LEAFLET LXXI.
A HOME FOR FRIENDLY LITTLE NEIGHBORS.[92]
By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.
Last year when vacation days were over our young people found it hard to leave the acquaintances that they had made during the summer,—the garden-folk, the road-side-folk, and the wood-folk. Let us take them indoors with us this year. It will not be difficult to provide a home for some of the more friendly ones and they will help to make the schoolroom a cheerful place. How pleasant it will be in the long afternoons to hear the cricket's merry tune or see the flutter of a butterfly's wings! The quiet woods and the green fields will then seem nearer and we shall feel a little touch of their mystery and beauty.
It is not necessary to have a fine home for the outdoor-folk. They will not object if it is not an up-to-date dwelling. [Fig. 341] illustrates a very convenient terrarium, as the home is called. The sides and top are covered with fine wire screening and the front is glass. By raising the cover, which is fastened to one side by means of hinges, new visitors can be admitted easily.
Another terrarium is shown in [Fig. 126], page 208. This is made from an old berry crate. It does not look quite so well as the other, but, as I said before, the inmates will not mind a bit. The toads will give their high jump as gracefully and the crickets fiddle as merrily as in the finer one.
When the terrarium is ready to furnish, you can have some nature-study trips in search of materials for it. Cover the floor with stones and place about three inches of good soil over them. Then you will be ready to select the carpet. Let this be of soft green moss, the prettiest bits that you can find on the forest floor. Leave one corner free for sods on which tall grasses grow, so that there will be a cozy nook for the orchestra (crickets, grasshoppers, katydids, and the like). What a fine concert there will be! Will the most conceited toad in the terrarium ever dare to raise his voice in song again after hearing it? Perhaps next spring we shall know.
Fig. 341. A shower for the little neighbors.
Even before the home is completed, you can gather your small guests about you. Temporary lodgings can be provided without much trouble. [Fig. 342] illustrates a good insect cage, and a box containing damp moss and covered with mosquito netting will make fairly comfortable quarters for salamanders ("lizards") and toads.