Part 4

When we first see them they are generally manipulating the ball--a small mass of manure in which an egg has been laid, and which by rolling in the dust has now become round and firmly incrusted and smooth. Let us follow the couple in their apparently aimless though no less expeditious and vehement labors. They have now brought their globular charge through the grassy stubble, and have reached a clear spot of earth with scattered weeds. Of course we all know from the books that their intention is to find a suitable spot in which to bury this ball, and such being the case, with what astonishing stupidity do they urge on that labor! Here certainly is just the right spot for you, Mrs. Tumble-bug! Stop rolling and dig! But no, she will not listen to reason. She mounts the top of the ball, and, creeping far out upon it, pulls it over forward with her back feet, while Mr. Tumble-bug helps her in a most singular fashion. Does he stand up on his hind legs on the opposite side, and push with his powerful front feet? Oh no; he stands on his head, and pushes with his hind legs. As he pushes, and as the ball rolls merrily on, Mrs. Tumble-bug is continually rolled around with it, and must needs climb backward at a lively rate to keep her place. A foot or two is thus travelled without special incident, when a slight trouble occurs. The ball has struck an obstacle which neither Mrs. Tumble-bug's pull nor Mr. Tumble-bug's push can overcome. Then follow an apparent council and interchange of Tumble-bug talk, until at length both put their shovel-shaped heads together beneath the sphere, and over it goes among the weeds. It is soon out again upon the open. Now, Mrs. Tumble-bug, everything is plain-sailing for you; here is a long down grade over the smooth clean dirt! Why, the ball would roll down itself if you would only let it; but, no, she will _not_ let it. She pauses, and the ball rests, and both beetles now creep about, shovelling up the dirt here and there with their very queer little flat heads. Ah, perhaps they are going to start that _hole_ which all the books tell us about. But no; the place is evidently not quite satisfactory, both of them seem so to conclude, like two souls with but a single thought. Mrs. T. is up on the bridge in a jiffy, and Mr. T. takes his place at the helm; and now what an easy time they will have of it down this little slope; but, no, again; tumble-bugs don't seem to care for an easy time. A hundred times on their travels will they pass the very best possible spot for that burrow, a hundred times will they persist in guiding that little world of theirs over an obstruction, when a clear path lies an inch to the right or left of them. And here, when their labors might be so easily lightened by a downward grade, what do they do? they deliberately turn the ball about and hustle it along _up hill_, and that, too, over dirt that is not half as promising. Tip they go! Mrs. T. now seems to have the best of it, and I sometimes have my suspicions whether she is not playing a prank on that unsuspecting spouse working so hard at her back, for he now has not only the ball, but Mrs. T. as well, to shove along, for the most that she can do is to throw the weight of her body forward, which in a steep up grade amounts to nothing as a help.

But if she is imposing on Mr. T. in thus guiding the ball up hill, she soon gets the Roland for her Oliver. Mr. T. is put to great extra labor by this whimsical decision of hers, and woe to Mrs. T. when that little chance valley or inequality of surface is reached. Even though she can see it coming and holds the wheel, she rarely seems to take advantage of it to save herself or her ship, while Mr. T., going backward in the rear, of course cannot be expected to know what is coming, nor be blamed for the consequences. With kick after kick from his powerful hind feet, united with the push of his mighty pair in front, the ball speeds up the slope. Now, for some reason, he gives a backward shove of more than usual force when it was least necessary. The ball had chanced upon the crest of a slope, when, kick! over it goes with a pitch and a bound, and Mrs. T. with it, though this time not on top. Happy is she if the ball simply rolls upon her and pins her down. Such, indeed, is a frequent episode in her experience of keeping the ball a-rolling, but occasionally the tumble-ball thus started, and out of the control of her spouse at the rear, may roll over and over for a long distance, but never alone. No amount of demoralization of this sort ever surprises her into losing her grip on her precious globular bundle. When at last it fetches up against a stone or stick, and she assures herself that she and her charge are safe and sound, no doubt she immediately mounts to its crest to signal the lone Mr. T. afar off, who is quickly back of her again, and both are promptly off on a fresh journey. And so they keep it up, apparently for sport, perhaps for an hour.

At length, when they have played long enough--for there is no other reason apparent to _homo sapiens_--they decide to plant their big, dirty pellet. The place which they have chosen is not half as promising as many they have passed, but that doesn't seem to matter. Mrs. T. has said, "It shall go here," and that ends it.

Then follows a most singular exhibition of excavation and burial. The ball is now resting quietly on the dirt, and the two beetles are apparently rummaging around beneath it, trying the ground with the sharp edge of their shovel-shaped faces. And now, to avoid confusion, we will dismiss Mr. T., and confine our observation strictly to the female, who usually (in my experience) conducts the rest of the work alone.

She has evidently found a spot that suits her, and we expect her to fulfil the directions of the books and entomological authorities. She must "dig a deep hole first, and then roll the ball into it, and fill it up again." But we will look in vain for such obedience. Instead of this she persists in ploughing around beneath the ball, which seems at times almost balanced on her back, until all the earth at this point is soft and friable, and she is out of sight under it. Presently she appears again at the surface, and as quickly disappears again, this time going in upsidedown beneath the ball, which she pulls downward with her pair of middle feet, while at the same time, with hind legs and powerful digging front legs, she pushes outward and upward the loose earth which she has accumulated. Visibly the ball sinks into the cavity moment by moment as the earth is lowered for a space of half an inch in the surrounding soil, and continually forced upward outside of its circumference. In a few moments the pellet has sunk level with the ground, and in a few moments more the loose earth pushed upward has overtopped it and it is out of sight. Still, for hours this busy excavator continues to dig her hole and pull the ball in after her, with shovel head and mole-like digging feet scooping out a circular well much larger than the diameter of the ball, which slowly sinks by its own weight, aided by her occasional downward pull, as this same loosened earth is pushed upward above it. The burrow is thus sunk several inches, when the beetle ploughs her way to the surface and is ready for another similar experience.

The remaining history of the ball and its change is soon told. The egg within it soon hatches, the larva finding just a sufficiency of food to carry it to its full growth, when it transforms to a chrysalis, and at length to the tumble-bug like its parent. The formerly loose earth above him is now firmly packed, but he seems to know by instinct why those powerful front feet were given to him, and he is quickly working his way to the surface, and in a day or so is seen in the barn-yard rolling his ball as skilfully as his mother had done before him.

Such is the method always employed by the tumble-bug as I have seen him. And yet I have read in many natural histories, and have heard careful observers claim, that the hole is dug first and the ball rolled in. Perhaps they vary their plan, but I doubt it. Here is a matter for some of our boys and girls to look into.

Those Horse-hair Snakes

So they are called; and if the almost unanimous rustic opinion, with its ancient tradition and reliable witness, is to be credited, such they are in very truth. Indeed, there would seem to be few better attested facts in the whole range of natural history than the pedigree of this white or brown thread-like creature which is found in summer shallows and pools. Go where you will in the rural districts and it is the same old story. "They come from horse-hairs," and in some sections they are destined finally to become full-grown water-adders. It is commonly no mere theory. It is either an indisputable fact, tested by individual observation, or else is accepted as a matter of course, much as Pliny of old accepted the similar natural history "discoveries" of his time. He says, for example, on a similar subject, "I have heard many a man say that the marrow of a man's backbone will breed to a snake. And well it may so be, for surely there be many secrets in nature to us unknown, and much may come of hidden causes."

I have exchanged much comment on the subject of the hair snake with New England farmers. I have heard it claimed by one rural authority that a horse-hair bottled in water and placed in the sun will become a snake at second full moon. One prominent Granger, not to be outdone, went so far as to affirm that an old horse of his fell dead at the edge of the dam, and that the whole animal's tail squirmed off, and the pond was full of hair snakes in consequence. It becomes almost a matter of personal offence to the average countryman to question the truth of these statements. The hair snake is a _fact_--settled by their forefathers, and more true than ever to-day.

But snake stories, like fish stories, are always to be "taken with salt," and lest some of our younger readers may become converts to the rural authorities with whom they are perhaps associated in the summer outings, and in order also to relieve our long-suffering horse from this outrageous libel on its tail, it is well to settle our horse-hair snake story once and for all. To this end, I doubt if I can do better than to quote from memory a certain village store discussion of which the everlasting hair snake was the topic. I say "discussion," but this was hardly the proper term to apply to a general conversation in which all the parties seemed to agree. For some moments it consisted of anecdotes bearing on the subject, and each of the group had furnished his item of interest supporting the accepted theory of the horse-hair origin of the snake. Only one member of the company remained to be heard from, Amos Shoopegg, the village cobbler, who had kept silent, with somewhat sinister expression on his countenance as he listened with a sort of superior disdain to the various wonderful accounts, until at length, upon the recital of the story of the dead horse in the pond, he could contain himself no longer, and blurted out:

"Well, I swan, I never see sech a lot of dunceheels! I never hear sech fool talk since I's born. They ain't one on ye thet's got enny sense."

"Waal, haow much hev _yeu_ gut?" asked the narrator of the dead-horse story, testily. "_Yeu_ never see a har snake in yer life, and wouldn't know one from a side o' sole-leather er a waxed-end ef it wuz laid in yer lap."

"Not know 'em? I guess not," replied Amos. "I know more about 'em than the hull lot o' ye put together. Not know 'em! Law! hain't I seen 'em flyin' over the meddy by the hundreds in hayin'-time!"

A loud and long-continued guffaw concert greeted this surprising statement, a result which the shrewd cobbler had anticipated.

"We give in," remarked one sarcastic snake expert, when the laughter had subsided. "We give in. We don't enny on us know _thet_ much," followed by another burst of derisive laughter.

"Thet's becuz yeu ornery critters hain't gut no sense," replied Amos, with warmth. "Ye beleve jest wut ennybody tells ye, or jest wut yer gran'ther beleved before ye, ez though _yeur_ gran'ther knowed any more'n a hedge fence jest becuz he hed the misfortoon to be _yeur_ gran'ther. _My_ gran'ther sed so tew. But what on't? He warn't to blame. He didn't know no better. I _do_. Yeu say them snakes come from hoss-har. Like nuff they ain't one o' ye but b'leeves fer a fac' thet ef yer old har-cloth sofy wuz put to soak it wou'd all squirm off overnight. Ye see these ar har snakes in the hoss-trawf, and thet's _enuff_ fer ye. Immejetly yeu hev yer 'hoss-har snake,' 'n' you're so sot they ain't no livin' with ye."

And so he went on, with occasional exclamatory or chaffing interruptions.

"Oh yis! Yeu know all about 'em, jest becuz ye hed a gran'ther who wuz a dunceheels. Nobody kin teech ye nothin', but _I'll_ tek a leetle o' the conceit out o' ye afore I'm done with ye. Wut I know I _know_, 'n' wut I say I kin prove. 'N' if none o' yeu idjits hain't seen them har snakes a-flyin' over the meddy ez I sed, then ye _don't know nothin' about 'em_. I tell ye I've seen 'em 'n' caught 'em!"

"Say, Amos," slyly asked a jibing neighbor at his elbow, "wut did ye hev in the hayin'-pail that day?"

"Waal," drawled Amos, after the momentary laughter had subsided, "wutever it wuz, it 'd do yeu a power o' good ef yeu'd take one long pull on't. It would be a eye-opener fer ye, p'r'aps, 'n' yeu'd _larn_ suthin'. You've ben fed with a spoon all yer life, 'n' ye swaller wutever they give ye without lookin'. Thet's wut ails _yeu_. Say," he continued, trying to get in a word edgewise in the prevalent hilarious din, "you idjits er havin' a mighty sight o' fun over this 'ere! I'll give ye a chance to show which on ye is the biggest fool. Doos any one o' ye want to bet me that ye ain't a pack o' dunces? Which on ye 'll bet me a scythe that wut I say about these ar flyin' snakes is all poppycut? Come, naow, I'm talkin' bizniss, and if ye ain't a lot o' cowards, p'r'aps you'll _prove_ thet ye ain't. I say them snakes wuz a-flyin' around ez fast ez grasshoppers all over the meddy, 'n' ar flyin' thar naow, like all-possessed, 'n' I kin _prove_ it. Naow who sez I _kain't_, and will wager me a new scythe on't?"

A momentary lull followed this challenge, but the bet was promptly taken by several of the company, the "dead-horse" story-teller being the first to rise to the bait.

In a moment Amos had left the store, and within a half-hour (barely long enough for him to have reached his home and returned) he reappeared with a box containing the "proofs" of his remarkable statement.

He won his bet, having introduced his sceptical hearers to the two prime authorities that knew more about hair snakes than all the rustic wiseacres or scientific professors put together, for his box was filled with grasshoppers and black crickets, including one or two specimens specially preserved in a small vial of alcohol, to show the parasitic snake coiled in its close spiral.

It is reported that Amos never got his scythe, however, the "dead-horse" story-teller having backed out on a technicality, claiming that Amos could not have seen the snakes, he said, and that the snakes had no wings, and consequently could not have been seen "flying" over the meadow; but the cobbler was at least the means of wiping out the hair-snake superstition in the village, and even to this day he is heard to sing out to the chaffing group at the village store, on occasions when he is crowded a little too far, "Who sed hoss-har snake?" He laughs best who laughs last.

There was nothing in the outward appearance of Amos to indicate an intelligence superior to that of his fellows, the secret of his present victorious position being found in the fact that he had been in the habit of making the most of his "summer boarders." One of these, during the present season, had been a college professor of biology, who had enlightened him on many puzzling matters of natural history, including the mystery of the hair snake, whose horse-hair origin he would once have maintained as stoutly as did his opponents at the village store.

My own early belief was influenced by the prevailing country opinion, and more than one is the horse hair which I have put to soak with interesting anticipation. By a mere accident the true source of the snake was discovered. I had procured a box of grasshoppers and crickets for bait, numbering some hundreds, and once, upon opening it, observed two of the thread-like creatures entangled like a snell among the insects. Further experience while baiting the hooks with the grasshoppers revealed others in the bodies of both crickets and grasshoppers, which seemed in no way disturbed by their presence.

So the "horse-hair snake" may be written down a myth. Its existence prior to the time we discover it in the brook or puddle has been spent under the hospitable roof of the insects mentioned, upon escaping from which it seeks the water to lay its eggs. The young in turn seek the grasshoppers and crickets which frequent their haunt, and thus the routine is continued, to the possible annoyance of the grasshopper and the complete mystification of the rural scientist.

"Professor Wiggler"

How potent and abiding are the reminiscences of early youth! It is now some thirty years since I discovered "Professor Wiggler," and noted his peculiar eccentricities. And simply because I chanced first to disclose his wiggling identity on a lilac-bush, how irresistibly must his comical presence assert itself with my slightest thought of lilac, with the shape of its leaf, the faintest whiff of its fragrance, or even a distant glimpse of its spray!

Yonder, for instance, an old ruin of a home closely hemmed in with the well-known bushes spots the wintry landscape. What a place for Wigglers that will be next summer! Only a few days since, while walking down Broadway, New York, I paused for a momentary glimpse of a fine display of spring silks in a shop window, when Professor Wiggler, without the slightest rhyme or reason, suddenly wagged his comical head across my fancy, for my thoughts were far from professors and entomology. Following a frequent, quiet pastime of mine, of tracing the pedigree of such vagrant waifs of thought, I fell to pondering what could have summoned my unbidden friend, and I soon discovered. Why, how simple! The window before me was a very epitome of tender vernal hues--blushes of pale blossoms, yellows of pale anthers shadowed under petals, and quickened grays of bourgeoning hill-side woods, warm pulsing greens of budding leaves, each fabric bearing its label of the latest color-fad--coral gray, Chinese pink, primrose ash, old rose, and yonder was a faded purple bearing the title "lilac," which, of course, by its own irresistible telegraph through my retina, had called up the professor, and here he was.

Yes, it must be admitted, he is a rather unceremonious and promiscuous professor, but I can nevertheless recommend him to our young people as a most amusing and entertaining character. As I have said, I first made his acquaintance over thirty years ago, and in spite of his obtrusive ways in season and out of season, I nevertheless renew our actual acquaintance on the lilac-bush every summer, and I am always greeted with the same expressive "wiggle-waggle." It was in early August when I first discovered him, a small brown and white crook-backed creature about an inch long, clothed with scattered hairs, and clinging to the edge of a leaf, half of which he had eaten to the mid rib. As I approached he ceased eating, and began to wag his upraised head and body vehemently, and I promptly named him Wiggler, subsequently adding the "professor" for special reasons which I do not now recall. Careful search about the bush led to the discovery of a dozen or more of the caterpillars, all about the same size; and such was their novelty among the young insect-collectors that wigglers now became all the rage, and were at a premium on trade. The lilac-bushes of the town were scoured for caterpillars, and there was suddenly a "corner" on wigglers. A Professor Wiggler was now worth two bull's-eyes, and even two classical Polyphemuses, or three _Attacus prometheus_ cocoons were considered only a just and dignified equivalent for a full-grown specimen of the new professor. For those which I had first found proved to be mere infants. As they waxed fat and healthy and lively on their daily supply of fresh lilac leaves, they soon reached the length of quite an inch and a half, and their humps and zigzag outline were proportionately developed, to say nothing of their wiggling propensities.

How well I remember the "whack! whack! whack!" from the inside of the pasteboard or wooden box as I entered the room, or chanced to make the slightest commotion in its neighborhood, as the captive pets threatened to dash their brains out in their demonstrations at my approach. Opening the box, I was always greeted with the same concert of whisking heads, the action being more particularly expressive from the long projecting lash of hairs, an inch and a quarter in length, with which the caterpillar's head was provided. One singular feature of these hairs had always puzzled me in the earlier life of the caterpillar, but was soon explained by close observation. At intervals of every quarter of an inch or so in the length of the slender tuft we find, in perfect specimens, a tiny brown speck--perhaps three or four--graduating in size to the tip of the hairs, where the atom is scarcely visible, or generally absent. A careful examination of their shape revealed the fact that they were exactly like the heads of the younger caterpillars in all their stages, and their presence and successive accumulation were readily explained by the moulting habits of the caterpillar, which is common to all caterpillars. By these telltale tokens we know that the professor has changed his clothes--let us see, one, two, three, four--perhaps five times.

When he first emerged from the egg on the lilac-leaf he was indeed a tiny atom; his head would make a small show laid upon our page. When about a week old, by dint of a good appetite and voracious feeding, he had managed to "outgrow his skin," as it were. He could literally hold no more, and realizing that nature would come to his relief, he began to spin a tiny web upon the leaf-stalk in which to secure his hooked feet for a temporary rest, sleeping off his dinner, as it were.