Читать книгу Four-Footed Americans and Their Kin - Mabel Osgood Wright - Страница 12

Animals with bony skeletons; never having more than two pairs of limbs. These animals inhabit both land and water, and may either swim, fly, crawl, or walk.

Fishes	Cold-blooded animals that live in water; usually covered with scales. They breathe through gills, and in their fins we see the very beginnings of limbs.
Frogs, etc.	(Amphibians.) Going through several transformations, from egg to perfect animal, but having legs when fully grown. The stepping-stones between fishes and reptiles.
Reptiles	Cold-blooded, egg-laying animals, either with a shell or scaly covering, living on land or in the water; some kinds doing both. They have simple, three-chambered hearts. Alligators, Turtles, and Snakes are Reptiles.
Birds	Warm-blooded, air-breathing animals. They are covered with feathers, have four-chambered hearts, and the young are hatched from eggs.
Mammals	The highest order of animals. Warm-blooded, air-breathing, having a four-chambered heart and double circulation. The young are born alive and nourished by their mother's milk. Mammals are all more or less covered with hair. The Whale, Seal, Cat, Cow, Dog, Rabbit, Mouse, Bat, Monkey, and Man are Mammals.

"The Mammal branch is so large and important and has so many small branches and twigs of its own that by and by I shall make you a tree of it by itself."

"Are you going to draw the Mammal tree to-night?" asked Dodo, anxiously. "Because I think my head is as full of thinking as it will hold."

"No, missy, not another word to-night; it is half-past eight, and your mother has been making 'time-to-go-to-bed' signs at me for half an hour.'

"But, mother," pleaded Dodo, "though my head is full, my stomach feels real hollow, and we were going to toast crackers, you know."

"Very well! Nat, rake open the hot ashes and see if you can find another pair of tongs. Two crackers and a glass of milk make a very comfortable nightcap; for if you go to bed with an empty stomach, you will probably wake up with an empty head," said the Doctor, rubbing his hands together. "Am I invited to this feast?"

"Of course; you and mother and daddy. Olive belongs with us children. It wouldn't be a real feast without you all," said Dodo, a look of perfect content resting on her round face.

"Here are three pairs of tongs. Nat, you toast for mamma, and Rap for uncle, and I'll toast for papa and Olive; then afterwards we can toast for each other. It's lots more fun doing it for somebody else, and then having somebody do it for you."

In a moment the three children were crouching in front of the fire, holding the crackers by the rims with old-fashioned tongs, over the bed of glowing hickory fragments.

"The crackers that fall into the fire belong to the dogs," said Dodo, consolingly, to Rap, who had just dropped his first one. "They don't mind a few ashes."

"Here is mammy with the big pitcher," said the Doctor. "Now all stand in a row and drink a health, in milk, to home, and the blood-brothers whose acquaintance we are to make—the Four-Footed Americans."

"Is Rap going to stay here all night?" asked Nat, as they put down their glasses.

"No; his mother would worry. Your father and I will walk home with him; we have some things to talk over."

"Is it anything to do with the surprise?" asked Dodo.

"Miss Inquisitive, if you poke your precious nose so far into things, some day it may be shut in the crack of a door," laughed her father.

"Ah! the wind has fallen and the frost has come. I'm glad Rod covered those pumpkins," said the Doctor, who was already out on the porch.

"Then we can go nutting to-morrow," said Nat, capering. "Come up early, Rap."

"We shall go nutting to-morrow, but Rap need not come up; we will call for him," said the Doctor.

"But the chestnuts are all up this way," persisted Dodo.

"I did not say we were going chestnutting," replied the Doctor, closing the door so suddenly, that if Dodo's nose had been anything longer than a pug it might really have been squeezed in the crack.

"M—mammals; m—milk," she half sang, half whispered, as she stumbled sleepily up to bed, hanging on her mother's arm.