The Spring of the Year

FOR THE PUPIL

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a hornet’s nest: the white-faced hornet, that builds the great cone-shaped paper nests.

swifts thunder in the chimney: See chapter VII (and notes) in “Winter.” For the “thunder” see section IX in chapter X of this book.

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cabbage butterfly: a pest; a small whitish butterfly with a few small black spots. Its grubs eat cabbage.

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the crested flycatcher: is the largest of the family; builds in holes; distinguished by its use of cast-off snake-skins in its nests.

kingbird: Everybody knows him, for it is usually he who chases the marauding crows; he builds, out in the apple tree if he can, a big, bulky nest with strings a-flying from it: also called “bee-martin,” a most useful bird.

wood pewee: builds on the limbs of forest trees a most beautiful nest, much like a hummingbird’s, only larger. Pewee’s soft, pensive call of “pe-e-e-wee” in the deep, quiet, dark-shrouded summer woods is one of the sweetest of bird notes.

chebec: a little smaller than a sparrow; builds a beautiful nest in orchard trees and says “chebec, chebec, chebec.”

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One had died: After phœbe brings off her first brood sprinkle a little, tobacco-dust or lice-powder, such as you use in the hen-yard, into the nest to kill the vermin. Otherwise the second and third broods may be eaten alive by lice or mites.

CHAPTER VIIITO THE TEACHER

In “Winter” I put a chapter called “The Missing Tooth,” showing the dark and bitter side of the life of the wild things; here I have taken that thought as most people think of it (see Burroughs’s essay, “A Life of Fear” in “Riverby”) and in the light of typical examples tried to show that wild life is not fear, but peace and joy. The kernel of the chapter is found in the words: “The level of wild life, the soul of all nature, is a great serenity.” Let the pupils watch and report instances of fear (easy to see) and in the same animals instances of peace and joy.

FOR THE PUPIL

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gray harrier: so named because of his habit of flying low and “harrying,” that is, hunting, catching small prey on or near the ground. “Harry” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for army.

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“He looketh as it were a grym leoun”: from Chaucer’s description of the Cock in the story of the Cock and the Fox.

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terrible pike: closely related to the pickerel.

kingfisher: builds in holes in sand-banks near water. Its peculiar rattle sounds like the small boys’ “clapper.”

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“The present only toucheth thee!”: Burns’s poem “To a Mouse.”

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“The fair music that all creatures made”: from Milton’s poem “To a Solemn Music,” “solemn” meaning “orchestral” music.

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then doubling once more: This is all figurative language. I am thinking of myself as the fox. The dogs have run themselves to death on my trail, and I am turning back, “doubling,” to have a look at them and to rejoice over their defeat.

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pine marten: The marten is so rare in this neighborhood that I am inclined to think the creature was the large weasel.

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the heavy bar across their foreheads: a very unusual way of yoking oxen in the United States. The only team I ever saw here so yoked.

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San Francisco: alluding to the earthquake and fire which nearly wiped out the city in 1906.

CHAPTER IXFOR THE PUPIL

The picture of the young buzzard is as true as a photograph; the bumped-up drawing of the old bird looks precisely as she did atop her dead tree, watching my approach. This vulture rarely soars into New England skies; down South, especially along the coast, the smaller black vulture (Catharista urubu) is found very tame and in great abundance; while in the far Southwest lives the great condor.

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tulip poplar: tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera).

“For it had bene an auncient tree”: from Edmund Spenser’s “Shepherd’s Calendar.”

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a dozen kinds of cramps: Perhaps you will say I didn’t find much in finding the buzzard’s nest, and got mostly cramps! Yes, but I also got the buzzard’s nest – a thing that I had wanted to see for many years. It was worth seeing, however, for its own sake. Even a buzzard is interesting. See the account of him in “Wild Life Near Home,” the chapter called “A Buzzard’s Banquet.”

CHAPTER XITO THE TEACHER

The point of the story is the enthusiasm of the naturalists for their work – work that to the uncaring and unknowing seemed not even worth while. But all who do great things do them with all their might. No one can stop to count the cost whose soul is bent on great things.

FOR THE PUPIL

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Burlington: in Vermont.

Concord and Middleboro: in Massachusetts.

Zadoc Thompson: a Vermont naturalist.

D. Henry Thoreau: better known as Henry D. Thoreau; author of “Walden,” etc.

J. W. P. Jenks: for many years head of Pierce Academy, Middleboro, and later Professor of Agricultural Zoölogy in Brown University.

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Contributions: used in place of the whole name: Go yourself into the public library and read this and look at the four large volumes.

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spatter-docks: yellow pond-lily (Nuphar advena).

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dinosaurian: one of the fossil reptile monsters of the Mesozoic, or “middle,” period of the earth’s history, before the age of man.

CHAPTER XIITO THE TEACHER

In this story I have tried to settle the difficult question of debit and credit between me and the out-of-doors. Shall we exterminate the red squirrels, the hawks, owls, etc., is a question that is not so easily answered as one might think. The fact is we do not want to exterminate any of our native forms of life – we need them all, and owe them more, each of them, for the good they do us, than they owe us for the little harm they may do us. Read this over with the children with its moral and economic lesson in view. Send to the National Association of Audubon Societies, New York City, for their free leaflets upon this matter. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Harrisburg, Pa., has a bulletin upon this same subject which will be sent free upon application.

FOR THE PUPIL

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June-bug: the very common brown beetle whose big white grubs you dig up under the sod and in composts.

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rose-breasted grosbeak: one of the most beautiful of our birds, and a lovely singer.

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Chickaree: the common name of the red squirrel. The red squirrel does not need to be destroyed.

tree swallows: They build in holes in orchard trees, etc.; to be distinguished on the wing from the barn swallows by their white bellies and plain, only slightly forked tails.

chippies: the little chipping sparrow, or hair-bird.

red-eyed vireos: the most common of the vireos; see picture of its nest on page 40 of “Winter.”

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cowbird: the miserable brown-headed blackbird that lays its egg or eggs in smaller birds’ nests and leaves its young to be fed by the unsuspecting foster-mother. As the young cowbird is larger than the rightful young, it gets all the food and causes them to starve.

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Thorn Mountain: one of the smaller of the White Mountains; it overlooks the village of Jackson, N. H.

CHAPTER XIIITO THE TEACHER

If you have read through “The Fall of the Year” and “Winter” and to this chapter in “The Spring of the Year,” you will know that the upshot of these thrice thirteen readings has been to take you and your children into the woods; you will know that the last paragraph of this last chapter is the aim and purpose and key of all three books. You must go into the woods, you must lead your children to go, deep and far and frequently. The Three R’s first – but after them, before dancing, or cooking, or sewing, or manual training, or anything, send your children out into the open, where they belong. The school can give them nothing better than the Three R’s, and can only fail in trying to give them more, except it give them the freedom of the fields. Help Nature, the old nurse, to take your children on her knee.

FOR THE PUPIL

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Here is the prescription: Think you can swallow it? Go out and try.

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Golden Chariot: In what Bible story does the Golden Chariot descend? and whom does it carry away?

pale-face: an Indian name for the white man.

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box turtles: They are sometimes found as far north as the woods of Cape Cod, Massachusetts; but are very abundant farther south.

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Chewink: towhee, or ground-robin; to be distinguished by his loud call of “chewink” and his vigorous scratching among the leaves.

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So nature pricks (stirs) them in their hearts.