The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-08-09
ANIMAL MOTHERS.
The Queer Ways in which They
Take Care of Their Young.
James Barton.

Take Care of Their Young.
From the Philadelphia Times.
All dumb animals and insect mothers
have certain ways Of taking care of their
babies, as we'll as our mothers do of us, and
some of their ways are very queer.
At my grandmother's there was an old
cat that had FIVE kittens, which she kent
in the hay, in the barn. One day. one Of
the kittens went out on large beam that
extended from one end of the barn to the
other, and when he reached the middle Of
1t, he began TO be afraid, and sat down on
the beam, mewing piteously. He was so
lar away from me that / could not reach
him, and 1 did not know how to get him
down. Just then, the mother-cat came up
ana purred and mewed TO him, telling him
TO wait until she came She then went out
TO where he was and as the beam was
a broad one she went before him, picked
him up in her mouth and carried him back
into the hay, out of danger.
one day / was up in the attic, and
round, on the ceilings paper wasp's nest
l look II on, and found that 1t was empty
There were also several mud wasps' nests
and upon opening some of them, l found
the grubs in one part of the nest, and the
FOOD, which was nothing but little worms
and insects packed together, in another
part. l brought the paper wasp's nest to
my city home, but not the mud nests.
The turtles do not take much care of
their babies. Iney SCOOP place in the sand
and lay their eggs and then cover them
up. The heat of the sun matches them, and
the young turtles have to take care of
themselves.
Frogs lay their eggs in some warm place
in the water, and fasten them to reeds
cattails, or some such plant, and the
warmth of the sun matches them. The
eggs are in a cluster, and each one which
looks like white jelly, is about the size
Of small pea and has a little, round
black spot in the center. 1 found some,
once, and put them in a large glass jar
with water in it and set it in a warm
place. After several days each of the
little black spots had a tail, and the jelly
like substance that had been around the
black spots to keep them from injury.
began to disappear. 1 found that they
had Matched and were pollywogs. They
grew very fast, but never lived to change
into frogs, as they died before they were
half grown.
The potato bug lays it's eggs on the
under side of a potato leaf, and when the
young are Matched they have the leaves
to eat, and the mother does not have to
take care of them. The eggs are small
and of a bright yellow color. have seen
a great many of them on one leaf
Near my grandfather's there is creek,
with willows growing on the edge of it.
one day l saw two kindfishers on a limb
of one of the trees and the mother bird
sitting by the side of them. She was
looking steadily into the water Sudden.
~ she darted down into the water ana
in a minute came Up with a fish. She
took it to the little birds, and after this
she dived several times, as though show
ing them how to catch fish.
The crabs have their homes under large
stones. This is the way I found out. I
once lifted a large stone, and after the
water had become clear l looked for a
crab. did not see any, but discovered a
hole that seemed to go under some small
er stones. l took up the smaller stones,
but the hole seemed to go still further.
As 1 was looking into it 1 saw big crap
come out, followed by two smaller ones.
Then l knew that this is the way they
live.