A Book of Nimble Beasts
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There are four animals in this country whose nests can be found without having to dig, and these are the mole, the squirrel, the dormouse, and the harvest-mouse. Three of these build their nests above the ground, and the fourth, "the little gentleman in black velvet," builds the ground above his nest. I am going to tell you something about this one (the mole) first, because his nest, I think, is the easiest to see. I expect most of you know those queer little heaps of earth which are sometimes dotted about the fields and are called mole-hills (I want you to keep these in your minds for the moment), and I expect those of you who have got a natural history book will have seen a picture of what is called a mole fortress. I want you to put that out of your mind altogether; it is quite wrong. Now, the little mole-hills never have a nest in them, and I am not quite sure why the moles make so many, but if you ever find a really big hill among the little ones, as big as six or seven of these heaped together, and grub down into it (it is quite soft, and you can do this with your hands if you don't mind getting dirty), you will find a mole's nest just about the place where you would find the grass growing if there was no hill at all. In May or June you may find the baby moles. Have a good look at them and put them back, for you won't be able to keep them alive, and the mother mole is sure to come back and look after them—when you have gone.
FOUR MOLES' NESTS TOGETHER. THE BIG HILLOCK OF EARTH ABOVE THEM HAS ALL BEEN TAKEN AWAY SO THAT THEY COULD BE PHOTOGRAPHED
Another animal's nest which is easy to find is the squirrel's, but of course it is no use looking for this anywhere but in woods and places of that kind where you know there are squirrels about. A squirrel's nest is in a hole, or fork of a tree, and always, always out of reach. When it is in a fork of a tree it looks like an untidy bird's-nest, made of rather big twigs. It has a soft, warm lining, though, and, if you can get up to it, you may find the baby squirrels inside in June. If they are furry you can take them away, for then they are quite easy to bring up and tame.
The Squirrel. "Squirrel means Shadowtail"
Then there is the harvest-mouse's nest, which is the most beautifully made of all, and is usually to be found in cornfields, built some way up the stalks, and looking just like a bird's-nest except that it is quite round and has no opening that you can see. One can't very well walk about in a cornfield, but you have another chance of finding a harvest-mouse's nest in the hay-time, for they often build in the hay, and once I found one with babies in it, on a haycock, where it had been thrown without any one noticing it.
THE HARVEST MOUSE'S NEST
The most beautifully made of all
You have two chances, too, of finding a dormouse's nest, for this mouse builds one nest for the babies, and another to sleep in through the winter. Both of them are rather big compared with the harvest-mouse's nest, and they are generally made of moss and leaves, often honeysuckle leaves, which the mother dormouse seems to like, though I can't tell you why.
The dormouse often makes a sleeping-nest at the side of a path through a wood, and does not seem to fasten it very carefully, for one sometimes finds it in the middle of a path, as if the dormouse had turned over in his sleep and sent the whole thing rolling. It may be, though, that some hungry animal has pulled the nest out, and thinking the dormouse dead, preferred to take the chance of finding something alive and warm, and so left it.
If you ever find a sleeping dormouse, which will feel quite cold, you should take the nest and all and keep it somewhere out of doors. For if you bring it into a warm house, it will wake up before its proper time and very likely die; but if you leave it alone until the spring comes, it will wake up as Mother Nature meant it to, and you will have a pet which you will like much better than one which you looked at in a shop window, and could not resist buying.
The Dormouse
Now there are other things for you to learn about animals' nests besides the kind of places in which you may hope to find them. To begin with, you must remember that an animal has not got the beautiful little nest-making tool which a bird has—I mean, of course, a beak. A bird's beak is used something like a knitting-needle, to thread the little wisps of hay and feathers and moss and things like that in and out and round about, until they stick where the beak tells them. I expect that animals use their teeth a little in the same way, but they use them more, I think, in biting leaves into strips, in softening hard stalks, and cutting thick grasses into thin ones, and I feel sure that they would find knitting very awkward, because of their thick lips. Most animals, instead of building a nest in front of themselves, build it round themselves. The first thing they do is to collect a little store of nest-material, and this they manage by biting and nibbling at anything which they think will be nice and soft, and carrying it away in their mouths. I expect most of you have seen a house-mouse's nest. It is usually made of scraps of paper and wool and fluff and other little rubbishes, which they can pick up behind the walls and under the floor. Sometimes, though, Mousey is not content with a common kind of nest, and gets into a hat-box and spoils a pretty hat, or into a drawer and spoils valuable papers. Once a mouse nibbled the date and the signature off a valuable paper of mine. That was all she took, but it gave me a great deal of trouble, for it was a legal paper, and it had to be done all over again. Sometimes Mousey chooses even queerer places. I will tell you three I have heard of; the first was a tin of gunpowder, the second was a box of cigars, and the third was a plum cake. The last sounds the nicest, doesn't it? But mousey is very fond of tobacco, and I have often seen her, when the house was quiet, nibbling at scraps of tobacco which I had dropped on the carpet.
A DORMOUSE'S NURSERY NEST, BUILT IN A FURZE BUSH
The first thing that animals do, then, is to collect a little store of nest material. The next thing is to dive right into the middle of it. When they are well in the middle, they begin turning over and over, with a tug here and a push there, and little curls and flicks of the tail (the Harvest Mouse has the most useful tail of any of our animals, and that, I think, is one reason why his nest is so neat), until in a very short time they have scooped out a hollow in the ball of grass, or whatever it may be, and are sitting inside it. Sometimes they have to come out and get some more grass, and then the outside of the nest, which is quite springy, closes up like a little trapdoor behind them, and they have to make a fresh way in.
The Harvest Mouse
SOMETHING ABOUT BEETLES
(APRIL)
I EXPECT that most of you have seen some of the wonderful foreign beetles, whose wing-covers gleam and sparkle with colour as though they were studded with jewels; and some of you, perhaps, may have envied the small Black Folks down south, who have the chance of finding such beautiful things. But if you have a microscope, or even a magnifying glass, or if you know some one who will lend you either, you need not envy the small Black Folks at all, for here, in our own dear country, there are hosts and hosts of beetles as beautiful as any in the world. But there is always a something, isn't there? and the something in this case is that they are so very, very small. There is another something, and that is that nearly all of them have such very, very long names. The reason for this is that the young people were not the first to find them. If they had done so they would certainly have given them names which grownups could understand, just as the young people of long ago christened Tom-Tit and Jenny Wren, and Daddy Long-legs and Flitter Mouse. All these names have lived since they were first made, and they will live, I think, long after some much more learned names for the same things have been altogether forgotten.
Now I must tell you how to find these beautiful little beetles, and I think that you will be able to find them very soon after you have read these lines, for the spring-time will have come, and the May will have flowered, and there is nothing that the little beetles like better than May-buds. All you have to do is to find a May-tree (it doesn't matter if it is white or pink, and it needn't even be a May-tree so long as there is plenty of blossom on it) and hit one of the branches with a stick, and hold a butterfly-net, or an old umbrella, or a piece of newspaper, or even your hat (an old hat is best) underneath, and catch what falls from the branches. You will find all sorts of things, but among them there are sure to be some tiny long-snouted beetles which are called Rhynchophora. That is a dreadful name, isn't it? but I think that the English word "weevils" is just as ugly. Though they are very small indeed, you will see at once that they have very wonderful colours. Probably you will catch an emerald-green one, and a sky-blue one, and perhaps a little square-shaped scarlet one, which is not very uncommon, and there may come a red-letter day when you catch one of the most beautiful little beetles in the world, who is green and crimson and gold. I have done this twice myself.
The Stag-Beetle
There are so many different beetles in our country that no one has ever collected all of them. Most are very small indeed, like the weevils, but a few are quite big, and I am showing you pictures of some of the largest.
Perhaps I ought to tell you how to know a beetle when you see one. This sounds easy enough, but it is not quite as easy as it sounds. All beetles have six legs (beetles' bodies are divided into three parts, and the legs grow out of the middle part); nearly all of them have strong, horny covers for their wings, and all of them have their skeletons outside. This sounds a very topsy-turvy arrangement, but it is quite true. We have our bones inside, and our flesh outside, but beetles have their bones outside and their flesh inside. Sometimes you may see beetles crushed flat in the road, but often they are trodden on or run over without being killed; and the reason for this is that their hard, outside skeletons prevent their soft insides from being altogether squashed up. Once I ran over a Stag-beetle on my bicycle—it was nearly dark at the time, and I was over him before I could get out of his way. Now a big Stag-beetle weighs about an eighth of an ounce, and I am rather a heavy person—indeed, with my bicycle thrown in I should think that I must weigh over two hundredweight, which is about thirty thousand times as much as the Stag-beetle. You can imagine how surprised I was to find that the Stag-beetle was not hurt. I ought to tell you, though, that the road was soft, and that my bicycle-tyres were not blown up hard, so perhaps the Stag-beetle did not get all my weight on his back—but, anyhow, it was a wonderful escape for him, wasn't it?
The Stag-Beetle
This is the one that I ran over on my bicycle
The two largest beetles in this country are the Stag-beetle and the Great Black Water Beetle. I am not sure which should really be called the larger of the two, for it seems hardly fair to count the Stag-beetle's antlers, and if we leave these out, I fancy that the Great Black Water Beetle has the bigger body. It is curious that these two large beetles should be such quiet, easy-going things, and that they should never dream of eating beetles smaller than themselves.
The Female Stag-Beetle, whose antlers are quite short, and two Stag-Beetle Grubs
The Great Water Beetle
Who looks as if he was silver-plated underneath
But so it is, for both of them, the Stag-beetle on land and the Great Water Beetle in the ditch, eat scarcely anything at all, and, when they do eat, are quite content to suck the juices out of plants. One reason for these big beetles eating so little is, I think, the very long time which they have for feeding while they are caterpillars—beetle caterpillars, by the way, are always called "grubs" or "larvæ," and beetle chrysalises are called "pupæ." The grubs of the Stag-beetle live on decaying wood (you may sometimes find them at the bottom of an old gate post which has decayed under the ground), and take three or four years to become "full-fed." The grub of the Great Water Beetle spends all his time (three or four years, too, I expect) in the water, and I think he feeds on decaying plants, but I am not sure of this. Some people say that the Stag-beetle uses his great antlers to crush twigs and leaves so as to get the juice. This may be so, but I have never seen him do it.
The Musk Beetle
Who has a very nice smell
Another big and beautiful insect is the Musk Beetle. As you see in the picture, he has very long horns and a narrow body. He is a beautiful bronze green all over, and must be a wonderful sight when he is flying in the sunshine. I have never seen him fly myself, but people who have say that his legs and horns stream out behind him, so that he must look like a little green Heron. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about him, however, is his scent. I expect most of you know those little round pink sweets which are called "cachous." He smells just like the taste of those, and that is why he is called Musk Beetle.
Another big beetle I have to show you is the Cockchafer. You must look at his picture carefully, because it shows you how a beetle lifts up his hard wing-covers when he is going to fly. Some beetles, the Burying Beetle for one, turn these wing-covers almost upside down when they are flying, so that the hollowed side is uppermost. I expect that this helps to keep them up when they are flying, and perhaps it helps them to start as well.
The Cockchafer Raising its Wing-covers just before taking Flight
Of course you have all heard of the wonderful flying machines which are now being made. To fly at all, you must be able to do three things: lift yourself up, keep yourself up, and move about. If you can do these three things just as quickly and just as slowly as you want to, you will be able to fly perfectly. The hardest puzzle of all is how to make a machine which will keep itself up (and the right way up too) without moving about very quickly. This is what many birds can do so beautifully, and I expect that in time (all great inventions take a long time to make perfect, and they are never the work of one man alone, but rather of one man helped by the work of many men who lived before him) machines will be made in which men will be able to fly as perfectly as birds. At present they only fly as perfectly as beetles, but that they should be able to do this is a very wonderful thing. The great difference, in flying, between a beetle and a bird like a gull, is that the beetle has to keep going full speed all the time, or else he will tumble down to the ground, while a bird like a gull can poise balanced in the air, with just a flap or turn of his wings now and then to keep himself the right way up.
The Churchyard Beetle
When this Beetle is cross, he puts his head down, and rears up backwards as if he were going to kick
BUNNY RABBIT
(LADY DAY)
AUTHOR'S NOTETHERE are "go-to-bury" rabbits and "stub" rabbits. The "go-to-bury" rabbits have the longest ears, but the "stub" rabbits, as any stoat will tell you, are the best for dinner.
Moreover, there are rabbits and bunny rabbits—but all were bunny rabbits once.
BUNNY Rabbit missed the bluebells, though these rang in his birth.
Up rose the kingly foxgloves, tier upon tier of them pink-purple, but Bunny Rabbit missed these too.
A golden world—the ragwort blazing on the slope, below the mellowing corn-field, and, mantling primrose hills, the dawn.
Now Bunny Rabbit was ready.
The burrow winds in four sharp turns, and, at each one, he stubbed his nose. This through a mad desire to keep near Mother; for Mother's tail bobbed in quick jerks, shaving each corner to a hair, and he and all his brothers raced to catch it. They reached the entrance packed as one, but Bunny Rabbit, squirming clear, shot past the uplifted paw, butted his waiting Father, flung off him like a smoke-puff, and landed on his back six feet below.
That is why he has a separate history.
It was indeed sharp change of circumstance. The nursery had been pitch-black, though one short gleam of light had reached it daily. That was when Mother Rabbit snatched her food, and sealed the entrance up for fear of Father. At other times she screened her babies' eyes. So now the sunshine blinded Bunny Rabbit, and pointed grass-stems pricked a skin which nothing harder than breast-fur had touched.
AND LANDED ON HIS BACK SIX FEET BELOW
He took some minutes to collect his wits, then twisted upright, and, with frightened eyes, sought guidance.
But for the woolscrap all would have been well.
Mother Rabbit was close at hand, feeding his brothers with small sprigs of green. Father Rabbit was close too. The sight of his lost wife had softened him. He purred approval. He licked the children's noses.
Assuredly the lost would have been found, but for the woolscrap. The woolscrap fluttered, wind-borne, down the slope, and Bunny Rabbit nature-taught, went after it.
It led him far.
It caught on brambles and then flicked away. It plunged in little valleys. It mounted little hills. It bobbed and jerked and twisted, and Bunny Rabbit, panting hard, pursued.
At last he caught it, checked upon a grass-stem, and—it wasn't Mother after all!
Bunny Rabbit sat down bewildered. He was hot with running; his ears were prickly, his coat was rumpled. He combed his ears out, one by one, brushed down his face, and nibbled all the fur that he could reach. Then he felt better.
He combed his ears out, one by one
The morning breeze gained appetite and sent the woolscrap once more on its travels. Bunny Rabbit took no heed of it—he watched and heard the awakening of the wood. Bird notes, that in the burrow had been restful, now screamed and whistled in his ear. Out from the shelter-side of leaves, out from the heart of flowers, out from the grass-stems and from earth itself, came whirring, humming, buzzing insects. In this new myriad-peopled world there seemed small room for loneliness. A red mouse bobbed up from his hole, stared at him curiously, then whisked about and vanished. Bright eyes bejewelled the grass-tufts. Here a flick-footed lizard, here a slow-trailing blindworm, here a squat toad. The day-moths woke and flitted leaf to leaf. The bee-fly clambered up the thyme, poised hovering, vanished slantwise, and vanishing, reappeared.
This was full entertainment, and Bunny Rabbit stared round-eyed. He stared till hunger gripped him. His brothers, a bare hundred yards away, already had acquired the art of nibbling. He had no teacher, and no wits by which to teach himself. So, though food lay on every side, he starved. He felt a craving he had never known; a tightening of his fluffy body; an ache for Mother. Mother would set things straight for him, but where to find her was beyond his reasoning.
He wandered aimlessly this way and that; he nosed the bushes aimlessly; he stepped on Berus the Adder, because to him an adder, neatly coiled, was merely speckled ground.
Berus the Adder, though infuriate, forebore to strike. Venom is far too precious to be squandered, and baby rabbits are too large to swallow. He swayed his ugly head, and slowly, very slowly, he stretched forward. This was enough for Bunny Rabbit, who spun about and left the wind behind.
HE WATCHED AND HEARD THE AWAKENING OF THE WOOD
Before he had been lured by Hope, now Terror thrust her goad at him. He leapt two thorn-stumps blindly, and, stumbling, plunged head-deep into the ant-hill.
The ant-hill covers two square yards of ground, and every inch of it is peopled. Though soft, it is no place to fall on. Its citizens resent intrusion—nay, more, resent it actively.
When Bunny Rabbit reached the grass he felt the pricking of a thousand needles. The pain and smart of them half maddened him. He rolled upon his back; he scraped his neck on stones; he writhed; he bit himself.
The pain eased as his torturers dropped off him. Once more he tried to run, but in ten yards his strength was gone. His fore-paws flopped and stumbled, his hind paws dragged, his nose was bruised, his coat was hot and steamy. So he flung down bewildered, scraped an imaginary bed (a poor half-hearted scraping), slid out his feet, and lay full length, eyes closed.
Berus the Adder
Nothing now seemed to matter much. The hornet moth came whirring past his ears, he never heard it; the drone fly danced upon his nose, he never felt it; the Man lay almost at his side, he never saw him. Poor tired-out baby! Nature had ordered sleep and so he slept.
*****The Man woke slowly. Nature had been his comfort, too, though sleep had not refreshed him. He rose half-dreaming, with a smile. "All right, little girl," he said; then his face tightened. "It's the same place," he muttered, "just where we lost the locket. First bluebell, then foxglove, then ragwort; blue, purple, and gold. It was the gold she loved."