Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 159, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1910 — For The Children [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

For The Children

Wbsi the Fox Thought. Nat had a very exciting story to tell to Ned— all about how he had been down in the lower field and had seen a fox, and how the fox had cantered off and disappeared in the ground. "I found the hole,” said Nat, eagerly, an’ we’ll get the hired man to go with us to-night and dig out the little ones! It’s just time now for the little foxes to be in the nests, Mr. Cummins says.” The boys’ father had told them of a little tame fox he used to have when he was a boy, and ever since Nat and Ned hadt been wild to get a baby fox up.” Jackson, the hired man, agreed to go with them that evening when his work was done, and 7 o’clock found them at the hole in the field. None of them saw a pair of sharp eyes watching from the bushes. It was hard work digging in the stony soli, and, dear me! when they got to the end of the little tunnel in the ground there was a great disappointment in store for Nat and Ned —there were no foxes there! The owner of the sharp eyes stole softly away, and if she had any thoughts upon the subject, and I’m quite sure she did, this is what they were: "What stupid folks to go to all that trouble without finding out beforehand something about the habits of foxes! Then they would have known that we always take our babies and scamper off to hole number two as soon as we find that somebody has discovered hole number one. That is our protection."—Youth's Companion.

Snake Mother*. A friend has written to the editor an interesting account of an observation of snake ways. “In your issue of Jan. 30,” begins the friend, in your short article on snakes, you say: ‘There is no authentic account of a snake mother having swallowed her young at the approach of danger.’ In the New York Museum of Natural History, some time In the early ’9os, a zoological lecturer stated that the theory that snakes swallow their young in time of danger had exploded long ago,’ and that ‘no one \ad ever seen It done.' In an article In a Chicago newspaper August 18, 1901, the Rev. Gregory Bates, referring to this same popular belief, says: "This hts never been seen, and nature has no provision for so interesting a function.’ “Now, it is not at all 'strange that scholars, scientists, teacherb —who have acquired their information mainly from books —their knowledge of the animal kingdom from the study of animals In captivity, should fail to learn some things that have come to the knowledge of the siinple ignoramus. who has accidentally blundered upon some curious manifestation of nature in its wild state. “When I was a boy, some fifty or rajye years ago, I lived with my parents on an old farm in northern New Hampshire. I was somewhere in my ’teens at the time of the incident I am about to relate. “One day I was sent hy ray mother upon an errand that took me past a big granite bowlder a few rods back of the buildings, situated right in the edge of a wet run or swale. As I eiuno abroasic of this bowlder I sur-

prised an old snake—of the variety known in New England as the striped or garter snake—with a, brood of a dozen young ones, each about five Or six Inches Jong, and about the size of a slate pencil. They were scattered about in various directions within a radius of three or four feet from the mother Bnake. “I know not how she signaled to the little ones that danger was nigh. But she lifted her head about two inches, just enough to clear the short grass, opened wide her mouth and lay perfectly still. Then the little ones, as by a common impulse, all turned toward that open mouth, and, each shaping its course so as to come In direct line with the old snake, about its own length In front of her, they one after another darted into that open mouth and down the old snake’s throat. She then closed her mouth and crawled away Into the Swale grass. And I stood spell-bound and allowed her to go, making no effort to kill or molest her. The act was accomplished In less than ten seconds. “It will be observed that the old snake did not run around after the little ones —nor was there any act of swallowing on her part. She simply opened her mouth and the little ones did the rest —running Into the open meuth exactly the same as If it had heen a hole in the ground. “One fact is worth a thousand theo-. rlis.” —Chicago News.

"OH, BRUNO, FATHER IS GOING TO SELL