The little blue-tit, which has just fled across our path is a very pretty active bird and common everywhere, in lanes, woods, and gardens. The blue-tit makes its nest in a wall or a hole in a tree and lays about nine or ten pretty little spotted eggs. How often I remember, when I was a boy, to have been bitten rather sharply by this little bird into whose nest I had placed my hand; I can fancy I hear the snake-like hissing which the blue-tit utters when some rude hand invades its home. Its food consists of various kinds of insects and insect larvæ, which it finds on the bark of trees and in fruit buds. I think it does much good by destroying numbers of injurious insects, though gardeners and others destroy this bird, because they say it harms the fruit buds. Look at that little sprightly fellow, how restless he is; in what curious attitudes he puts himself on yonder branch. Hark! you hear him tapping quite distinctly. Besides insects, blue-tit does not object to make a meal of dead mice or rats. Mr. St. John tells us that a blue-tomtit once took up his abode in the drawing-room, having been first attracted there by the house flies which crawl on the window. "These he was most active in searching for and catching, inserting his little bill into every corner and crevice and detecting every fly which had escaped the brush of the housemaid." He soon became more bold and came down to pick up crumbs which the children placed for him on the table, looking up into Mr. St. John's face without the least apparent fear. Boys sometimes call the little blue-tit Billy Biter, no doubt from personal experience of the sharpness of Mr. Tit's beak. The great tit which we can see under the yew tree in our garden, almost any hour of the day, is very common in the neighbourhood, and I dare say if we look well about us during our walk we shall see some to-day.
"Oh! papa," exclaimed Willy, "there are some birds on the towing-path of the canal, about sixty yards off; they seem to be breaking something with their beaks by knocking it against the ground; just look." Yes, they are thrushes, and I can tell you what they are doing and what we shall find when we come up to the spot. We shall see several broken snail shells (Helix), which the thrushes find on the grassy slopes of the canal bank, and then bring up to the path in order to get at the animals inside the shells by breaking them against the hard ground and stones. There! as I told you, you see at least a dozen broken snail shells. I am sure the thrushes do a great deal of good by destroying both snails and young slugs, and it is a pity their labours are not more appreciated than they are. Lads in the village, and great grown men from the collieries, are continually hunting for the nests, eggs, or young of thrushes, and many other useful birds, which they wantonly destroy. Now we get on the Duke's Drive, and there, on a branch of a poplar tree, I see the great tit. Look at him; he is the king of the titmice, and he seems to know it. He is a restless fellow, like tits in general. Look at his black head and breast, white cheeks and greenish back. Now, by one of his hooked claws, he hangs suspended from a branch; now again he is clinging by both legs; see how busy he is, examining the leaves and bark in search for insects. But Major Tit is a bit of a tyrant sometimes and uses that sharp short straight bill of his with deadly effect upon some of his feathered companions, on whose heads he beats repeated blows till he cracks the skulls and eats the brains! The marsh-tit and the cole-tit are pretty common in this neighbourhood, we may often notice them in our walks.
If Willy were to get over the hedge with his net and dip it amongst the weeds of the pool, I dare say he will succeed in catching a few water-insects, which he can put in his bottle and bring to me. Of course the boy was delighted at the idea of dabbling with his net in the water—boys generally get immense fun from such amusement, and their clothes frequently not a little dirt. A weedy pond is a grand place for naturalists, and various are the beautiful and strange forms of animal life which are found there. Dipping amongst the duckweed and water-crowfoot is always attended with numerous captures, and Willy's bottle was soon full of active little creatures. Let us see what it contains. A large beetle is very conspicuous amongst the contents, now rushing to the top of the water, now sinking to the bottom, scattering far and wide the tiny water-fleas, and other little creatures by the strong and rapid movements of his swimming legs. This is the great water beetle; we will sit down on this clump of poplar tree by the side of the road, and take the beetle out and examine him; we must take care he does not bite our fingers as we hold him, for his jaws are powerful and sharp. Mr. Dyticus, for that is his learned name—from a Greek word which means "fond of diving"—is one of the most voracious of water-insects, but let us first examine his form. You see it is well adapted for the kind of life the beetle leads; look at that long oar-shaped pair of feet, what a broad fringe of hairs besets them, how admirably fitted they are for swimming; the wing-covers are smooth and glossy, without any furrows; by this I know the specimen to be a male, for the wing-covers of the female are furrowed. The structure of the forefeet is very curious; you observe its under portion forms a broad circular shield, covered with a number of sucking-cups, two or three being much larger than the rest; by means of these sucking-cups the beetle can attach itself securely to any object it wishes. The wings are large and strong, and situated, as in all the beetle tribe, under the horny wing-covers. I will put this bit of stick near his mouth; there, Jack, you see his strong jaws, and great use he can make of them I can tell you. If Willy were to put one of these beetles into his aquarium with his favourite sticklebacks, he would soon have cause to lament the untimely loss of some of them; woe betide the unfortunate fish or newt that is once caught by the strong jaws of this fresh-water tyrant! I have seen Mr. Dyticus rush upon a full-grown newt, and no twistings and writhings could free the victim from the fatal embrace. They will attack young gold and silver fish, and Mr. Frank Buckland has told us of the sad havoc these water-beetles do to young salmon, as witnessed by himself in a pond in Ireland. The forefeet you see are strong but small; the beetle uses them as claws in seizing its prey and conveying it to the mouth. A young and tender fish, you can easily imagine, Mr. Dyticus would very readily devour, but he will attack beetles as large and even larger than himself, seizing them on the under side where the head joins the body, the only soft place in a beetle. Dr. Burmeister, a naturalist who paid great attention to insects, tells us that he once kept a beetle related to the great water-beetle, and saw it devour two frogs in the space of forty hours. After the eggs are laid, which always takes place in the water, the larvæ are hatched in about a fortnight. In time—I do not know how long—these larvæ grow to the size of about two inches in length, and queer fellows they are, and very voracious and formidable-looking. Now, Willy, lend me your net, and I dare say we shall soon secure a specimen. What have we here? how the pond swarms with water-fleas! Oh! here is a treasure! What can it be? a long animated thread of glass—we will put it into a bottle by itself and I will tell you about it afterwards. Splash goes the net again, but no water-beetle larvæ. Never mind; what does the child's songbook say—
"If at once you don't succeed,
Try, try, try again."
GREAT WATER-BEETLE, LARVA AND PUPA.
A capital little verse to remember, so we will try again; and there now we are rewarded by the capture of a dyticus larva—a creature with a long body—in some respects reminding one of a shrimp. Oh! look at his jaws, how wide he opens them! You see that the last segment of the body is provided with a long pair of bristly tails, by means of which the creature can suspend itself at the top of the water. I have often kept specimens of these larvæ in vessels of water and noticed their predaceous habits; they feed on the larvæ of other water insects, but are not able to destroy fish, not being furnished with jaws or bodies nearly so strong as the perfect insect itself possesses. When the larva wishes to turn into its pupa state, it makes a round hole in the bank of the pond it inhabits, and there undergoes its change, turning into a full-grown beetle in about three weeks' time. "Papa," said Willy, "I have often caught beetles that remind me of the great water-beetle, but they are not so large; what are they?" They belong to the same family as the great water-beetles, and are called Colymbetes, Acilius, Cybister; I do not know that they have any English names. Come, we have dabbled in this pond long enough for the present, let us proceed on our walk. "Well, but, papa," said May, "you have not told us what that long worm-like creature is in the separate bottle; do let us look at it again. Oh! really it is a curious creature, why it is as transparent as glass, now it jerks itself about, now it floats without motion in mid-water. What is it?" "I am inclined to think," said Willy, "judging from its wriggling, jerking motions that it must be the larva of some kind of gnat." Right again, my boy, it is the larva of a gnat, and one known to naturalists by the name of Corethra; you see there are eleven divisions or segments in the body; the head is of strange form, and near the mouth are two hooked arms which spring from the middle of the forehead and bend down in front of the mouth; with these weapons the Corethra larva seizes its prey and crushes it between two rows of sharp spikes placed under the mouth; after being bruised and mangled by this apparatus the prey is ready to be swallowed.
CORETHRA LARVA, MAGNIFIED.
"But what," asked Jack, "are those four curious black bodies; one pair near the head, the other pair near the tail of the animal?" They are air-sacs, and are connected with the breathing or respiration of the larvæ. Some have supposed that they serve the same office as the swimming bladder of certain fish, which being compressed or dilated at will enables the creature to remain still in mid-water or to rise or sink in it. After a time the larva changes to a pupa, in which state it lives without eating for a few days, and then turns into a gnat. We now proceed on our walk and come to a part of the road which has a plantation on either side; we see a little active creature crossing the road and at once recognise a weasel. Let us keep quite still and silent, and we shall, I dare say, have an opportunity of watching it for a short time. Just look at him! how nimbly the little creature runs along; now he stops and raises his head as if listening for something, now off he starts again; he is evidently hunting, and probably is on the scent of a young rabbit, rat, or field-mouse. Ah! see he has caught something on the grass near the hedge; what has he got in his mouth? it is a small rat, I think; now he throws his flexible body over it and gives it one or two bites. Now, Jack, run up and catch him. Ah! he is off like a shot; you must not think to "catch a weasel asleep." I often see these little animals in my rambles, and always stop to witness their extraordinary activity. Weasels will sometimes climb trees and surprise some unfortunate bird on her nest; they are fond of eggs, and a bird's young brood are very dainty morsels; they will also eat moles and are sometimes caught in mole-traps. An excellent observer mentions a case of a mole-trap having been found many years ago with two weasels in it; they had been hunting in the mole's runs, had come in opposite directions, and "by a curious coincidence, must have both sprung the trap at the same instant." Weasels are generally classed as vermin and killed on all possible occasions; I think it is often a mistake to destroy them; no doubt they will occasionally catch a young rabbit or a leveret or suck a few partridges' eggs, but the common food of the weasel consists of such small animals as mice, moles, rats, small birds. In wheat or other grain ricks, they ought to be encouraged, as they enter them for the sake of the rats and mice they find there. I have been told by a friend that in some parts of Wales the farmers look upon the weasel as a friend, in consideration of the destruction it causes to mice and rats. A gentleman living near Corwen killed a weasel, and expected to receive the thanks of the farmer on whose land it had been killed; he was surprised to find that the farmer was by no means grateful. In this respect I think the Welsh farmers are wiser than the English ones. Hawks sometimes prey upon weasels.