130 NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 



CHAPTER VIII 



TO THE TEACHER 



Set the pupils to watching for evidences of mother-love among the 

 lower creatures, where we do not think of finding it; stir them to 

 look for unreported acts, and the hidden, less easily observed ways. 

 Such a suggestion might be the turning of a new page for them in 

 the book of nature. 



FOR THE PUPIL 

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Cud: the ball of grass or hay that the cow keeps bringing up 



from her first stomach to be chewed and swallowed, going then 



into the second stomach, where it is digested. 



stanchions : the iron or wooden fastening about the cow's neck in 



the stall. 



mother-principle : the instinct or unconscious impulse of all living 



things to reproduce their kind. 



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spores : the name of the seed dust of the ferns. 



the hunter family : these are the spiders that build no nets or webs 



for snaring their prey, but hunt their prey over the ground. 



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Toadjish : See the chapter in the " Fall of the Year " called " In 

 the Toadfish's Shoe." 



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Surinam toads : pronounced soo-ri-nam'. 



Mother-passion . . . in the life of reptiles : many readers, seeing this 

 statement in the " Atlantic Monthly," where the essay first ap- 

 peared, have written me of how when they were boys they sa'w 

 snakes swallow their young or at least killed the old snakes 

 with young in them ! Is n't that mother-love among the reptiles ? 

 But every time the story has been about garter snakes or mocca- 

 sins or some other ovoviviparous snake; that is, a snake that does 

 not lay eggs, but keeps them within her body till they hatch, then 

 gives birth to the young. I have never seen a snake swallow its 

 young ; though big snakes do eat little ones whenever they can 

 get them. 



