Part 20

July Twenty-ninth

Young song sparrows, chipping sparrows, field sparrows, cedar-birds, bluebirds, and robins are streaked and mottled on the breast during the first few months of their lives. Another noticeable fact is that young birds fluff their feathers, and as the old birds are often thin from care and worry, the youngsters seem larger than their parents.

July Thirtieth

The dobson, or "hellgrammite," is honored with about sixteen other names. Its chalky-white mass of eggs about the size of a dime are now common objects along inland waterways. As soon as the eggs hatch, the young dobsons drop into the water and hide beneath stones for three years, feeding on aquatic larvæ of insects.

Notes

July Thirty-first

The river crab, or crawfish, has five pairs of walking legs and six pairs of swimming legs. If a leg is lost, another will grow within a year. The female lays a large number of eggs, which are attached to the fringes of her body. These crabs have two pairs of antenna-like organs, one to feel with and the other for hearing. The compound eyes are set on two pegs that can be protruded or depressed at will.

Notes

=August=

August First

The mid-air gyrations of the kingbird are not very often seen. Flying some distance into the air, the bird utters a series of indescribable notes, and as he does so, he dodges, twists, and zigzags through the air as though trying to escape the talons of a hawk. After repeating the performance several times, he sails gracefully to a perch on a telegraph wire or the topmost twig of a tree or a bush.

August Second

During the summer, gray squirrels leave their winter homes, in hollow tree trunks and limbs, and construct summer nests. These nests are simply balls of leaves placed in oak, chestnut, maple, or beech trees. A squirrel will build several nests close to one another, from which he never wanders far.

August Third

The aphides, or plant lice, are known to every horticulturist and lover of flowers. They cluster on the under side of leaves, causing them to curl and wither. There are a great many species, and they are the insects that the ants care for. They are sometimes called "ant's cows," because they secrete a sweet substance of which ants are very fond.

Notes

August Fourth

The clusters of white berries of the red-twigged osier, or kinnikinnik, so common in damp localities, will turn blue later on. The northern Indians remove the thin outer bark from the twigs, and after scraping off the inner green bark with a knife, they dry it over a camp fire, powder it between the palms of the hand, then mix it with tobacco and smoke it.

August Fifth

The ant lion is the peculiar larva of a fly. It forms small, funnel-like depressions in the dry sand or dust, throwing out the grains with its broad, flat head. You probably have seen an unfortunate ant struggling desperately to gain the top of the death pit. Gradually the drifting sand carries it nearer and nearer the jaws of the ant lion, waiting at the bottom, and finally it falls a victim to Nature's ingenuity.

August Sixth

The moist and shaded highland where the thorn apple, willow, red-twigged osier, and second-growth maples thrive, is the haunt of the mild and timid woodcock. Tracks in the mud may be seen where one has been walking about, and here and there clusters of holes smaller than a lead pencil tell that it has been "boring" for worms with its long, sensitive bill.

Notes

August Seventh

The harvest fly (cicada, "lyre-man," or dog-day locust) is really not a locust. Unlike its relative, the seventeen-year locust, which for seventeen years remains in the ground, a larva, it produces young yearly. In the woods and villages, its monotonous buzzing, sizzling note is heard, and is taken as a sign of warm weather.

August Eighth

As though ashamed of man's carelessness. Nature covers the fire-swept forests with beds of purple flowers, called "fireweed." Sometimes acre after acre of these tall flowers sway back and forth beneath the charred or naked tree trunks, a pleasant relief to the eye of the traveller.

August Ninth