The Junior Classics, Volume 8: Animal and Nature Stories

Little Cyclone: The Story of a Grizzly Cub, W. T. Hornaday Some True Stories of Tigers, Wolves, Foxes, and Bears, W. H. G. Kingston Some Animal Friends in Africa, Bayard Taylor...

Having proceeded some way through the wilds, they caught sight in the distance of a large animal, which, as they got nearer, they discovered to be a brown bear; and what was the...

The Pourbiere home resembled those of the better class of _habitants_, but with a difference due to the greater prosperity of the family in preceding generations. The main room...

Full of wonder and curiosity, I retired to the stump. Tom, meantime, turned out the mass of nests, and with it completely covered himself. The pile now resembled an enormous mou...

A remarkable instance of a horse saving human life occurred some years ago at the Cape of Good Hope. A storm was raging when a vessel, dragging her anchors, was driven on the ro...

"As a rule you are right," replied his master, "because they are generally chained up as watch-dogs, and have not the intimate association with human beings which is so great an...

The lieutenant was self-conscious and so fresh to the service that his shoulder-straps hurt him. He failed to see Scrap, who was very small and very yellow, until, in quickening...

After several weeks the liberty which our cat Cordelia had taken with my mother's finery was forgotten, and the household had settled down into its usual humdrum routine. Tibbit...

I insisted that the tortoise prize-winner should be taken away, and the next day I stopped the advertisement and resigned myself to despair. A week after Peter had disappeared I...

There was a fair illustration of the matchless agility of the crotalus when he cares to be quick. The cage was just twelve inches high in the clear; but before the falling mouse...

When day dawned, preparations were begun for the day's march. The tents were struck and the bedding was rolled up, ready to be placed on the rough digger's cart. Then the myster...

Some blackbirds were calling sweetly in a clump of bushes, and song-sparrows sang as if they had but one hour in which to crowd the whole raptures of the spring. As I pressed th...

My shot from the bomb-gun had killed the bull whale, and it had also taught Captain Coffin two lessons: First, not to leave a whale merely because it is spouting blood, for it i...

From "Old Injun Jake" Lee had learned the art of doing fine splicing and of braiding many strands. He unbraided the silk line for a considerable length, and weaving in one by on...

"I could have told you better than that," said Nora. "Why, Oscar, once I saw him hold a mad dog so that some little girls could run away. He held it until a man came running up...

"Well, we'd had to told them anyhow," said candid Oscar, "and I guess I'll catch it. It's truly my fault. _You_ didn't do nothing. But I ought to have staid and watched and--I d...

"You are ambitious," answered the Water-Lily, "and that is stupid of you. One knows what one has, but one does not know what one may get. May I, by the way, make so bold as to a...

John and I did not know what to think of so glaring a deception; but Willis did the talking; and when Ben called out to demand why in the world we had not come home, Willis shou...

"The heat was affecting my head. I felt fretful, irritable. Why didn't somebody do something to help me? But what? My teeth chattered, a nervous chill shook me, and the bees buz...

And so Miss Katy's ball came off, and the performers kept it up from sundown till daybreak, so that it seemed as if every leaf in the forest were alive. The Katy-dids, and the M...

He had a great many curious ways, but the funniest of all was what he did with the bits of lime. He kept taking them in and tried to wall himself up inside with them, as a perso...

The Anemones in among the trees also heard the Plover's cry; but they, on the contrary, would not come up yet on any account. "You must not believe the Plover," they whispered t...

"I knew what it was to live near the surface in my young days," the Carrot went on; "but never felt solid enjoyment till I struck deeply down, where all is so rich and warm. Thi...

Before the day closed, the gardener came whistling from his farm work, to look over his pretty charges. He expected to see a few drooping flowers, and to find that one or two fa...

"Yours are as bright as the gleam of the moon on the water, my love," said Father Beaver with a glance of admiration; and Mother Beaver gave him an affectionate push, which was...

"Press your knees against it, and use your hands," whispered a voice in his ear. "That's right,--now swing yourself round and take hold of the branch above you. So! You're getti...

"I'll explore one of their tunnels," thought Phil. He dived into the river, using his right leg instead of a tail to splash the water as the Beavers did, and soon found a Beaver...

He went back towards the tool-shed, but suddenly, quite close to him, he heard the noise of a hoe--scr-r-ritch, scratch, scratch, scritch. Peter scuttered underneath the bushes....

"Oh, do be quiet about your apple," put in another Macaw, with a bright, red head. "Who cares about your apple? Why don't you enjoy yourself out in the sun? I declare it quite m...

One night she had fallen quiet, and as we hoped, asleep; her eyes were shut. We put down the gas and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in bed and taking a bedgown which was...

"The war, at last, was over, Gulnare and I were in at the death with Sheridan at the Five Forks. Together we had shared the pageant at Richmond and Washington, and never had I s...

Shortly came a sound that threw the doe into a panic of terror--a short, sharp yelp, followed by a prolonged howl, caught up and re-echoed by other bayings along the mountain-si...