Part 11 (1/2)
_Pigeon Henny's coop_: a pet name for one of the hens that looked very much like a pigeon.
_sh.e.l.ls_: loaded cartridges used in a breech-loading gun.
_bead drew dead_: when the little metal ball on the end of the gun-barrel, used to aim by, showed that the gun was pointing directly at the fox.
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_the mind in the wild animal world_: how the animals may really feel when being chased, namely, not frightened to death, as we commonly think, but perhaps cool and collected, taking the chase as a matter of course, even enjoying it.
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_The Chase_: The sound of the hunting is likened to a chorus of singing voices; the changing sounds, as when the pack emerges from thick woods into open meadow, being likened to the various measures of the musical score; the whole musical composition or chorus being called _The Chase_.
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_dead heat_: a race between two or more horses or boats where two of the racers come out even, neither winning.
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_Flood_: Why spelled with a capital? What flood is meant?
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_hard-pressed fox had narrowly won his way_: In spite of the author's attempt to shoot the fox that was stealing his chickens do you think the author would be glad if there were no foxes in his woods? How do they add interest to his out of doors? What other things besides chickens do they eat? Might it not be that their destruction of woodchucks (for they eat woodchucks) and mice and muskrats quite balances their killing of poultry? (The author thinks so.)
CHAPTER III
TO THE TEACHER
The thought in this chapter is evident, namely, that love for the out of doors is dependent upon knowledge of the out of doors. The more we _know_ and the better we _understand_, the more perfect and marvelous nature seems and the more lovely. The toadfish _looks_ loathly, but upon closer study he becomes very interesting, even admirable--one of the very foundations of real love. So, as a teacher and as a lover of nature, be careful never to use the words ”ugly” or ”nasty” or ”loathly”; never shrink from a toad; never make a wry face at a worm; never show that you are having a nervous fit at a snake; for it all argues a lack of knowledge and understanding. All life, from Man to the Am[oe]ba, is one long series of links in a golden chain, one succession of wonderful life-histories, each vastly important, all making up the divinely beautiful world of life which our lives crown, but of which we are only a part, and, perhaps, no more important a part than the toadfish.
FOR THE PUPIL
The toadfish of this story is _Batrachus tau_, sometimes called oyster-fish or sapo. The fis.h.i.+ng-frog or angler is by some called toadfish, as is also the swell-fish or common puffer of the Atlantic Coast.
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_Buzzards Bay_: Where is Buzzards Bay? Do you know Whittier's beautiful poem, _The Prayer of Aga.s.siz_, which begins:--
”On the isle of Penikese Ringed about by sapphire seas.”
Where is Penikese? What waters are those ”sapphire seas,” and what was Aga.s.siz doing there?
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_Davy Jones_: Who is Davy Jones? Look him up under _Jones, Davy_, in your dictionary of _Proper Names_. Get into the ”looking up” habit. Never let anything in your reading, that you do not understand, go unlooked up.
_Old Man of the Sea_: Look him up too. Are he and Davy Jones any relation?