



Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Stephen Hutchson, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






                    [Illustration: Birds in Winter]




                                  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.

                    [Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]

                       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.

“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.”

                            [Illustration: ]

  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.”

                      [Illustration: Bullfinches.]

“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.

                        [Illustration: Tomtits.]

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.

                       [Illustration: Starling.]

The starlings came to the dish first, and fought among themselves for
the food, although there was much more than enough for them all.

Then came a few rooks, who walked about the dish in quite a lordly way.
Every now and again one of them would seize a huge crust of bread or a
potato in his clumsy bill and fly with it a short distance away. The
starlings, thrushes, and blackbirds hopped nimbly about, picking up a
choice morsel here and there.

The new patch was often crowded with finches of all kinds. The boys
noticed that many of the birds fed at both places. Among these were
sparrows, robins, chaffinches, thrushes, and starlings. These birds,
their uncle explained to them, fed on a mixed food of insects, seeds,
and fruits.

It amused them very much to watch how the rooks and jackdaws always
dragged the food away from the dish, as if they were stealing it; while
now and then a blackbird would fly away with a loud chatter, as if he
had been suddenly found out whilst doing something very wrong.

“These birds,” said Uncle George, “are looked upon as enemies by farmers
and gardeners. They are scared out of our fields and gardens by every
possible means. That is what makes them steal even the food that is
given to them.”

                         [Illustration: Rook.]

“But they pick the newly-sown seeds out of the ground, and steal the
fruit when it is ripe,” said Frank. “That is what the gardener says.”

“If the gardener only knew how much they help him, by eating up the
grubs and beetles that damage his plants, he would not grudge them a few
seeds and berries, Frank,” Uncle George replied. “The rook is one of the
farmer’s best friends; and if it were not for thrushes, starlings,
blackbirds, and such insect-eating birds, our gardens would be overrun
with insects. If these insects were allowed to increase, we should not
be able to grow anything. Even the sparrow is the gardener’s friend. He
eats the caterpillars that would spoil our fruit trees and bushes.”


                        Exercises on Lesson II.

  1. Why do we put out suet and scraps of meat for certain birds in
          winter?
  2. How can you tell a flesh-eating from an insect-eating bird?
  3. Write down the names of all the birds which belong to the crow
          family.
  4. What makes the jackdaw steal all his food?
  5. Why are jackdaws, rooks,