35-4 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[September, 
“HOW DO YOU LIKE HIM?” 
for, without being sure that you can care for it. When 
you take an animal as your own, it is a promise that you 
will feed and water it, and give it all needed care. It is 
well, if your father thinks so too, to have a farm animal 
to look after, to care for, and if it is worth}', to take to 
the fair. Besides pets in the way of calves and colts for 
the larger youngsters, there are others deserving of care. 
We remember the first pet animal that we had was a lit¬ 
tle black kitten, which came into our possession before 
its eyes were open. What fun we had in feeding it! 
How we watched it grow ! and how it did grow ! until 
we had the largest and the blackest cat in all the neigh¬ 
borhood. But, like all cats, "Blackie” had his day, and 
when in old age he died, a little grave was dug and our 
pet was no more. Our boy in the picture may have tears 
in his bright eyes some day. His pet will soon become 
too big for him, and he must part with his calf. It will 
be a sad day for him when his calf goes away, but he 
looks as if he would bear it like a little man. If we were 
writing this for the parents, instead of the children (and 
we have no doubt that you will show Ibis to father and 
Fig. 1 . —THE LONELY LOCUST. 
mother), we should say, wherever the conditions allow, 
and where it can be done without inconvenience, give 
the youngsters some animal to care for, a calf or a colt to 
the older ones, a lamb, a little pig, or some chickens, to 
the younger. Most parents will be ready enough to do 
this, provided they can be sure that you will do your part, 
which is, to care for, feed, and water the animal as often 
as needed, no matter whether the weather be hot or cold, 
rainy or sunny. One reason why we wish you to have 
pet animals is, that you may do your duty by them. They 
are helpless without your aid. If you neglect them they 
will suffer, and that would be cruel. Recollect that the 
taking of a pet of any kind is an unspoken promise that 
you will care for it—and promises must be kept. 
Sonic Curious Ways of Insects. 
A friend told me the other day that he had just seen an 
interesting sight. “ There were,” he said, “ two.peculiar 
bugs rolling a great ball along the sidewalk just as boys 
r >ll a large snow-ball. I found them so excited and 
earnest in their work—I think they could not have been 
at play—that I stopped to watch them. They soon came 
to a hard place where they got stuck, and after trying 
several times to start the ball, they \yent all around it, 
and then rolled it back and started ofi’ in another direc¬ 
tion.”—If my friend had examined more closely, he would 
have found that these beetles—“ Tumble-bugs ” as they 
are called—were not at play, rolling the ball for the fun 
of the thing, but the ball, made of cow-dung, contained 
an egg, which the parent beetles were carrying to some 
safe place where the egg would hatch. I have seen simi¬ 
lar “ bugs,” which, after having found a dead mouse, 
would go and dig a hole in a favorable place and then 
tug and pull, and roll and push, until they had brought 
Mr. Mouse to his grave. A German lover of insects 
thought he would see what these carrion beetles (as they 
are called) would do, so he killed a toad and placed it on 
the end of a stick, the other end of which was thrust into 
the ground. A number of beetles found the dead toad, 
probably by their keen sense of smell, and gathered 
about, but after going around the stick several times— 
much as a boy with his sliot-gnn will continually travel 
around a tree in which a squirrel is hid—they held a 
meeting and voted (as we may imagine) to undermine the 
stick, which they at once did, and toad, stick and all soon 
fell to the ground; and the toad was in due time buried. 
This true story of the stick and toad reminds me of the 
fact that insects will climb stalks and poles for the sake 
of the better view that is thereby gained. If the insect 
is up one stalk, and a higher one near by is seen, away 
goes the little admirer of nature, just as children goto 
the top of a hill (and grown people, too) to see what is to 
be seen; or perhaps the little insect went up the stalk 
for the same reason that Paul climbed the tree when ho 
and Virginia were lost in the woods—to find out whore 
he was, and try and find a way to his lost home. Honey 
bees will go some miles from their hives for the sweets 
which they are very busy in gathering. This has-been 
proved by dusting the bees with a white or colored pow¬ 
der, as they leave the hive, and another person has 
watched for them on the flowers of plants several miles 
away. When bees start for home they are very swift and 
direct in their return—much more so than some boys I 
have seen, even after they had been sent for; but boys 
have longer to live than bees. Bees are very sharp , and 
when they really try, can make an ordinary boy trot 
home quite lively sometimes. I can w 7 ell recollect being 
escorted up through the wheat field one afternoon, by 
some very warm friends (?) just because I made question¬ 
able motions at a bumble-bee. There is no doubt that 
bees distinguish strangers; many instances being on 
record where such has been very painfully the case. 
Our artist gives us two pictures of insect life as looked 
at through the eyes of his imagination. In the first en¬ 
graving we look in upon the musical Locust as he sits in 
a very thoughtful mood in his own rather poorly fur¬ 
nished studio. He is evidently not in good spirits, and it 
may be that the bottle, which we are sorry to see by his 
side, has helped to make him sad. Probably the number 
of brother musicians has been so large this year, and the 
pic-nics so few, that there has been but little demand for 
him and his rasping violin. His eye is growing dim, and 
before many weeks, provided the Turkeys don’t get him, 
he must lay down his fiddle and his bow. 
In the second picture we look into another professor’s 
study, but one of a very different kind. This is the 
home of a keen-eyed scientist—Mr. Cricket—whose eyes 
are aided in their profound searchings by glasses and 
microscopes. From the specimen upon which his atten¬ 
tion is fixed, and the books which he has gathered about 
him, we may conclude that he is trying to more thor¬ 
oughly understand man. It would seem that he has shut 
himself up and is giving his whole time to the study of 
this little creature—one of the “ worms,” according to 
the title of one of his wonderful books. He evidently 
views man with a “ cricket’s eye,” and therefore we are 
not called upon to “pass his imperfections by.” Mr. 
Cricket is doubtless very studious, and we may look for 
stranger revelations in the Development of Man-worm 
or Worm-man when his book is published ; but I am in¬ 
clined to think it would be better for him to make a visit 
upon the neighboring ants, look into their methods of 
doing things, and do likewise. Well, these pictures are 
but the fancies of an artist; he pictures insects as he im¬ 
agines they might be, but after all, when we come to 
watch insects and their ways, while we may not find 
them imitating human actions, we shall see that they do 
things which are in their way sufficiently interesting to 
make us admire and wonder at them. Uncle Hal. 
