Part 24 (1/2)

I don't care what it says in ”Alice in Wonderland,” dorh dormice have been at table with people ever since the days of the Romans Dormice are still eaten in some parts of Europe, and the Romans used to keep them as part of their live stock The European doreood translation in the public library) tells how the Romans put their dormice in clay jars specially made, ”with paths contrived on the side and a hollow to hold their food”

Crocodiles and other tropical ani's ”Harmonies of Nature” tells about an officer as asleep in a tent in the tropics, when his bed moved under him, and he found it was because a crocodile, in the earth beneath, was just waking up! Iine what the dried-up ponds and streams of the llanos of South America must look like when the rainy season comes on, after the dry spell, with crocodiles asleep just under the surface everywhere Doctor Hartwig's book tells

But theup that ever I heard of was that of the Egyptian snail in the British Museum, that Woodward tells about in his ”Manual of the Mollusca” This snail was sent to England, si there was anybody at holued him to a piece of cardboard, marked it _Helix Desertorum_, and there he stuck until March 7, 1850, when so that indicated that there _was_ soave him a warm bath and he opened his four eyes on the world!

In his ”Anis” (”Nature's Work Shop”) Grant Allen tells why the hedgehog works at night and sleeps in the daytime

How he fastens on his winter overcoat of leaves, using his spines for pins, and how funny it es to have breakfast ready for hiehogs use their spines when they want to get down froh bank or precipice real quickly

How their eyes tell how s is ss about hibernation in Gould's ”Mother Nature's Children” and Richard's ”Four Feet, Two Feet and No Feet”

In one of his essays on nature topics--”Seven Year Sleepers”--Grant Allen tells how the toad goes to bed in an earthenware pot, which he makes for himself, and how this habit may have helped start the story that live toads are found inside of stones

Ingersoll, in that delightful book I have already referred to several times, ”The Wit of the Wild,” calls the pikas ”the hay little creatures, he tells why you ht at one and still not see it; why the pikas gather bouquets and why they always lay them out in the hot sun; why their harvest season only lasts about teeks, and why, although they usually go to bed at sunset, they work far into the night in harvest tiood story of a woodchuck nas it tells about the variety of residences a woodchuck has; and why aniht, as all woodchucks do, have an unusually keen sense of sh

Here's a clever bit of verse about the woodchuck by his other name, that I ca wakes to-day, And with reluctant roll, He waddles up his sinuous way And pops forth fro eyes, So heavy fro sleep, That he may read the tell-tale skies-- Which is it--wake or sleep?”

Ingersoll's ”Nature's Calendar” tells why Brer Bear stays up all winter when there is plenty of food, but goes to bed if food is scarce; how he uses roots of a fallen tree to help when he is digging his winter house; how he makes his bed and what he uses for the purpose; how the winds help hiht that he can't get out until spring, even if he wants to

[Illustration: ”IT MUST BE BRER BEAR!”]

CHAPTER XII

(DECEMBER)

While s for oose

--_Pope: ”Essay on Man”_

THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE DUST

But whether they store it in their little barns, like the chipmunk, or on their bones, like Brer Bear, these faret froed fares that they have been at work, these hu the soil that gives us food--and yet after all this Mr Man co and says:

”Get out of my fields!”