The 'look About You' Nature Study Books, Book 3 [of 7]

Part 1

The “LOOK ABOUT YOU” Nature Study Books

BY THOMAS W. HOARE TEACHER OF NATURE STUDY to the Falkirk School Board and Stirlingshire County Council

BOOK III.

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK 16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. AND EDINBURGH

Printed by M‘Farlane & Erskine, Edinburgh.

PREFACE.

This little book should be used as a simple guide to the practical study of Nature rather than as a mere reader.

Every lesson herein set down has, during the author’s many years’ experience in teaching Nature Study, been taught by observation and practice again and again; and each time with satisfactory result. The materials required for most of the lessons—whether they be obtained from the naturalist-dealer or from the nearest hedge, ditch, or pond—are within everybody’s reach.

There is nothing that appeals to the heart of the ordinary child like living things, be they animal or vegetable, and there is no branch of education at the present day that bears, in the young mind, such excellent fruit as the study of the simple, living things around us.

Your child is nothing if not curious. He wants to understand everything that lives and moves and has its being in his bright little world.

Nature Study involves so many ingenious little deductions, that the reasoning powers are almost constantly employed, and intelligence grows proportionately. The child’s powers of observation are stimulated, and his memory is cultivated in the way most pleasing to his inquiring nature. By dissecting seeds, bulbs, buds, and flowers, his hand is trained, and methods expeditious and exact are inculcated. By drawing his specimens, no matter how roughly or rapidly, his eye is trained more thoroughly than any amount of enforced copying of stiff, uninteresting models of prisms, cones, etc., ever could train it.

The love of flowers and animals is one of the most commendable traits in the disposition of the wondering child, and ought to be encouraged above all others.

It is the author’s fondest and most sanguine hope that the working out of the exercises, of which this booklet is mainly composed, may prove much more of a joy than a task, and that the practical knowledge gained thereby may tempt his little readers to study further the great book of Nature, whose broad pages are ever open to us, and whose silent answers to our manifold questions are never very difficult to read.

T. W. H.

CONTENTS

LESSON PAGE I. Birds in Winter 7 II. Seed-Eaters and Insect-Eaters 12 III. Buds 16 IV. A Baby Plant 25 V. How a Plant Grows 30 VI. More about Seeds 36 VII. The Horse Pond in Spring 44 VIII. Uncle George’s Tank 49 IX. Tadpoles 54 X. Frogs, Toads, and Newts 61 XI. Underground Stems 66 XII. Caterpillars 76 XIII. The White Butterfly 82 XIV. The Toiling Caddis 88 Appendix 95

“LOOK ABOUT YOU.” BOOK III.

I.—BIRDS IN WINTER.

“When we look out there, it makes us feel thankful that we have a nice cosy room to play in and a warm fire to sit beside.”

It was Uncle George who spoke. His two nephews, Frank and Tom, stood at the window watching the birds feeding outside, while Dolly, their little sister, was busy with her picture-blocks on the carpet.

“Yes, it is better to be inside in winter,” said Frank, the elder boy. “These poor little birds must have a hard time out in the cold all night.”

“I should not mind being a bird during the rest of the year, though,” said little Tom. “It must be so jolly to be able to fly wherever you like.”

Uncle George smiled, and said, “Birds are very happy little creatures, Tom, but they have many enemies. Their lives are in constant danger. They must always be on the look-out for cats, hawks, guns, and cruel boys. Those birds that stay with us all the year round have often a hard fight for life in winter-time. In fact, many of them starve to death.

“Most of our birds fly to warmer countries in autumn, and come back to us in spring. These miss the frost and snow, but a great number of them get drowned while crossing the sea. I think, as a little boy, you are much better off.

“Let me see; have you put out any food for the birds this morning?”

“Yes, Uncle George, we have done exactly as you told us,” said Frank. “Mother made a little net, which we filled with suet and scraps of meat for the tomtits. We hung it on the ivy, quite near the window. We also put plenty of crumbs and waste bits from the kitchen on the space you cleared for the birds yesterday.”

“Very good,” said Uncle George, “and I see your feathered friends are busy in both places.”

He looked out and saw a crowd of birds hopping on the frozen lawn round the well-filled dish. The little net, which hung just outside the window, was alive with hungry tomtits. They pecked eagerly at the suet, and chattered their thanks between every mouthful.

Part 2

“What a lot of birds we have to-day,” Uncle George remarked. “Do you know the names of them all, boys?”

“We know those you pointed out to us yesterday,” said Frank. “There is the chaffinch, the thrush, the greenfinch, the blackbird, and the hedge-sparrow, but I don’t know that one with the bright red breast, black velvet head, and grey wings. And there is a new one among the tomtits. He has a very long tail, and is like a small parrot.”

Robin. Starling. Hedge-Sparrow. Greenfinch. Bullfinch. Sparrow. Chaffinch. Long-tailed Tit. Linnet. Blackbird. Rook. Thrush.

“Oh,” said Uncle George, “the first you spoke of is the bullfinch. He is so easily tamed that he makes a splendid pet. The hen bullfinch is there too, I see. She has a dull brown breast, and is not quite so pretty as her husband. The bullfinch is very fond of berries. If we could get some hawthorn or rowan berries, we should have all the bullfinches in the district around us. The other bird is the long-tailed tit. He is also a very amusing little chap.”

“Why do the tomtits make such a fuss about the suet?” asked Tom. “The bullfinches do not come near it.”

“That is because the tomtit is a flesh-eater, Tom. He lives on insects. The bullfinch feeds on berries and seeds. He is also blamed for eating the young buds of fruit-trees in spring-time, but I am not quite sure that he does this.”

“Where are all the insects in winter, Uncle George?” asked Frank.

“Well, most of them are buried deep in the ground. Some of them are tucked up in warm cases, and hidden in the chinks of trees and walls.”

“Then why don’t the birds that feed on insects search those trees and walls for them,” Frank asked.

“So the birds do, but the sleeping insects are very hard to find. The cases which hold them are often coloured exactly like the tree or wall which they are fixed to; so that even the sharp eyes of a hungry bird cannot see them.”

Exercises on Lesson I.

1. Write out the names of all the wild birds you have seen. 2. Some of these we do not see in winter. How is this? 3. Why should we remember the birds in winter-time? 4. Describe the robin. How does he differ from the bullfinch?

II.—SEED-EATERS AND INSECT-EATERS.

The snow did not go away for some days. While it lasted, Frank and Tom watched the birds very closely. They learned many new and curious things about them.

The sparrows and robins had grown so tame that they would fly right up to the window-sill, and eat the crumbs and seeds that were placed there for them; while the tomtits paid great attention to the little net bag that hung quite close to the window. So long as they stood back a short distance from the window, the two boys could watch the funny tricks of these hungry little visitors.

Amongst other things, they learned to tell a seed-eating bird from one that feeds on insects.

Seed-eating birds, as their uncle told them, have short, stout, hard bills, just the thing for shelling seeds. The insect-eaters have longer and more slender bills; while birds that live upon both seeds and insects have bills hard enough to shell seeds and yet long and sharp enough to pick insects out of their hiding-places.

So many birds came to the feast, that Uncle George cleared the snow from another part of the lawn and spread some dry ashes upon it. Upon one patch he scattered seeds and crumbs, and on the other he placed a large flat dish.

In this dish were put all sorts of waste scraps from the kitchen, such as bones, potatoes, and pieces of meat. Uncle George did this so that the boys could tell flesh-eating birds from those that lived upon seeds.

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