Chambers's Elementary Science Readers Part 6

'Then we can look at their houses?'

'Only at their front doors. If you were to sit quite still over there in the day-time, you would see the rabbits popping in and out.

5. 'After a time they would find out that you were their friends, and then you would be able to watch their doings.'

6. Then mother told them more about the man who often stayed out all night to see what animals did. 'One morning, before it was quite light, he heard a tap-tap near him, and saw a rabbit beating on the ground with his hind-feet close to another rabbit's hole.

7. 'He saw him go to another hole and tap there, and then to another.

Some holes he pa.s.sed and did not knock at all.

'At last he had just begun tap-tapping in front of a hole, when out rushed a big rabbit. They began to fight, and they both rolled down to the bottom of the hill.

8. 'The man often saw rabbits tapping like this. Sometimes two or three would come out to speak to the one that tapped, and they seemed to have a friendly chat.

9. 'There was another sound they could make with their hind-feet. If one of them made it, the others would run into their holes as fast as they could. It meant danger.'

'What was it like?' asked Dora.

'_Tap-pat._'

IVY.

win'-ter vase changed sprays be-tween'

pur'-pose um-brel'-la mid'-dle straight veins flow'-er thick'-er thread ten'-der mouth use'-ful

1. Some sprigs of ivy had been standing all the winter in a vase. The water had often been changed, and the leaves washed.

2. When spring came each spray began to put out buds. The buds were not all at the ends of the sprays, but came out also close to the old leaves.

3. At last there was a very small bud between every old leaf and the stem. When the first bud opened into a leaf, Dora and Harry clapped their hands, and called every one to look.

4. 'How clean and sweet it is!' cried Dora. 'And do you see something like wool or hair on it?'

'How curly it is!' said Harry. 'It is not quite open yet. Why, it is like a hand! All the leaves look rather like hands, don't they? See; one, two, three, four, five!'

5. 'Look at this old leaf against the light,' said the mother; 'now you can see the five long fingers. But people call them ribs, not fingers!

They are for the purpose of keeping the leaf spread out.'

6. 'Like the ribs of an umbrella,' said Harry. 'They seem very strong; the middle one, which goes up straight from the stem, is the strongest of all.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: Spray of Ivy.]

7. Dora was holding up one spray after another to the light. 'What are all these pretty marks on the leaves, mother, lines crossing about all ways?'

'Those are veins, dear. They carry the sap that feeds the leaves.'

8. 'What is sap?'

'The blood of plants and trees.'

'Oh,' said Dora, 'then that is the wet that comes out when I pick a flower or cut a leaf!

9. 'But look at this!' and she held up one of the sprays.

At the end of it was a little bunch of white, curly roots. Each root was not much thicker than a thread.

10. 'Don't touch them,' said the mother; 'roots are very tender things.'

'What is the good of them?' asked Dora.

'What is your mouth useful for?' asked her mother.

11. 'Oh, do you mean that the ivy eats and drinks?'

'Yes, that is what I mean. These roots take out of the water, or out of the earth, all sorts of things good for the food of the plant. They then send them up into the stem and on into the leaves.'

12. 'Mother,' said Harry, 'let us go and plant all this ivy. I am sure it wants to try the taste of the earth!'

A TREE.

rab'-bits shoots ta'-ble spread rough heard birch beech branch'-es caught oak found

1. 'Let us go over to that log where we sat when we saw the rabbits,'

said Dora to Harry.

2. 'All right! We can play at ship, and the gra.s.s shall be the sea.'

'Or we can have see-saw, if we can find some wood to lay across the log.'

3. They were soon at the log, and on it they sat down, and looked about them.

The log was the trunk of an old oak, and a little way off stood the stump, with many new shoots and leaves coming out all round it.

4. Dora went and stood on it, and called out that she was on a hill. She jumped off and on a few times, and then said it would make a good table, and they might have tea on it.

5. Harry found that the stump had roots that spread out all round for a long way.

'How thick and hard they are!' he said; 'come and feel this one!'

[Ill.u.s.tration: It is all marked in rings.]