"Why," repeated Mrs. Catbird, "the Flickers have to eat all the food they get for their children, and then, when it has become soft and ready for young birds, they unswallow it into their children"s bills.
It takes so much time to do this and to fly back and forth that they want to have them out of the nest as soon as possible. Then they can take them around with them."
You can imagine how anxious the parents were for a few days, while their six babies were still so awkward and helpless. They took them across the street to the lawn around the big house, and tucked them away in dusky places where their brown feathers would not show against anything light. Most of them were under the edge of a board walk, one was under a porch, and one was under a low branching evergreen. Mrs.
Robin, who was then hatching her second brood, kept watch for Silvertip, and this was a great help to the Flickers on the ground below.
First one and then another of the young Flickers went out with one of the parents, and it was most interesting to see them fed. The Flickers, you know, are woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, and their long bills are slender, curved, and pointed, just right for picking Grubs and nice fat little Bugs out of tree-bark. Their tails, also, are stiff and right to prop them as they work up and around the trunk of a tree. Still, they feed on the ground more than on trees, and like Ants better than anything else in the world.
Now, one could see Mr. Flicker by an Ant-hill with a nestling beside him, his head going up and down like a hammer, and an Ant picked up in his bill at every stroke. Every now and then he would stop, turn his head, place his bill in that of his child, and unswallow some Ants, which the nestling would gulp down. Between feedings the nestling would settle his head between his shoulders, and slide his thin eyelids over his eyes. He never slid his thick eyelids over. He saved those for night, when he would really sleep.
While the father was feeding one, the mother would be feeding another.
When these two were satisfied they were sent back to their hiding-places and two more had their turns. It was very hard work, in spite of their being so good. They never fussed or teased. They waited patiently for their turns and found no fault with the food.
"Oh," said Mrs. Flicker to her husband, as she swallowed the six hundred-and-forty-eighth Ant since sunrise. "I am so tired that I feel like giving up. If it were not for you and the children, I believe I would just as soon let that Cat catch me as not."
"I know," he answered. "I am very tired myself, and I am sure you must be more so. You do not seem strong since you were shut in so long while brooding the eggs."
"It is easier in one way, now that all are out of the nest," said she.
"It saves my wings a great deal, but my neck and throat ache from such steady work. I used to rather enjoy eating for myself. The food tasted good, and it was something pleasant to do. This eating for a whole family is quite different."
"Well, it won"t last much longer," her husband said comfortingly. "The children will soon be able to feed themselves, and you can have a good rest. Then we will go picnicking in the fields beyond this place, and every one shall get his own lunch."
In a few more days they did this, and for three mornings they might have been seen, in a happy party of eight, walking around together, quite as Pigeons do. At the end of the third day, Mr. Flicker said to his wife: "Well, my dear, are you having a good time? This is a pleasant change from caring for the children, isn"t it?"
To his surprise, she turned her head away and did not answer. When he repeated his questions, she replied with a little choke in her voice.
"It is very easy," she said, "and a great rest, but it seems to me I have nothing to do. I eat all I can and try to swallow slowly, but when my stomach is full I have to just walk around. I miss the children putting their dear little bills up to mine and taking food from me. I believe I am lonely."
Poor Mr. Flicker was young and inexperienced. He did not know how quickly some people change their minds, or how mothers miss the care of children.
"Isn"t there something you can do," he asked, "to make you happier?"
"Could you help me clean out our old hole in the Lombardy poplar?"
said she. "I believe I will lay some more eggs."
"What?" cried her husband. "When you have been so tired? And then you will be shut in so long while brooding them. Why not fly off on a pleasure trip with me?"
"I will," said she. "I"d love to go. But let us get the nest all ready first."
Mr. Flicker was young and inexperienced, as has been said before, yet he flew right off to work on that nest and let his wife do exactly as she chose. Which shows that, although she did change her mind and he could not understand why, they were a very happy and sensible couple, after all.
PLUCKY MRS. POLISTES
Mrs. Polistes was a charming little widow, who had slept through the long, cold winter, snugly tucked away in a crack in the barn belonging to the big house. She had married late in the fall, but her husband was a lazy fellow who had soon left her, and sat around in the sunshine with his brothers and the other fellows whom he knew. Each sat in his own little spot, and at last died because he was so lazy.
That is the way with many insects who will not work. They die, and the members of their families who keep busy live to a good old age.
Now it was spring, and Mrs. Polistes awakened happy and full of plans.
You must not think her hard-hearted to be happy after her husband was dead. If he had been a different sort of a fellow, you know, she would have missed him more. As it was, she did not even think of marrying again, but set to work to build her home and bring up her children to be good and industrious Wasps like herself.
She asked another young widow to work with her, and together they flew around hunting for a good building-place. They talked first of hanging their nest from the branch of a bush, but both were very careful Wasps and preferred to be sheltered from rain-storms. (Some of their family, however, did choose to build on bushes). Next they flew into the ice-house and tried several of the corners there. Mrs. Polistes did most of the talking, being a Wasp of very decided opinions.
"It is too chilly here," she said. "I should never feel like myself in such a cold place. And you know perfectly well," she added, "that if anybody should disturb us in here, we would not be warm enough to sting. Or if we did sting, we could never pump much poison in."
There was nothing to be said after that, for everybody knows that unless a Wasp can sting, and sting hard, he is not safe.
Then they looked at the porch ceilings. Their cousins, the Vespae, had started some nests there, and they preferred not to be too near them.
The Vespae were very good Wasps, but, as Mrs. Polistes said, "We wish to bring our children up to be Polistes Wasps, and if they see the way in which the Vespae live, they will get their ideas all mixed. I do not think it wise to rear them within sight of covered nests, and you know as well as I [this was to her friend] how the Vespae wall around their cells."
After this they found what they thought a most delightful place. It was just inside the closed shutters of a bedroom window. The upper sash of the window was lowered, and inside of that was a fine wire netting. "Excellent!" said the friend. "That is probably there to keep the people inside from coming out this way."
Mrs. Polistes was not quite sure that the netting was there for that reason, but she liked the place, so they flew off together to the stump-fence which enclosed the great field back of the house. Then they looked for an old stump, sat down on one of its p.r.o.ngs, and began to gnaw off wood fibre. They did not talk much, for they had to work so hard with their mouths. Each gnawed length-wise of the grain until she had a little bundle of wood fibre in her jaws. When these were ready, they flew off to their chosen spot and began to build. First it had to be chewed for a long time, until it was soft and pulpy, then, working together and very carefully, they built a slender, stemlike thing down from the top of the window casing.
It took many trips to bring enough wood fibre for this, and between trips they had to stop for food. It took longer to find it so early in the season than it would later, for Flies and insects of all kinds were scarce and there were not many flowers yet. Some of those which looked most tempting were for Bees, and not for Wasps. The Wasps, you know, have such short tongues that they cannot get the honey from most flowers. That is why they so like the flat-topped ones and the shallow ones into which they can reach easily. Mrs. Polistes and her friend at last found a bed of sweet clover which made them fine meals.
That first day they only chose the place for their home and got the stem ready, but it was not long before they had three tiny cells begun and eggs in two of them. Mrs. Polistes and the homemakers of her family always insisted upon doing in this way.
"It not only saves time," said Mrs. Polistes, "to have several kinds of work going at once, but it rests one, too. When my jaws are tired of chewing wood fibre or shaping it into cells, I rest myself by laying an egg. And when my sting is tired from that, I hunt food for myself and the babies. There is nothing like having a change of work."
Mrs. Polistes spoke in this way about her sting, you understand, because it was her ovipositor, or egg-layer, as well. She really used it in this way much more than the other. She did not wish to sting with it any more than she had to. It tired her very much to pump poison through it when she stung. There was always the danger, too, if she stung a large creature, like a boy, of getting it stuck in him and not being able to pull it out without breaking. If it broke, she would die.
Mrs. Polistes and her friends took turns in laying eggs, and soon had to begin another row of cells around the first. They laid their oblong white eggs in them long before the cells were done, and had to stick them up to the side walls to keep them from falling out of the opening at the bottom. Then, when they had time, they lowered the walls of the cells. When the babies hatched, which was only a few days after the laying of the eggs, they brought food and fed them as they hung in their cells.
The Lady who lived in the big house watched this very often, and Mrs.
Polistes and her friend became so used to it that they were not at all frightened or disturbed. Wasps, you know, are very easily tamed by any one who moves gently. The Lady stood on a chair just inside the window, and put her face close to the screen. She could see exactly how the mother Wasps bit the cell walls into shape, moving backward all the time. She could see Mrs. Polistes and her friend bring nicely chewed-up Flies and other insects with which to feed the babies, and watched them go quietly from cell to cell, giving a lunch to each.
They were very interesting babies. Being still fastened to the cell wall by the tail end, only their heads showed, tiny white heads with two little eyes and brown, h.o.r.n.y jaws. Sometimes, when Mrs. Polistes and her friend were away, the Lady would softly lower the screen from the top of the window and touch the nest very, very gently with her pencil. Then each baby thought it was his mother or his aunt, and thrust his tiny head out for food. Perhaps this was not kind to the Wasp babies, but if the Lady made them and their mother amuse her, she was also very careful about worrying them. The older Wasps never found out that the screen had been moved, and the Lady told everybody in the house that the upper window sash must not be put up. She feared that it would strike the outer cells and loosen the nest if raised.
All would have gone well if it had not been for that dreadful thunderstorm just before daylight one morning. The Gentleman found the raindrops blowing in through the bedroom window, and got it almost closed before he remembered the Wasps" nest. Then he lowered the upper sash again and left it down, in spite of the rain.
Sad to say, when morning came the dainty little nest lay on the top edge of the upper sash. It had been loosened but not crushed, and had fallen on to the only place it could. Mrs. Polistes and her friend were flying in and out with food for the babies, who were now all tilted up sidewise, instead of hanging head downward, as Wasp babies should.
"I don"t understand it at all," said the friend. "Everything is exactly as it was when we went to sleep, except that the nest has fallen."
"I was dreaming as I hung on the nest last night," replied Mrs.
Polistes, "when suddenly I felt a great jar and was knocked off."
"So was I," exclaimed her friend.
"I flew around in the dark until I found it again," added Mrs.
Polistes, "but I had to wait until daylight to see what had happened.
Oh, dear! It is so upsetting to find one"s home upside down, and two of my children are just ready to spin their coc.o.o.ns."
"Your children?" asked her friends quite sharply, for it made her cross to have such misfortunes. "Your children? One of those children is mine."
"Which one?" asked Mrs. Polistes, who thought she remembered her own egg-laying.
"I don"t know which, now that the nest is all turned around," was the answer. "It has mixed those babies up, and I can"t pick out mine."