Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad Part 14

Out the lumps rolled over the floor. Down sprang Jocko. He shouted with delight. He had a sweet feast.

Oh, how he munched and crunched and chattered! And now, what do you think happened?

He would seize every bottle and can and pitcher that was left within reach. Up he would run to the top of some high cupboard or shelf and dash it to the floor! Such mischief as he made!

Little Gretchen had to give him away at last because he broke everything he could lay his roguish paws upon.

SOME OTHER THINGS BOBBY SAW AT SEA.

He saw the stormy petrels. They flew about the ship almost every day.

They liked to eat the sc.r.a.ps the cook threw overboard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STORMY PETREL.]

The petrels are sooty black. Their feet are partly webbed.

They sit and float upon the water. They run about over the water. In stormy weather they fly through the dashing foam.

Bobby's mamma told him many things about the stormy petrel. She told him how the stormy petrel flies far, far away from land. His home is on the sea. He can fly all day long and not be tired.

The stormy petrel hardly ever goes on land except to lay her eggs. Her nest is in a hole in some high cliff by the sea. She hatches one little bird. It looks like a ball of fluff. The nest smells very oily.

The stormy petrel is very oily, like all sea birds. He is so full of oil that the people of the Faroe Islands sometimes use him for a lamp.

They take a dead petrel and run a wick through him. Then they set him on end and light the wick and he gives a very good light indeed!

The sailors call the stormy petrel "Mother Carey's chickens."

The name of Bobby's ship was _The Jefferson_. Once when the _Jefferson_ was in an English port, Bobby saw something very pretty.

It was a bird's nest. It was built in the rigging of a ship.

This ship had been lying in port a good while. The nest was built in a block where some of the cordage runs. It was built by a pair of chaffinches.

Now the chaffinch is not a sea bird; it is a land bird. It builds its nest in trees and hedges. It builds a cosey little nest out of moss and wool and hair. It is deep and round like a cup.

But this pretty pair of chaffinches found a new place in which to build their nest. It was even more airy than the top of a tree. See it in the picture! Day by day Bobby watched them as they flew busily to and fro. Many other people watched them too.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHAFFINCHES' NEST.]

The chaffinch is a cheerful little bird. In the countries where he lives, he is heard merrily whistling in the spring time. There he sits singing to his mate who is keeping her eggs warm. Happy little fellow!

THE MOSQUITO.

Little boys and girls believe that all mosquitoes sting and bite.

But they do not. The male mosquito never does. He wears a plume on his head, and does nothing but dance in the sunshine.

It is the female mosquito that sings around our heads at night and keeps us awake. It is she who bites us. Look at her head. This is the way it looks under a microscope. Do you wonder that her bite hurts?

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOSQUITO'S HEAD UNDER A MICROSCOPE.]

She lays her eggs in a very queer way. First she finds a puddle or a pool of warmish water. Then she fastens herself to some stick, or sliver, or stem, or floating leaf, by her first two rows of legs. Then she lays about three hundred tiny eggs.

The eggs cling together in the shape of a boat or canoe, and float upon the water. In about three days they hatch. Then the warm water is full of "wigglers."

By and by these wigglers have wings. The outside skin bursts open.

They lift their heads and shoulders out of the water. Then off they fly--a whole swarm of singing, stinging mosquitoes.

We are all glad when the cold weather comes and the mosquito goes.

I suppose you think if you lived in a cold country, you would not be troubled by mosquitoes.

But in Lapland, a very cold country, the mosquitoes come in crowds and clouds. Sometimes they are so thick they hide people in the road like a fog. What do you think of that?

THE LAUGHING GIRL.

The bobolink laughs in the meadow; The wild waves laugh on the sea; They sparkle and glance, they dimple and dance, And are merry as waves can be.

The green leaves laugh on the trees; The fields laugh out with their flowers; In the sunbeam's glance, they glow and they dance.

And laugh to their falling showers.

The man laughs up in the moon; The stars too laugh in the sky; They sparkle and glance, they twinkle and dance.

Then why, then, pray, shouldn't I?

Oh, I laugh at morn and at night, I laugh through the livelong day.

I laugh and I prance, I skip and I dance.

So happy am I and so gay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LAUGHING GIRL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CLUCK-CLUCK-CLUCK! QUAW-AW-AWK! CR-R-R-R!" SAID THE HEN MOTHER.]

ANNIE'S DUCKS.