HAMMATTj NA T URE AT QUA NSE T 189 



do. We watched the caterpillar spin its cocoon under glass; we 

 kept this till the imago emerged. But better than this they have 

 always loved to watch life in its habitat. They get so 

 excited when they first see the pupa of the cicada climb up a tree 

 trunk, crack down the back, and the winged adult crawl out. 

 This they never forget (I find they can forget whole lists of flowers, 

 ferns, mushrooms from one season to the next.) They will linger 

 long at the spring watching the mudwasp roll up her ball of clay 

 and fly off with it to her house (for which one must look, at once, 

 of course). And the paper wasp does not escape the eye as it 

 gathers its material from the old grey rail fence and pastes it on the 

 community house not far away. Last year that house was under 

 my lodge window, visible from within and without. (No, they 

 never get stung). Inside the room I had a wasp's nest torn open 

 to show the cells. 



What a mad whirl in the air when the Quanset bees swarm! 

 And what a stampede of girls for the bee yard! Why shouldn't 

 they love that and the " secrets of the hive," and best of all perhaps, 

 the fresh honey on warm biscuits I Mrs. Comstock's ' ' How to keep 

 Bees", makes everything so clear, and Maeterlinck is such delight- 

 ful reading. 



What young girl or boy lacks interest in the ever present ant 

 hill, the turtle eggs fotmd buried in the sand, the mosquito larvae 

 and all the wonders of the pond, the box turtle that shuts up so 

 neatly, the spider with her young swarming over her back, the hoot 

 owl with her wierd cry, the nest of darling little rabbits, the snake 

 that has just swallowed a frog, the dead weasel, in summer dress, 

 found beside the path? This last the little girls smoothed and 

 looked at, and then buried lovingly with all the ceremonies, — 

 minister, choir and mourners, — ^headstone even. (We do not aim 

 to make scientists of our girls. We just want them to live with 

 nature, love it, and learn from it rather than about it.) The fat 

 woodchuck living all too near the garden, is not forgotten. There 

 are many to watch while the men drown him out of his hole. 

 A nest of flickers in a hollow tree, and more seldom found, the Bob 

 White's nest under a tuft of beach grass (a mother bird brought 

 her whole Httle flock to feed close to our lodge once), the gulls on 

 the island, their eggs and little ones,— on a never to be forgotten 

 day; these are things that make a picture in the mind of a girl or 

 boy. Why tell them or let them learn out of a book what the 



