THE PLEASURES OF A NATURALIST 



will find what you wish to know. You will learn 

 that in South America the lightning-bugs and glow- 

 worms of many kinds are the same as in North 

 America; that the beetle, or elator, when placed 

 upon its back, snaps itself up in the air and falls 

 \ipon its feet, as our species does; that the obscene 

 fungus, or Phallus, taints the tropical forests, as a 

 similar species at times taints our dooryards and 

 pasture-borders; and that the mud-dauber wasps 

 stuff their clay cells with half -dead spiders for their 

 young, just as in North America. Of course 

 there are new species of animal and plant life, but 

 not many. The influence of environment in modi- 

 fying species is constantly in his mind. 



VI 



The naturalist can content himself with a day of 

 little things. If he can read only a word of one syl- 

 lable in the book of nature, he will make the most of 

 that. I read such a word the other morning when 

 I perceived, when watching a young but fully 

 fledged junco, or snowbird, that its markings 

 were like those of the vesper sparrow. The young 

 of birds always for a brief period repeat the 

 markings of the birds of the par.ent stem from which 

 they are an offshoot. Thus, the young of our 

 robins have speckled breasts, betraying their 

 thrush kinship. And the young junco shows, in 

 its striped appearance of breast and back, and the 



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