Part 21

Look carefully among the leafy boughs and you may find the home of a leaf-rolling caterpillar. "The little creature begins by spinning a thread and fastening one end to some fixed point, and then attaches the other end to the loose leaf. By means of powerful, muscular movements of the front part of the body, ... it hauls away on the ropes, slowly pulling it to the desired point, where it is held in place by a new and stronger thread. In this tent it resides, eating out the interior, and adding new stores of food, by sewing new leaves to the outside of the tent." (Packard.)

Notes

August Tenth

Families of barn and eave swallows now begin to congregate and to act restlessly. Flocks of red-shouldered blackbirds, mixed with purple and bronzed grackles, feed silently in the willows along the waterways, or are flushed from the grain fields. In the woods the chickadees, vireos, and warblers of many kinds keep company while they search among the trees for food. These are the first real signs to make the bird lover feel his feathered friends are soon to leave him.

August Eleventh

The muskrats now begin to build their winter houses, mounds of leaves, sticks, reeds, and aquatic vegetation, brought from the borders or the bottom of the ponds and streams, and piled from two to four feet above the surface of the water. The entrance to the one large chamber is always below the surface, and in this snug room a family of muskrats will spend the winter, but they do not hibernate.

August Twelfth

The Indian pipe, or corpse flower, is found only in heavily shaded woods. Like the fungi, to which it is kin, it subsists on decaying vegetation. Its ashy color and queer, fantastic shape make you hesitate to pick it, and after you have overcome the feeling and snipped off the stem, you find that it soon turns black, and is useless as an ornament.

Notes

August Thirteenth

Queen Anne's lace, wild carrot, and bird's nest, are the names given to the delicate, white lace-like flower which grows in such abundance in the open countries throughout the eastern States. Several flat-topped flower heads are arranged on stems along the stalk, and after the flowers have bloomed the stems of each head contract and form a sort of basket about the size of a hummingbird's nest.

August Fourteenth

"Now comes the season of our insect instrumentalists.... I have called them instrumentalists, for there are no insects, to my knowledge, that make any sounds with their mouths; they seem to be entirely void of vocal organs.... The song is produced by the rubbing or beating of some portion of the body against some other portion, these portions being so modified as to produce the rasping sound." (Brownell.)

August Fifteenth

The small-mouthed black bass is one of the gamiest of our fresh water fish. "The eggs are bound together in bands of ribbons by an adhesive substance. They adhere to stones on which they are deposited. The small-mouthed black bass ceases to take food on the approach of cold weather, and remains nearly dormant throughout the winter." (Bean.)

Notes

August Sixteenth

Often spending the entire winter in southern New York and New England, the American goldfinch and the cedar waxwing are the latest birds to begin nest building. The young have just now left the nest, while the other birds have long since ceased their domestic duties, and the white-breasted swallow will soon start on his southward journey.

August Seventeenth

If you will visit the zoological park at this time, you will find that since you last saw the buck deer, the antlers have hardened-like bone. The velvet, too, is hanging from them in shreds, and the buck thrashes his antlers against the bushes, and rubs them on the tree trunks, in an effort to rid them of the velvet. Soon they will be in prime condition for battle with his rivals or his enemies.

August Eighteenth

Children believe that a hair from the tail or mane of a horse will turn into a snake if left in water long enough. The so-called "hair snake" lives in the bodies of insects, such as grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles. The eggs of the worm are taken into the system when the insect drinks. Once hatched, the worm gnaws at its victim's vitals until the insect dies. They take to the water when full grown and lay their eggs in a long chain.

Notes

August Nineteenth

There are more than eighty species of our national flower, the golden-rod, in the United States. While a cluster of golden heads swaying in the breeze is beautiful indeed, it is with regret that we watch its ripening, for, like the harvesting of grain, and the flocking of bluebirds, it tells us of the approaching autumn.

August Twentieth

The female mosquito lays her eggs in a mass, that floats upon the surface of the water. The larvæ are the "wigglers" that swim about in a jerky sort of way in the rain barrels or pools of stagnant water. They float near the surface and breathe through a tube at the end of the body. When ready to emerge from this larval stage, they crawl out on a stick, stone, or bush, the skin on the back splits, and the mosquito emerges.

August Twenty-first