Forepaw

“ Forbush (1927) lays stress on the usefulness of the downy to man; he says that it “searches out the pine weevil which kills the topmost shoot of the young white pine and so causes a crook in the trunk of the tree, unfitting it for the lumber market.”
Mrs. Alice Hall Walter (1912) shows how well the downy is equipped to secure its food. She says that the feet, two toes in front and two behind, “serve to clamp the bird to the tree.” She continues:
Additional support is furnished by the stiff, sharply pointed tail-feathers, that act as a brace when the bird delivers heavy blows with its beak. ”

“ Consider the Ephippiger pent in the burrow. She lies stretched upon her back, absolutely incapable of turning. In vain she struggles, in vain she writhes: the disordered movements of her legs are lost in space, the room being too wide to afford them the support of its walls. The grub cares nothing for the victim’s convulsions: it is at a spot where naught can reach it, not tarsi, nor mandibles, nor ovipositor, [157] nor antennæ; a spot absolutely stationary, devoid of so much as a surface tremor. ”

“ The prey is seized by two strong claws warmly gloved in down as far as the roots of the nails. Each foot has four toes, three pointing habitually forward, and one backward; but, by a privilege peculiar to nocturnal birds of prey, one of the front toes is movable and can be turned back so that the set of talons is divided into two pairs of equal power whenever the bird wishes to grip, as in a vise, the branch on which it perches, or the victim struggling in its grasp. One blow of the beak breaks the head of the captured creature. ”

“ Nothing was left to each sheep but a wee little stump where a tail should be, and Little Bo-Peep was so heart-broken that she sat down beside them and sobbed bitterly.
But after awhile the tiny maid realized that all her tears would not bring back the tails to her lambkins; so she plucked up courage and dried her eyes and arose from the ground just as the old woman hobbled up to her.
"So you have found your sheep, dearie," she said, in her cracked voice.
"Yes," replied Little Bo-Peep, with difficulty repressing a sob; "but look, mother! They've all left their tails behind them!" ”

“ But sometimes the thief bides his time and trusts to cunning. He pretends to help the victim to roll the food along, over sandy plains thick with thyme, over cart-ruts and steep places, but he really does very little of the work, preferring to sit on the ball and do nothing. When a suitable place for a burrow is reached the rightful [15] owner begins to dig with his sharp-edged forehead and toothed legs, flinging armfuls of sand behind him, while the thief clings to the ball, shamming dead. The cave grows deeper and deeper, and the working Scarab disappears from view. ”

“ But what shall we say of a sparrow which, turning parasite, should go with splendid audacity and intrust her eggs to the eyrie of a bird of prey—the nest of the sparrowhawk itself—the sanguinary devourer of sparrows? What should we say of the bird of prey who should accept the charge and bring up the brood tenderly? It is precisely thus that the Bembex acts,—she, a captor of Diptera who yet brings up other Diptera—a huntress who distributes food to a prey whose last repast will be her own disembowelled offspring! ”

“ Left standing where it is, the opaque sheath will provide the dusk which the Scarab demands; suddenly raised, it will give the light which I require on my side.
Things being thus arranged, I go in search of a mother lately removed from her natural lodging with her ball. A morning is enough to provide me with what I need. I place the mother and her ball on the surface of the upper layer of earth; I cap the apparatus with its cardboard sheath; and I wait. The insect, stubborn at [38] its work so long as the egg is not deposited, will dig itself a new burrow, dragging its ball with it as it goes ”

“ With this crude equipment, excellently adapted to pickaxe-work though it be, how does the Scarab obtain the natal dwelling, the oval nest so daintily polished and glazed within? Does her foot, a regular saw, fitted with enormous teeth, begin to rival the artist’s brush in delicacy from the moment when it is inserted through the narrow orifice of the sack? Why not? I have said elsewhere, and this is the moment to say it again: the tool does not make the workman. The insect exercises its own particular talents with any kind of tool with which it is supplied. ”

“ One is apt to think of the Creeper as a silent and very busy bird, who never finds leisure to rest and preen his feathers, or to relieve his mind with song. When he does sing he takes us a little aback. One spring morning, as I was strolling in the Broad Walk, a Creeper flew past me and fixed himself on the thick branch of an elm—not on a trunk, as usual—and uttered a loud and vigorous song, something after the manner of the Wren’s. ”

“ Tail less than two-thirds as long as wing; plumage of rump not abnormally long and dense; feathers of latero-frontal antiæ short and dense, not antrorse, not extending above nostril; bill relatively longer and less depressed basally, the exposed culmen as long as middle toe without claw; under parts neither streaked nor barred.
Formicarius (p. 115) . ee. Tail more than two-thirds as long as wing; plumage of rump very long and dense; feathers of latero-frontal antiæ longer, antrorse, extending anteriorly, above the nostril, to anterior end of nasal fossæ ”

“ The others are obliged to dig a special burrow for each egg. When everything is in order in the new establishment—and this does not take long—they leave the underground [141] vault and go off somewhere else, wherever chance may lead them, to begin their pill-rolling, excavating and egg-laying once more. With these nomadic habits, any prolonged supervision on the mother’s part becomes impossible.
The Scarab suffers by it. Her pear, which is magnificently regular at the outset, soon shows cracks and becomes scaly and swollen. ”

“ To disarm all suspicion, the Dude Giant was very affable to the Dwarf for a whole week, and to see him talking to Tiny no one would have suspected that he hated him so, which shows how horribly crafty he was. Finally the hour for his revenge arrived. It was Monday morning, and Forepate and Tiny had taken their places as usual, when, observing that no one was looking, Forepate took his biggest beaver hat and put it over Tiny, completely hiding him from view. ”

“ The Mason-bees had chosen the interstices between the stones as a dormitory where to pass the night in serried groups. The powerful Eyed Lizard, who, when close-pressed, attacks wide-mouthed both man and dog, had selected a cave wherein to lie in wait for the passing Scarab (A Dung-beetle known also as the Sacred Beetle.—Translator's Note.) ; the Black-eared Chat, garbed like a Dominican, white-frocked with black wings, sat on the top stone, singing his short rustic lay: his nest, with its sky-blue eggs, must be somewhere in the heap. ”

“ When laden with her prey, she always goes afoot, or takes but very short flights, even under conditions when flight would save her time and trouble. I will quote an instance taken from my latest observations on this curious Wasp.
A Sphex appears unexpectedly, coming I [146] know not whence. She is on foot, dragging her Ephippiger, a capture which apparently she has made that moment in the neighbourhood. In the circumstances it behoves her to dig herself a burrow. The site is as bad as bad can be. It is a well-beaten path, hard as stone. ”

“ She ran at the new prey, too corpulent to try to avoid pursuit, seized it with her mandibles by the saddle-shaped corslet, got astride, and curving her abdomen, passed its end under the ephippiger’s thorax. There doubtless the stings are given, but the difficulty of observation prevents me from telling how many. The ephippiger—gentle victim—lets itself be operated on unresistingly, like the dull sheep of our slaughter-houses. The Sphex takes her time and manœuvres her lancet with a deliberation favourable to the observer ”

“ THE POOR BEAR GAVE WAY COMPLETELY.
The Bear was already by his side, and a moment later with the cub stepped out into the night. Then Bosephus heard low growls followed by a strange commotion, which he at first took [114] to be the sound of fighting. Suddenly Horatio ran to him in great excitement.
"Bo, Bo!" he exclaimed, "it's my family! and, oh, Bosephus, it's Cub's family, too! We're really brothers, and we didn't know it!" Then he ran back into the dark and presently returned with the cub and the seven other bears, following. ”

“ When a knifetooth bear opens his maw it is like staring into a huge fang-rimmed scarlet well. His paws are swift gargantuan weapons that can enfold and crush the largest stag. Oh, a terrible beast is old knifetooth! And Halfspoor was the biggest, the angriest, the wisest and most hateful of his tribe. ”

“ It is ill chasing demons in the twilight. And Laloo sat on the slate and laughed low to herself. For the god of the wind had come to her prayers, and her god had killed Peraw, and her father Rataw's blood was paid with blood.
The women came running from the huts and gathered about Peraw. But Peraw's head waggled loose on his shoulders as they raised him, and shrill to the roar of wind and wave they made the wail for the dead. The men came back and stood at gaze. But Ammaw, Peraw's brother, thrust through the men and the women, and took from the dead man's hand the flint knife of the chief. ”

“ See him lying on the sand where everything is grilling in the burning rays of the sun, watching some wasp that is digging its burrow, noting its least movement, trying to divine its intentions, to make it confess the secret of its actions, following the labours of the innumerable Scarabaei that clean the surface of the soil of all that might defile it—the droppings of large animals, the decomposing bodies of small birds, moles, or water-rats ”

“ The Sphex which I was observing stopped at the foot of a country house with a newly whitewashed façade, and measuring from six to eight metres in height. Instinct told her that under the roof tiles she would find hollows rich in ancient dust. Leaving her prey at the foot of the façade, she flew on to the roof. For some time I saw her seek vainly about. Then, having found a suitable position, she set to work under the hollow of a tile. In ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at most the domicile was ready; she flew down, promptly found the ephippiger, and then had to carry up her prey. ”

“ We went up to the hillock and the three elms to be out of the way. Nelly cried a bit when she heard that our climbing days were over, and that I was to be what she called slave to a Jackdaw; but she dried her eyes on her frock on my telling her that she should 160 come and see the pony when the Jackdaw was off her perch; and then we had our council of war. I told her exactly what Miss Pringle had said—that she allowed no pets about the house. Nelly’s mother was just as bad, and no one at my home could be trusted to feed a young bird regularly ”

“ Similar traditions are current in many lands, especially in ours, one of which we will now relate.
In the artless fancy of the peasantry the means of acquiring the power of unerring aim are many, the most usual by compact with the Fairies or Wood Nymphs. While the compact lasts the possessor, sitting at his hut door, needs only to wish, and the game of his choice springs into view, and within range of his never-failing gun. Such a compact, however, invariably ends in the destruction of the hunter. ”

“ Fabre gives a most entertaining account of a French species of Pelopæus which nests in the wide-mouthed chimneys of the peasant. Undisturbed by the steam of washing day or the bustle of dinner-getting, the wasp enters the open door, passes unconcerned among the human inhabitants, and makes her cells against the smoky bricks, out of reach of the flames. This species kills her prey at the moment of capture, by which act she falls in the estimation of Fabre, who respects a wasp in proportion to the nicety with which she delivers her sting. ”

“ As Forrest ate he watched the hunting of the meat-eating yellow- jackets. Sturdy, more frost-resistant than bees, they were already on the wing and preying on the benumbed flies. Despite the rowdy noise of their flight, these yellow hunters of the air, with rarely ever a miss, pounced on their helpless victims and sailed away with them. The last fly was gone ere Forrest had sipped his last sip of coffee, marked "Commercial Breeding of Frogs" with a match, and taken up his proofsheets. ”

“ On the ilexes I surprise a Weevil, with her proboscis half-sunk in an acorn. To observe her with due care is impossible while the branches are being lashed and shaken by the mistral. I break off the twig and lay it gently on the ground. The insect takes no notice of its removal and goes on with its job. I squat down beside it, sheltered from the gale behind a clump of brushwood, and watch operations. ”

“ Shortly after the poor man coming into his house saw the young Sparrow lying helpless on his door-step, so he picked it up to see what was wrong, and found that its leg was broken. So he carried it into the house, and very carefully bound up its leg with a piece of thread; and then took it up to the roof, and put it back in the nest. [21]
Now this Sparrow, although the poor man did not know it, was really a fairy in disguise, and later on, when it had grown up, it flew out one day and returned with its beak full of grain. ”