_Toadfish_: See the chapter in the "Fall of the Year" called "In the Toadfish's Shoe."
_Mother-passion ... in the life of reptiles_: many readers, seeing this statement in the "Atlantic Monthly," where the essay first appeared, have written me of how when they were _boys_ they saw snakes swallow their young--or at least killed the old snakes with young in them! Isn't that mother-love among the reptiles? But every time the story has been about garter snakes or moccasins or some other ovoviviparous snake; that is, a snake that does not lay eggs, but keeps them within her body till they hatch, then _gives birth_ to the young. I have never seen a snake swallow its young; though big snakes do _eat_ little ones whenever they can get them.
Mother Carey's chickens are any of the small petrels. The little _stormy petrels_ of poetry and story belong to the Old World and only wander occasionally over to our side of the Atlantic.
_petrel_: pronounced _pet´rel_, so called in allusion, perhaps, to Saint Peter's walking on the sea.
_P Ranch_: is one of the Hanley system of cattle ranches, which cover a wide area almost seventy-five miles long. The buildings and tree-fences, the stockades and sheds make it one of the most picturesque I have ever seen. This story was told to me by Jack Wade, the "boss of the buckaroos." "Buckaroo" is a corruption of the Spanish _vaquero_, cowherd.
_buckskin_: a horse of a soft yellowish color. He got his name Peroxide Jim from the resemblance of the color of his coat to that of human hair bleached by peroxide of hydrogen.
_paper nests in trees_: The common yellow-jacket hornet builds similar large round nests in bushes, and other wasps build paper nests behind walls, under the ground, in holes, etc.
_bite into something poisonous_: Send to the Department of Agriculture at Washington for the little booklet on our poisonous plants. It is free.
Try to bring home to the class the profoundly interesting facts of animal distribution--where they live, and how they came to live where they do. Point out the strange shifts resorted to by various creatures who live at the various extremes of height or depth or cold or heat to enable them to get a living.
"_And God who clears_": these lines of Kipling I am quoting as I first found them printed. I see in his collected verse that they are somewhat changed.