The open book of nature : an introduction to nature study

Front matter

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Preface

Tus book has been written to stimulate Nature interest in young people, and to encourage the really practical pursuit of Natural History. I am satisfied that such a pursuit “‘pays’”’ in the best sense of the term. Your naturalist is a sober, peaceloving individual; he takes pleasure in simple things, and his mind is too well occupied to admit of him drifting into evil ways. He may not gather much worldly gear, but his moral and intellectual wealth is great. I counsel parents and guardians to throw no obstacle in the way of youngsters who wish to become naturalists, but to give them all the assistance they can.

It is not improbable that many not young in years, but young in the study of Nature, may find much to interest them in the following pages. I trust such may be the case.

IT am an out-and-out advocate of work in the field. I do not highly value arm-chair Natural History. It would be a clever book indeed that could teach as Nature herself can teach. But books are useful

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PREFACE vi as guides, and I hope this effort of mine will serve in that capacity.

In writing, I have given the reader credit for intelligence and earnestness. I do not think youngsters like to be spoken to in namby-pamby terms, and treated as babies.

Although necessity has compelled me to touch but the fringe of the various subjects | have alluded to, I hope this book will not be regarded as favourable to desultory study. Superficial knowledge is one of the evils of the age. I stand for thoroughness, and I trust that, if any reader is induced by my words to take up a particular line of Nature investigation, he will be patient and persevering therein.

There is no disguising the fact that there is no royal road to Nature knowledge : it can be acquired only by the exercise of brains and the patient labour of years. I should be sorry if any reader were to accept this volume as a compendium of Nature. While I have doubtless given some information, I have aimed at showing how much there is to know, and what a vast field the student has before him.

I have purposely given prominence to the subject of Geology in the following pages. Geology has received scant notice in many popularly written modern Nature books: it demands a wider recognition. Perhaps it does not lend itself to popular exposition. However, I trust the simple chapters I have devoted to Geology and the study of fossils will bear fruit in an accession of young students.

PREFACE vil

One thing I insist upon: no matter how widely a naturalist may travel, or how extensive his knowledge may be, he ought to know every inch of the ground of his own district, and be familiar with its flora and fauna. I should like to see a Young People’s Natural History Club formed in every. parish of our dear old country. Under wise guidance such clubs might be instrumental in making a thorough Nature survey of the whole land—“a consummation most devoutly to be wished.”

I launch my effort with the desire that it may succeed in the uses for which it is intended, and with the hope of some degree of popular support.

C. A. H.

MEIKLERIGGS, PAISLEY.

March, 1911.

Contents

CHAPTER PREFACE = = 5 =

I. INTRODUCTORY - - A Il. THE GROUND OVER WHICH WE WALK Ill. SOMETHING ABOUT FOSSILS - = Iv. MORE ABOUT FOSSILS - - v. A TALK ABOUT BOTANY - ~

VI. HOW TO IDENTIFY WILD FLOWERS VII. A RAMBLE IN MAY - - -

Chapter I Introductory

AutHougeH, I dare say, there will be much in this book that will prove interesting to quite grown-up folk, I am writing it specially for the young, whom I shall address in the second person. I believe all young people have some love for Nature, and some interest in fossils, birds, beasts, and flowers ; indeed, I am often much indebted to boys and girls for valuable information. If I find myself in a new district, and want to know the best hunting-grounds, say, for sticklebacks, newts, or tadpoles, I am fairly sure of getting the information I need from the first group of lads I meet ; and if I am in search of primroses, violets, ferns, or toadstools, I shall certainly meet some girls or boys who can tell me where to look for them. Now, I hope the love of Nature which young people display will never be lost or even overshadowed by other loves and interests. I am writing in the hope of increasing your interest in Nature’s 1 works, and trust that my book may be a real help and guide to you in your studies. It often happens that the study of Nature is laid aside in favour of cricket, football, hockey, tennis, and other sports. I have nothing to say against any innocent and manly game, but I do think it is a pity when these things are indulged in to the negligence of a study of Nature which, properly prosecuted, will be found to be a recreation of the highest type. Nature-study is a pursuit which calls all our faculties into action ; it makes us observe, remember, reason, and think ; it takes us out of stuffy rooms into the open air ; it makes us walk, wade, row, and even swim ; it develops inventive genius, gives us eyes to see interesting things everywhere; it appeals to the sense of beauty, form, and colour, and, above all, makes us reverent by leading us to look up from Nature to Nature’s God. There is no living plant or animal, be it never so common, that will not repay study, and provide, if intelligently observed, quite a romantic story. A spider and its habits will give us quite as much interest as pigmies or cannibals in some far-distant land; and no more wonderful story has ever arisen out of the imagination of man than is daily enacted in the lives of ants, bees, and wasps.

The flowers, even of the commonest kinds, are quite as interesting in their habits as more highly developed creatures. What could be commoner than a daisy, but what a remarkable story it has to tell! Kor myself, I have never ceased to be interested in the wonders it displays. You read about the great battles of the world’s history, the terrible

THE DAISY’S WARFARE 3 struggles that have taken place between man and man; you get excited about noted warriors, and heroes! and terrible tyrants, but no greater battle was ever fought by man than is being silently waged by the daisy every day of its existence, and probably no man ever was so determined to win a fight, or so unscrupulous in his methods, as this seemingly modest flower. When you know the ways of plants, as I hope I may help you to know them, you will realize that there is a strange kinship between man and the lowliest member of the vegetable kingdom ; that, indeed, every living creature in common with man is engaged in the quest for habitation, food, and clothing. Nay, more than this, you will some day come to understand that the life which actuates a plant or an animal is the same life which manifests itself in a man, the difference between man and lowlier forms of life being purely a matter of organization. It is because it is the same life that moves man and animal and plant that both animals and plants are so seemingly human in their ways. The ways of plants and animals, however, are human only up to a certain point; they fall short of the morality and, religion for which man is so conspicuous.

Having made mention of the daisy in a rather pointed fashion, I shall probably have whetted your appetites for its story, and I feel I must at once justify the statements I have made about this plant.

The common daisy, known also as the “ gowan,” and dignified by the Latin name Bells perennis, is what is known as a “compound” flower. It is called ‘‘compound”’ beeause what seems to be a single flower is really a head of many flowers, or florets, all clustered together. Go out and gather a specimen, and look carefully into it; you will be able to find one almost any time in the year. You will at once see that it has a yellow centre, and a white fringe. If you have a magnifying-glass, examine the specimen more closely by its aid. You can now see that the yellow centre, or disc, is composed of about two hundred little flowers, with their tiny yellow petals united to form five-cleft tubes, each floret being possessed of all the essential organs of a flower. The white fringe, you will find, is made up of about fifty “ray ”’ florets, each floret being a lady flower, with a single strap-like, white, crimsontipped petal and a pistil, or female organ.

I hope you have secured a complete plant—flower-head, root, and leaves. Notice that the stem from which the leaves spring is fairly stout and strong, and that it lives un ierground, sending rootlets into the earth. You may see specimens with two or more sets of leaves and flowers springing from different points of the same stem. The leaves form a neat rosette, and are generally found pressed down on to the ground, especially on lawns.

Now let our little friend tell its own story :

‘““Many ages ago my ancestors were somewhat different in appearance from my kind to-day. They had rather long flower-stalks, which bore flowers, each with a separate little stalk, and arranged some. what after the manner of the flowers of the common currant, and each flower on the stalk was complete in itself, :

“In those very early days of my kind there was a

THE STORY OF THE DAISY 5 terrible competition for the good things of life. All kinds of plants were struggling keenly for light, and air, and food. My ancestors had to fight very keenly with other plants which threatened to smother them with their leaves, and prevent them from getting the barest necessaries of life.

‘“ Those were terrible times. I might say that my revered ancestors were at their wits’ ends to know what to do. Well, after much struggling, and as it were by chance, they hit upon a remarkable device. Other plants threatened to smother them, and they somehow learned how to pay back in kind. Originally their leaves were borne on a stem at some distance apart from each other, not in rosettes, as in my case. It happened that they had some children whose leaves grew closer together, and these children gave birth to generation after generation of other children, with leaves growing closer and yet closer together, until one season came when they actually pressed together into the form of a rosette.

Just here the story of my kind becomes wonderful. Thedevelopment of the rosette of leaves marks a great epoch’in our history. Up to that point neighbouring plants threatened to smother us by growing over our heads, thus cutting off light, air, ‘and moisture. But when my ancestors arrived with the rosettes of leaves, their rootlets pulled the stems below the ground right up to the place from whence the leaves sprang, and the leaves pressed themselves in solid circles on the surface of the ground. This new development prevented plants from growing within the immediate circle of the leaves, and secured daisy plants a goodly supply of ground room, which was also increased by the growth” of more and ever more rosettes of leaves from the stems of the parent plants. Wherever my kind got a good hold they henceforth flourished.

“My family very early learned that union is strength. They saw that individual daisies could not hold their own, and that if they would succeed in life they’ must co-operate. So they formed colonies, not only of plants, but also of flowers.

“You will see that my compound flower-head is really a colony of little fowers. Just as in ancient times daisy leaves combined to form a rosette, and daisy plants joined to form powerful colonies, so daisy flowers gave up the idea of lonely life, and adopted the colonial practice, which you may notice is of quite an advanced nature.

“Look at my white ray florets. They are very easily seen. They serve more than one purpose ; they are advertising agents ; they let my friends the insects know that I am here, for some insects are. very useful to me. They come to me for a little food, which I very willingly give them, and as they get their little dainties they dust themselves with my tiny pollen grains, which they carry to and leave on other daisy plants. These pollen grains are full of a wonderful life-force, which makes our seeds grow and be productive of new daisy plants. Then when night comes.on, or it is a cold and cloudy day, these white ray flowers fold their petals over my yellow and more delicate florets, and keep them warm.

‘* My yellow florets do the real business of my life. They produce pollen and seeds, and provide for the

THE STORY OF THE DAISY 7 appearance of the very many generations of daisies that will have their being when my short life is at an end. You know, we don’t live for ourselves; we live for the race. We can be seemingly cruel and unscrupulous. We won’t give an inch of ground to any other plant if we can avoid it, and if any plant does come within our reach we don’t hesitate to kill it if we can. I know we spoil your lawns, but then we must live as well as you. Your lawn-mowers cut off our heads, but although we don’t like to lose our heads, we can get on without them. We are superior to you in that respect ; when your heads are cut off you die, but we have other heads in store, and even if all our heads fail us we can still produce new daisy plants by budding.

“We grow wherever we can. We like lawns, because our strongest competitors, the grasses, can’t get ahead of us because of the lawn-mower. We get on well in meadows where the cattle keep the grass short and leave us alone. But we get rather a shock in hayfields, where the grass grows long and overshadows us. The shock, however, is of short duration, for when the hay is cut we do well again, and while the hay was over us we had lots of good food stored away in our thick stems.

“ By the way, we have some relatives, perhaps cousins, which manage very well among the hay. They have long stems, and can raise their flower-heads to, or even above, the level of the grasses. You know my cousins well ; they are quite familiar friends ; you call them ‘ ox-eye daisies,’ and those learned men, the great botanists, have given them the Latin name, Chrysanthemum leucanthemum.”

The daisy has not told us all its story, but it has given us enough of it to make us realize how wonderful it is. When you know more of botany, and the structure, organs, and operations of flowers, you will be able to fill in many details that have been omitted.

This daisy story has taken up more of our space than 1 wanted it to occupy, but there are some few things I must yet say in these introductory words.

I am writing with three objects in view. In the first place I wish to stimulate your love of Nature and your desire to know more about her ways. This I hope to do by telling you some interesting facts. Then I want to give you some guidance in the pursuit of your studies. I find that many young people are almost frightened by the array of subjects that are open for inquiry. The field of Nature is so vast that they despair of gaining any close knowledge, or they do not know where to begin. And, in the third place, I want you to become practical naturalists.

I will take it for granted that you already desire to study natural history, and wish to know where to begin. Well, begin just where you are. Go out of doors, and take note of the first natural object that attracts your attention, notice its outstanding features, its peculiar habits, and see what it does in its natural surroundings. If you don’t know what the object is, ask someone wiser than yourself, consult books, and get to know all that you possibly can about it. The probability is that the first thing you notice will be something of which you know the name—a flower, an insect, a bird. When I opened

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HOW TO BEGIN NATURE-STUDY 9 my front-door this morning the first thing that caught my eye was a spider, which had ‘set its wonderful net among the foliage of a hanging plant, and was patiently waiting at the end of its signal line, just as quiet as quiet could be. I watched it for a long time, and although it had set its net so cunningly and waited so patiently, it had not secured a breakfast long after my dinner was eaten and digested. It had toiled for many hours and caught nothing. It looked quite lifeless in its waiting-place, but when I caught a fly and threw it on to its web, it was on the spot in an instant. The fly I put into its clutches, however, was not to the spider’s taste, and it rejected it in a most disdainful fashion. Suppose, then, that you, too, observe a spider, let it be the starting-point” of your: Nature-study. Ask your friends about’/spiders ; read books that tell about spiders ; find! out how!many kinds of spiders are known in your country, and where to look for the various species. If you have no books that help you, go to a public library, and ask the librarian for his aid. Perhaps you have a public museum near to you ; if so, that is the very place you must hie to ; the curator of a museum is always glad to help young students, and you may be sure he will welcome your inquiries and be of great assistance. Of this I am certain : if you are in real earnest you will get the knowledge you require “‘ by hook or by crook,’ as the saying goes.

You will not have advanced very far in your study of spiders before you find them fascinatingly interesting. What you read about them will inspire you to go out and search for other specimens, and the facts 2 you are told you will wish to confirm by practical observation. Spiders, like all living creatures, are interesting in books, but they are a thousandfold more interesting to the intelligent watcher of them in their natural surroundings. The study of one object of Nature, if properly followed, will lead to an ever-increasing knowledge of scores of other objects, to which the first one, say a spider, is related. For instance, you will soon discover that spiders set their traps for certain insects, and you will want to know something about those insects. Then you will find that spiders have enemies in certain kinds of birds, who seek them for food ; you will surely want to know all about these birds. And your reading will reveal to you what you can soon see for yourselves, that spiders are nearly related to shrimps, prawns, crabs, and lobsters. This knowledge should fire you with the desire to get information about these creatures of the sea, and the next time you find yourselves at the seaside you will be able to spend many happy and useful hours in finding specimens, and seeing for yourselves how they behave themselves. If you cannot get to the seaside, you will find preserved specimens in most museums, and, failing a museum, you can learn a good deal at a fishmonger’s shop.

I need not write more on this point. I think you will see how to begin the study of Nature, and how the study of one object will lead to a wide field of pleasant observation.

I hope you live either in the country or very near to it, and can sometimes get to the seaside and the mountains. But if you live in the heart of a large

PRACTICAL OBSERVATION 11 town or city, you can still do some Nature-work. If you get to know the story of everything that is sold in a fruiterer’s shop you will have become quite a good botanist. Go to the fishmonger’s place, to the grocer’s, the florist’s, the bird-shops, and the public parks, museums, and libraries ; you can learn much of Nature from such sources. Try to grow a few wild flowers in pots or window-boxes; they will provide you with hours of delightful observation and study. ‘“‘ Where there’s a will there’s a way ”— there’s no mistake about it. If you want to study Nature and be thoroughgoing naturalists, you will find material anywhere. Enthusiasm, determination, and common sense will carry you a long way, and enable you to accomplish great things.

The final and crowning object of this book is that it may help you to become really practical naturalists, and to do some Nature-work that will be of real service to your fellow-men. Books are very useful friends and helpers, but you must not be content to enjoy Nature through their pages; you must use them for guidance in actual field-work. I want you to go out of doors and see things with your own eyes and form your own conclusions about them. Don’t be satisfied with knowing the name of a bird or a flower; get to know its life-story, and don’t be too sure about anything said in a book until you have tested the truth of it for yourselves.

In field-work you will find yourselves attracted to particular lines of study. Some of you may feel impelled to make a special study of the rocks, and so become geologists. Others may favour the flowers, insects, or birds, and so become botanists, entomologists, or ornithologists. What is badly needed is a thorough survey of Nature in every district of our country. If intelligent and earnest boys and girls would combine to collect information about their own immediate neighbourhoods, and make good and orderly records of rocks, fossils, flowers, insects, birds, rainfall, temperature, and so forth, such a survey might soon be an accomplished fact.

Personally, I move about the country a good deal, and see Nature under many aspects, but I often say that if I could never get beyond a two-mile radius from my house, I should still have an inexhaustible field for investigation, and if I were confined to my own garden, it would provide me with Nature-study to the end of my natural life. Boys and girls, especially boys, sometimes think that to be naturalists they must travel thousands of miles and see the wonders of foreign lands. Truly, many great naturalists have been great travellers, and their travels and observations have enriched our knowledge. But a boy or girl can be an excellent naturalist without going a mile in a train or a knot in a boat. Know your own districts thoroughly, that’s my advice, and if you act upon it I am sure you will thank me for it some day.

By the way, I shall be obliged to use some rather big words and occasional scientific terms in this book. I shall also give you the scientific names of most objects as well as their popular ones. I think my readers will want to gradually get into the way of really accurate description, and to do this they must

TECHNICAL TERMS 13 use scientific language. I hear and read a good deal of silly palaver about simple language as contrasted with technical terms. Well, technical terms can be overdone, but they have their uses, and we must try to understand them and use them as occasion demands. If you have any difficulty in understanding any terms that I use, please refer to the Glossary which I append to this volume ; in it you will find a lot of terms defined and explained.

Chapter II The Ground Over Which We Walk

Iv is raining to-day, raining in torrents, but although it is not a comfortable day on which to go out, I must put on my mackintosh and go over the way to see some work that the rain is doing. Near to my house there is a road which has not been completed ; it is roughly made of cinders, which soon get reduced to dust, and on wet days it becomes soft and spongy. Come along with me so that I may give you some idea of the power of running water, and the important part it has played in the history of the earth. We are going to have a little lesson in geology, which you probably know is the science which treats of the earth and its contents—tells us about rocks and how they are formed, and of all the wonderful forces that have been at work in making the earth what it is to-day.

The road, you will notice, rises gradually from where we stand towards the south. On the west side of the road you see there is quite a steep, uncultivated grassy bank. The heavy rains of the last few hours have saturated the surface of the bank, and water is pouring down in little runnels, and gathering into a pool on the road. The water that comes down the bank is muddy, and the muddi-

THE WORK OF RUNNING WATER = 15 ness is due to little particles of soil which the water has picked up, and is carrying along “ in suspension,”’ as the geologists say. Look at the bottom of the pool that has been formed ; towards the middle you will see a very thin layer of mud over the cinder-grit. Of course, you can easily see how the mud came there ; it is a collection of the fine particles of soil that have been carried by the little streams from the bank, and dropped on to the bottom of the pool. Now, if the pool were to remain for some years, and if the streams continued to deposit little particles of soil in it, the mud would get thicker and thicker. Suppose the mud were deposited at the rate of only a twentieth of an inch per month ; in the course of five years a thickness of three inches would be accumulated, and in a century the deposit would be vastly increased. |

There is an overflow from the pool. The water is not scattering over the road, but is making a crooked channel for itself through the soft cinder-dust. The little stream is rushing at high speed down the sloping road towards a drain. Ten hours ago the road was almost smooth, but now the water has broken its even surface, and just where we stand it has made a channel quite six inches deep. Come to the bottom of the road where the water enters the drain, Just round the grating, which is a little higher than the road, there is a collection of mud and cinder-grit ; it is material from the road which the stream has carried away in making its channel, and deposited where you see it. I calculate that this deposited material will weigh at least fifty pounds, and we can realize that quite that weight of stuff has been moved from the road by running water in a few hours. If the process were to go on at the same rate for a few years, there would be little of the road left—the grit would be washed from its present position, and laid down elsewhere. The road-menders, however, take care that more cinders are laid on the road from time to time, and thus the loss is made up, and the accumulated deposit is removed by the cleaners.

I would have you observe, also, what a cleanly cut and neat channel the little stream has made. There it takes a straight course for a few feet, and the sides of the channel are vertical and cliff-like. If you were no bigger than a cockroach, and were at the bottom of the channel, the sides would appear like great precipices. There is a bend in the streamlet, and on the right side the water has carved a little cliff, while on the left, in the angle of the bend, it has formed a gently sloping deposit of fine grit.

Loads of coarse cinders are spread over this road in winter-time. The cinders are full of little holes, and these get filled with water during rainy periods. When frost comes, the water in the cinders freezes. When a thaw follows, the cinders break up into fine grit, and the road becomes very muddy. How does this come about ? Well, you know water expands when it freezes, and the frozen water in the coarse cinders breaks them up into small particles, which, however, hold together so long as the frost lasts. When the thaw comes the particles are Separated, the coarse cinders are thus reduced to fine grit, which, soaked with the thawed water, makes a most objectionably dirty road.