Milk and Animals That Feed It to Their Young

You have read in the first chapter of this book that sugar, changed in one way or another, is a food that animals need.

Milk is another food that is needed by many kinds of animals. These animals need milk especially while they are babies. Indeed, it is the only sort of food that certain animals can take at all while they are very young. Animals whose babies must have milk are called mammals. 

There are many different kinds of mammals. In this chapter you will read about some of them that are unlike in size and shape and habits. The bodies of mammals may differ from one another in many ways. But in some ways they are all alike.

Mammals all have warm red blood and breathe with lungs as birds do. But they do not have feathers. They have hair instead. Some mammals have very little hair and others are covered with thick fur.

All mammal mothers have milk to feed their babies. They have milk glands  in their bodies where the milk is made. The milk glands have openings where the babies can put their mouths when they suck the milk.

A human baby must have milk just as all the other little mammal babies do. If the mother is well and strong, the human baby is better off with the milk it finds in its own mother's breast than with any other kind, when it is very young.

But people learned long ago that their babies could live on the milk of other animals, also. So people keep herds of animals for the sake of their milk. People living in the far North, where the winters are very, very cold, use the milk of reindeer. In many countries people use the milk of goats. In this country we use the milk of cows more than any other kind.

A goat likes to eat while it is being milked.

Milk is important for babies because it is the only food they can take at first. Boys and girls grow stronger if they keep on drinking milk even when they can eat other kinds of food, too. Milk is good for grown people; and it satisfies both hunger and thirst, since it is food and drink at the same time.

Soon after you drink sweet milk it curdles.  When it curdles, it becomes thick. It curdles before you can digest it. If you drink cows' milk rapidly, as you drink water, the milk is likely to curdle in big lumps and give you a stomach ache. That is why it is a good plan to sip milk a little at a time instead of drinking it down in big mouthfuls, for then the curds will be in smaller lumps.

Goats' milk curdles in finer, softer bits than cows' milk does. People who have studied this matter say that on this account babies that are fed on goats' milk do not have colic so much as those that are given cows' milk, and that they thrive better on it.

Some people like to curdle milk before they eat it. There are different ways of doing this. One way is to squeeze lemon juice into sweet warm milk. When the milk begins to thicken, it can be stirred with a spoon or with an egg beater. If a little sugar is added, it makes a very good kind of milk lemonade.

Another way to curdle milk is to buy buttermilk tablets and put one into a pitcher of milk. The pitcher should be kept in a warm place until the milk thickens. Many people like milk this way. The tablet has bacteria  in it. Bacteria are so tiny that we cannot see them unless we use a microscope. (A microscope has a piece of glass shaped so that it makes small things look large.) There are many kinds of bacteria. Some kinds are very good for our health and some kinds make us ill. Both helpful and harmful bacteria will grow in milk if they have a chance. That is why it is important that the men who handle our milk supplies should take proper care of it and keep it safe to use. The bacteria in the buttermilk tablets are harmless and to use them is an easy way to thicken milk. However, good sweet milk (if it has not been heated) usually has enough of these same bacteria so that it will have a good taste if it is allowed to "sour" in a warm place.

The white, thick part of curdled milk is called curd  and the watery thin part that separates out is called whey.  You may have heard about little Miss Muffet who sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Curd, or thick milk, is eaten more in some other countries than in the United States. It would probably be good for us to use more of it than we do. You may like to try some with brown sugar sprinkled on top and a little bit of nutmeg grated over it.

Milk is called a perfect food because it has in it all the things our bodies need to make them grow. If you watch your mother or someone else who knows how to cook, you will be interested to see that she uses sweet milk in some things and sour, curdled milk in others.

Perhaps you will tell me that cows do not have horns,  and then I shall have to confess that nowadays many of them do not. Farmers have a way of rubbing something on the heads of calves that prevents horns from growing. If they forget to do that, they sometimes cut the horns off the heads of the grown cows. Cows do not shed their horns, but keep them as long as they live, unless they are taken off. It is very much easier for men to take care of cows without horns. You may have heard about the cow with a crumpled horn who tossed the maiden all forlorn. It was because cows sometimes did unpleasant things with their horns that men decided to have new-fashioned hornless cows. But, for all that, horns do look very well on cows' heads. I hope that, when people put cows into zoos for city children to see, they will choose old-fashioned cows with handsome horns.

I hope, too, that you will happen to meet a cow some day while she is chewing her cud.  If you do, you will see that she has a contented look. She will not feel pleased if you disturb her then, for she likes to be quiet while she is chewing. When she first eats her grass and hay she does not chew it much. Then, after a while, her food comes up into her mouth again and such food is called her cud. This she grinds to bits with her strong teeth.

The cow's milk bag  is in front of her hind legs. Her calf can find it and stand up to feed when it is only a few hours old. Sometimes a hungry calf seems to be in a hurry and bunts the milk bag with its head to make the milk come faster. This bunting habit is a funny one. If you ever try to feed a calf milk from a pail, you will find that after it puts its head into the pail it will begin to bunt. Then what will happen? More likely than not you will be having a shower bath of milk. Then I think you will laugh, since it does no good to cry about spilt milk.

There are so many kinds of animals that like rabbit meat, that a rabbit needs ways of keeping safe. One way is by kicking. Sometimes a rabbit jumps over its enemy and kicks it with its strong hind legs. But a rabbit cannot fight very well, so often it runs away from danger by taking long and lively jumps until it reaches a hiding place. Nothing suits a chased rabbit better than some bushes with thorns on them; for it has a way of creeping under the prickly branches without getting hurt, and not many animals will crowd into such places after it. Sometimes a rabbit can hide when it is very near danger, by merely keeping so still that there is no motion to show where it is.

Many animals chase rabbits and try to catch them; but rabbits have a very good time for all that. They do not stay  frightened. As soon as danger is over they busy themselves with their own pleasant doings. With their long ears they can hear sounds that are made far off. They can turn these ears in different directions to catch noises from all around them. Sometimes they stand up on their hind legs and look to see what is near. When they do this, their front paws drop down in a pretty way.

Rabbits do not stay asleep all winter. So they need to find things to eat even when the ground is covered with snow. If you go out for a walk near some woods in winter, you may find some rabbit tracks. Perhaps you can see where the rabbits have gone to nibble tender bark from some young tree, or perhaps you can follow their tracks and find where they are hiding.

Before the farmer planted his vegetables, he used to let Curly play in the garden. That was a happy time for her. She poked into the earth with her strong nose and found many things she liked. There were white grubs  that feed on the roots of plants for a while and then turn into brown beetles called June beetles;  and there were other root-eating insects that the farmer was glad to have Curly eat. He said that her nose was better in some ways than a plow.

In the evening when the farmer was milking his cow, Curly used to come to the doorway which opened into her pen. She would stand up on her hind legs and put her front feet on the door sill and open her mouth. Then the farmer would throw a stream of milk into her mouth, instead of into the milk pail, until he thought he could not spare any more. That farmer was a jolly man and Curly's funny way of coming to ask for milk made him laugh.

Curly had a wooden trough in her pen where she was fed waste food from the kitchen and sour milk and some grain. Vegetables and fruits that were not suitable to sell in the market were thrown into her pen and she ate a great deal and was fat.

When Curly grew up, she had a family of nine little baby pigs. At mealtime they used to beg for milk, too. But they did not go and ask for milk from the cow. They tagged about after their mother and made squealing noises that meant "We are hungry." Then Curly would lie down on her side and give pleasant-sounding grunts that seemed to mean "Dinner is ready." It would not take those nine pigs long to line up in a row and suck their little stomachs full of milk. They were a happy sight.

In some places in the South people do not keep their pigs in pens but let them run in the woods, where they root with their noses and find underground insects. They feed on wild plants and eat acorns and other nuts that fall to the ground. Such pigs have so much exercise that they do not grow to be so fat as pigs do that are kept in pens.

When I was a little girl, a bat came into my room one night. I saw it flying in the moonlight between my bed and the window. There was a screen in the window and the bat could not get out. It flew very near my ear, but I could not hear its wings. I lighted a lamp and hunted, but I could not find anything. After a while, when I had put out the light and was quiet, it began again its silent flight. In the morning I looked for a long time and at last found the bat. It was clinging to the wire behind a picture. I put it into a cage and tried to tame it. Its wings, when they were not stretched out, hung down limp and saggy, like a toy balloon when the air is out. There was no hair on its wings, but its body was covered with very soft fur. When I tried to touch it, the bat squeaked piteously and trembled. The little creature looked so cross and unhappy all day that at dusk I took it out of doors and let it go. So instead of having a pet bat, I watched the free ones flying near the house every evening.

When winter came, I found a bat hanging up in the woodshed. I touched its soft fur. It did not squeak or tremble or move. It stayed there stiff and still both night and day. It had been caught by the cold weather and was sleeping through the winter. This very special kind of long sleep that some kinds of animals take we call hibernation. 

I called the stiff little hibernating bat in the woodshed my "pet bat"; but it disappeared when the cold weather did, so it never found out that it was a pet.

There was a man in England who once had a tame bat. When he let it flit about in his parlor, the bat would take a fly from the fingers of anyone who offered it. It would take bits of food, very carefully and gently, from the lips of its master.

Once a woman found a boy abusing a bat. She took away the trembling, frightened, little thing and kept it. After a while it would lap milk from her finger and take meat and insects from her hand. She used to let it out of doors in the evening, and it would hunt for insects for about two hours and then come back and hang itself up near the window until it was let in.

A mother bat does not make a nest for her babies. She carries them about with her as she flies. Her babies take hold of the under side of her body with their mouths and hang on so firmly that way that they do not fall. There is a fold of skin in the body of some mother bats that helps hold the young in place. When the mother finds that her young ones have grown too big and heavy to carry about in this way, she hangs them up in a safe place while she is hunting for food and then goes back to them while she rests.

Most mammals have four legs. Even the bat has bones enough for four legs. These bones, instead of being shaped to serve as legs and feet and toes, are long and slender. They spread out and make a frame for the strong, thin skin of the wings. When the wings are in use, this thin skin is spread tight like the cloth of an open umbrella. When the bat is not flying, it folds up its wings and the skin hangs close to the body.

In different countries there are different kinds and sizes of bats, with different-looking faces. In some warm countries there are big bats that eat fruit, and sometimes they eat much fruit that people want to use. In some warm countries, too, there are small bats that sometimes bite people at night if they go to sleep where it is easy for the bats to get at them. But this is such a gentle little bite that it does not hurt enough even to waken the sleeper, and the spot that is bitten heals very quickly.

All the bats in this country are very useful to us, because they eat troublesome insects such as mosquitoes that bite us, and certain beetles that damage our growing plants. The bats in this country do no harm whatever and they do much good.

People used to be silly about bats and sometimes fear them. Now that we understand their habits, we know better than to be frightened by these most interesting flying mammals.

The whale's baby is sometimes called a pup  and sometimes a calf.  The mother whale is careful of her calf while it is very young, and stays where the water is shallow and warm. She can more easily take care of her baby in shallow water. The young calf is comfortable where the water is warm. It has a good time playing there. When it is old enough it goes on long journeys in deep water with its mother. The calf has more hair on its body than the old whales, which have only a little near their mouths.

Different kinds of whales live in different places. The most enormous kind of all lives in the Pacific Ocean. It is said that a whale of this kind can grow to be more than ninety feet in length. You can count off that number of feet on the ground with your ruler, if you want to see how long a whale can be.

Although this great whale needs much food, it does not eat big things. It goes through the water with its mouth open when it is hunting, and gathers in a lot of little sea animals and, of course, a whole mouthful of water. It keeps the tiny fishes and other small creatures it gets into its mouth, and it strains out the water with its whalebones,  or baleen,  which hang down in a thick fringe from its upper jaw and serve as a sieve. This kind of whale has no teeth.

The calf of this largest kind of whale is said to be about nineteen feet long when it is born. You can take a foot ruler and measure to see how long that would be.

There are different kinds of whales that have whalebone, or baleen, hanging in fringes from the upper part of their mouths. Besides these, there are kinds that do not have baleen in their mouths but do have teeth. The names of some kinds of toothed whales are sperm whale,  porpoise,  and dolphin.  The very smallest kinds of toothed whales are only a few feet long when they are full grown.

All kinds of whales, whether young or old, whether toothed or with baleen, have fish-shaped bodies and swim in the sea. Of course there are plenty of mammals besides whales that can swim. Perhaps you can swim, yourself! There are some mammals, such as seals and beavers, that spend a great deal of time in the water. But there are no other mammals whose bodies are so fish-like that they need to live in the water all their lives.

Zebras have stripes on their bodies. Some people who have seen these animals in their own wild places say that the stripes look like streaks of light and shade. Because of this zebras are hard to see when they are a little way off, and the stripes thus help them to hide.

Most of the elephants seen in circuses are from India, where there are wild elephants. In India these animals are caught and tamed and taught to work. In Africa there are elephants which are even bigger than those in India. The largest elephant ever brought to America was from Africa and his name was Jumbo.

An elephant has such a long nose that he can reach down to the ground with it without kneeling. He can reach his nose up into the branches of a tree without climbing. It is such a strong nose that he can lift heavy logs with it, and the tip of it is shaped so that he can handle small things very gently. This wonderful sort of nose is called a trunk. 

Deer 

A young calf that is frisking about the farmyard looks like a young deer in some ways. It has similar hoofs and its head is shaped much the same, but a calf is not so graceful as a young deer.

The deer are related to cattle and they have the same habit of chewing their cud. The father deer have horns, but they are different from those of cattle, for they are larger and branched. One wonderful thing about deer horns is that they drop off every year and then new ones grow again.

There are wild deer in America and in some other countries, too. It is a lovely sight to see wild deer in the woods. But these creatures are so very timid that it is much easier to see them at the zoo.

By the time winter comes bears are fat from eating so many berries and other good things. They are, indeed, so very fat that they can live all winter without eating anything more.

Before the snow comes the black bear carries dry leaves into a deep hole in the ground or other cave. After she has her bedroom made comfortable enough to suit her, she settles down and keeps quiet and snug and warm until spring comes. She is not too sleepy, however, to take care of her little baby bear. It is a very little baby for so big a mother to have, for a young baby bear is not much bigger than a kitten. The mother has milk enough so that the little one does not need to go without food. When spring comes the young bear has grown from a tiny, feeble, blind thing to an active little bear that can run about and climb trees and have a happy time playing.

In other places in this book, you will find something about several other mammals. It is well to remember that mammals differ from all other animals in certain ways. They all have warm red blood as birds have, but they do not have feathers. They all have at least some hair on their bodies, though the hippopotamus has so little that we might as well call him "bald" all over. Most mammals have four legs, and then we call them quadrupeds.  There are some exceptions, as you have seen, to the four-footed plan, since the bodies of some (as the bats) are fitted for flying and the bodies of some (as the whales) are fitted for swimming. People are exceptions, too, for they walk on "all fours" only when they are very young and have to creep. In one way, though, mammals are all alike—the mothers all have milk to feed to their young.