
 marched down the road. 
 
 Soon they came to a field and it took no time to 
 scramble over the fence. "O there's a bunch of 
 thistles. Let's see what they do," some one called 
 out. There were quite a number of the plants. 
 Some were in beautiful bloom and some had already 
 gone to seed. The bumblebees were crawling 
 over the soft flowers, after pollen and nectar. 
 
 160 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 161 
 
 The plants with the sharp little bayonets that 
 covered stalk, leaves and the outer parts of the 
 flowers, made the children stand back a bit. 
 But the boys got some sticks and smashed down 
 the plants and burst open the flowers. 
 
 They found that the big flower, like the dande- 
 lion, was really a great number of little flowers 
 crowded together. As the seeds ripened, each one 
 had at its top a fuzzy little balloon, like the 
 dandelion, only larger. The balloon did not have a 
 stalk between it and the seeds as in the dandelion, 
 but was fastened right on 
 top of the seed. When the 
 flower had gone to seed 
 it was no longer colored 
 but was changed to a white 
 fluffy mass. The children 
 
 J AI_ A j.1. j'j FlG - 47. Thistle seeds. 
 
 found that they did not 
 
 have to break it open, as it was easy to pull out a 
 bunch of the seeds with their balloons with the 
 thumb and finger. When thrown up in the breeze, 
 they would go sailing away out of sight. The 
 gardener showed them that the seed was very 
 easily broken away from the balloon. So that if 
 the balloon bumped against a tree or fence, it would 
 be pretty sure to drop the seed right there. A fence 
 corner is a fine place for a thistle to grow in, for it 
 is likely to be missed by the plow or hoe in that 
 safe place. 
 They gathered some of the seeds with balloons 
 
 for their boxes. They found some other kinds of 
 
 11 
 
162 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 thistles that day and all of them had about the 
 same kind of an airship in which to send out their 
 seeds to bomb the fields with. It was easy to see 
 how hard it is for the farmers to keep down the 
 thistles in their fields, when these millions of seeds 
 are so well scattered every year by the wind. 
 
 FIG. 48. Pod and seeds of milkweed. 
 
 In starting out again, Bessie shouted, "I see a 
 milkweed with some pods on it. I remember now 
 that it has some very fine threads on its seeds 
 as soft as silk. Some people call it silkweed." 
 So the milkweed pods were next gathered and the 
 purse-like pods carefully opened. Nothing could 
 be neater than the beautiful way in which the 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 163 
 
 thin, flat seeds were packed in the pod, one over- 
 lapping the other. Each one had a tuft of long 
 hairs as fine as the finest silk. The long silky 
 hairs were laid out so as not to get tangled in the 
 least. They all agreed that those who have not 
 seen the milkweed seeds in the pod have missed a 
 pretty sight. 
 
 When they took the ripe seeds out and threw 
 them up into the air, the tuft of long silky hairs 
 spread out into a finer balloon than even the 
 dandelion or thistle seeds had. The children 
 clapped their hands as the glistening balloons 
 floated gracefully on the breeze. 
 
 They were glad to hear that the farmer does not 
 think the milkweed is a very troublesome weed 
 like the thistle, so he doesn't care if it does plant 
 itself around the country. 
 
 Nancy spoke up; " O yes, I remember now read- 
 ing a story about a beautiful butterfly called the 
 Monarch. But it is sometimes called the milk- 
 weed butterfly, because it lays its eggs only on 
 milkweeds. The caterpillars which hatch out 
 from its eggs will eat only milkweed leaves. If all 
 the milkweeds were to die there would be no more 
 Monarch butterflies. " 
 
 " Hurrah for the milkweed," cried the children. 
 "Long may her seeds wave their silky hair!" The 
 gardener laughed and said Nancy was right and 
 that if they had not already as much as they could 
 do today in looking for seeds, they might try to 
 find some milkweed butterflies, their eggs and 
 
164 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 caterpillars. "But we can leave that for some 
 other day," he added. 
 
 Not only the milkweed balloons but the interest- 
 ing pods went into the boxes. 
 
 SEEDS THAT STEAL RIDES 
 
 The next plant that stopped them was a group 
 of burdocks. "0 here's the plant that made so 
 much trouble in our school one day," called out 
 Bessie. "How was that?" asked the gardener. 
 "Well," replied Bessie, "a boy named Clarence 
 Joyce, who sat just behind Mabel 
 Sweetser brought a lot of the burs to 
 school and stuck them in Mabel's hair." 
 "How horrid!" said Nancy. Then 
 Bessie told how Mabel cried and went 
 j iu home and what an awful time they had 
 
 Burdock bur. 
 
 getting the burs out, and how Clarence 
 .was sent up to the Principal, and how he came back 
 with red eyes, but would never tell what happened. 
 
 The gardener asked what did they do with the 
 burs they got out of Mabel's hair. "Why, I 
 guess they just threw them out in the yard." 
 "Then," said the gardener, "you see how the bur- 
 dock got its seeds planted, for the seeds are in the 
 bur." "Oh, I see," said Nancy, "If a dog or a fox 
 should come along and the burs get stuck in his 
 hair, they could take a ride and get planted in an- 
 other place." "That's just it," said the gardener. 
 
 "Let's try it on Gyp," called out Tom. The 
 girls thought that that would be too bad, but the 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 165 
 
 boys promised to put them on Gyp's back and 
 tail so that they would not hurt him and so they 
 placed a dozen burs on his back and tail. Later 
 in the day, when all were getting out the lunch, 
 Gyp got tired of being a bur bearer and lay down 
 and deliberately picked bur after bur out of his fur 
 with his teeth. "Look at Gyp planting burdocks," 
 said John. 
 
 Well before they left the burdock patch, Nancy 
 showed the rest how to make bur baskets. The 
 many sharp hooks with curved ends all over the 
 surface of the bur made it easy to fasten one bur to 
 another. In this way they made baskets, bowls 
 and other forms, as their fancy suggested. 
 
 As they went on, they found other plants with 
 fuzzy balloons to carry away their seeds. Some, 
 like the wild lettuce, are so very tiny that the 
 wind soon carries them out of sight. Some are not 
 such good sailors as the dandelion. The children 
 then gathered several seeds whose names the 
 gardener did not know. They found so many of 
 the ballooning kind, that they came to the con- 
 clusion that that was a common way for plants to 
 scatter their seeds to new fields. 
 
 The gardener called them over to see a big weed 
 which he called a tumble weed. He explained 
 that, in the fall, the branches of the plant turned in 
 toward the center so as to make a big loose ball, as 
 much as two feet through. Then the stem, right 
 at the ground, would rot off and this ball was ready 
 to be rolled by the wind across the' field. He said 
 
166 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 that he had seen the balls of tumble weeds rolled 
 along by the wind for great distances on the 
 prairies, where the land ws for long distances 
 flat and there were no trees to stop them. If a 
 fence or barn should happen to be in their way 
 these weeds would pile up high against it. Of 
 course as the tumble weed bumped along, some 
 seeds would be shaken out, and where the weed 
 was stopped many seeds would fall down when the 
 rains came. There are several kinds of weeds that 
 act this way, and for this reason they 
 are called tumble weeds. Well, the 
 children could not take this big fellow 
 into their boxes, so they stored it away 
 in their memories. And that is what 
 they had to do with some other things 
 
 50 -A they saw that day * 
 cockiebur. Tom was looking over the fence into 
 
 the next field when he called out to the 
 gardener, " What is the matter with those horses? 
 Their tails look like clubs." " Well, we will just go 
 over and see/' replied the gardener. " I know those 
 horses and they are all very gentle." It did not 
 take long to find out what made the nice flowing 
 tails like stiff clubs. They were full of what the 
 gardener explained were cockleburs. 
 
 The gardener caught one of the horses. Not 
 only its tail, but its foretop and mane were matted 
 with the ugly burs. The horses had been feeding 
 down in the bottoms where the cockiebur plants 
 grew in great numbers. "It will be many a day 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 
 
 167 
 
 before the poor animals will get rid of these 
 pests/ ; said the gardener, "and by that time the 
 burs, which are the seeds, will be scattered over 
 long distances. No wonder the cocklebur is 
 called a vile weed." The children went down to 
 the bottom lands to see the plants and gather some 
 of the seeds for their boxes. The 
 seeds were covered with strong, 
 sharp hooks and at one end was 
 a larger, stronger pair of hooks, 
 which looked like the jaws of a 
 savage insect. 
 
 While they were down in that 
 part of the field, before they 
 knew it, their stockings and even 
 Gyp's tail got covered with what 
 the gardener called Spanish 
 needles. These were slender 
 brown seeds about half an inch 
 long. On one end were two sharp 
 needles with barbs on them, turned 
 backward. They would pierce 
 clothing easily but the barbs 
 would hold them from coming out easily. "Dear 
 me/' said Bessie, "Let's, get out of this." The 
 gardener chuckled and said "Why isn't this just 
 what you came out for, to gather seeds?" "Well 
 I've gathered enough of that kind, " she replied. " I 
 suppose when those plants saw us coming, they 
 thought now's our chance to get a free ride and a 
 new home." 
 
 FIG. 51 . Spanish 
 needles. Two heads 
 of the plant. A single 
 seed at the right 
 slightly enlarged to 
 show the barbs. 
 
168 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 Since jt was getting near to lunch time, they 
 turned toward the woods. At the first good place 
 they came to, they sat down and picked the 
 Spanish needles off of their clothing. These also 
 were saved for their boxes. The gardener told of 
 many other plants that furnished their seeds 
 with hooks by which they could cling to the fur of 
 passing animals and get carried, sometimes long 
 distances and there plant themselves in new 
 ground. "You will see more of that kind before 
 the day is over," he said. 
 
 WINGED SEEDS 
 
 While they were busy at the luncheon under a 
 fine tree, a breeze shook the limbs and a flock of 
 
 FIG. 52. Maple tree seeds. FIG. 53. Winged seeds of 
 
 the elm. 
 
 sailing things filled the air above them. Some 
 rattled down on their spread out dinner, and others 
 were carried far beyond. " Maple tree seeds," 
 cried some one. Up they jumped and each 
 gathered a handful before sitting down again to 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 
 
 169 
 
 finish the meal. The maple seeds were old friends, 
 but as the children had never before stopped to 
 examine them very carefully, the morning's work 
 with traveling seeds led them to give the maple 
 seeds a careful study. 
 
 The seeds were in p'airs. It was very easy to see 
 for what use the beautifully 
 shaped wing had grown out from 
 each seed. They tried throwing 
 them up in the wind, and while 
 some would reach the ground but 
 a short distance away, many, 
 especially if the pairs were 
 
 FIG. 54. Linden seeds 
 with sailing wing. 
 
 FIG. 55. 
 Winged seeds of 
 ailanthus. 
 
 FIG. 56. 
 Clematis seed. 
 
 broken apart, would be carried quite a distance. 
 
 The gardener explained that such seeds are 
 called winged seeds. He showed the children how 
 the seed of the elm has a wing that goes all around 
 it, a flat, circular wing. The linden or basswood 
 tree hangs its seeds from a dry leaf -like wing that 
 
170 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 can catch the wind and sail a short way. He 
 pointed out that the winged seeds did not usually 
 carry so far as the balloon seeds, but still most of 
 them managed to get out from under the trees 
 own limbs, where they would have a chance to 
 grow. What the children found of these were 
 thought to be fine treasures for the boxes. 
 
 SLING SEEDS 
 
 After luncheon they wandered deeper into the 
 woods. Some delicately beautiful flowers growing 
 in a moist, shady place attracted their attention. 
 The gardener said that here was a chance to see 
 a plant with a still different manner of sowing 
 its seeds. There were both flowers and pods on 
 the plants. The gardener chose a well ripened 
 pod and had the children watch closely while he 
 gently touched it with his finger. The pod flew all 
 to pieces, scattering its seeds in every direction. The 
 children applauded that performance vigorously 
 and then, of course, each one wished to touch a pod. 
 Fortunately there were plenty of ripe pods to give 
 each one the pleasure. 
 
 "What's the name of this flower ?" asked Nancy. 
 "Well, it is sometimes called Touchmenot. An- 
 other name is Impatiens, because it is thought 
 to be impatient and does not wish to be touched. 
 But the truth is that when the pods are ripe it is 
 waiting to be touched. Its trick for scattering 
 seeds lies in having in the pods little springs, which 
 a light touch releases and the force bursts open 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 171 
 
 the pod quite suddenly and scatters the seeds 
 about. While the seeds are not thrown very far, 
 some of them get away from where the old plant 
 is growing/ 7 He then told them that many other 
 kinds of plants had interesting ways of throwing 
 their seeds about. Indeed, some of them could 
 fling their seeds several yards. 
 
 By the time the children were tired of playing 
 with the touchmenots, it was time to turn in the 
 direction of home. When they reached the fence 
 around the woods, they discovered that a number 
 of rough little seeds were sticking to their clothing. 
 There were quite a lot on Gyp's coat too. They 
 had gathered without knowing it, many more kinds 
 of seeds that were looking out for a free ride. 
 
 They appealed to their guide, the gardener, to 
 tell them what seeds these were and what kind of 
 plants they came from. There were some small 
 round ones, known as beggar lice, which were seeds 
 from the plant called hounds-tongue. One other 
 kind was a flattish seed from the tick-trefoil. 
 These seeds were covered with fine little hooks 
 that took firm hold on clothing or fur. Bessie 
 spoke up; "I am just too tired to pick all these 
 things off now. I am sure I can't lose them so I 
 am going to wait till we get home." They all 
 agreed with her, and Gyp, like most dogs, didn't 
 seem to care a jot about the seeds sticking to him. 
 
 So off they trudged, feeling that a fine supper 
 waited for them. At home they had interesting 
 stories to tell and precious treasures to show. The 
 
172 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 mothers praised them but insisted that all those 
 beggar lice and other stick-tights should be cleaned 
 off their clothing. They found this quite a hard 
 task, but as it added to their collection of seeds 
 they finished it faithfully. 
 
 Nancy said that she was going to take her seeds 
 to her home and show them to her teacher. All 
 thought that a good idea, for then the school 
 could have a beginning of a collection of travelling 
 seeds. The other children could find more kinds 
 and in time they could have a fine show of seeds 
 and learn a lot about the curious ways of plants. 
 
 Bessie's mother said she thought it very fine to 
 go out and see how plants live. "Now," she said, 
 "how would you like to find out in some of the 
 books about plants, how some of them do in foreign 
 countries." Suppose all of you go to the town 
 library tomorrow and see if each of you can learn 
 how some of the foreign plants scatter their seed, 
 and in the evening we will meet and each one can tell 
 his or her story." 
 
 Bessie said, "I know the lady at the desk, and I 
 am sure that she will help us to find the books." 
 The rest of the children hesitated a little, fearing 
 that they might not succeed. As the gardener 
 had already helped them much, they turned to see 
 what he would say. He told them he thought that 
 he could give them the names of some plants that 
 would be interesting to look up. Thus encouraged, 
 they began to think it a good plan. 
 
 John proposed that they call the meeting the 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 173 
 
 "Seed Story Night. 77 And then they began to 
 form their plans to visit the public library the 
 next day. 
 
 SEED STORY NIGHT 
 
 The children had an active time in the library, 
 looking through the books about plants. They 
 ran across a great many hard words, but they had 
 good help and by evening when supper was over, 
 each was ready with a report for the seed story 
 night. 
 
 BESSIE'S ACANTHUS 
 
 Bessie was called on first. She told of a great 
 poet whose name was Goethe. Besides being a 
 great poet, he was very fond of plants and spent 
 much time in studying them. Once upon a time, 
 he was traveling in Italy. There he found and 
 gathered some pods of a plant called Acanthus, 
 which grew in that country. He put them away 
 in his room in an open box. One night he heard a 
 crackling noise. There followed sounds of some- 
 thing 'striking the wall and ceiling of his room. 
 This puzzled him at first. Then he found out 
 that it was the pods of the Acanthus plant that had 
 burst and thrown the seeds out with great force. 
 
 Bessie said that that was the way the pods of the 
 touchmenot acted but the Acanthus was much 
 stronger and threw the seeds farther. She learned 
 that plants that throw the seeds about are said to 
 have "sling fruits. 77 She also learned another 
 
174 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 interesting thing about the Acanthus and that is, 
 that in ancient times the sculptors who made 
 the beautiful temples in Greece, thought the leaf 
 of the Acanthus so beautiful, that they copied 
 it to ornament the tops of the marble columns. 
 Columns ornamented in this way are called Cor- 
 inthian columns. 
 
 JOHN'S COCOA-NUT TREE 
 
 John's report was called for next. He told of a 
 tree that lives on the coral islands of the Pacific 
 Ocean. This tree protects its seed by covering 
 it with a tough husk of fiber, which serves as a 
 kind of boat to carry the seed over the sea, so that 
 it may plant itself on an island distant from its 
 home. It is the cocoa-nut tree. Its seed is the 
 cocoa-nut which we all know so well. But when 
 it is brought to this country the boat part is cut 
 away. He had some pictures which showed how 
 it looked before the nut was taken out of its husk. 
 The outside covering is quite large and is hard and 
 as tough as leather. It will keep out the water. 
 Between the outer covering and the nut is a mass 
 of light loose strings of fiber, that holds the nut in 
 place. 
 
 Many of the cocoa-nut trees grow just at the 
 edge of the water and when the nuts with their 
 boat covering, fall into the water, they can float 
 away, and some of them may be thrown by the 
 waves upon the shores of another island. Cocoa- 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 
 
 175 
 
 FIG. 57. Cocoanut trees in the Islands of the South Seas. 
 
176 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 nuts with their coverings on are sometimes brought 
 here as curiosities, and can be seen in museums or 
 once in a while in the market. John says if he 
 ever sees one in a store he is going to get it for his 
 school. 
 
 A B 
 
 FIG. 58. A cocoanut. A, A nut with the husk on. B, Shows the 
 husk cut away to allow the nut to be seen. 
 
 NANCY'S SEED CARRYING BIRDS 
 
 Nancy told of reading of some of the ways 
 birds carry seeds about. Some plants, like cherry 
 trees, have their seeds covered with a nice fruit 
 that birds like to eat. In the cherry the seed is 
 very hard so that birds cannot harm it. The fruit, 
 when it is ripe, is bright red so that it is easily 
 seen. The fruit is soft and sweet and very good to 
 eat. The birds carry it away to eat, then drop 
 the seed. We may say that the cherry tree hires 
 birds to plant its seeds, and pays them with a nice 
 feast of cherry fruit. 
 
 She gave another interesting way by which the 
 birds help the plants. There are many kinds of 
 plants that live in water or just at the edge of 
 streams, ponds or lakes. They have small seeds 
 
THE BAND OF SEED HUNTERS 
 
 177 
 
 that drop down into the mud. Water birds, such 
 as wild ducks, geese or cranes that wade about in 
 such places, get the mud with the small seeds in it 
 stuck fast to their feet. Something may frighten 
 them, and they fly away before they have time 
 to wash their feet. In this way the seeds get 
 carried to other ponds, sometimes a long distance 
 away. It is said that a number of plants are 
 scattered abroad by birds in this way. 
 
 TOM'S SQUIRTING CUCUMBER 
 
 Tom had learned that a number of plants had 
 seeds which, when ripe, had a sticky substance on 
 
 FIG. 59. The squirting cucumber. 
 
 them that would hold fast to the fur of animals 
 or the feathers of birds which touched them and in 
 
 12 
 
178 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 this manner get carried away. But the strangest 
 one was a plant called the " squirting cucumber." 
 This is a sort of wild cucumber that grows in 
 some parts of Europe. When it is ripe the inside 
 parts turn into a sticky stuff, which is packed so 
 tightly inside the rind that the cucumber is almost 
 ready to burst. If an animal happens to pass by 
 and touches the ripe cucumber the stem of the 
 cucumber pulls out like a stopper of a bottle. 
 Then the sticky stuff with the seeds shoots out 
 with force and if the animal should be in the way 
 its fur will be spattered with the mess. The poor 
 animal may go a long distance before it has a 
 chance to stop and clean its coat and drop the 
 seeds. 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 What would the world be without flowers? 
 We do not like to think of such a thing. In 
 countries where they have cold, snowy winters, 
 the flowers disappear for a few months and the 
 world seems to frown. When spring comes and 
 the cold winds and snow are changed to warm 
 rains and bright sunshine^ the wild flowers of the 
 fields and woods lift up their cheery faces and the 
 world seems to smile again. 
 
 The children are then just wild to get out and 
 find the first wild flowers that are brave enough to 
 stand up and say old winter has gone and young 
 spring has surely come. 
 
 What is the first wild flower to come in the 
 spring? That will depend on what part of the 
 world you live in. In the New England states, 
 the children will find certain ones they know well, 
 which are different from those that the children 
 of Indiana or Kansas find. 
 
 In parts of Georgia or California, it would be 
 hard to tell just which flower is the first to come in 
 the spring, because the winter is not severe, so 
 that some flowers may be found blooming at any 
 time. You cannot say just exactly when the 
 winter goes and the spring begins. But even in 
 California, when the spring months come and 
 
 179 
 
180 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 the ground is well soaked with water and the air is 
 warmer, the flowers come in greater numbers than 
 at any other time of the year. 
 
 In some of the parts of Arizona and New Mexico, 
 where it is very dry most of the year, you might 
 think if you were traveling over the country, that 
 certainly no flowers ever bloomed here. But even 
 here where the few rains of the whole year come in 
 summer, the most beautiful flowers spring up from 
 their hiding places and bloom quickly before the 
 ground goes dry again for many months. Here 
 the children could search for the first flowers of 
 the rainy season, instead of the first flowers of 
 spring. 
 
 In the moist, warm countries south of us, nearer 
 the equator, called the tropics, all kinds of flowers, 
 some of them magnificent, bloom the year round. 
 So there are no first flowers of spring but beautiful 
 flowers throughout the year. 
 
 Every country has its own kinds of flowers which 
 grow wild in the different places, each in the kind 
 of place it likes best. But people like flowers so 
 much that they can not wait to go out into the 
 fields and woods to gather them. As they wish to 
 have them close by so that they can see them at 
 any time, they plant flower gardens near the house 
 or in parks where the whole city can visit them. 
 
 Besides our native flowers, the brightest and 
 most beautiful that can be found in the far away 
 countries are brought to our country to make our 
 .flower gardens and parks as beautiful as they canbe. 
 
FLOWERS 181 
 
 People love flowers so much that every spring 
 they get the flower seed catalogues and send 
 away for seeds and bulbs to plant in their flower 
 beds. 
 
 Such great numbers of people want flower seeds 
 and bulbs every year, that large farms are used 
 just on purpose to raise seeds and bulbs to sell to 
 the lovers of flowers. 
 
 Every house can have some flowers about it. 
 Many schools have flowers in their yards and in 
 pots in their rooms. I have known of some 
 school rooms where every child had a flower plant 
 of his own to care for and have bloom. 
 
 It is very plain why the love of every one for 
 flowers is so great. Their beautiful bright colors 
 enliven field, wood and home so much and the 
 graceful and delicate forms are so pleasant to see 
 and their delicious odors so delightful to smell, 
 that they give us beautiful and pleasant thoughts 
 wherever we meet them. And that is enough to 
 make us love them. 
 
 In our love for flowers we do not always stop to 
 think of the real reason why flowers have their 
 bright colors, beautiful forms and delightful per- 
 fumes. We might suppose that all these are for 
 our pleasure alone. But when we look more care- 
 fully into the life of the plant we find that the 
 flower with all its beauty is formed as it is, first 
 of all, that it may be of the greatest use to the 
 plant itself. Like other beautiful things in Nature, 
 we are free to admire the flower and enjoy it as 
 
182 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 much as we like but it does its important work for 
 itself whether we look at it or not. Away in the 
 deep woods where no one ever goes, or high up on 
 the steep, rocky sides of the mountain where no 
 one ever climbs or in the deserts or fields or forests 
 of wild countries which no one has yet explored, 
 flowers have been blooming for thousands of years. 
 But in those unknown regions as well as about 
 our homes the flower is hard at work for the plant 
 that bears it. Now if we can see just how the 
 flower does a work very important for itself it will 
 cause us to admire it more than ever. What is 
 this great work? If we live more closely to the 
 plants and watch carefully just what they are 
 doing they will tell us plainly what their beautiful 
 flowers are doing for them. 
 
 THE PARTS OF THE FLOWER WORK TO FORM THE 
 
 SEEDS 
 
 f ;. 
 
 The really most important work of the flower 
 for the plant is in its helping to make the seed. 
 The plant's seeds are surely important enough for 
 the plant, for how could it keep itself going on 
 upon the earth without seeds? It is true that the 
 gardener can keep some kind of plants going 
 from year to year by means of cuttings and bulbs. 
 And many wild plants have bulbs, but most wild 
 plants have no other way of bringing on new 
 plants except by seeds. Even those that have 
 bulbs and other ways of planting themselves, as 
 with runners, need seeds to help them get into 
 
FLOWERS 183 
 
 new places. So seeds are very necessary to the 
 plant. 
 
 In another chapter we saw that the plants show 
 how great is the care they take of their seeds, 
 while they are growing and also what a number of 
 very clever ways they have in getting the seeds 
 scattered broadcast into new places. Some of 
 these are: the balloons and wings for the wind to 
 use; the burs, hooks and barbs to fasten to the fur 
 of animals; sticky substances for the same pur- 
 pose; pods that throw the seeds about; boats that 
 float them and many other curious and wonderful 
 ways of caring for the planting of the seeds. 
 
 Now when we come to understand a little about 
 the flowers, we find that they have very curious and 
 beautiful contrivances to help them make the seed. 
 That is their great work. 
 
 To understand it, we must first know just what 
 part of the flower makes the seeds. The flower 
 has many parts and some of these parts do not 
 turn into seeds, but only help the work along. 
 
 As every one knows, there are thousands of 
 kinds of flowers and they are not all alike. They 
 do not all have just the same parts, but great 
 numbers do, although they may be of very many 
 different shapes and colors. 
 
 If you look into the face of a flower of a geranium, 
 or of a buttercup, the first thing you notice is the 
 bright colored part red in the geranium and yellow 
 in the buttercup. This attractive part makes the 
 biggest show. It is called the corolla. The 
 
184 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 corolla is the bright smiling face of the whole 
 flower. It is the beauty of the flower. It is this 
 that makes us seek far and wide for the lovely, cheery 
 blossoms to give ourselves and our friends pleasure 
 at the sight of them. If we take the corolla of a 
 buttercup apart, we find it is made up of five pieces 
 each of which is a sort of little yellow leaf. The 
 
 FIG. 60. Parts of a flower; calyx, petals, stamens with pollen 
 grains, pistil. The pistil is represented cut open to show how the 
 pollen grain grows down to join the part that is to become the seed. 
 This part of the flower is drawn as a diagram to show where this 
 growth takes place but it could not be seen in the flower without a 
 microscope and much skill in preparing it. 
 
 pieces of the corolla are called petals. In flowers 
 like the morning-glory and petunia, the corolla is 
 not in separate pieces but is all joined into one. 
 It makes a funnel-shaped corolla which ends in a 
 tube at the bottom. 
 
 Just outside of the bottom of the corolla is a cup 
 in which the corolla stands. This cup is green and 
 is sometimes made of separate pieces like little 
 
FLOWERS 185 
 
 green leaves. But sometimes the pieces are 
 joined together into one. This green cup just 
 outside of the corolla is called the calyx. When 
 the flower is in bud, before it opens, the calyx 
 covers it all over and keeps it safe from harm until 
 the flower opens. These two parts of the flower, 
 the calyx and corolla, do not change into the seed, 
 but they have to do some very important work in 
 getting the seed started. 
 
 There are two other parts of the flower which are 
 usually not so showy but are very important in 
 seed making. Just inside the corolla is a row of 
 tiny stalks with knobs on the ends of them. They 
 are numerous in the buttercup and apple blossom, 
 but are few in some flowers like the petunia and 
 geranium. They are called stamens. Out of the 
 little things on the tops of the tiny stems of the 
 stamens, a fine sort of colored dust drops. This 
 flower dust is called pollen. While the particles of 
 dust from the stamens are so very small, yet they 
 are very important in seed making as we shall see. 
 
 Now comes the fourth or last part of the flower. 
 That is in the very center of the flower. It is 
 called the pistil. In some flowers there is only 
 one pistil and in some there are a few and in 
 some very many. Of course the pistils, like the 
 other parts of the flower, differ in shape and size in 
 different flowers. 
 
 In the flower here pictured which has only one 
 pistil, we see its top standing on a little stalk in the 
 center of the stamens. The bottom of the pistil 
 
186 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 is larger than the rest of it. And it is in the bot- 
 tom part of the pistil that the seed is made. In 
 this part of the pistil is a very small part which 
 can grow into a seed. But before this minute part 
 will start to form a seed there is one thing that must 
 take place. * 
 
 One of the tiny grains of the flower dust, that is 
 a pollen grain, must touch the minute part 
 inclosed in the thick portion at the bottom of the 
 pistil before that part will start to grow into a seed. 
 There we have the secret of the flower. A pollen 
 grain must join a certain part inside the pistil 
 before there can be a seed. It seems to us impossi- 
 ble that this can be done, but the plant has a fine 
 way to manage it. 
 
 In the first place, the pollen grains are alive and 
 if they are planted in just the right place they can 
 grow. Well, the right place is on the top of the 
 stalk of a pistil. The top of this pistil stalk is 
 called the stigma. The stigma is made on pur- 
 pose to be a good growing place for pollen grains. 
 It is widened out, it is soft and is covered with 
 a sort of sweet syrup. When a pollen grain falls 
 on it, it will begin to grow into a very slender thread, 
 like a mould thread. This thread goes right down 
 through the pistil stalk till it finds the very minute 
 part that can grow into a seed. When the pollen 
 thread reaches this part, then the seed growth 
 begins. 
 
 Thus we see that the most important parts of^the 
 flower are the stamens with the pollen grains and 
 
FLOWERS 187 
 
 the pistil with the beginning seed cell hidden down 
 in its thickest part. 
 
 Now, how do the other parts of the flower, the 
 corolla and the calyx, help in this work? It will 
 be very interesting to find out how they make part 
 of the contrivance for getting the pollen grain on 
 the stigma of the pistil, so that the most important 
 thing of all can take place. That is, that the pollen 
 grain shall grow down to touch the important part 
 that is to grow to be the seed. 
 
 GETTING THE POLLEN ONTO THE STIGMA 
 
 Now if we keep in mind that a pollen grain must 
 be placed on the stigma so that it can grow down 
 to the minute seed cell and start it and the parts 
 around it, growing into the seed and fruit, we are 
 ready to look into the flowers to see how they 
 manage to get it done. Since pollen* grains are so 
 very small, just a fine dust in most flowers, and the 
 stigma is quite small too, it looks as if it would be a 
 pretty hard thing for a plant which has no legs 
 or arms and cannot move its parts like an animal, 
 to plant the very tiny pollen grains on the tiny 
 sugary garden of the stigma. 
 
 Some plants have flowers whose stamens grow 
 in such a way as to bring the pollen near to the 
 stigma or over it so that the pollen can be pushed 
 up against it or fall on it in some way. This 
 seems to be the easiest way. But it is better for 
 most plants that the stigma of a flower should get 
 its pollen from another flower instead of from its 
 
188 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 own stamens. This makes better seeds in very 
 many kinds of plants. 
 
 To bring this about, the plants have different 
 ways. In some kinds of flowers the stamens grow 
 in such a way, that the pollen cannot get to the 
 stigma in the same flower. 
 
 In very many kinds of flowers the pollen and the 
 stigma do not ripen at the same time in the same 
 flower. That is, when the pollen in a flower 
 is ripe and ready to grow, the stigma in that flower 
 is not ready for it. So if the pollen is to do any 
 good it must be planted on the stigma of another 
 flower, that, like a little seed bed, is all ready for it. 
 In all the plants with such flowers, the plants 
 have to make use of something besides themselves 
 to get this very important work done. That is, 
 getting the pollen from one flower to another. 
 
 People who love plants and like to watch their 
 interesting ways, have found out some of the very 
 curious and wonderful means that different plants 
 have of getting this tiny pollen grain carried over 
 from one flower and planted on the little stigma bed 
 of another flower, which may be only a short space 
 away or quite a long distance off. 
 
 It is found that the things that plants use for 
 this work are wind, water, and animals. The 
 flowers of many plants are formed for the wind to 
 carry their pollen. Some water plants make use 
 of the water to float their pollen out. 
 
 All these are very interesting, but perhaps the 
 most interesting are the ones which make use of 
 
FLOWERS 189 
 
 animals to carry their pollen grains around and 
 plant them carefully on the stigmas. 
 
 Flowers of this kind are the most beautiful ones 
 and smell the sweetest. The animals that do this 
 work for the plants are mainly: the humming- 
 birds, moths, butterflies, bees, bumble-bees, wasps, 
 flies and many other insects. These flower loving 
 animals, of course, do not know any thing about 
 planting pollen grains on stigmas and they do not 
 care. What they are after is something to eat. 
 
 And here is where the wonder comes in; we see 
 how the plants have formed the flowers into most 
 ingenious traps and baited them with sweet 
 nectar or other food, so that when the bird or 
 insect comes to get the nectar, without knowing' 
 the good it is doing the plant, it gets pollen of one 
 flower just in the right place on its body to brush it 
 off on the stigma of another flower of the same kind. 
 The plants would die out for lack of seeds if it 
 were not for these humming-birds and insects. 
 The humming-birds and insects would die with 
 out the plants. The flowers are formed to fit the 
 insects and the insects are formed to fit the flowers. 
 They both can give us great pleasure in seeing how 
 they are suited to each other, and in watching 
 them work together. The gardens, fields and 
 woods are full of these curious traps and the insects 
 and humming-birds at work in them. Let us find 
 some of them. 
 
A HUMMING-BIRD FLOWER 
 
 SCARLET SALVIA 
 
 It was Saturday. The children went out into 
 the garden to see how some of their plants were 
 coming on. They soon met the gardener. Bessie 
 told him that they had learned in school that it was 
 necessary for the pollen in the stamens to be placed 
 on the stigmas before the flowers could form the 
 seeds. "That was a good lesson/' said the 
 gardener, and he showed them the stamens with 
 the pollen, and the pistils with the stigmas, in 
 several flowers. *'The teacher told us," said 
 Bessie, "that the flowers got the birds and insects 
 to help them. That the flowers were traps to 
 make the animals place the pollen on the stigmas. 
 0, how I'd like to see them do it." 
 
 The gardener said: "Well, let us hide near that 
 bed of scarlet salvias and watch for what may 
 happen." This bed of salvias was the brightest 
 spot in the garden. The children did not have 
 long to wait before one after another, swiftly 
 whirring, came three beautiful ruby-throated hum- 
 ming-birds. They dashed from flower to flower, 
 hovering an instant long enough to thrust their 
 beaks down the long tubes of the flowers. They 
 darted about so swiftly, that the quick bright eyes 
 
 190 
 
A HUMMING-BIRD FLOWER 191 
 
 of the children had to be very alert to keep sight of 
 them. 
 
 After seeing that the lively little ruby-throat 
 always pushed his long bill down the scarlet tube 
 of the flower, the gardener was ready to show the 
 children just how the flower trapped the humming- 
 
 FIG. 61. A humming bird visiting the scarlet salvia. 
 
 bird into doing what must be done that the seeds 
 might form. 
 
 Each took an opened flower in his hand to 
 examine it carefully. In the scarlet salvia, some- 
 times called scarlet sage, both the calyx and corolla 
 are bright scarlet. The corolla is a long tube. 
 The opening of the coroFa tube looked somewhat 
 like a mouth, opened ready to swallow something. 
 
192 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 Under the upper lip of the mouth, the children 
 found tucked away neatly, and covered up so that 
 the rain could not wet them, the anthers of two 
 stamens and the forked stigma. They were quite 
 well hidden, but their little stems were long and 
 went down in the flower. The stem of the stigma 
 went to the bottom of the flower and the stamen 
 stems went down a short way and were fastened to 
 the sides of the corolla tube. 
 
 The gardener then showed them with a thin 
 little stick, that when the humming-bird thrust 
 his long bill down to the bottom of the corolla 
 tube to get the sweet nectar the flower had all 
 ready for it, it made the anthers strike down on 
 his little face. Of course this would dust his face 
 with pollen. Then at the next flower it visited 
 the stigma pressing down on its face would get 
 some pollen rubbed on it. The children were 
 delighted to see the flower actually at work trap- 
 ping the ruby-throat into doing its work, and not 
 hurting the little fellow a bit, but giving him a sort 
 of ice-cream soda in exchange. 
 
 " There is one smart thing/' said the gardener 
 " which I think you did not see on this trap/ 7 
 "Look again at the stamens and you will find that 
 there branches off from the side of the thin stamen 
 stem, a little prong that lies up against the corolla 
 tube/ 7 The children found this easily enough. 
 
 "Now this is a very interesting part of this trap. 
 It is fixed so that the bird, in pushing his bill down 
 into the tube, causes the bill to press against the 
 
A HUMMING-BIRD FLOWER 
 
 193 
 
 prong which acts like a lever, to pry the stamen 
 down on the ruby-throat's face." 
 
 "Well," said Tom, "this is surely as much a trap 
 as my figure four that I set for quail. Who would 
 have thought a plant could make such a trap." 
 
 The gardener then told them of other salvias 
 
 FIG. 62. The upper picture is the flower of the scarlet salvia. 
 The lower one is of the flower cut open to show how part of the stamen 
 makes the trigger of the trap. 
 
 that had flower traps for bumble-bees. Their 
 flowers were shorter and wider mouthed so that 
 a bumble bee could get in. The scarlet salvia 
 seems to like humming-birds better, for its corolla 
 tube is so narrow that a bumble-bee cannot get 
 into it. But in the bumble-bee salvias, the trap is 
 of just the same kind. They have levers on the 
 
 13 
 
194 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 stamen stems to trip the anthers on the backs 
 of the bees. The stigma stem does not need a 
 lever, for when the stigma is ready for the pollen 
 its stem grows long and curves down, just to 
 touch the back of the bee. Since the stigma in a 
 flower is not ready at the same time the pollen of 
 that flower is ripe, you see that that stigma must 
 get its pollen from another flower. They say 
 that humming-birds like red, so the scarlet color of 
 this salvia makes its humming-bird trap so much the 
 better. The bright color makes it easy for the 
 ruby-throat to find it. 
 
 Now that the children saw that some flowers 
 are real traps, baited and set for some animal and 
 colored so as to be easily found, they were anxious 
 to find out if other kinds of flowers were traps of 
 the same kind. 
 
 The gardener who is happy always, to show off 
 his loved flowers to any one interested, gladly 
 promised to lead them jn their efforts to catch 
 other beautiful blossoms at their pretty tricks. 
 
BUMBLEBEE FLOWERS 
 
 THE SNAPDRAGON 
 
 The idea that the blossoms of salvia are traps, 
 stirred the children up to look for other traps 
 among the flowers in the garden. Tom said that 
 he was sure that, from the queer way the flower of 
 the snapdragon is formed, it, too, must be some 
 kind of a trap. 
 
 They found a group of these tall plants which 
 were bright with their showy bloom. Tom took 
 off one of the blossoms and showed Bessie how 
 curiously the lower part of the flower pressed tight 
 up against the upper part. If you press the lower 
 part down, then let go of it, it springs up like a 
 mouth shutting with a snap. Bessie thought that 
 perhaps that was why it is called snapdragon. 
 "But how is anything going to get into the flower 
 when it is closed so tightly?" said Bessie. 
 
 They found places around the group of plants 
 where they could see well, if any thing visited 
 the blossoms. The gardener watched them but 
 thought he would let them find out about this 
 plant for themselves. They had hardly got seated 
 before sure enough, up came a fine big bumblebee, 
 buzzing in among the blossoms. It alighted on 
 the lower side of one of the flowers. The children 
 
 195 
 
196 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 FIG. 63. The snapdragon. 
 
BUMBLEBEE FLOWERS 197 
 
 then saw that that part of the flower had just the 
 shape for a good alighting platform. 
 
 The weight of the big bee began to open the 
 flower. Then the bee plunged its head into 
 the opening and crawled right in. In a short 
 time it backed out again, and it was plain to be 
 seen that its back was covered with pollen. This 
 
 FIG. 64. A bumblebee opening the snapdragon. The stamens and 
 stigma will touch its back. 
 
 was done so quickly that the children could not 
 see every thing that happened in that first visit. 
 But this bee visited one flower after another and 
 other bumblebees came and went to work in the 
 same way. 
 
 This gave the children time and chance enough, 
 with the gardener pointing out a thing or two, to 
 see how the snapdragon made the bee work for it. 
 It gave the bumblebee nectar from a sack at the 
 bottom of the flower. Its anthers and stigma 
 were neatly tucked away in the upper part of the 
 
198 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 flower just where the back of the bee would brush 
 against them. Then there was the nice alighting 
 platform. And when the bumblebee started to 
 crawl down after the nectar, the lower part of the 
 flower pressed her up close to anthers and stigma. 
 Soon her back was covered with pollen and as she 
 went from blossom to blossom the stigma would 
 get dusted with it. 
 
 The blossoms of the snapdragon were closed so 
 tightly that the rain was kept away from the nectar 
 and the pollen. It also kept many other insects 
 out and held every thing ready for the big bumble- 
 bee which was heavy and strong enough to open it, 
 
 The bumblebee just suited the snapdragon. 
 If a smaller insect got in, its back could not reach 
 up to the anthers and stigma. It would get the 
 honey but would do the flower no good. Snap- 
 dragons and bumblebees are partners and work 
 together. 
 
 Of course the children were delighted to have 
 seen for themselves the bee and plant working 
 together. Tom had a chance to say, "I told you 
 that the snapdragon must be some kind of a trap. 
 So now you see how it is. But I must say/ 7 he 
 added, "I did not think it could be such a good 
 one." 
 
 BUTTER-AND-EGGS 
 
 The gardener told them that if they would like 
 to see another flower which was a trap much like 
 the snapdragon, they could look at the plants 
 
BUMBLEBEE FLOWERS 199 
 
 called butter-and-eggs, and sometimes toad-flax, 
 growing along the side of the road. They did so 
 and found that they used their traps in much the 
 same way. At the bottom of the blossom of 
 the toad-flax is a spur, in the end of which is the 
 nectar. A bumblebee or a long-tongued honey- 
 bee alights on the flower platform, crawls in and 
 pushes itself in as far as it can to reach the nectar 
 at the end of the spur. This presses the back of 
 the bee up against the anthers containing the 
 pollen and stigmas just as in the snapdragon. 
 
 "So that's what the spur in the toad-flax is for, 
 is it?" called out Bessie. "Well, I know of some 
 other flowers that have spurs on them. I wonder 
 if they have them for the same reason." "What 
 flowers?" asked Tom. "Well, there is the colum- 
 bine for one. And, Oh yes, there is the larkspur 
 for another" replied Bessie. "Why yes, of 
 course" said Tom, "Why didn't I think of them, as 
 they are both in this garden." 
 
 THE COLUMBINE AND LARKSPUR 
 
 So next these spurred plants had to be watched. 
 A nice group of columbines was close at hand. 
 The columbine blossoms were numerous. Each 
 was made up of five pouches, each pouch ending 
 in a long spur. The anthers with pollen and the 
 stigmas were in a group on a column in the center 
 of the flower. The flower hung with mouth down 
 and the spurs standing up. This kept the rain out. 
 
 The children saw their old friends, the bumble- 
 
200 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 FIG. 65. The columbine. 
 
BUMBLEBEE FLOWERS 201 
 
 bees come to a flower. A bumblebee would crawl 
 up one of the pouches and stretch her tongue up in 
 the spur for the nectar. In doing this, she would 
 brush her back against the bunch of anthers and 
 stigmas hanging down from the center. By the 
 time all the five pouches had been explored she 
 would have good chances to get plenty of pollen. 
 She of course went from flower to flower carrying 
 the pollen along for the stigmas. The columbine 
 spurs are so long that it makes it a bumblebee 
 flower. Those bees that have shorter tongues 
 can't reach the nectar. 
 
 Next the larkspur proved itself to be a bumble- 
 bee trap too. It has a good place for the bee td 
 alight on. Then there is a long spur with nectar 
 at the bottom. The anthers and stigmas are 
 placed just where the bumble bee must press 
 against them when she pushes in to stretch her 
 tongue down the spur after the nectar. 
 
 The gardener was as much pleased to see the 
 children find out these interesting things about 
 his flowers as the children were to have their eyes 
 opened to the beautiful contrivances they had 
 found, in even the commonest plants. 
 
 The gardener said " There is one thing about 
 bees and columbines I must tell you, although there 
 is something of meanness in it." He then explained 
 that there are some bees which do not have long 
 enough tongues to reach the nectar in the spurs, so 
 they get on the outside of the spur and bite into it 
 and suck the nectar out. "Of course when they 
 
202 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 do this, there is no nectar left for the faithful old 
 bumblebee and the pollen does not get carried by 
 her to the stigmas." 
 
 The gardener took the children back to the group 
 of columbines and sure enough they found some of 
 the spurs with tiny holes bitten into them and 
 bees stealing nectar through them. "That is just 
 what happens to my traps for animals sometimes" 
 said Tom. "I may set it for one kind of animal, 
 and another smaller one, say a mouse, sneaks in 
 and steals the bait without springing the trap." 
 
 It was now getting so late that the bees had gone 
 home. Just then the supper bell rang and the 
 children were quite ready with big appetites to 
 enjoy the meal. 
 
 Of course they had a lively time telling their 
 mother and father of their experiences. Bessie 
 said, "I am going to write to Nancy about what 
 we have seen and get her and John to see what they 
 can find in their garden." Tom, who is not very 
 fond of writing letters himself was quite willing for 
 Bessie to do this. Later on he said to her, "Next 
 Saturday when we have time let us look for more of 
 the flower traps for insects." Bessie readily agreed 
 to this. 
 
 And if it does not rain I am sure we will get some 
 interesting reports from this wide-awake* pair. 
 
 THE IRIS BLOSSOM 
 
 The children had some good stories to tell at 
 school the next day about their finding such 
 
BUMBLEBEE FLOWERS 
 
 203 
 
 cunning traps in the flowers of their garden. The 
 teacher wished them to bring some of their flower 
 traps, to show the rest of the children. You may 
 well believe that they readily promised to do so. 
 
 FIG. 66. The iris. The stamens and stigma will brush the back of 
 the bumblebee when it tries to reach the nectar. 
 
 As it was Friday, they could not do that until 
 Monday. ' But they were now more than ever 
 anxious to spend Saturday in the garden exploring 
 for a larger number of such flowers. 
 
 Saturday morning came with a cloudy sky, 
 which made a cloud of disappointment spread over 
 
204 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 their eager faces. But before long the clouds 
 began to break away, and the sun came out and 
 soon the clouds were swept away and the sky was 
 blue and bright. Then the garden shone with 
 color. The birds, bees and butterflies came flutter- 
 ing and flying and buzzing about. The clouds 
 also disappeared from the children's faces and 
 they went gaily on their delightful excursion. 
 
 Having already seen how some blossoms and 
 bumblebees work together, Tom's first thought 
 was to watch for a bumblebee and follow it, to 
 see if any other flowers were fitted to it. Almost at 
 once he saw one with a serious but good natured 
 hum alight on an iris blossom near by. Both 
 children got closer to get a good look at the 
 bumblebee's work. The iris blossom has three 
 parts that turn down, and three that are erect. 
 On each of the parts that turn down is a ridge of 
 soft hairs. The bumblebee alights on one of the 
 turned down parts and crawls along the pathway 
 of hairs to push its head down into the flower and 
 stretch its tongue after the nectar. In doing this 
 it brushes against a stamen with its anther which 
 stands right in front of it, and gets pollen on its 
 back. 
 
 Just behind the stamen is a broad piece that 
 looks like a little petal. On its face is a surface 
 which is the stigma. This bends over enough to 
 touch the bumblebee's back. The children did 
 not see the stigma at first. It was so different 
 from the other stigmas they had seen. But when 
 
BUMBLEBEE FLOWERS 205 
 
 the gardener showed them which part was the 
 stigma, it was all plain. 
 
 Here now was a fine bumblebee trap. The 
 showy erect parts of the blossom were bright flags 
 to call the bumblebee and the rest was a beauti- 
 fully contrived trap to get him to carry pollen to 
 stigma. 
 
 Then the gardener had them see in what way the 
 gladiolus was a fine bumblebee trap. And next 
 they watched bumblebees at work on the foxglove 
 blossoms and found that the blossoms instead of be- 
 ing gloves for fitting on foxes' paws, fit perfectly on 
 bumblebees' bodies and get their pollen planted on 
 the stigmas in return for giving the bees the nectar. 
 
 The special form of the pea blossoms is a finely 
 arranged one for bees to get and to carry pollen 
 from plant to plant. The bee alights on the 
 landing place. Its weight presses that part down. 
 The stigma and pollen are thrown up against the 
 under side of the insect. The color and fragrance 
 of the blossom help the bee to find the flower, and 
 then it sips the sweet nectar. 
 
 BUTTERFLY FLOWERS 
 
 Then there were flowers that had nice little 
 tubes with nectar at the bottom just placed so 
 that butterflies with their long tongues could 
 reach it without trouble. The beautiful visitors 
 alighted and unrolled their tongues which were 
 coiled up like a watch spring under the head. 
 When the butterfly reached its tongue down after 
 
206 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 the nectar, it would get pollen on its face. When it 
 visited the next flower this pollen would be brushed 
 upon the stigma of that flower. In some of these 
 flowers the nectar cannot be reached by either 
 the short-tongued or the long-tongued bees. For 
 this reason they must depend on the butterflies 
 with much longer tongues. On this account they 
 are called butterfly flowers. 
 
FLOWERS FOR VARIOUS INSECTS 
 BUTTERCUPS AND APPLE BLOSSOMS 
 
 When the children watched the buttercups they 
 found bees and some kinds of flies visiting the 
 flowers. But they could not see how the flowers 
 were traps. The gardener showed them that at 
 the bottom of each bright yellow petal is a place 
 where the nectar is formed. This is what the 
 insect is after. 
 
 In the middle of the blossom is a large number 
 of stamens and just in the center is a number of 
 pistils with their stigmas. When the insect searches 
 for the nectar it crawls around over the stamens 
 and stigmas, and in that way, gets pollen on its 
 body which then can be brushed on the stigmas. 
 So it is as much a trap as is any other flower. 
 
 Blossoms of fruits such as apples, pears, peaches 
 and blackberries are formed on something of the 
 same plan. There is a bunch of stamens and 
 pistils in the center over which the bees and other 
 insects must crawl, in order to get the sweet 
 liquid at the bottom of the blossom. Thus they 
 carry pollen to stigmas. 
 
 THE SUNFLOWER 
 
 The largest flower in the garden was a big sun- 
 flower. It was fully a foot across and with its 
 
 207 
 
208 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 bright golden fringe of petals, was, as we all know, 
 a very showy blossom. And since it was raised 
 high on a tall stalk, it could be seen from a long 
 distance. 
 
 The children determined to find out what kind 
 
 FIG. 67. A sunflower. The large disc is made up of a very large 
 number of small flowers called florets. 
 
 of an insect trap it might be. Tom brought a 
 step ladder so that they could see it more closely. 
 Then they found their old friend the bumblebee, 
 crawling over the flower and apparently very busy. 
 It would take a few steps and push its head down 
 
FLOWEKS FOR VARIOUS INSECTS 
 
 209 
 
 as if it were feeding on something. Then a few 
 steps more and down again would go its head. 
 Its head and body were yellow with pollen. 
 
 They could not make out just what was happen- 
 ing. So the gardener said that .they could have 
 the big flower and take it apart to find out how it 
 was formed. 
 
 When they did so, they were 
 surprised to find that what they 
 had always thought was one 
 big flower, was really a large 
 group of very little flowers 
 crowded together. Each little 
 flower had a corolla in the form 
 of a tube. Inside of the co- 
 rolla tube were the stamens 
 joined together in a little tube. 
 Inside the stamen tube, was 
 the stigma of the pistil. As 
 the little flower was growing 
 the stamens ripened first and 
 were pushed up by the grow- ing. 
 ing pistil with its stigma. 
 Later, up came the stigma above the stamen tube 
 and opened out, into a forked top. Now the little 
 flowers over the face of the big sunflower do not 
 all get their growth at the same time. Some are 
 just forming when others are done blooming. 
 
 In this way, some have little bunches of pollen 
 on the tops of the stamen tubes and others have 
 the pollen all gone and the forked stigmas standing 
 
 1 2 3 
 
 FIG. 68. Florets from 
 the disc of the sunflower. 
 1, A floret with the stamen 
 tube and a bunch of pollen 
 at the top. 2, An older 
 floret with the forked 
 stigma growing out of 
 the top. 3, A still older 
 floret which shows the 
 seed at the bottom enlarg- 
 
 14 
 
210 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 up above them. The sweet nectar is at the bottom 
 of the tiny corolla tube. 
 
 Now comes the bumblebee. It thrusts its 
 tongue down the tube to get the nectar. From 
 some of the little flowers, it gets a load of pollen. 
 On others, only stigmas stand up and the bee dusts 
 them with pollen from its body. So here we have 
 the trap again. Other insects visit this, what might 
 be called a bed of flowers, and help in the same way. 
 
 The big yellow petals on the outside rim of the 
 big sunflower, they found to be, each one a very 
 much enlarged petal of a little flower. These, 
 placed on the outside row, make this bed of little 
 flowers look like one big flower. These yellow 
 petals help the sunflower plant by making it easy 
 to be seen and found by the insects. 
 
 They saw that this big sunflower was planned 
 just like the dandelion, the dahlia and many other 
 blossoms, all of which are real traps for bees and 
 butterflies. 
 
NANCY'S LETTER ABOUT MOTH 
 FLOWERS AND OTHER MATTERS 
 
 Hummingdale, Ohio, June 30, 1921 
 DEAR BESSIE : 
 
 I received your letter about flowers yesterday, 
 and I was just wild to go right into our garden to 
 see if any of our flowers did the same as you tell 
 about the flowers in your garden. I read the 
 letter to John and Mother. John said, "I wonder 
 if it is all true. Let's go right out and find out for 
 ourselves." 
 
 Well it was late in the afternoon when I got your 
 letter, and it was about dusk when we reached the 
 garden. It was too late for bees and butterflies to 
 be out and we were disappointed because we would 
 have to wait till next day. 
 
 But when we told Mother, she said that there 
 were some blossoms that were just fitted for 
 moths to visit. And moths only came out in the 
 dusk or after dark. She told us that we might go 
 and watch the beds of evening primroses. Then I 
 said, "0 yes, I remember now reading about the 
 tomato-worm growing into the big hawk moth 
 which" ^visits evening primroses and other flowers. 
 The story said that it helped the plants form the 
 seeds. But then I did not understand it very well. 
 
 211 
 
212 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 But the letter makes it plain. Let's go and watch 
 them and see how it is.' 7 
 
 So we went first to the evening primrose bed. 
 
 ' 
 
 FIG. 69. Sprig of the evening primrose. One blossom open. 
 
 The sun had just gone down but it was still light 
 enough to see quite well. The blossoms here and 
 there were just popping open. I told John it was 
 like a big corn popper only the grains were big and a 
 golden yellow. Soon, sure enough, here came a 
 
NANCY S LETTER ABOUT MOTH FLOWERS 
 
 213 
 
 whirring something that acted just like a humming- 
 bird. It dashed from blossom to blossom, hovering 
 a short time over each. John declared it was a 
 humming-bird. But one hovered over a blossom 
 so near me that I could 
 plainly see it unroll a long 
 tongue, coiled up under its 
 head. The coil looked just 
 like the garden hose coiled 
 up. It put its tongue down 
 the long tube of the blossom 
 while it still hovered over the 
 flower without alighting on 
 it, just the way a humming- 
 bird does. It certainly was 
 a big moth, and John, when 
 he had a chance to see it quite 
 near, was also convinced. 
 
 We then took off a blossom 
 and opened it and found out 
 how it was a moth trap. 
 From your letter we knew 
 what to do. The blossom 
 has a long narrow tube with 
 sweet nectar at the bottom. 
 Right outside, in the flower cup, stand the five 
 stamens and the one stigma. The moth pushes 
 down its tongue after the nectar and jams its 
 head right among the stamens and against the 
 stigma. The pollen it gets from one blossom it 
 carries to the stigma of the next. 
 
 FIG. 70. Blossom of the 
 evening primrose split open 
 to show how long and 
 narrow is the tube to reach 
 the nectar. 
 
214 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 The primrose bed was like a long counter in a 
 country store where the soda water fountain is. 
 The counter was covered with golden glasses with 
 primrose syrup in them. Each customer moth 
 
 Fia. 71. White-lined sphynx. One of the moths that visits long 
 tubed flowers. 
 
 brought his own straw and had a jolly time. He 
 thought he didn't have to pay any thing. But we 
 know how he paid the plant for his good time. 
 
 Mother then had us see how bees and other 
 insects could not get the nectar. And then the 
 
NANCY'S LETTER ABOUT MOTH FLOWE'RS 215 
 
 blossoms open best in the evening when moths fly 
 and bees go to bed. She said it was a good moth 
 flower. ' 
 
 We next saw moths visiting narcissus and honey- 
 suckle blossoms. When we examined these flowers 
 we found that they too had tubes with nectar at 
 the bottom and the stamens and the stigma stand- 
 ing out just so that the moth's head would have to 
 push in among them when it tried to get the nectar. 
 
 You see if a moth wished some other kind of 
 syrup, he would go over to the narcissus or the 
 honey-suckle counter. He would have a different 
 kind of drinking glass too, but always beautiful. 
 
 But it soon grew too dark to see any longer 
 and we had to give it up for that time. Mother 
 told us that there were many kinds of moths that 
 visited flowers of different kinds and helped them 
 get their pollen to the stigmas. As moths fly by 
 night, she told us many of the moth flowers were 
 white and fragrant so the moths could find them 
 after dark. 
 
 I often think of the good times we had at your 
 house. And wasn't that seed gathering picnic 
 lots of fun? After learning at that time what 
 bright ways plants have of getting their seeds 
 scattered about, I am not surprised to find them 
 clever enough to grow such good traps to get the 
 insects to carry the pollen about so that the seeds 
 may form. 
 
 Now we can hardly wait until tomorrow to see 
 some of the things you wrote about. We have 
 
216 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 FIG. 72. Narcissus. 
 
NANCY'S LETTER ABOUT MOTH FLOWERS 217 
 
 some of the same kind of flowers that you have 
 in your garden and some that you did not tell 
 about. 
 
 John wishes you to ask Tom to findjout if 
 there are not some water plants around the old 
 swimming hole that need investigation. If so^he 
 
 FIG. 73. Narcissus, cut open showing tube to reach nectar. 
 
 would like to come down and help him find out 
 about them. 
 
 And Oh Bessie, you know those fine, showy, odd 
 looking flowers they have for sale at. the flower 
 stores called orchids. Some of them cost a dollar 
 apiece. They say they grow wild in the tropical 
 forests of Brazil and that each one is a curious trap 
 to make insects carry pollen from stamens to 
 stigma. I am going to try to learn about them. 
 
 Be sure to write me about any new thing you 
 may find out about flowers and insects. And 
 
218 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 Bessie, what are the most exciting things the girls 
 in your school are doing this year? When does 
 your vacation begin? It is your and Tom's turn 
 to visit us this summer. 
 
 Goodbye, with love to all, from your friend, 
 
 NANCY. 
 
 P. S. Mother has just read this letter over and 
 she says you don't have to go to Brazil to find 
 orchids. That we have some in our own woods. 
 Well, when you come up next vacation, we will 
 go out and find them and see what tricks they 
 play on the bumblebees. Talking about tricks, 
 I know a good one we can play on John and Tom. 
 Will tell you when you come. 
 
 Goodbye, 
 
 NANCY. 
 
A PLANT THIEF 
 
 Bessie had started a geranium in a flower pot 
 in the green house. She obtained the slip from a 
 beautiful variety which she saw when visiting 
 her friend at Floraville. It had been growing 
 several weeks and was looking fine. She expected 
 it to bloom soon. As she had not seen it for some 
 days she went to have a look at it. 
 
 She was surprised to find a slender yellow thread 
 coiled around the stem of the geranium and sending 
 out branches over the geranium stem and leaves. 
 As the yellow thread had no leaves and had 
 no root in the ground, Bessie thought it did not 
 look much like a plant. She tried to unwind it 
 and take it away from the geranium. But no, 
 it held fast. She found that it had what looked 
 like a lot of suckers that went right into the stem 
 of the geranium and that she would have to tear 
 the bark of the geranium, to get the yellow thread 
 away. 
 
 "Ugh! what can the thing be?" exclaimed the 
 little girl. Then she decided to go to the gardener 
 as she always did when she got into trouble about 
 her plants. 
 
 The gardener was always quick to help whenever 
 either Bessie or a plant got into trouble. At the 
 first glance he said, "Oh, a Dodder has got into 
 
 219 
 
220 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 your geranium pot." "Dodder? what's a Dodder?" 
 asked Bessie. "Well," answered the gardener, 
 "the Dodder is a plant thief, that climbs up on 
 the backs of other plants and picks their pockets. 
 I think, as this is a young one and has not gone 
 
 FIG. 74. A part of a dodder vine with blossoms twining around a 
 
 plant stem. 
 
 very far, we can get it off and save the geranium." 
 When they had rescued the geranium, Bessie 
 wished to know more about the Dodder. How it 
 could get along without leaves or roots? How 
 did it get started on other plants? Did it have 
 flowers and seeds? 
 
 The gardener led Bessie outside of the garden 
 and in a fence corner, showed her a tangled snarl 
 
A PLANT THIEF 221 
 
 of Dodder threads growing on some weeds. The 
 slender Dodder vine had numerous clusters of very 
 small flowers. These of course made the seeds 
 which were also small, about the size of clover 
 seeds. 
 
 The gardener then explained how the plant lives. 
 When the little seeds ripen they, of course, fall to 
 the ground. They usually do not grow till late 
 in the spring, after most of the other plants have 
 made a good start. When a dodder seed sprouts, 
 it grows out into a small slender thread with a very 
 tiny root sent into the ground. There is just 
 enough food in the seed to take it that far. The 
 tiny thread swings around in the air to find a plant 
 around which to coil. If it never finds a live plant 
 to climb upon, it withers and dies. 
 
 If it finds a live plant it twines about it and just 
 where its thread-like stem touches the stem of the 
 other plant, there grow suckers that hold fast and 
 push themselves right into its victim. These 
 suckers draw out the sap, which is the life's blood 
 of the plant, and live on it. 
 
 Now, as you know, the green plants get their 
 supplies for food by means of their roots and leaves, 
 but this thief has no further use for either roots or 
 leaves. It grows no leaves and the one little 
 root that it had to start with to help it up to its 
 victim, soon withers away. 
 
 For the rest of its life, it lets the plant it is rob- 
 bing, do the work of food making with its roots and 
 leaves, while it sucks up the rich juices its victim 
 
222 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 has made and passes them into its own body. 
 
 As it must have seeds of its o,wn to keep its kind 
 going from year to year, it forms an abundance of 
 flowers. "Now would you think such a bad plant 
 could be a near relative to the beautiful morning 
 glories?" added the gardener. 
 
 Of course Bessie had an astonishing story to tell 
 Tom. Very excitedly she showed him her rescued 
 geranium, and took him to see the poor weeds 
 loaded down with the robber plants. They learned 
 that there are many kinds of dodders. Some are 
 very destructive to many of the plants that man 
 tries to raise. One infects hop- vines and another 
 hemp plants and other dodders have other favorite 
 victims. 
 
 They learned that the bright orange patches 
 which they saw on the salt marshes as they rode to 
 the city, were patches of dodder growing on the 
 marsh plants. 
 
 "0, now I remember seeing an advertisement in 
 the paper/ 7 said Tom, "which said, "Pure alfalfa 
 seed for sale entirely free from dodder! I did 
 not see what it could mean till now. " " Yes, " said 
 the gardener, "One of the greatest enemies of 
 alfalfa is a kind of dodder. The dodder seeds 
 look much like the alfalfa seeds and are about the 
 same size. There is great dangerthat they, when 
 the seed is cleaned, may slip through and get 
 planted with the alfalfa. Then the farmer would 
 be planting a robber with his alfalfa which would 
 soon begin to eat up his valuable crop." 
 
A PLANT THIEF 223 
 
 "Well," said Bessie, "so many plants are good 
 and beautiful, I don't like to think that there are 
 any bad ones." 
 
 "But I don't know," said Tom, "that what the 
 dodder does is any worse than what we do when we 
 break up a stalk of sugar cane and suck out the 
 juice." 
 
 "Well it seems different to me," added Bessie. 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 
 
 Every one knows how the animals prey upon 
 the plants for their food. The cows and horses 
 take the grasses and grains. The goats strip the 
 bushes of their leaves. The squirrels gather in 
 the nuts. The pigs tear up the ground for the roots 
 and the birds make raids on the fruits and seeds. 
 
 Most of the plants appear to be helpless and stand 
 quietly as they are robbed or destroyed for an 
 animal's good. But what would animals and man 
 do without the plants for food? 
 
 Plants with green leaves form their own food 
 from the air, water and earth, without disturbing 
 anybody. But animals cannot do that. So they 
 have to wait until the plants make food before they 
 can have any thing to eat. Even those animals 
 which, like the tiger, live on other animals, would 
 have no animals to eat if plants did not live and 
 form food for them. 
 
 Man is just as dependent on plants as are the 
 other animals. He does not wait for the plants 
 that grow wild. The gardener plants long rows of 
 cabbages and turnips and the farmer has great 
 fields of corn, wheat and hay. These are gathered 
 in and stored in cellars, warehouses and barns. 
 When all these stores of food are taken from the 
 helpless plants, there is never a thought that they 
 
 224 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 225 
 
 could put up a fight or do any thing against the 
 animals. 
 
 So no one is afraid of a plant. But strange to 
 say, there are a few plants in the world that, 
 beside the food they make from air, water and 
 earth, have learned to like a taste of animal food. 
 They have actually made traps to catch animals 
 for food and thus get even. Luckily for us, these 
 plants only try to catch small animals like insects 
 or even smaller. So we need not be afraid of 
 them. 
 
 When watching the flowers, we saw how many 
 of them were cunning traps to make insects do some 
 good for the plants. But the flowers always gave 
 the insects a good dinner in return and let them go 
 without harming them. There are other plants, 
 however, which have traps that hold the insects 
 and kill them, so that the plant can use them as 
 food. 
 
 PITCHER-PLANTS 
 
 One group of such plants are the pitcher-plants. 
 They are given that name because some of their 
 leaves grow into vessels that are shaped just like 
 pitchers, which will really hold water. But do not 
 think for a moment that these plants are keeping 
 pitchers of delicious water ready for thirsty 
 wanderers out of pure kindliness. No, indeed, 
 their pitchers are deadly traps to catch unwary 
 insects and drown them in the water and then use 
 them as food. 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 \ 
 
 JT IG 75. A pitcher plant from a North Carolina bog. 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 227 
 
 There are several kinds of pitcher-plants found 
 in different parts of the world. Their pitchers 
 differ in sizes and shapes, but they all trap the 
 insects in about the same way. 
 
 Some time ago we were tramping through the 
 lowlands near the coast of North Carolina. On 
 the edge of a pine woods, we came upon a bog. 
 As it was summer the bog was somewhat dried out, 
 so that we could walk about on it. We were 
 surprised to find scattered there, a number of the 
 very pitcher-plants we had been reading about. 
 You may be sure we lost no time in looking into 
 the ways of this insect eating plant. 
 
 Each plant had a group of leaves springing up 
 from the ground from a foot to two feet high. 
 They were shaped like tall slender pitchers. At 
 the top of each pitcher, a leaf -like hood stood up 
 more like a flag than a hood. The pitchers were 
 yellow and so slender they perhaps looked more 
 like tin trumpets and for that reason the people 
 called them trumpet plants. 
 
 In kneeling down to get a good look, we got 
 what we were not seeking, a very unpleasant smell. 
 The pitchers were a third full of water in which 
 were a number of drowned flies and other insects. 
 The way the flies were caught was this. Each 
 pitcher oozed out sweet nectar around the mouth. 
 The flies coming to feed on the nectar would some 
 of them be sure to slip down the throat of the 
 pitcher. This was fixed so that it was smooth 
 going down. But many stiff sharp hairs grew 
 
228 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 in the throat and pointing downward, made it 
 impossible for the insects to crawl up and out. 
 So there was nothing left to do but fall back into 
 the water and be drowned. 
 
 Well, what good does such a seemingly cruel 
 trap do the plant? It has been found that the 
 plant sends out into the water, in the pitcher, 
 substances which digest the fleshy parts of the 
 insects just as the stomachs and intestines of 
 animals give out liquids which digest the food they 
 swallow. 
 
 So these pitchers are, beside being traps, a sort 
 of stomach by which the pitcher plants supply 
 themselves with animal food, beside the food their 
 roots and leaves form from air, water and soil. 
 
 It seems cruel for a plant to offer sweet food and 
 then miserably kill the poor insects because we 
 are not used to seeing plants do such things, but 
 it is not more cruel than what the birds do in 
 catching insects for food, or what some insects do 
 to others, or what man himself does in catching 
 many kinds of animals for food and clothing. 
 
 There is another kind of pitcher-plant that is 
 common in the bogs of the Eastern parts of the 
 United States. Its pitchers are wider across and 
 lie partly on the ground. But they are the 
 same sort of traps for insects. They even have a 
 little strip of nectar that reaches from the ground 
 up to the mouth of the pitcher. This lures also 
 crawling insects such as ants which follow up 
 the nectar path until they come to the mouth of the 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 229 
 
 FIG. 76. Pitcher plant from Eastern States. 
 
230 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 pitcher and fall in. The sharp, stiff hairs on the 
 inside the walls of the pitcher, make it impossible 
 for the victim ever to get out again. 
 
 These plants have rather pretty flowers on tall 
 stalks. It looks as if they lifted their faces high, 
 so as not to see the terrible things that go on in the 
 pitchers down below. 
 
 There is another kind of pitcher-plant found in 
 the marshy lands of Florida and Georgia that 
 has a still more cunningly made trap. It has 
 tall, slender pitchers. At the top of each is a good 
 hood that comes pretty close down over the mouth. 
 This leaves only narrow spaces for the insects to 
 get in for the nectar. The most wonderful thing 
 about the hood is, that at the upper part there 
 are many thin places that let the light shine 
 through. 
 
 These are like many little window panes. When 
 the poor fly goes to fly out it looks around for an 
 opening. It mistakes the light windows for open- 
 ings. It dashes against them and down it falls 
 into the water pit ready for it. This pitcher, like 
 that of other pitcher-plants, has its throat lined 
 with spiny hairs pointing down so that the unlucky 
 fly can not crawl up over them. 
 
 In boggy places in the Sierra Nevada Mountains 
 of California there grows still another kind of 
 pitcher-plant. It is much like the last one men- 
 tioned. It has a hood fitting close. The hood has 
 the window-like places. The pitcher has water 
 and stiff hairs in it. In this pitcher-plant the 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 231 
 
 
 FIG. 77. Pitcher plant from mountains in California. 
 
232 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 hood has at its edge, two 
 leaf like projections shaped 
 like a fish tail. As these 
 wave in the air, they may 
 act as flags to show the 
 insects where to find the 
 plant or they may be good 
 alighting places. At any 
 rate its pitcher is a good 
 fly catcher. And if you 
 come upon a bog filled with 
 these plants on a warm 
 summer's day, the unpleas- 
 ant odor tells of the thou- 
 sands of insects the plants 
 have caught and stored up 
 in the pitchers. 
 
 The most beautiful and FIQ 78 ._ Nepenthes> 
 the most gracefully shaped 
 
 plant-pitchers, are the ones named Nepenthes. 
 They do not grow in our country,, but are found 
 in tropical countries. Sometimes they are to 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 233 
 
 be seen in the greenhouses in the public parks. 
 There are a number of kinds of this form of 
 pitcher-plant. 
 
 One is almost a vine whose leaves are tipped with 
 the pitchers. The leaves of the plant are long and 
 large and hang down, but each ends in a long, slen- 
 der, stem-like part which droops down for quite a 
 distance, and then gracefully bends upward and 
 bears a beautifully shaped pitcher with a very 
 pretty lid held up over the mouth. 
 
 These pretty pitchers started the name pitcher- 
 plant. We use the name for those too, which are 
 not shaped as gracefully and perfectly as our 
 pitchers. 
 
 All kinds of pitcher-plants act in the same way. 
 They trap insects and digest them as food which is 
 taken into the plant sap. In some kinds, where the 
 covers of the pitchers are not complete, some rain 
 water can get in. Those with good hoods or covers 
 keep the rain out and furnish all the liquid found in 
 the pitchers from the* plant's body. In that way 
 they are just like stomachs of animals. 
 
 But even in those forms where some rain water 
 can get in, the plants furnish part of the liquid 
 which has power to digest the fleshy parts of animals. 
 
 THE SUNDEW 
 
 It was interesting to learn that the pitcher 
 plants set curiously planned traps to catch insects 
 and kill them for food. Still there are plants 
 that go further than the pitcher-plants. Besides 
 
234 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 setting traps they actually make movements to 
 catch and hold the poor insects until they are 
 devoured. This seems hard to believe if you 
 
 FIG. 79. Round-leaved sundew. 
 
 have not seen them at work. But such plants are 
 common in some parts of the world. Anybody 
 living in those countries can see them whenever 
 they wish. 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 235' 
 
 One group of such plants is called the Sundews. 
 Another name for them is Drosera. There are 
 many kinds. One of the most common which is 
 found in this country and in European countries is 
 called the round-leaved sundew. It is a pretty 
 little plant, growing in bogs or marshy places. 
 It has a nodding group of white flowers on a slender 
 stalk a few inches high. At the bottom of the 
 stalk right next to the ground, is a cluster of round 
 leaves, each about half an inch across. These 
 little leaves are among the most curious things in 
 the plant world. The upper surface of each leaf is 
 covered with about two hundred minute- stalks 
 each ending in a little knob. Indeed we might say 
 that the leaf was like a small pin cushion, stuck full 
 of pins. Out of the head of each pin there oozes 
 a clear liquid, which covers it like a bright drop of 
 dew. When the sun shines on the leaves the drops 
 sparkle and make a pretty object. This gives the 
 name sundew to the plant. 
 
 But, poor little fly, beware! If you think this 
 shimmering dew is sweet nectar for a morning 
 breakfast and fly quickly to get a refreshing drink, 
 you are deceived. You might just as well have 
 flown right into a spider's web. When a fly alights 
 on the deceitful dewdrops its feet stick fast. 
 When it tries to pull out its legs, they get in deeper. 
 As it struggles, it soon gets its body, and wings too, 
 covered with this sticky mass. 
 
 And now more terrible still, the pins of the pin 
 cushion begin to move. The heads bend toward 
 
236 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 the fly, first those nearest it and then those farther 
 away, until they all close down on it and hold it 
 fast until it is killed. The little pins are very much 
 alive. They act just like the tentacles of some 
 animals. 
 
 When the fly dies, it is still held by these little 
 pins and more liquid is poured out around it. 
 This liquid has substances in it which like the 
 liquids in our stomachs and intestines, can digest 
 flesh. So the fly is held till its flesh is all digested 
 and taken into the plant as food. Nothing is left 
 but the hard parts of the fly's body, legs and wings. 
 This may take a few days. The dry remains of the 
 dead and digested fly are then blown away by the 
 wind. The pins rise up again and the bright dew- 
 like drops come out on the pin heads and the 
 innocent looking leaf is ready for another unsus- 
 pecting insect. 
 
 The largest number of insects caught by the sun- 
 dew is of the small kinds of flies, gnats and midges, 
 but it has been known to catch and devour as large 
 an insect as a small dragon fly. Now, as the long 
 body of such an insect can not be covered by one 
 leaf, other leaves come to the help of this leaf and, 
 working together, they manage to hold the insect 
 and digest it. Such action by a plant is so very 
 unusual that it is but little short of marvelous. 
 Even by scientific students it is considered one of 
 the most wonderful things that any plant does. 
 
 As we have already pointed out, there are very 
 many kinds of Sundews or Droseras. They differ 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 237 
 
 in the size and shapes of the leaves and in their 
 flowers. They are found in most parts of the 
 world. They are all alike in this wonderful way 
 of catching and digesting insects. 
 
 VENUS FLYTRAP 
 
 The most wonderful of all the insect eating 
 plants is the Venus Flytrap. Another name is 
 Dionsea. Its leaves have movements quick enough 
 to catch a fly. Its trap is strong enough to hold 
 the poor animal until it is digested. Its trap is as 
 artfully planned and is as surely a trap as is the 
 best steel trap for catching rats or minks. When it 
 first became known that it caught insects and ate 
 them, it astonished botanists as well as other 
 people to find that a plant was able to do such 
 marvelous things. 
 
 The Venus Flytrap is a very prettly little plant 
 found only in bogs in the eastern parts of North 
 Carolina and farther south as far as Florida. Its 
 flowers are a group of white blossoms on a stalk a 
 half a foot high. At the ground the flower stalk is 
 surrounded by a cluster of leaves, each carrying 
 on its end a remarkable insect trap. A single leaf 
 is one or two inches in length. Its stem is broad 
 and green. At the end are two rounded parts 
 opposite one another. 
 
 The outer edges of these are armed with a row 
 of spikes. On the middle of each rounded part are 
 three slender stiff hairs. The three little hairs are 
 the triggers, the spines at the edges are the teeth 
 
238 
 
 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 FIG. 80. Venus flytrap. 
 
PLANTS THAT TRAP ANIMALS 239 
 
 of the trap. When the two halves of the trap lie 
 open, it is all set for its victim. 
 
 Now let an unlucky fly alight on the trap in a 
 way to touch one of the tiny hair triggers, and 
 before it knows what has happened the two sides 
 spring together, and the spike teeth cross each 
 other and the poor fly is held in a strong death 
 grip. 
 
 A liquid comes out of the surface of the leaf 
 that digests the soft parts of the fly. It may take a 
 few days to digest the fly, but the trap holds the 
 body fast all the time till it is finished. Then 
 the trap opens, and the liquid stops coming out of the 
 leaf. The digested part has been taken up by 
 the leaf. The dried remains of the fly's body can 
 drop out now, or be blown away by the wind. The 
 trap is set for another victim. 
 
 Flies are not the only insects caught by this 
 treacherous plant. Many kinds come into its 
 traps. Sometimes a tiny insect can crawl out 
 between the teeth, or an insect may be too large 
 to be covered by the trap and may manage to 
 break away. But great numbers of those that 
 are caught cannot get out of this cruel grip and die 
 a slow death in its jaws. 
 
 Although the little trigger hairs will start the 
 trap closing if touched ever so lightly by something 
 solid, like a thread or a fly's leg, the beating of rain 
 drops or the rush of the wind will not make them 
 start the action of the trap. 
 
 A very strange thing too, about this trap is, 
 
240 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 that if you touch the triggers with something that 
 has no digestible food about it, like a bit of thread, 
 or paper or cork, it will close the trap but will 
 not hold it long. But if the thing caught has 
 nourishing food in it, like an insect or even a bit 
 of meat or cheese it will hold it till it is digested 
 even if it takes several days. 
 
 It is certainly a -strange thing that a plant leaf 
 can tell in some way the difference between things 
 that are meat food and things that are not. In 
 this it is like the sundew. The thing that makes 
 the Venus Flytrap more wonderful than the 
 wonderful sundews, is that it has the strangely 
 delicate or touchy hair triggers that bring about 
 the quick clasping of the jaws of the trap. 
 
 Of course none of these are more wonderful than 
 the movements that we see animals do every day. 
 But we are used to that in animals, and besides 
 we know that they have brains, nerves, muscles and 
 bones. And we can see something of how they 
 work. But to see a little plant which does -not 
 have brain, nerves and muscles like ours, do such 
 things is enough to make even the greatest of 
 scientists wonder. 
 
THE CAMPUS SICKLE-BILL 
 
 BIRD LIFE ON THE STANFORD CAMPUS 
 
 Every year a larger number of birds go to school 
 on the Campus than there are students who go to 
 the University for their education. The studies 
 the young birds take are quite different from those 
 the students take in the University but they are 
 very important for the birds, just as important for 
 them as are the studies of the University for the 
 students. What the birds learn is so important 
 for them that if they did not learn it well they 
 could not get along at all. 
 
 They learn to fly among the first things. If 
 they did not learn that well, the cats, dogs, rats, 
 skunks, weasles, minks, coons, foxes, wild cats and 
 coyotes and many others of their terrible enemies 
 would soon catch them and make an end of them. 
 Then each kind of bird must learn what kind of 
 food is best for it and where to find it and how to 
 get it. Some live on seeds of different kinds. 
 Some on fruits such as cherries and berries of 
 many kinds, which they must learn to find when 
 they are ripe. Others live on insects or worms. 
 These are of very many kinds which know how to 
 .fly, or run or crawl away and hide from the birds, 
 so that birds have to learn where to look for them 
 
 16 241 
 
242 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 and how to catch them, and if each bird does not 
 know his lesson on foods well, he will surely starve. 
 
 Then, further, the birds have to learn how to 
 build nests. Each kind of a bird builds the kind 
 of nest that best suits it. There are then many 
 kinds of nests and some of them are very hard to 
 make, and each bird has only one stiff little bill 
 with which to make its nest. I do not see how it 
 can do it but in some way it learns how to perform 
 the difficult task. 
 
 Then they must learn to care for their eggs and 
 hatch out the little birds, then feed and care for 
 them till they are grown. Then they must teach 
 the young birds to fly and hunt for their own food. 
 
 Besides all this the birds learn to call to each 
 other. They learn a bird language. And they 
 also learn to sing. 
 
 Now all this is their education and each one 
 must get it to live a bird's life. It makes them a 
 busy lot of people. They get up early in the morn- 
 ing and hurry around all day. It is quite a bit of 
 fun to watch them. They are certainly as busy in 
 the campus trees and bushes as the students are in 
 the University buildings. 
 
 There are a great many kinds of birds which 
 make their homes on the campus and all are very 
 interesting. Each kind has its own bird language 
 and many have some kind of song. Some of the 
 songs are rather short but the best singer among 
 them all is the Sickle-bill and it is about this nice 
 bird that I wish to tell you at this time. 
 
THE CAMPUS SICKLE-BILL 243 
 
 THE SICKLE-BILL 
 
 It is sometimes called the California Thrasher. 
 There is a bird in the Eastern States much like 
 this bird which is named the Brown Thrasher 
 which is also a fine singer. So they call our bird 
 the California Thrasher. Most children call him 
 Sickle-bill because his bill is curved something 
 like a sickle. He is certainly a fine singer. There 
 is one which lives in the park next to the Art 
 Gallery. Almost every day between one or two 
 o'clock I go down to hear him sing. I am almost 
 sure to find him perched in the very top of one of 
 the monkey-puzzle trees or young redwood trees, 
 the highest place he can find. 
 
 There he sings a most charming song. It is 
 longer than the song of any bird around here. 
 Sometimes the song is kept up as much as half an 
 hour. Then down he drops among the bushes 
 where he runs about hunting for his dinner. In a 
 little while he is on the top of another tree pouring 
 forth another song. If you wait for him he may give 
 you several songs in one afternoon from different 
 trees. Sickle-bills generally choose for their home 
 a place where there are many low bushes. They 
 are very shy birds, hiding most of the time in the 
 bushes where they live. They run along the 
 ground quickly from one bush to another. 
 
 I love to watch this sickle-bill singing. His 
 food is the insects and worms which he finds in the 
 ground under the bushes. Here is where his big 
 
244 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 FIG. 81. The California thrasher. The sickle-bill. 
 
THE CAMPUS SICKLE-BILL 245 
 
 sickle-shaped bill is useful. He digs up the leaves 
 and soil with it. He can surely make the dirt fly. 
 He uses his bill as a pick or hoe. He strikes it into 
 the dirt and jerks it toward himself. As he does 
 this rapidly the dirt and leaves scatter behind him 
 in a lively manner. Then he looks over the dug up 
 ground to pick up what insects or worms he has 
 uncovered. He then jumps to a new spot and is 
 at it again. But at the least sign of danger up he 
 slips into a bush, hiding till he thinks the danger is 
 past. Then he hops down again and runs from 
 bush to bush and gets busy at his digging. 
 
 I don't see how a hawk could ever catch a 
 sickle-bill for he keeps himself so much out of 
 sight and is so quick to hide away. The only time 
 he is to be seen very well is when he is in the top , 
 of a tree singing and then at the first hint of dan- 
 ger down he drops through the limbs of the tree 
 out of sight and harm. 
 
 FEEDING THE SICKLE-BILL 
 
 The sickle-bill which lives in the park by the art 
 gallery, which Alice and I have named Bird Park, 
 has become tame enough to let us feed him. Some- 
 times we visit this Park to watch him. We get 
 under a tree and sit quietly with our bread or cake 
 crumbs ready. Soon we see him peeping out 
 under one of the bushes. I throw some bread 
 crumbs toward him and he comes running- toward 
 us to get the crumbs, coming very close to us, 
 but just out of our reach. Then we get a good 
 
246 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 look at him. He picks up a crumb and if it is 
 small enough he swallows it but if it is too big 
 he runs off with it and then beats it to pieces 
 small enough and soon comes back for another 
 piece. 
 
 Some other birds come around for their share. 
 If they are small sparrows he may drive them 
 away. But once there came a jay-bird plunging 
 down among the crumbs and grabbed the biggest 
 piece, just like a jay, and shot off with it like a 
 blue streak. Sickle-bill doesn't seem to like a 
 jay and is a little afraid of him. After he ate 
 several crumbs he slipped away and soon we heard 
 him singing, perched on the top of a monkey- 
 puzzle tree. After a good long fine song he came 
 down for some more crumbs. 
 
 One day he came three times for crumbs and 
 gave me three songs from different treetops. 
 At one time when a shower of rain came up 
 he sang right through it. This time he sang 
 twenty-eight minutes. I timed him by my watch. 
 Usually his song is loud and clear but sometimes 
 he sings it very softly as if he were humming it over 
 to himself. 
 
 The old gardener who takes care of this park 
 also feeds the sickle-bill and they are good friends. 
 Sometimes a thoughtless student will walk right 
 over the gardener's nice raked beds leaving great 
 holes in them with his feet. This makes the old 
 gardener greatly provoked, but when the sickle-bill 
 pours out one of his fine songs it makes the gar- 
 
THE CAMPUS SICKLE-BILL 247 
 
 dener feel better. The gardener calls the bird 
 Bill and it will come for food at his call. 
 
 RELATIVES OF THE CALIFORNIA THRASHER 
 
 There are several other kinds of thrashers 
 with sickle-bills, in parts of California and nearby 
 States. They all have beautiful songs and are 
 as interesting birds as our Sickle-bill. Children 
 in this part of the country will be delighted to 
 make the acquaintance of the one that lives near 
 them. Those who live in the Eastern States may 
 find as charming a friend in the Brown Thrasher 
 which makes its home with them. 
 
 That you may compare our favorite with the 
 one you know I will tell you of his looks and give 
 you his picture. He is a pretty good sized bird 
 about as large as our jay-bird. He has a strong, 
 long bill curved like a sickle. The tail is long and 
 he holds it up well when he runs along the ground. 
 He is a fast runner. His clothes are very modest 
 in color; a sort of slate or gray color. The throat 
 is light in color and on each side of his head and 
 neck behind the eye are dark lines. The feathers 
 on the under side just beneath the root of the tail 
 are reddish brown. While he is a very neat-looking 
 bird he is not at all showy. But he makes up for 
 any lack of show in feathers by the beauty of his 
 song. Sickle-bills or California Thrashers are 
 sort of cousins to the mocking-birds which are 
 common in the southern part of California. The 
 mocking-birds are fine singers too and are very 
 
248 INTERESTING NEIGHBORS 
 
 interesting because they can sing other bird's 
 songs as well as their own. Once in a great while a 
 mocking-bird visits the campus. But the dear 
 old Sickle-bills stay with us all the year. He is 
 one of our best and most constant friends. 
 
10rn-l2,'23 
 

 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY