The Adventures of a Grain of Dust Part 17

Whether you look at them from the standpoint of their intelligence and good habits, or their usefulness, beavers are the most interesting of all our little four-legged brothers of field or wood, and it is pleasing to know that many States have pa.s.sed laws to protect them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUN BATH AFTER THE SWIM

Boys, after an hour or so in the "ole swimmin' hole," like to take a sun bath. That's what these young beavers are doing on a nice gra.s.sy spot by the pond.]

And besides he is such a good fellow, Mr. Beaver is; peaceable, industrious, dependable, and with the best heart in the world! Why, do you know what they do--the beavers--when neighbors get burned out by forest-fires or their houses broken into by a mean old wolf or coyote or anything? Take them right in, children and all!

If you were a little beaver you'd have from two to four twin brothers and sisters to start with, and then two to four more for each of the remaining two years before you left home to make your own way in the world. You'd be born with your eyes open and not like a puppy or kitten.

And, what do you think, _in less than two weeks_ you could go swimming.

Mother would be right with you in case anything happened. Then when you were tired swimming you'd climb up on top of the house and rest and doze in the sun; take your afternoon nap just like any other baby.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE BEAVERS IN THEIR HOME]

But maybe it wouldn't be your own mamma that would be with you; for lots of sad things happen to beaver people, and when one little beaver's mother dies another mother beaver will take care of him, and all his brothers and sisters besides! Mr. Mills tells in that most interesting book of his about how one day a mother beaver was killed by a hunter who thought he didn't have anything better to do than kill poor little beavers; and the very next evening a lady beaver, who _already_ had four babies of her own, travelled a quarter of a mile with them to the house of her dead neighbor and stayed there and brought all the little orphans up!

HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY

The crayfish is a thing you've got to take seriously if you want to get the most out of it. Huxley says that a thorough study of a crayfish is almost a whole course in zoology. Think of going to school to a crayfis.h.!.+ But you'd enjoy it, I'm sure. For just look--and these are only a few of the interesting things you will find in Huxley's famous book on "The Crayfish":

How they swim backward (no doubt you know this already), and how they walk on the bottom of the water.

Why they seem to know the points of the compa.s.s--for they prefer rivers that run north and south.

Why they are most active toward evening.

Where they spend the winter.

Why they eat their old clothes.

How early in the spring you may expect to find them.

When they hatch their eggs and how the mother crayfish uses her tail for a nursery.

In what respect they resemble moths.

How they chew their meals with their feet and work their jaws like a camel from side to side--only more so!

How they grow by fits and starts, and what this has to do with the way they change their clothes.

How you can tell the age of a crayfish. (You don't do it by looking at its teeth. You couldn't see its teeth anyway, because they are in its stomach.)

And all this in less than the first fifty pages of a book, which has more than 350.

One of the most famous of the crab family, not only on account of his part in agriculture, but because of his funny ways, is the robber-crab. You should read about the wild life of adventure some of these crabs lead--regular Robinson Crusoes who get wrecked on islands far away from home and build houses there and s.h.i.+ft for themselves in many ingenious ways, just as the human Robinson Crusoe did. Kingsley's "Madam How and Lady Why" has some interesting pages about them; and so has Darwin's "Voyage Around the World."

Of the many things that have been written about beavers the following are among the most interesting: The story of the beaver in "Stories of Adventure," edited by Edward Everett Hale; "The Forest Engineer," by T. W. Higginson, in Johonnott's "Glimpses of the Animal World"; "How the Beaver Builds His House," in "The Animal Story Book," edited by Lang; "The Builders," in Lang's "Ways of Wood Folks"; and "The House in the Water," by Roberts.

The most interesting book of all on beavers, however, is "The Beaver World," by Mills, referred to in this chapter. I have not told you one-half of the remarkable things you will find about them in this book.

One of the most curious is about how a beaver sometimes gets his breath in the winter time. He may have to travel quite a distance under the ice, and one good breath has to last him to the end of the journey.

"But does he hold his breath all this time? How can he?"

He can't. He just uses the same breath over again. See how he does it. The Mills book tells.

Look up the muskrat and compare his ways with those of the beaver.

In the "Country Life Reader" you will find a graphic description of one of the perils of life for the beavers and their cousins the muskrats; namely in attacks by the great horned owl.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CITY LIFE AMONG THE FLAMINGOES

We don't have to go to Florida to get this bird's-eye view of a flamingo city. It is one of the habitat groups in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and reproduces perfectly the architecture and the social life of these interesting people.]

CHAPTER IX

(SEPTEMBER)

On the housetop, one by one Flock the synagogue of swallows Met to vote that Autumn's gone.

--_Gautier: "Life."_

FARMERS WHO WEAR FEATHERS

s.h.!.+ Go easy! Pretend you're a horse or a cow.[21] We've gone south with the swallows--it's September you see--and those queer birds over there are flamingoes. The flamingoes are a shy lot; I don't know why. I can't think it's on account of their looks; for there's the kiwi, the hornbill, and sakes alive--the puffins! _They_ all have funny noses, too, but none of them are particularly shy, and you can walk right up to a Papa Puffin almost. Whatever the reason is, the flamingoes are very easily frightened and they're particularly suspicious of human beings.

Yet we've simply got to meet them and have them in this chapter, for they are among the most interesting of the feathered workers of the soil. They just live in mud; build those tower-like nests out of it, walk about in it, and get their meals by scooping up mud and muddy water from the marshes where they live, on the borders of lakes and seas. They strain out the little creatures wiggling about in these scooped-up mouthfuls.

[21] Observers find that flamingoes can be successfully approached by putting on the skin of a cow or a horse.

I. FEATHERED FARMERS WITH QUEER NOSES

"What a funny nose! What happened to it?"

I knew you'd say that. Everybody does. But just watch now and see. That flamingo over there, stalking about on his stilt-like legs, sticks his long neck down to the muddy water, turns that funny nose upside down and----

"Why, of all things, is he going to stand on his head?"

WHY FLAMINGOES HAVE SUCH FUNNY NOSES

No, not that. Don't you see, he's getting his dinner? After that crooked scoop bill--for that's what it really is, a scoop--is filled, the water strains out through ridges along the edge of the bill and what's left is his food.