The Adventures of a Grain of Dust Part 24

I don't care what it says in "Alice in Wonderland," dormice never drink tea; although 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 dormouse is really a little squirrel. Varro's "Roman Farm Management" (of which you are apt to find a good 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 animals take very long naps during the hottest weather. Hartwig's "Harmonies of Nature" tells about an officer who was 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! Imagine 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 the most remarkable case of drying up 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, simply as a sh.e.l.l, in 1846. Never dreaming there was anybody at home, they glued him to a piece of cardboard, marked it _Helix Desertorum_, and there he stuck until March 7, 1850, when somebody discovered a certain thing that indicated that there _was_ somebody "at home," and that he was alive. They gave him a warm bath and he opened his four eyes on the world!

In his "Animal and Vegetable Hedgehogs" ("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 makes him look.

How Mother Nature manages to have breakfast ready for him in the Spring just when he is ready for _it_.

How hedgehogs use their spines when they want to get down from a high bank or precipice real quickly.

How their eyes tell how smart they are; for a hedgehog is smart.

You will also find interesting things 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 haymakers of the snow peaks." In his article on these interesting little creatures, he tells why you may often be looking right 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 two weeks, and why, although they usually go to bed at sunset, they work far into the night in harvest time.

"The Country Life Reader" has a good story of a woodchuck named "Tommy." Among other things it tells about the variety of residences a woodchuck has; and why animals that work at night, as all woodchucks do, have an unusually keen sense of smell. Can you guess why? The reason is simple enough.

Here's a clever bit of verse about the woodchuck by his other name, that I came across in some newspaper:

"The festive ground-hog wakes to-day, And with reluctant roll, He waddles up his sinuous way And pops forth from his hole.

He rubs his little blinking eyes, So heavy from long 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 him put on his roof, and how he locks himself in so tight that he can't get out until spring, even if he wants to.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT MUST BE BRER BEAR!"]

CHAPTER XII

(DECEMBER)

While man exclaims "See all things for my use!"

"See man for mine!" replies the pampered goose.

--_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 farmers deserve more friendly understanding than they usually get from that two-legged farmer, Mr.

Man.

Just think of the ages upon ages that they have been at work, these humble brothers of ours, and their ancestors--making the soil that gives us food--and yet after all this Mr. Man comes along and says:

"Get out of my fields!"

I. THE LORD OF CREATION

"Oh, but--please Mr. Man--we were here _first_!"

Was that the dormouse speaking? Anyhow, whoever it was, I think he was more than half right, don't you? Mr. Man, when he complains of these people, is apt not only to forget what he owes to them but in claiming that what they eat is wasted, to forget what a waster he is himself--wasting the soil and wasting the trees and everything.

BRER BEAR GIVES MR. MAN A PIECE OF HIS MIND

"Now just don't you overdo this Lord-of-Creation business, Mr. Man,"

says a deep, growly voice. (It must be Brer Bear!) "Other people have rights as well as you! And if you'd tend to your work half as well as they've attended to theirs, for ages before you were born, this would be a better world to live in; a good deal better, and there'd be a lot more of the good things of life to go around.

"And now that you've waked me up I'm going to tell you something else.

You human beings are not only a hard lot, but a stupid lot. You think you're mighty smart, don't you, with your bear-traps and your shooting machines that you shoot each other with, as well as shooting the rest of us! But do you know what _I_ think? I think if some of us--the bears or the beavers or the ants, for example--had had half your chance they'd have been twice as smart; and then we bears might have gone around shooting at you, the way Mr. Beard showed once in one of those funny pictures of his."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUNTING THAT DOESN'T HURT

Hunting with a gun is great sport. But now you know from my story what good the animals do in the world you may not like so well to kill them.

And there is a new kind of hunting that is just as much fun--with a camera. This picture shows a boy in ambush, ready to shoot, by pressing a bulb; for the bird in the tree is exactly in front of the shutter of the camera.]

You see, Brer Bear has a good tongue in his head as well as a wise old head on his shoulders, and I must say he's entirely right when he makes the statement that human beings aren't anywhere near as bright, according to the chance they've had, as the bears and the beavers and the ants and the bees, and many others that could be named. Why, do you know that in the whole history of the human race there have been only a few really bright people, like Mr. Shakespere and Mr. Kipling, Mr.

Archimedes and Mr. Edison. It was such men as these--not over two thousand or three thousand out of the millions upon millions of human beings who have lived on the earth--that raised the rest up from the Stone Age to where they are to-day.

"Into the coa.r.s.e dough of humanity an infrequent genius has put some enchanted yeast."

That's the way a recent English writer puts it. And then he goes on to say that if snakes and beasts of prey had been as clever as the bees and ants and beavers, men would have been exterminated. They could have saved themselves only by getting on with their education, climbing up the grades, a good deal faster than they have done.

He says it--this Englishman--almost in the very words of Brer Bear. And we can imagine Brer Bear going on, taking up where the Englishman leaves off.

"In other words," says Brer Bear, "it was because the bees and ants and beavers went on minding their own business, neither hurting you nor giving any pointers to the wolves and the lions and the snakes, that you're still here, Mr. Lord Man! That's part of the story of how you got to be lord of creation. Now listen to the rest of it:[27]

[27] Here imagine Brer Bear putting on his specs and reading from the book.

"'The cave-dwellings of men were stolen from cave-lions and cave-bears; their pit-dwellings were copied from the holes and tunnels burrowed by many animals; and in their lake-dwellings they collected hints from five sources: natural bridges, the platforms built by apes, the habits of waterfowl, the beaver's dam and lodge, and the nests of birds. In the round hut, which was made with branches and wattle-and-daub, stick nests were united to the plaster work of rock martins. Yes, a good workman in the construction of mud walls does no more than rock martins have done in all the ages of their nest-building.

"'Suppose primitive man cut down a tree with his flint axe, choosing one that grew aslant over a chasm or across a river; or suppose he piled stepping-stones together in the middle of a waterway, and then used this pier as a support for two tree trunks, whose far ends rested on the bank sides. Neither of these ideas has more mother wit than that which has enabled ants to bore tunnels under running water, and to make bridges by clinging to each other in a suspension chain of their wee, brave bodies.'"

HOW MAN HELPED HIMSELF TO OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS

So you see that isn't just Mr. Bear's way of putting it; there are human beings who think a good deal as he does. Myself, I agree with Brer Bear and Brer Brangyn.[28] For man certainly, take him by and large, doesn't always set a good example to his fellow animals, either in making the best of his _opportunities_ or in giving his humble brothers a square deal.