Sparks Walker, Robert

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MOTHER NATURE, WE ARE RIGHT WITH YOU!BY ROBERT SPARKS WALKERGRAVITY, wind, water and fire are not only the servants ofman but of every living thing whether it creeps over the earthor remains stationary, be it plant or animal. These powerful agentsare encouraged or discouraged as the needs of each creation de-mands. In seeking the gratification of its own particular require-ments each species of animal or plant assists nature in her ultimateplan for the fuller and more complete development of the earth.In seeking the safety and welfare of its own self and the assur-ance of a perpetuation of its species, various creatures are broughtto clash with each other which has given recognition to the old nat-ural law known as the "survival of the fittest." Nature's abhorrenceof the willful weaklings is something terrible. If there is one classof her children that she constantly pats on the back and applaudsthem when they succeed it is the strong healthy creatures who areable to perform their work in life promptly and satisfactorily.The motives of Nature are sometimes misunderstood, but infre-quently a person stumbles onto a truth that opens his eyes. Evensome well-to-do theorists and persons who leave to another to dohis or her own thinking, become suspicious of Nature's motives.Nature is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.Knowing this to be a true definition of her character, it is man'sgolden opportunity to study her ways. If he is normal, mentallyand otherwise, by his very nature, he cannot avoid enthusiasticallydeclaring, "Mother Nature, I am right with you !"Nature has but a single message to all her children. When shehas fed, clothed, schooled, and disciplined them to a certain periodin their lives, she thrusts them into the world with the command,"Go conquer, but serve as you go!" This command may be readin the very nature of every living plant or animal. The only excep-tion is found in the individual who is cursed with idleness. Idle-224 THE OPEN COURTness in Nature has but one doom—extinction ! The wages of idle-ness and carelessness in nature, is extinction.This is forcibly illustrated in the members of the bird familywhich are prudent enough to forbid members of the human family,or other enemies to come within reach of their own bodies. Naturepats the backs of her wild fowls that take this precaution and de-clares, "thou shalt live and prosper!"There is a Horg-e on the side of Lookout ^fountain. The conspir-acy of gravity and water has carried away tons of loose earth andlodged it in the bed of a river near its base. Azaleas, trailingarbutus, huckleberries and mosses have combined their forces andhave checked these agents in their destructive work along the sideof the gorge. When I observed their motives and the success oftheir efforts, I simply had to exclaim, "I am right with you !"These necessary agents of nature become as destructive as theyare constructive when Nature's creatures begin to exert the gov-erning hand. But there are no eft'orts in nature that become reallypitiable, vet no one can study her motives without falling in sym-pathy with her efforts. For example, where is the same mortal whocan confine his observations to a single species of birds for a seasonwithout accepting the lessons that nature teaches in rearing and car-ing for his own children ? The old bird chooses the food for theyoung, selects the drinking water to c|uench their thirst, practicessanitation in keeping the nesting quarters clean and wholesome, andextends due protection over the young until when? Until the chil-dren are able to fly and provide a living for themselves. No onecan observe this example of Nature's without taking it seriously,and it points out clearly where we have failed in training youngAmericans today. We older birds must shoulder the blame. Whereis the mortal with influence sufficient to indtice a mother bird toleave her baby long enough to attend some avian jubilee, or othersocial frolic? Where is the avian mother who is willing to go awayand trust her babies to the care of a crow or jay? Mother Nature,I am right with you on this child problem!I have been studying Nature with varying degrees of interestfor the last thirty years. Sometimes I become conceited enough tofeel that T am a close observer for some of the new observationsthat I make. ^lany of my friends whom I have invited to go on walkswith me among wonderful nature spots, cause me some distress onsome of these outings, for the fact that I seem to be compelled towaste so much valuable time trying to direct their attention to someMOTHER NATURE, WE ARE RIGHT WITH YOU ! 225wonderful flower, insect, animal, tree or plant, or to a vista whichmay include a group of all of these. Frequently, I am out with afriend, and I talk myself almost hoarse, telling him some of thewonderful peculiarities of a certain plant that we meet, and still Iknow from the low grunts that come in acknowledgement of myefiforts, simply indicate that my friend sees nothing of unusual in-terest.In the midst of some of these nature spots with enough inspira-tion to make a normal person burst into enthusiasm, he walks along,with mind on politics, business or some other decadent subject, andwhile I cannot anchor his attention, I know that among these won-derful nature subjects, should a certain politician or orator suddenlyappear, he would burst forth in enthusiasm, throw his hat into theair and scream himself almost hoarse!But I must have patience and sympathy, because I am frequentlyconfronted by an intimation that I, myself, am not a close observer.An example of this sort I had forcibly brought to my attention dur-ing the month of January, 1921. That month with us is usuallyfraught with days of cold and sleet, but this one was for the mostpart sunny. If there are certain nature spots around which I havespent much time in observation, it is the swamps, ponds, and creeks,and especially when some of them were frozen over. In the above-mentioned month, while passing over a viaduct beneath which wasa swamp covering several acres whose surface was a frozen mass,I observed a beautiful and most perfect rainbow. It was as perfectas the most handsome design that was ever strung up in the clouds.I spent sometime in observing this wonderful display of colors. Onething in particular that I noticed was that one end of the rainbowkept directly beneath my feet as I walked slowly across the viaduct.The next week on a similar sunny morning, while passing arounda pond whose surface was scum and trash-laden, I was pleasantlysurprised to have set before me another wonderful optic feast in theform of another rainbow. Strange enough, shortly after leaving thepond, in my dew-covered path where it lead through a meadow, ina curve and sharp depression there was depicted in the thousandsof dewdrops, a faint rainbow ! Conditions seemed favorable thatmorning for the sun's rays to produce two remarkable rainbows, yetI could not help from feeling that I, myself, had been a poor ob-server in the past. People do not usually look for rainbows in suchplaces, but it is frequently in the unexpected places that naturesprings her greatest surprises. In this success of Nature in laying226 THE OPEN COURTemphasis on the fact that some of her most beautiful creations He inthe humble walks of life, I said, "Nature, I am right with you !"Sensible people are ofttimes guilty of severe criticism of thebehavior of lesser animals, particularly those of insects, when theiractivities conflict with their own. Such criticism would soon losesome of its harshness, if people could understand that each insect,or other creature, has its own problems to work out, which are asimportant to its existence as ours is to us. We see almost daily, anillustration of this kind. I recall an observation that I made at aBoy Scout summer camp one summer recently. The site of thecamp is on a table-like place near the foot of a mountain. Allaround, the tents were pitched. In walking over the grounds, Iobserved a number of burrows which I supposed were dug by thedigger wasps. This insect is the large wasp who steals upon theharvest fly, or cicada as it is called, pounces upon its body and in-flicts many stings. The sting does not kill the harvest fly, but pro-duces a long drawn-out attack of paralysis. When it attacks the har-vest fly, in the melee, they both fall to the ground, the harvest flykeeping up a cry of distress. The trophy is too large for the dig-ger wasp to carry when she flies upwards, or even on a straightline, so she gets halfway astride of her prey, and by the use of herwings in bi:ating the air, she is enabled to ascend the tree with herheavy load. On reaching the top of the tree, she hauls the harvestfly out on a leaf, and after grasping it firmly with her feet, makesa slanting sail, sometimes for a distance of more than a hundredyards, and strikes the ground as near her burrow as possible. Whenshe reaches the ground, she rushes the harvest fly into the previ-ously prepared burrow. She then deposits an egg on the paralyzedbody of the harvest fly, and when the egg hatches, the young dig-ger wasp is assured fresh food, for no mother digger wasp is will-ing to feed her babies on anything except fresh and wholesome food!At the summer camp, a visiting professor was to devote an hourafter luncheon to a description of Yellowstone National Park. Thecots were removed from the tents and arranged in horseshoe shapeto serve as seats.The program had proceeded only a short ways when a largewasp appeared on the scene, and while it made no attempt to stingany one, it came near putting the audience to rout. The digger waspconcentrated her attention on the speaker and his audience who wereseated directly in front of him. She poised her body in front of eachhearer as if trying to persuade him to do something. She plead,MOTHER NATURE, WE ARE RIGHT WITH YOU ! 227she begged, she coaxed, she threatened, but not one understoodher desires. In their fright, the campers came near overturning theircots a number of times. Towels were employed for weapons indriving the horrid looking wasp away. They believed such a hugewasp was a dangerous creature. The poor wasp was slow to giveup. I longed for the opportunity to explain to the frenzied crowdthe mission of the mother wasp, but could not do it without disturb-ing the speaker. The wasp then tried hard to get the speaker tounderstand, but he only took a number of violent slaps at her.After twenty minutes of persistent work, the mother wasp gaveup and flew swiftly up the side of the mountain. In keeping myeyes on the digger wasp, and in watching for her expected return,I forgot the speaker for a few moments. Within five minutes aftershe had abandoned the premises, she came sailing down the moun-tain side, bearing a huge heavy load—a paralyzed body of a harvestfly. She struck the ground with her burden near the feet of thespeaker, and marched proudly in front of him hauling her prey intoa burrow which she had previously prepared.The secret had vanished. The poor digger wasp was not wag-ing an offensive war against anyone, but was only trying to persuadethe speaker and his hearers who sat directly in front to clear thcway that she might make a successful descent with her heavy load.She evidently wished not to collide with a crowd o men. Her prizehad doubtless already been sighted, and she had only a few momentsto clear the way before the harvest fly made its escape. Deeply in-terested in her work in providing fresh food for her children thatwere yet to be born, she took the risk, and succeeded in steering herbody that she struck within a very few feet of her burrow, withoutan accident, and without harming any one ! Mother Nature, weare right with you !We see Nature and her activities in the lesser animals and plantsas something trivial, because we do not understand. Nature doesnot always speed up her operations, and hence her achievementsofttimes come slowly.We cannot observe the growth of a tree or plant, but we knowthat growth takes place. The insect acts wisely but, it is so smallthat it escapes our notice. The birds pursue their busy trades, yetwe pitch our observations only at their feathers and songs. Natureis constantly working to make the world better, and a fitter place inwhich to live. She knows that to do this properly, precautions mustbe made for the care and protection of the young. In achieving this228 THE OPEN COURTvery thing, she is practicing the very principles that we hold as ourideals—thrift, frugality, prudence.If we study Nature, we shall appreciate her every movement,and we shall sympathize more and more with her efforts to such anextent that we can exclaim in unison, "Mother Nature, we are rightwith you !"

Mother Nature, We Are Right With You!

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Mother Nature, We Are Right With You!

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