My friend likes to read stories about nature. M. Prishvin stories about nature and animals for children read online

Many parents take the choice of children's books very seriously and carefully. Publications for children should awaken the warmest feelings in the tender souls of children. Therefore, it is best to stop your choice on short stories about nature, its greatness and beauty. A true naturalist, connoisseur of swamps and forests, an excellent observer of the living life of nature is famous writer Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin (1873 – 1954). His stories, even the smallest ones, are simple and understandable. The author's skill, his manner of conveying all the unsurpassedness surrounding nature admire! He describes the sound of the wind, the smells of the forest, the habits of animals and their behavior, the rustling of leaves with such accuracy and authenticity that when reading, you involuntarily find yourself in this environment, experiencing everything along with the writer.

One day I walked through the forest all day and in the evening I returned home with rich booty. I took the heavy bag off my shoulders and began to lay out my belongings on the table. Read...

In one swamp, on a hummock under a willow, wild mallard ducklings hatched. Soon after this, their mother led them to the lake along a cow path. I noticed them from a distance, hid behind a tree, and the ducklings came right to my feet. Read...

A small wild teal duck finally decided to move her ducklings from the forest, bypassing the village, into the lake to freedom. Read...

We wandered in the forest in the spring and observed the life of hollow birds: woodpeckers, owls. Suddenly, in the direction where we had previously planned interesting tree, we heard the sound of a saw. Read...

Once I was walking along the bank of our stream and noticed a hedgehog under a bush. He noticed me too, curled up and started tapping: knock-knock-knock. It was very similar, as if a car was walking in the distance. Read...

My brother and I always had fun with them when dandelions ripened. It used to be that we were going somewhere on our business, he was in front, I was at the heel. Read...

Once we had it - we caught a young crane and gave it a frog. He swallowed it. They gave me another - I swallowed it. The third, fourth, fifth, and then we didn’t have any more frogs at hand. Read...

I’ll tell you an incident that happened to me during the hungry year. A young yellow-throated rook got into the habit of flying onto my windowsill. Apparently he was an orphan. Read...

Yarik became very friendly with young Ryabchik and played with him all day. So, he spent a week in the game, and then I moved with him from this city to a deserted house in the forest, six miles from Ryabchik. Before I had time to get settled and properly look around the new place, Yarik suddenly disappeared. Read...

My dog ​​puppy is called Romulus, but I prefer to call him Roma or just Romka, and occasionally I call him Roman Vasilich. Read...

All hunters know how difficult it is to teach a dog not to chase animals, cats and hares, but to look only for birds. Read...

A dog, just like a fox and a cat, approaches its prey. And suddenly it freezes. Hunters call this a stance. Read...

Three years ago I was in Zavidovo, the farm of the Military Hunting Society. Gamekeeper Nikolai Kamolov invited me to look at his nephew’s one-year-old pointer dog, Lada, at the forest lodge. Read...

You can easily understand why a sika deer has frequent white spots scattered everywhere on its skin. Read...

I heard in Siberia, near Lake Baikal, from one citizen about a bear and, I admit, I didn’t believe it. But he assured me that in the old days this case was even published in a Siberian magazine under the title: “A man with a bear against wolves.”

Hunting foxes with flags is fun! They will go around the fox, recognize its bed, and from the bushes a mile or two around the sleeping one will hang a rope with red flags. The fox is very afraid of colored flags and the smell of red, frightened, looking for a way out of the terrible circle. Read...

I got a speck of dust in my eye. While I was taking it out, another speck got into my other eye. Read...

The hazel grouse has two salvations in the snow: the first is to sleep warmly under the snow, and the second is that the snow drags with it to the ground from the trees various seeds for the hazel grouse to eat. Under the snow, the hazel grouse looks for seeds, makes passages there and opens upward for air. Read...

Today, looking at the tracks of animals and birds in the snow, this is what I read from these tracks: a squirrel made its way through the snow into the moss, took out two nuts hidden there since the fall, ate them right away - I found the shells. Read...

At midday the snow began to melt from the hot rays of the sun. Two days will pass, sometimes three, and spring will begin to hum. At midday the sun is so steamy that all the snow around our house on wheels is covered with some kind of black dust. Read...

Stories and novellas by Mikhail Prishvin are intended for readers of all ages. You can start reading a huge number of stories in kindergarten. At the same time, children are imbued with the secrets of nature, respect for it and its inhabitants is fostered. Other works are studied even at school. And for adults, Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin left his legacy: his diaries and memoirs are distinguished by very detailed narration and description environment in the difficult twenties and thirties. They are of interest to teachers, local historians, memory buffs and historians, geographers and even hunters. Mikhail Prishvin's short but very meaningful stories vividly convey to us what we so rarely encounter today. The beauty and life of nature, remote unfamiliar places - all this today is so far from dusty and noisy megacities. Maybe many of us would be happy to immediately go on a short trip through the forest, but it won’t work out. Then we’ll open Prishvin’s book of stories and be transported to places far away and desired by our hearts.

Stories about nature in the form of short notes introduce the surrounding world of plants and animals, the life of the forest and seasonal phenomena nature observed in different time of the year.

Small sketches of each season convey the mood of nature in small works, written by the creators of Russian prose. Small stories, sketches and notes are collected on the pages of our website in a small collection short stories about nature for children and schoolchildren.

Nature in short stories by M. M. Prishvin

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin is an unsurpassed master of the short genre, in his notes he so subtly describes nature in just two or three sentences. Short stories by M. M. Prishvin are sketches about nature, observations of plants and animals, short sketches from the life of the forest at different times of the year. From the book "Seasons" (selected sketches):

Nature in short stories by K. D. Ushinsky

Konstantin Dmitrievich Ushinsky conveyed his pedagogical experience, ideas, quotes that became the basis for human upbringing in his works. His tales about nature convey the limitless possibilities of the native word and are filled with patriotic feelings for native land, teach kindness and respect for the environment and nature.

Stories about plants and animals

Tales of the Seasons

Nature in short stories by K. G. Paustovsky

An incredible description of nature in its various manifestations, using all the richness of the Russian language dictionary, can be found in the short stories of Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky. In surprisingly light and accessible lines, the author’s prose, like the music of a composer, comes to life in the stories for a brief moment, transporting the reader into the living world of Russian nature.

Nature in short stories by A. N. Tumbasov

Anatoly Nikolaevich Tumbasov's sketches about nature are small essays for each season. Together with the author, take your own little trip to amazing world nature.

Seasons in the stories of Russian writers

Short stories by Russian writers, whose lines are inherently united by a feeling of love for their native nature.

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Retelling a story requires not only memorizing the text, but also thoughtfulness about the words and the content of the story.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin “The Last Mushrooms”

The wind scattered, the linden tree sighed and seemed to exhale a million golden leaves. The wind scattered again, blew with all its might - and then all the leaves flew off at once, and only rare gold coins remained on the old linden tree, on its black branches.

So the wind played with the linden tree, got close to the cloud, blew, and the cloud splashed and immediately burst into rain.

The wind caught up and drove another cloud, and from under this cloud bright rays burst out, and the wet forests and fields sparkled.

The red leaves were covered with saffron milk caps, but I found a few saffron caps, aspen boletuses, and boletus mushrooms.

These were the last mushrooms.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin “Conversation of trees”

The buds open, chocolate, with green tails, and on each green beak hangs a large transparent drop.

You take one bud, rub it between your fingers, and then for a long time everything smells like the fragrant resin of birch, poplar or bird cherry.

You sniff a bird cherry bud and immediately remember how you used to climb up a tree for shiny, black-lacquered berries. I ate handfuls straight from the bones, but nothing but good came from it.

The evening is warm, and there is such silence, as if something should happen in such silence. And then the trees begin to whisper among themselves: a birch with another white birch echoes from afar; a young aspen came out into the clearing like a green candle, and called to itself a greener aspen candle, waving a twig; The bird cherry gives the bird cherry a branch with open buds.

If you compare with us, we echo sounds, but they have aroma.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin “Birch bark tube”

I found an amazing birch bark tube. When a person cuts himself a piece of birch bark on a birch tree, the rest of the birch bark near the cut begins to curl into a tube. The tube will dry out and curl up tightly. There are so many of them on birch trees that you don’t even pay attention.

But today I wanted to see if there was anything in such a tube.

And in the very first tube I found a good nut, grabbed so tightly that it was difficult to push it out with a stick.

There were no hazel trees around the birch tree. How did he get there?

“The squirrel probably hid it there, making its winter supplies,” I thought. “She knew that the tube would roll up tighter and tighter and grab the nut tighter and tighter so that it wouldn’t fall out.”

But later I realized that it was not a squirrel, but a nutcracker bird that stuck the nut, maybe stealing it from the squirrel’s nest.

Looking at my birch bark tube, I made another discovery: I settled under the cover of a walnut - who would have thought? — the spider and the entire inside of the tube were covered with its web.

Eduard Yurievich Shim “The Frog and the Lizard”

- Hello, Lizard! Why are you without a tail?

— The puppy still has it in his teeth.

- Hee hee! I, Little Frog, even have a small tail. A. you couldn’t save it!

- Hello, Little Frog! Where is your ponytail?

- My tail has withered...

- Hee hee! And for me, Lizard, a new one has grown!

Eduard Yuryevich Shim "Lily of the Valley"

- Which flower in our forest is the most beautiful, most delicate, most fragrant?

- Of course it's me. Lily of the valley!

- What kind of flowers do you have?

“My flowers are like snow bells on a thin stem.” It's like they glow in the twilight.

- What is the smell?

- The smell is so bad you can’t breathe it in!

- What do you have on your stem now, in place of the little white bells?

- Red berries. Beautiful too. What a sight for sore eyes! But don’t tear them off, don’t touch them!

- Why do you need it? delicate flower, poisonous berries?

- So that you, sweet tooth, don’t eat it!

Eduard Yurievich Shim “Stripes and Specks”

Two kids met in a clearing: Little Roe, a little forest goat, and Kabanchik, a little forest pig.

They stood nose to nose and looked at each other.

- Oh, how funny! - says Kosulenok. - All striped, as if you were painted on purpose!

- Oh, how funny you are! - says Kabanchik. - All covered in spots, as if you were splashed on purpose!

- I wear spots so that I can play hide and seek better! - said Kosulyonok.

“And I’m striped so I can play hide and seek better!” - said Boar.

- It's better to hide with spots!

- No, it’s better with stripes!

- No, with spots!

- No, with stripes!

And they argued, and they argued! No one wants to give in

And at this time the branches crackled and the dead wood crunched. The Bear and her cubs came out into the clearing. The Pig saw her and goaded into the thick grass.

All the grass is striped, striped, - the Pig disappeared in it, as if he had fallen through the ground.

The Little Roe Bear saw and shot into the bushes. The sun breaks through the leaves, there are yellow spots and spots everywhere - the Little Roe disappeared in the bushes, as if he had never existed.

The Bear did not notice them and passed by.

This means that both of them have learned to play hide and seek well. There was no point in arguing.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Swans"

Swans flew in a herd from the cold side to warm lands. They flew across the sea. They flew day and night, and another day and another night they flew, without resting, over the water. There was a full month in the sky, and the swans below them saw blue water.

All the swans were exhausted, flapping their wings; but they did not stop and flew on. Old, strong swans flew in front, and younger and weaker ones flew behind.

One young swan flew behind everyone. His strength weakened.

He flapped his wings and could not fly any further. Then he, spreading his wings, went down. He descended closer and closer to the water, and his comrades further and further became whiter in the monthly light. The swan landed on the water and folded its wings. The sea rose beneath him and rocked him.

A flock of swans was visible as a white line in the bright sky. And in the silence you could barely hear the sound of their wings ringing. When they were completely out of sight, the swan bent its neck back and closed its eyes. He did not move, and only the sea, rising and falling in a wide strip, raised and lowered him.

Before dawn, a light breeze began to sway the sea. And the water splashed into the white chest of the swan. The swan opened his eyes. The dawn reddened in the east, and the moon and stars became paler.

The swan sighed, stretched out its neck and flapped its wings, rose up and flew, clinging to the water with its wings. He rose higher and higher and flew alone over the quietly swaying waves.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Cheryomukha"

One bird cherry tree grew on the hazel path and was choking out the hazel bushes. I thought for a long time whether to chop it or not to chop it, I was sorry. This bird cherry grew not as a bush, but as a tree, three inches in diameter and four fathoms in height, all branched, curly and all sprinkled with bright, white, fragrant flowers. Her scent could be heard from afar. I wouldn’t have cut it down, but one of the workers (I had previously told him to cut down all the bird cherry trees) started cutting it down without me. When I arrived, he had already cut an inch and a half into it, and the juice was still squelching under the ax when it fell into the same chopper. “There’s nothing to do, apparently it’s fate,” I thought, I took the ax myself and began to chop together with the man.

Every job is fun to work on and fun to cut. It’s fun to thrust the ax deeply at an angle, and then cut straight down what was cut down, and continue to cut further and further into the tree.

I completely forgot about the bird cherry tree and was only thinking about how to knock it down as quickly as possible. When I was out of breath and put the ax down, I ran into a tree with the man and tried to knock him down. We swayed: the tree shook its leaves, and dew dripped from it and white, fragrant flower petals fell on us.

At the same time, something seemed to scream and crunch in the middle of the tree; we lay down, and as if we were crying, there was a crack in the middle, and the tree fell down. It tore at the cut and, swaying, lay like branches and flowers on the grass. The branches and flowers trembled after the fall and stopped.

“Eh, something important! - said the man. “It’s such a pity!” And I was so sorry that I quickly moved to other workers.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “Apple Trees”

I planted two hundred young apple trees and for three years, in spring and autumn, I dug them in, and wrapped them in straw to prevent hares for the winter. In the fourth year, when the snow melted, I went to look at my apple trees. They got fatter in the winter; the bark on them was glossy and plump; the branches were all intact and on all the tips and forks there were round flower buds, like peas. In some places the buds had already burst and the scarlet edges of flower leaves were visible. I knew that all the blossoms would be flowers and fruits, and I rejoiced looking at my apple trees. But when I unwrapped the first apple tree, I saw that below, above the ground, the bark of the apple tree was gnawed all the way down to the wood, like a white ring. The mice did it. I unwrapped another apple tree - and the same thing happened on the other one. Of the two hundred apple trees, not a single one remained intact. I covered the gnawed places with resin and wax; but when the apple trees blossomed, their flowers immediately fell asleep. Small leaves came out - and they withered and dried up. The bark wrinkled and turned black. Of the two hundred apple trees, only nine remained. On these nine apple trees the bark was not completely eaten away, but a strip of bark remained in the white ring. On these strips, in the place where the bark separated, growths appeared, and although the apple trees were sick, they continued to grow. The rest all disappeared, only shoots appeared below the gnawed places, and then all of them were wild.

The bark of trees is the same as the veins of a person: blood flows through the veins through a person, and through the bark the sap flows through the tree and rises into branches, leaves and flowers. You can hollow out the entire inside of a tree, as happens with old vines, but as long as the bark is alive, the tree will live; but if the bark is gone, the tree is gone. If a person’s veins are cut, he will die, firstly, because the blood will flow out, and secondly, because the blood will no longer flow through the body.

So the birch tree dries up when the guys dig a hole to drink the sap, and all the sap flows out.

So the apple trees disappeared because the mice ate up all the bark all around, and the juice could no longer flow from the roots into the branches, leaves and flowers.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “Hares”

Description

Hares feed at night. In winter, forest hares feed on tree bark, field hares on winter crops and grass, and bean hares on grain grains on threshing floors. During the night, hares make a deep, visible trail in the snow. Hares are hunted by people, dogs, wolves, foxes, crows, and eagles. If the hare had walked simply and straightly, then in the morning he would have been found by the trail and caught; but the hare is cowardly, and cowardice saves him.

The hare walks through fields and forests at night without fear and makes straight tracks; but as soon as morning comes, his enemies wake up: the hare begins to hear the barking of dogs, the screeching of sleighs, the voices of men, the crackling of a wolf in the forest, and begins to rush from side to side out of fear. He will gallop forward, get scared of something and run back in his tracks. If he hears something else, he will jump to the side with all his might and gallop away from the previous trail. Again something knocks - again the hare turns back and again jumps to the side. When it becomes light, he will lie down.

The next morning, the hunters begin to disassemble the hare's trail, get confused by the double tracks and distant jumps, and are surprised at the hare's cunning. But the hare didn’t even think of being cunning. He's just afraid of everything.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “The Owl and the Hare”

It got dark. The owls began to fly in the forest along the ravine, looking out for prey.

A big hare jumped out into the clearing and began to preen himself. The old owl looked at the hare and sat down on a branch, and the young owl said:

- Why don’t you catch the hare?

The old one says:

- It’s beyond your strength - the Russian is a great man: you cling to him, and he will drag you into the thicket.

And the young owl says:

“And I’ll grab hold of the tree with one paw and quickly hold on to the tree with the other.”

And the young owl set off after the hare, grabbed its back with its paw so that all its claws were gone, and prepared its other paw to cling to the tree. As the hare dragged the owl, she clung to the tree with her other paw and thought: “He won’t leave.”

The hare rushed and tore the owl apart. One paw remained on the tree, the other on the hare's back.

The next year, the hunter killed this hare and was amazed that it had overgrown owl claws in its back.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Bulka"

An officer's story

I had a little face... Her name was Bulka. She was all black, only the tips of her front paws were white.

In all faces, the lower jaw is longer than the upper and the upper teeth extend beyond the lower ones; but Bulka’s lower jaw protruded forward so much that a finger could be placed between the lower and upper teeth. Bulka's face was wide; the eyes are large, black and shiny; and white teeth and fangs always stuck out. He looked like a blackamoor. Bulka was quiet and did not bite, but he was very strong and tenacious. When he would cling to something, he would clench his teeth and hang like a rag, and, like a tick, he could not be torn off.

Once they let him attack a bear, and he grabbed the bear’s ear and hung like a leech. The bear beat him with his paws, pressed him to himself, threw him from side to side, but could not tear him away and fell on his head to crush Bulka; but Bulka held on to it until they poured cold water on him.

I took him as a puppy and raised him myself. When I went to serve in the Caucasus, I didn’t want to take him and left him quietly, and ordered him to be locked up. At the first station, I was about to board another transfer station, when suddenly I saw something black and shiny rolling along the road. It was Bulka in his copper collar. He flew at full speed towards the station. He rushed towards me, licked my hand and stretched out in the shadows under the cart. His tongue stuck out the entire palm of his hand. He then pulled it back, swallowing drool, then again stuck it out to the whole palm. He was in a hurry, did not have time to breathe, his sides were jumping. He turned from side to side and tapped his tail on the ground.

I found out later that after me he broke through the frame and jumped out of the window and, right in my wake, galloped along the road and rode like that for twenty miles in the heat.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Bulka and the Boar"

Once in the Caucasus we went boar hunting, and Bulka came running with me. As soon as the hounds started driving, Bulka rushed towards their voice and disappeared into the forest. This was in November: wild boars and pigs are very fat then.

In the Caucasus, in the forests where wild boars live, there are many delicious fruits: wild grapes, cones, apples, pears, blackberries, acorns, blackthorns. And when all these fruits are ripe and touched by frost, the wild boars eat up and grow fat.

At that time, the boar is so fat that it cannot run under the dogs for long. When they have been chasing him for two hours, he gets stuck in a thicket and stops. Then the hunters run to the place where he stands and shoot. You can tell by the barking of dogs whether a boar has stopped or is running. If he runs, the dogs bark and squeal, as if they are being beaten; and if he stands, then they bark as if at a person and howl.

During this hunt I ran through the forest for a long time, but not once did I manage to cross the path of the boar. Finally, I heard the prolonged barking and howling of hound dogs and ran to that place. I was already close to the wild boar. I could already hear more frequent crackling sounds. It was a boar with dogs tossing and turning. But you could hear from the barking that they did not take him, but only circled around him. Suddenly I heard something rustling from behind and saw Bulka. He apparently lost the hounds in the forest and got confused, and now he heard their barking and, just like me, he rolled in that direction as fast as he could. He ran across the clearing, through the tall grass, and all I could see from him was his black head and a bitten tongue in white teeth. I called out to him, but he did not look back, overtook me and disappeared into the thicket. I ran after him, but the further I walked, the more dense the forest became. Twigs knocked my hat off, hit me in the face, thorn needles clung to my dress. I was already close to barking, but I couldn’t see anything.

Suddenly I heard the dogs bark louder, something crackled loudly, and the boar began to puff and wheeze. I thought that now Bulka had gotten to him and was messing with him. With all my strength I ran through the thicket to that place. In the deepest thicket I saw a motley hound dog. She barked and howled in one place, and three steps away from her something was fussing and turning black.

When I moved closer, I examined the boar and heard Bulka squeal piercingly. The boar grunted and leaned towards the hound - the hound tucked its tail and jumped away. I could see the side of the boar and its head. I aimed at the side and fired. I saw that I got it. The boar grunted and rattled away from me more often. The dogs squealed and barked after him, and I rushed after them more often. Suddenly, almost under my feet, I saw and heard something. It was Bulka. He lay on his side and screamed. There was a pool of blood underneath him. I thought, “The dog is missing”; but I had no time for him now, I pressed on. Soon I saw a wild boar. The dogs grabbed him from behind, and he turned to one side or the other. When the boar saw me, he poked his head towards me. I shot another time, almost point-blank, so that the bristles on the boar caught fire, and the boar wheezed, staggered, and the whole carcass slammed heavily to the ground.

When I approached, the boar was already dead and was only heaving and twitching here and there. But the dogs, bristling, some tore at his belly and legs, while others lapped up the blood from the wound.

Then I remembered about Bulka and went to look for him. He crawled towards me and moaned. I walked up to him, sat down and looked at his wound. His stomach was torn open, and a whole lump of intestines from his stomach was dragging along the dry leaves. When my comrades came to me, we set Bulka’s intestines and sewed up his stomach. While they were stitching up my stomach and piercing the skin, he kept licking my hands.

They tied the boar to the horse's tail to take it out of the forest, and they put Bulka on the horse and brought him home.

Bulka was ill for six weeks and recovered.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Milton and Bulka"

I got myself a pointing dog for pheasants.

This dog's name was Milton: she was tall, thin, speckled gray, with long wings and ears, and very strong and smart.

They didn’t fight with Bulka. Not a single dog ever snapped at Bulka. Sometimes he would just show his teeth, and the dogs would tuck their tails and move away.

Once I went with Milton to buy pheasants. Suddenly Bulka ran after me into the forest. I wanted to drive him away, but I couldn’t. And it was a long way to go home to take him. I thought that he would not disturb me, and moved on; but as soon as Milton smelled a pheasant in the grass and began to look, Bulka rushed forward and began poking around in all directions. He tried before Milton to raise a pheasant. He heard something in the grass, jumped and spun; but his instincts were bad, and he could not find the trail alone, but looked at Milton and ran to where Milton was going. As soon as Milton sets off on the trail, Bulka runs ahead. I recalled Bulka, beat him, but could not do anything with him. As soon as Milton began to search, he rushed forward and interfered with him. I wanted to go home because I thought that my hunt was ruined, but Milton came up with a better idea than me how to deceive Bulka. This is what he did: as soon as Bulka runs ahead of him, Milton will leave the trail, turn in the other direction and pretend that he is looking. Bulka will rush to where Milton pointed, and Milton will look back at me, wave his tail and follow the real trail again. Bulka again runs to Milton, runs ahead, and again Milton will deliberately take ten steps to the side, deceive Bulka and again lead me straight. So throughout the hunt he deceived Bulka and did not let him ruin the matter.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “Turtle”

Once I went hunting with Milton. Near the forest he began to search, stretched out his tail, raised his ears and began to sniff. I prepared my gun and went after him. I thought he was looking for partridge, pheasant or hare. But Milton did not go into the forest, but into the field. I followed him and looked ahead. Suddenly I saw what he was looking for. A small turtle, the size of a hat, ran ahead of him. The bare dark gray head on a long neck was stretched out like a pestle; the turtle moved its bare paws widely, and its back was completely covered with bark.

When she saw the dog, she hid her legs and head and sank down on the grass, so that only one shell was visible. Milton grabbed it and began to gnaw it, but could not bite through it, because the turtle has the same shell on its belly as on its back. Only in front, behind and on the sides there are openings where it allows the head, legs and tail to pass through.

I took the turtle away from Milton and looked at how its back was painted, and what kind of shell it was, and how it hid there. When you hold it in your hands and look under the shell, it’s only inside, like in a basement, that you see something black and alive.

I threw the turtle on the grass and moved on, but Milton did not want to leave it, but carried it in his teeth after me. Suddenly Milton squealed and let her go. The turtle in his mouth released its paw and scratched at his mouth. He got so angry with her for this that he started barking and again grabbed her and carried her after me. I again ordered to quit, but Milton did not listen to me. Then I took the turtle from him and threw it away. But he didn't leave her. He began to hurry with his paws to dig a hole next to her. And when he dug a hole, he threw the turtle into the hole with his paws and buried it with earth.

Turtles live both on land and in water, like snakes and frogs. They hatch children with eggs, and they lay the eggs on the ground and do not hatch them, but the eggs themselves, like fish eggs, burst and hatch turtles. Turtles are small, no larger than a saucer, and large, three arshins in length and weighing twenty pounds. Large turtles live in the seas.

One turtle lays hundreds of eggs in the spring. A turtle's shell is its ribs. Only humans and other animals have separate ribs, but a turtle’s ribs are fused into a shell. The main thing is that all animals have ribs inside, under the meat, but a turtle has ribs on top, and the meat under them.

Nikolai Ivanovich Sladkov

Day and night, rustling sounds are heard in the forest. These are the trees, bushes and flowers whispering. Birds and animals chatter. Even fish say words. You just need to be able to hear.

They will not reveal their secrets to the indifferent and indifferent. But they will tell the inquisitive and patient everything about themselves.

In winter and summer, rustling sounds are heard,

In winter and summer, conversations do not stop.

Day and night...

Nikolai Ivanovich Sladkov “Forest Strongmen”

The first drop of rain hit and the competition began.

Three competed: boletus mushroom, boletus mushroom and moss mushroom.

The boletus was the first to squeeze out the weight. He picked up a birch leaf and a snail.

The second number was the boletus mushroom. He picked up three aspen leaves and a frog.

Mokhovik was third. He got excited and boasted. He parted the moss with his head, crawled under a thick twig and began to squeeze. I stung, stung, stung, stung, but I didn’t squeeze it out. As soon as he split his hat in two, he looked like he had a harelip.

The winner was the boletus.

His reward is the scarlet hat of the champion.

Nikolai Ivanovich Sladkov “Songs under the ice”

This happened in winter. My skis started singing! I was skiing across the lake, and the skis were singing. They sang well, like birds.

And there is snow and frost all around. Nostrils stick together and teeth freeze.

The forest is silent, the lake is silent. The roosters in the village are silent. And the skis sing!

And their song is like a stream, it flows and rings. But it’s not the skis that really sing, even the wooden ones! Someone is singing under the ice, right under my feet.

If I had left then, the under-ice song would have remained a wonderful forest mystery. But I didn't leave...

I lay down on the ice and hung my head into the black hole.

Over the winter, the water in the lake dried up, and the ice hung over the water like an azure ceiling. Where it hung, and where it collapsed, and steam curled from the dark holes. But it’s not the fish that sing there with bird voices? Maybe there really is a stream there? Or maybe icicles born from steam are ringing?

And the song rings. She is alive and clean; Neither the stream, nor the fish, nor the icicles can sing like this. Only one creature in the world can sing like this - a bird...

I hit the ice with my ski and the song stopped. I stood quietly - the song began to ring again.

Then I hit the ice with my ski as hard as I could. And now a miracle bird flew out of the dark basement. She sat down on the edge of the hole and bowed to me three times.

- Hello, ice songster!

The bird nodded again and sang an under-ice song in plain sight.

- But I know you! - I said. - You are a dipper - a water sparrow!

Dipper did not answer: he only knew how to bow and curtsy politely. Again he slipped under the ice, and his song thundered from there. So what if it's winter? There is no wind or frost under the ice. Under the ice black water and a mysterious green twilight. There, if you whistle louder, everything will ring: the echo will rush, hitting the icy ceiling, hung with ringing icicles. Why shouldn't the dipper sing?

Why shouldn’t we listen to him!

Valentin Dmitrievich Berestov “Honest caterpillar”

The caterpillar considered itself very beautiful and did not let a single drop of dew pass without looking at it.

- How good I am! - the Caterpillar rejoiced, looking with pleasure at its flat face and arching its furry back to see two golden stripes on it. “It’s a pity that no one, no one notices this.”

But one day she got lucky. A girl walked through the meadow and picked flowers. The caterpillar climbed onto the most beautiful flower and began to wait. And the girl saw her and said:

- That's disgusting! It's disgusting to even look at you!

- Ah well! - the Caterpillar got angry. “Then I give my honest caterpillar word that no one will ever, anywhere, for anything, under any circumstances, under any circumstances, see me again!”

You gave your word - you need to keep it, even if you are a Caterpillar.

And the Caterpillar crawled up the tree. From trunk to branch, from branch to branch, from branch to branch, from branch to twig, from twig to leaf. She took out a silk thread from her abdomen and began to wrap herself around it.

She worked for a long time and finally made a cocoon.

- Phew, how tired I am! - the Caterpillar sighed. - I'm completely exhausted.

It was warm and dark in the cocoon, there was nothing more to do, and the Caterpillar fell asleep.

She woke up because her back was itching terribly. Then the Caterpillar began to rub against the walls of the cocoon. She rubbed and rubbed, rubbed right through them and fell out. But she fell somehow strangely - not down, but up.

And then the Caterpillar saw the same girl in the same meadow.

"Horrible! - thought the Caterpillar. “I may not be beautiful, it’s not my fault, but now everyone will know that I’m also a liar.” I gave an honest assurance that no one would see me, and I didn’t keep it. A shame!"

And the Caterpillar fell into the grass.

And the girl saw her and said:

- Such a beauty!

“So trust people,” grumbled the Caterpillar. “Today they say one thing, and tomorrow they say something completely different.”

Just in case, she looked into the dew drop. What's happened? In front of her is an unfamiliar face with a long, very long mustache. The caterpillar tried to arch its back and saw that large multi-colored wings appeared on its back.

- Oh, that's it! - she guessed. - A miracle happened to me. The most ordinary miracle: I became a Butterfly! This happens.

And she merrily circled over the meadow, because she did not give the butterfly’s honest word that no one would ever see her.

Mikhail Prishvin “Spiderweb”

It was a sunny day, so bright that the rays penetrated even the darkest forest. I walked forward along such a narrow clearing that some trees on one side bent over to the other, and this tree whispered something with its leaves to another tree on the other side. The wind was very weak, but it was still there: the aspens were babbling above, and below, as always, the ferns were swaying importantly.

Suddenly I noticed: from side to side across the clearing, from left to right, some small fiery arrows were constantly flying here and there. As always in such cases, I focused my attention on the arrows and soon noticed that the arrows were moving with the wind, from left to right.

I also noticed that on the trees, their usual shoots-legs came out of their orange shirts and the wind blew away these no longer needed shirts from each tree in a great multitude: each new paw on the tree was born in an orange shirt, and now as many paws, as many shirts flew off - thousands, millions...

I saw how one of these flying shirts met one of the flying arrows and suddenly hung in the air, and the arrow disappeared.

I realized then that the shirt was hanging on a cobweb that was invisible to me, and this gave me the opportunity to approach the cobweb point-blank and fully understand the phenomenon of the arrows: the wind blows the cobweb towards a sunbeam, the shiny cobweb flashes from the light, and this makes it seem as if the arrow is flying.

At the same time, I realized that there were a great many of these cobwebs stretched across the clearing, and, therefore, if I walked, I tore them apart, without knowing it, by the thousands.

It seemed to me that I had such an important goal - to learn in the forest to be its real master - that I had the right to tear all the cobwebs and force all the forest spiders to work for my goal. But for some reason I spared this cobweb that I noticed: after all, it was she who, thanks to the shirt hanging on it, helped me unravel the phenomenon of the arrows.

Was I cruel, tearing apart thousands of webs?

Not at all: I didn’t see them - my cruelty was a consequence of my physical strength.

Was I merciful, bending my weary back to save the web? I don’t think so: in the forest I behave like a student, and if I could, I wouldn’t touch anything.

I attribute the salvation of this web to the action of my concentrated attention.

Sergey Aksakov “Nest”

Having noticed the nest of some bird, most often a dawn or redstart, we always went to watch the mother sitting on her eggs.

Sometimes, through carelessness, we scared her away from the nest and then, carefully parting the thorny branches of barberry or gooseberry, we looked at how they lay in the nest small-small, mottled testicles.

It sometimes happened that the mother, bored with our curiosity, abandoned the nest; then, seeing that the bird had not been in the nest for several days and that it was not calling or hovering around us, as always happened, we took out the testicles or the entire nest and took it to our room, considering that we were the rightful owners of the home left by the mother .

When the bird safely, despite our interference, hatched its eggs and we suddenly found naked babies instead of them, constantly opening their huge mouths with a plaintive quiet squeak, we saw how the mother flew in and fed them flies and worms... My God, what a we have joy!

We never stopped watching how the little birds grew, gave gifts and finally left their nest.

Konstantin Paustovsky “Gift”

Every time autumn approached, conversations began that much in nature was not arranged the way we would like. Our winter is long and protracted, summer is much shorter than winter, and autumn passes instantly and leaves the impression of a golden bird flashing outside the window.

The forester’s grandson Vanya Malyavin, a boy of about fifteen, loved to listen to our conversations. He often came to our village from his grandfather’s lodge on Lake Urzhenskoe and brought either a bag of porcini mushrooms or a sieve of lingonberries, or he would just come running to stay with us: listen to conversations and read the magazine “Around the World.”

Thick bound volumes of this magazine lay in the closet along with oars, lanterns and an old beehive. The hive was painted with white glue paint.

It fell off the dry wood in large pieces, and the wood under the paint smelled like old wax.

One day Vanya brought a small birch tree that had been dug up by the roots.

He covered the roots with damp moss and wrapped them in matting.

“This is for you,” he said and blushed. - Present. Plant it in a wooden tub and place it in a warm room - it will be green all winter.

- Why did you dig it up, weirdo? - Reuben asked.

“You said that you feel sorry for summer,” Vanya answered. “My grandfather gave me the idea.” “Run,” he says, to last year’s burnt area, there are two-year-old birches growing like grass—there’s no way through them. Dig it up and take it to Rum Isaevich (that’s what my grandfather called Reuben). He worries about summer, so he will have a summer memory for the cold winter. It’s certainly fun to look at a green leaf when the snow is pouring out of a bag outside.”

“Not only about summer, I regret autumn even more,” said Reuben and touched the thin leaves of the birch.

We brought a box from the barn, filled it to the top with earth and transplanted a small birch tree into it.

The box was placed in the brightest and warmest room by the window, and a day later the drooping branches of the birch rose up, she was all cheerful, and even her leaves were already rustling when a draft wind rushed into the room and slammed the door in anger.

Autumn settled in the garden, but the leaves of our birch remained green and alive. The maples glowed dark purple, the euonymus turned pink, and the wild grapes on the gazebo withered.

Even here and there on the birch trees in the garden yellow strands appeared, like the first gray hair of a still young person.

But the birch tree in the room seemed to be getting younger. We did not notice any signs of fading in her.

One night the first frost came. He breathed cold air onto the windows in the house, and they fogged up, sprinkled grainy frost on the roofs, and crunched under his feet.

Only the stars seemed to rejoice at the first frost and sparkled much brighter than on warm summer nights.

That night I woke up from a drawn-out and pleasant sound - a shepherd's horn sang in the darkness. Outside the windows the dawn was barely noticeable blue.

I got dressed and went out into the garden. The sharp air washed my face with cold water - the dream immediately passed.

Dawn was breaking. The blue in the east gave way to a crimson haze, similar to the smoke of a fire.

This darkness brightened, became more and more transparent, through it distant and gentle lands of golden and pink clouds were already visible.

There was no wind, but the leaves kept falling and falling in the garden.

Over that one night, the birches turned yellow to the very tops, and the leaves fell from them in frequent and sad rain.

I returned to the rooms: they were warm and sleepy.

In the pale light of dawn there was a small birch tree standing in a tub, and I suddenly noticed that almost all of it had turned yellow that night, and several lemon leaves were already lying on the floor.

Room warmth did not save the birch. A day later, she flew around all over, as if she did not want to lag behind her adult friends, who were crumbling in cold forests, groves, and spacious clearings damp in autumn.

Vanya Malyavin, Reuben and all of us were upset. We have already gotten used to the idea that on snowy winter days the birch tree will turn green in rooms illuminated by the white sun and the crimson flame of cheerful stoves. The last memory of summer has disappeared.

A forester I knew grinned when we told him about our attempt to save green foliage on a birch tree.

“It’s the law,” he said. - Law of nature. If the trees did not shed their leaves for the winter, they would die from many things - from the weight of the snow, which would grow on the leaves and break the thickest branches, and from the fact that by autumn a lot of salts harmful to the tree would accumulate in the foliage, and, finally, from the fact that the leaves would continue to evaporate moisture in the middle of winter, and the frozen ground would not give it to the roots of the tree, and the tree would inevitably die from winter drought, from thirst.

And grandfather Mitri, nicknamed “Ten Percent,” learned about this little story with the birch tree and interpreted it in his own way.

“You, my dear,” he said to Reuben, “live with mine, then argue.” Otherwise, you keep arguing with me, but it’s clear that you haven’t had enough time to think through it yet. We, the old ones, are more capable of thinking. We have little to worry about - so we figure out what’s done on earth and what its explanation is. Take, say, this birch tree. Don’t tell me about the forester, I know in advance everything he will say. The forester is a cunning guy; when he lived in Moscow, they say he cooked his food using electric current. Could this be or not?

“Maybe,” Reuben answered.

- “Maybe, maybe”! - his grandfather mimicked him. -Have you seen this electric current? How did you see him when he has no visibility, like air? Listen to the birch tree. Is there friendship between people or not? That's what it is. And people get carried away. They think that friendship is given to them alone, and they boast before every living creature. And friendship, brother, is all around, wherever you look. What can I say, a cow is friends with a cow, and a finch with a finch. Kill a crane, and the crane will wither away, cry, and won’t find a place for herself. And every grass and tree, too, must sometimes have friendship. How can your birch tree not fly around when all its companions in the forests have flown around? With what eyes will she look at them in the spring, what will she say when they have suffered in the winter, and she warmed herself by the stove, warm, well-fed, and clean? You also need to have a conscience.

“Well, grandfather, you screwed it up,” said Reuben. - You won't get along.

Grandfather chuckled.

— Weak? - he asked sarcastically. -Are you giving up? Don't get involved with me, it's a useless matter.

Grandfather left, tapping his stick, very pleased, confident that he had won all of us in this argument and, along with us, the forester.

We planted the birch tree in the garden, under the fence, and it yellow leaves collected and dried between the pages of Around the World.

Ivan Bunin "Birch Forest"

Behind the wheat, behind the birch, a silky birch bush, dark green, appeared.

The place here is steppe, flat, seems very remote: you see nothing but the sky and endless bushes when you enter Lanskoye.

Everywhere the earth was lushly overgrown, and here it was just an impassable thicket.

Herbs - waist-deep; where there are bushes, you can’t mow them.

Waist-deep and flowers. The flowers - white, blue, pink, yellow - dazzle your eyes. Entire glades are filled with them, so beautiful that they grow only in birch forests.

Clouds were gathering, the wind carried the songs of the larks, but they were lost in the incessant, running rustle and noise.

A stalled road was barely visible among the bushes and stumps.

It smelled sweet of strawberries, bitter - of strawberries, birch, wormwood.

Anton Chekhov "Evening in the Steppe"

On July evenings and nights, quails and corncrakes no longer call, nightingales no longer sing in the forest ravines, there is no smell of flowers, but the steppe is still beautiful and full of life. As soon as the sun sets and the earth is enveloped in darkness, the day's melancholy is forgotten, everything is forgiven, and the steppe sighs easily with its broad chest. As if because the grass is not visible in the darkness of its old age, a cheerful, young chatter arises in it, which does not happen during the day; crackling, whistling, scratching, steppe basses, tenors and trebles - everything is mixed into a continuous, monotonous hum, under which it is good to remember and be sad. The monotonous chatter lulls you to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel that you are falling asleep, but from somewhere comes the abrupt, alarming cry of an unsleeping bird, or an indefinite sound is heard, similar to someone’s voice, like a surprised “ah-ah!”, and drowsiness lowers your eyelids. And it used to happen that you were driving past a ravine where there were bushes, and you heard a bird, which the steppe people call a splyuk, shouting to someone: “I’m sleeping! I'm sleeping! I’m sleeping!”, and the other one laughs or bursts into hysterical crying - this is an owl. For whom they scream and who listens to them on this plain, God knows them, but in their scream there is a lot of sadness and complaint... It smells of hay, dried grass and belated flowers, but the smell is thick, sweet, cloying and delicate.

Everything is visible through the darkness, but it is difficult to make out the color and outlines of objects. Everything appears to be something other than what it is. You are driving and suddenly you see a silhouette standing in front of the road that looks like a monk; he doesn’t move, he waits and holds something in his hands... Isn’t this a robber? The figure is approaching, growing, now it has caught up with the chaise, and you see that this is not a person, but a lonely bush or a large stone. Such motionless figures, waiting for someone, stand on the hills, hide behind mounds, look out from the weeds, and they all look like people and inspire suspicion.

And when the moon rises, the night becomes pale and languid. The darkness was gone. The air is clear, fresh and warm, you can clearly see everywhere and you can even distinguish individual stems of weeds along the road. Skulls and stones are visible in the distance. Suspicious figures, similar to monks, appear blacker against the light background of the night and look more gloomy. More and more often, among the monotonous chatter, disturbing the still air, someone’s surprised “ah-ah!” is heard. and the cry of an awake or delirious bird is heard. Wide shadows move across the plain, like clouds across the sky, and in the incomprehensible distance, if you peer into it for a long time, foggy, bizarre images rise and pile on top of each other... A little creepy. And you look at the pale green sky strewn with stars, on which there is not a cloud or a spot, and you will understand why the warm air is motionless, why nature is on guard and afraid to move: it is terrible and sorry for losing at least one moment of life. The immense depth and boundlessness of the sky can only be judged at sea and in the steppe at night when the moon is shining. It is scary, beautiful and affectionate, it looks languidly and beckons to you, and its caress makes you dizzy. You drive for an hour or two... You come across a silent old mound or a stone woman on the way, erected by God knows who and when, a night bird flies silently over the ground, and little by little steppe legends come to mind, stories of people you meet, tales of a steppe nanny and everything what he himself was able to see and comprehend with his soul. And then in the chatter of insects, in suspicious figures and mounds, in blue sky, V moonlight, in the flight of a night bird, in everything you see and hear, the triumph of beauty, youth, the prime of life and a passionate thirst for life begin to seem; the soul gives a response to the beautiful, harsh homeland, and I want to fly over the steppe with the night bird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the excess of happiness, you feel tension and melancholy, as if the steppe realizes that it is lonely, that its wealth and inspiration are perishing as a gift to the world, unsung by anyone and unnecessary to anyone, and through the joyful hum you hear its sad, hopeless call : singer! singer!

Ivan Turgenev “Kasyan with a Beautiful Sword”

Excerpt. From the series “Notes of a Hunter”

The weather was beautiful, even more beautiful than before; but the heat did not subside. Tall and barely rushing across the clear sky rare clouds, yellow-white, like late spring snow, flat and oblong, like lowered sails. Their patterned edges, fluffy and light, like cotton paper, slowly but visibly changed with every moment; they melted, these clouds, and no shadow fell from them.

Kasyan and I wandered around the clearings for a long time. The young shoots, which had not yet managed to stretch above an arshin, surrounded the blackened, low stumps with their thin, smooth stems; round, spongy growths with gray edges, the very growths from which tinder is boiled, clung to these stumps; strawberries sprouted their pink tendrils over them; the mushrooms were sitting closely together in families. My legs were constantly getting tangled and clinging in the long grass, saturated with the hot sun; everywhere the sharp metallic sparkle of young, reddish leaves on the trees dazzled the eyes; everywhere were blue clusters of crane peas, golden cups of night blindness, half purple, half yellow flowers Ivana da Marya; here and there, near abandoned paths, on which wheel tracks were marked by stripes of small red grass, there were piles of firewood, darkened by wind and rain, stacked in fathoms; a faint shadow fell from them in oblique quadrangles—there was no other shadow anywhere.

A light breeze would wake up and then die down: it would suddenly blow right in your face and seem to play out—everything would make a cheerful noise, nod and move around, the flexible ends of the ferns would sway gracefully—you’d be delighted with it... but then it froze again, and that’s it again it became quiet.

Some grasshoppers chatter together, as if embittered, and this incessant, sour and dry sound is tiresome.

He walks toward the relentless heat of midday; it is as if he was born by him, as if summoned by him from the hot earth.

Konstantin Ushinsky “Mountain Country”

Living in the middle of Russia, we cannot form a clear idea of ​​what a mountainous country is.

Our low, sloping hills, which you drive up almost without noticing them, rising up to a hundred or one and a half hundred fathoms, and along the slopes of which we see all the same fields, forests, groves, villages and villages, of course, bear little resemblance to high mountains, the peaks of which are covered with eternal snow and ice and, rising three or four miles upward, go far beyond the clouds. In the plain you travel a hundred, two hundred miles, everywhere you encounter the same views, the same vegetation, the same way of life.

Not so in the mountains. How much diversity even one big mountain presents if you climb it along roads laid in the valleys, and then along dangerous mountain paths that meander along its ledges. It seems warm and even hot to you when you stand at the foot of the mountain: summer is all around, gardens with ripening fruits and fields with already ripened grain; but stock up on warm clothes if you are thinking of getting to the top, because complete winter will greet you there - snow, ice, cold - and in the middle of summer you can easily freeze your hands and feet. Also stock up on strong boots with strong soles so that they do not rub against stones, a strong stick with an iron tip and provisions; but the main thing is to stock up on strength and patience, because you will have to work tirelessly with your feet for the whole day, and maybe two. Although the top of the mountain rises only three or four miles, this is considered a plumb line, and to get to the top, you will have to walk fifteen or twenty miles yourself. the hard way along steep ledges.

Also stock up on courage so that you don’t get dizzy when you climb onto another ledge and look down.

But above all, take an experienced guide, because without one you can easily get lost between the rocky peaks of the mountain, in its dark forests, between the countless streams and rivers rolling down its sides, in its snow fields and glaciers. Sometimes, perhaps, you can climb to such a peak and end up in such a wilderness, in the middle of inaccessible ledges or on the edge of a yawning abyss, that you won’t know how to get out.

You need to know the mountain paths well in order to go into the mountains.

Climbing a high, sky-high mountain is a lot of work; but this work pays off with pleasure. How much diverse vegetation you will find from the bottom to the top! There is so much diversity in people's lifestyles! If the mountain you are climbing lies in a warm climate, then at its base you will leave lemon and orange groves, higher up you will be greeted by trees of temperate countries: poplar, beech, chestnut, linden, maple, oak; further you will find gloomy coniferous forests and deciduous trees of the North: aspen, birch. Even higher - and the trees already stop, there are even very few flowers and grass - only the alpine rose will accompany you to the very border of the eternal snow, and skinny moss will remind you of the polar countries, where it is almost the only food reindeer. Higher. - and you will enter the land of eternal snow, although, perhaps, you are several thousand miles from the polar sea.

Below you have left the noisy, active cities; rising higher, we encountered pretty villages, still surrounded by cultivated fields and fruitful gardens; further you will not find any fields or gardens, but only lush meadows in mountain valleys and admire beautiful herds; small shepherd villages are leaning against the mountains, so that some houses are clinging to the rock like a bird’s nest; large stones are placed in rows on the roofs of houses; without this precaution, the storm that roared across the mountains could easily have blown off the roof. Further, you will also find here and there separate huts of mountain dwellers: these are the summer dwellings of shepherds, abandoned in winter. Lush, beautiful grass attracts herds here in the summer.

Any higher and you will no longer encounter human dwellings. Tenacious domestic goats are still clinging to the ledges; but a little further and you will come across, perhaps, only small herds of light-footed wild chamois and bloodthirsty eagles; and then you will enter a country where there is no plant or animal life.

How beautiful and talkative the mountain streams are, how clean and cold the water is! They originate in glaciers and are formed from melting ice, beginning in small, barely noticeable streams; but then these streams will gather together - and a noisy fast stream, now wriggling like a silver ribbon, now jumping from ledge to ledge like a waterfall, now hiding in a dark gorge and emerging into the light again, now murmuring over the stones, will roll down boldly and quickly until it reaches to a more sloping valley, through the middle of which a calm and orderly river will run.

If a storm does not roar in the mountains, then the higher you climb, the more silent the surroundings will be. At the very top, among the eternal snow and ice, where the sun's rays, reflected from the snow fields, blind the eyes, dead silence reigns; Is it possible that a stone moved by your foot will cause noise and knocking throughout the entire neighborhood?

But suddenly a terrible and prolonged roar is heard, repeated by a mountain echo; it seems to you that the mountain is trembling under your feet, and you ask the guide: “What is this?” “It’s an avalanche,” he answers you calmly: a large mass of snow fell from the top and, carrying with it stones, and lower down - trees, herds, people and even shepherds’ houses, rushed down the mountain ledges. God grant that it does not collapse on some village and bury its houses and inhabitants under it.

Avalanches most often roll down from the mountains in the spring, because the snow that fell in winter melts.

But if, after overcoming all these difficulties and fears, you finally reach a high mountain square, where the guide advises you to sit on the rocks, have breakfast and relax, then you will be fully rewarded.

Although it is quite cold here and every slight movement tires you, your heart beats quickly and your breathing is quickened, but you feel somehow at ease and pleasant, and you fully enjoy the majestic picture.

There are rocks, snow fields and glaciers around you; abysses and gorges are visible everywhere, the peaks of other mountains rise in the distance, sometimes dark, sometimes purple, sometimes pink, sometimes shimmering with silver; and below, for sixty miles, a green, flowering valley opens up, cutting far into the mountains; the rivers meandering along it, sparkling lakes, cities and villages seem to be in the palm of your hand.

Large herds seem to you like moving dots, and you can’t see people at all. But then everything under your feet began to be covered with fog: these clouds are gathering around the mountain; The bright sun is shining above you, and down below from this fog it may be pouring rain...

Leo Tolstoy "What Dew Happens on the Grass"

When you go into the forest on a sunny morning in summer, you can see diamonds in the fields and grass. All these diamonds sparkle and shimmer in the sun different colors- and yellow, and red, and blue.

When you come closer and see what it is, you will see that these are drops of dew collected in triangular leaves of grass and glistening in the sun.

The inside of the leaf of this grass is shaggy and fluffy, like velvet. And the drops roll on the leaf and do not wet it.

When you carelessly pick a leaf with a dewdrop, the droplet will roll off like a light ball, and you will not see how it slips past the stem.

It happened that you would pick such a cup, slowly bring it to your mouth and drink the dewdrop, and this dewdrop seemed tastier than any drink.

Konstantin Paustovsky “Collection of Miracles”

Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention, of course, the boys, has his own secret and a little funny dream. I had the same dream - to definitely get to Borovoe Lake.

From the village where I lived that summer, the lake was only twenty kilometers away.

Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, all around there were only forests, dry swamps and lingonberries.

The picture is famous!

- Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. -What didn’t you see? What a fussy, grasping people, oh my God! You see, he needs to touch everything with his own hand, look out with his own eye! What will you look for there? One pond. And nothing more!

- Were you there?

- Why did he surrender to me, this lake! I don't have anything else to do, or what? This is where they sit, all my business! - Semyon tapped his brown neck with his fist. - On the hill!

But I still went to the lake. Two village boys, Lyonka and Vanya, tagged along with me. Before we had time to leave the outskirts, the complete hostility of the characters of Lyonka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lyonka calculated everything he saw around him into rubles.

“Look,” he told me in his booming voice, “the gander is coming.” How long do you think he can handle?

- How do I know!

“It’s probably worth a hundred rubles,” Lyonka said dreamily and immediately asked: “But how much will this pine tree last?” Two hundred rubles? Or for all three hundred?

- Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. “He’s worth a dime’s worth of brains, but he’s asking prices for everything.” My eyes would not look at him.

After that, Lyonka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a well-known conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.

- Whose brains are they worth for a dime? My?

- Probably not mine!

- Look!

- See for yourself!

- Don't grab it! The cap was not sewn for you!

- Oh, I wish I could push you in my own way!

- Don’t scare me! Don't poke me in the nose!

The fight was short but decisive.

Lyonka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village. I began to shame Vanya.

- Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I fought in the heat of the moment. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lyonka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he puts prices on everything, like in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly clear the entire forest and chop it down for firewood. And what I’m most afraid of in the world is when the forest is cleared. I'm so afraid of passion!

- Why so?

— Oxygen from forests. The forests will be cut down, the oxygen will become liquid and smelly. And the earth will no longer be able to attract him, to keep him close to him. Where will he fly? — Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - The person will have nothing to breathe. The forester explained it to me.

We climbed the slope and entered an oak copse. Immediately red ants began to eat us. They stuck to my legs and fell from the branches by the collar.

Dozens of ant roads, covered with sand, stretched between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and rose again to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads was continuous.

The ants ran in one direction empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry beetle legs, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.

- Bustle! - said Vanya. - Like in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to collect ant eggs. Every year. They take it away in bags. This is the best bird food. And they are good for fishing. You need a tiny little hook!

Behind an oak copse, on the edge of a loose sandy road, there stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Red ladybugs with white speckles were crawling along the cross.

A quiet wind blew in my face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, and a gray wave ran over them.

Beyond the oat field we passed through the village of Polkovo. I have long noticed that almost all of the regiment’s peasants differ from the surrounding residents in their tall stature.

- Stately people in Polkovo! - our Zaborievskys said with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!

In Polkovo we went to rest in the hut of Vasily Lyalin, a tall, handsome old man with a piebald beard. Gray strands stuck out in disarray in his black shaggy hair.

When we entered Lyalin’s hut, he shouted:

- Keep your heads down! Heads! Everyone is smashing my forehead against the lintel! The people in Polkov are painfully tall, but they are slow-witted - they build huts according to their short stature.

While talking with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.

- Story! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we went so high in vain? Even the little bug doesn’t live in vain. It also has its purpose.

Vanya laughed.

- Wait until you laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. “I’m not yet learned enough to laugh.” You listen. Was there such a foolish tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or wasn't it?

“It was,” said Vanya. - We studied.

- Was and floated away. Adelov did such a thing that it still gives us hiccups. The gentleman was fierce. The soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he now gets excited and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods!” This is what the king was like! Well, what happened was that the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “March in the indicated direction for a thousand miles!” Let's go! And after a thousand miles we stop for an eternal rest!” And he points in the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What are you going to do? We walked and walked for three months and reached this place. The forest all around is impassable. One wild. They stopped and began cutting down huts, crushing clay, laying stoves, and digging wells. They built a village and called it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, and the soldiers took root in this area, and, almost, everyone stayed here. The area, as you can see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth comes from them. If you don’t believe it, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is spelled out in them. And just think, if only they could walk two more miles and come out to the river, they would stop there. But no, they didn’t dare disobey the order—they just stopped. People are still surprised. “Why are you guys from the regiment, they say, running into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They say they are scary, big guys, but apparently they don’t have enough guesses in their heads.” Well, you explain to them how it happened, then they agree. “They say you can’t fight against an order! It is a fact!"

Vasily Lyalin volunteered to take us to the forest and show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. The pine forest greeted us with silence and coolness after the hot fields. High in the slanting rays of the sun, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of strawberries and heated tree stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday’s rain glistened on the leaves of the hazel tree. Cones fell loudly.

- Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. “The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.”

Then the pines gave way to birches, and behind them the water sparkled.

- Borovoe? - I asked.

- No. It’s still a walk and a walk to get to Borovoye. This is Larino Lake. Let's go, look into the water, take a look.

The water in Larino Lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore she shuddered a little - there, from under the moss, a spring flowed into the lake. At the bottom lay several dark large trunks. They sparkled with a weak and dark fire when the sun reached them.

“Black oak,” said Lyalin. — Stained, centuries-old. We pulled one out, but it’s difficult to work with. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - it will last forever! Heavy wood, sinks in water.

The sun shone in the dark water. Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel. And butterflies flew over the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals.

Lyalin led us onto a remote road.

“Step straight,” he showed, “until you run into mosslands, a dry swamp.” And along the moss there will be a path all the way to the lake. Just be careful, there are a lot of sticks there.

He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I walked along the forest road. The forest became higher, more mysterious and darker. Streams of golden resin froze on the pine trees.

At first the ruts, long since overgrown with grass, were still visible, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the entire road with a dry, cheerful carpet.

The road led us to a low cliff. Beneath it lay mosshars - thick birch and aspen undergrowth warmed to the roots. The trees grew from deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered across the moss here and there, and dry branches with white lichen were scattered around.

A narrow path led through the mshars. She avoided high hummocks.

At the end of the path, the water glowed black and blue—Borovoe Lake.

We walked carefully along the mshars. Pegs, sharp as spears, stuck out from under the moss - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets have begun. One cheek of each berry - the one turned to the south - was completely red, and the other was just beginning to turn pink.

A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.

We went out to the lake. The grass stood waist-high along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and ran across the water with a desperate squeak.

The water in Borovoe was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sweetly. The fish struck and the lilies swayed.

- What a blessing! - said Vanya. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.

I agreed. We stayed at the lake for two days. We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants appearing before us in the light of the fire. We heard screams wild geese and the sounds of night rain.

He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly rang across the lake, as if he was stretching thin, cobweb-like, trembling strings between the black sky and water.

That's all I wanted to tell you.

But since then I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, the ear, the imagination, or human thought.

Only in this way, by exploring some piece of our country, can you understand how good it is and how our hearts are attached to its every path, spring, and even to the timid squeaking of a forest bird.

Fox bread

One day I walked through the forest all day and in the evening I returned home with rich booty. I took the heavy bag off my shoulders and began to lay out my belongings on the table.

- What kind of bird is this? - Zinochka asked.

“Terenty,” I answered.

And he told her about the black grouse: how he lives in the forest, how he mutters in the spring, how Birch buds pecks, collects berries in the swamps in the fall, and warms itself from the wind under the snow in winter. He also told her about the hazel grouse, showed her that it was gray with a tuft, and whistled into the pipe in the hazel grouse style and let her whistle. I also poured a lot of porcini mushrooms, both red and black, onto the table.

I also had a bloody boneberry in my pocket, and a blue blueberry, and a red lingonberry. I also brought with me a fragrant lump of pine resin, gave it to the girl to smell and said that trees are treated with this resin.

- Who treats them there? - Zinochka asked.

“They are treating themselves,” I answered. “Sometimes a hunter comes and wants to rest, he’ll stick an ax into a tree and hang his bag on the ax, and lie down under the tree.” He'll sleep and rest. He takes an ax out of the tree, puts on a bag, and leaves. And from the wound from the wood ax this fragrant resin will run and heal the wound.

Also on purpose for Zinochka, I brought various wonderful herbs, one leaf at a time, a root at a time, a flower at a time: cuckoo’s tears, valerian, Peter’s cross, hare’s cabbage. And just under the hare cabbage I had a piece of black bread: it always happens to me that when I don’t take bread to the forest, I’m hungry, but if I take it, I forget to eat it and bring it back. And Zinochka, when she saw black bread under my hare cabbage, was stunned:

-Where did the bread come from in the forest?

- What's surprising here? After all, there is cabbage there!

- Hare...

- And the bread is chanterelle bread. Taste it.

She tasted it carefully and started eating.

- Good chanterelle bread!

And she ate all my black bread clean. And so it went with us: Zinochka, such a copula, often won’t even take white bread, but when I bring Lisichka’s bread from the forest, she will always eat it all and praise it:

- Fox bread is much better than ours!

"Inventor"

In one swamp, on a hummock under a willow, wild mallard ducklings hatched.

Soon after this, their mother led them to the lake along a cow path. I noticed them from a distance, hid behind a tree, and the ducklings came right to my feet. I took three of them into my care, the remaining sixteen went further along the cow path.

I kept these black ducklings with me, and they soon all turned gray.

Then a handsome multi-colored drake and two ducks, Dusya and Musya, emerged from the gray ones. We clipped their wings so they wouldn’t fly away, and they lived in our yard along with poultry: we had chickens and geese.

With the onset of a new spring, we made hummocks for our savages out of all sorts of rubbish in the basement, like in a swamp, and nests on them. Dusya laid sixteen eggs in her nest and began to hatch the ducklings. Musya put down fourteen, but didn’t want to sit on them. No matter how we fought, the empty head did not want to be a mother. And we planted our important one on duck eggs black chicken- Queen of Spades.

The time has come, our ducklings have hatched. We kept them warm in the kitchen for a while, crumbled eggs for them, and looked after them.

A few days later it was very good, warm weather, and Dusya led her little black ones to the pond, and the Queen of Spades led hers to the garden for worms.

- Hang down! - ducklings in the pond.

- Quack-quack! - the duck answers them.

- Hang down! — ducklings in the garden.

- Kwok-kwok! - the chicken answers them.

The ducklings, of course, cannot understand what “kwoh-kwoh” means, but what is heard from the pond is well known to them.

“Svis-svis” means: “friends to friends.”

And “quack-quack” means: “you are ducks, you are mallards, swim quickly!” And they, of course, look there, towards the pond.

- Ours to ours!

- Swim, swim!

And they float.

- Kwok-kwok! — an important bird, a hen, insists on the shore.

They keep swimming and swimming. They whistled, swam together, and Dusya joyfully accepted them into her family; According to Musa, they were her own nephews.

All day long a large duck family swam on the pond, and all day the Queen of Spades, fluffy, angry, clucked, grumbled, kicked worms on the shore, tried to attract ducklings with worms and clucked to them that there were too many worms, so good worms!

- Rubbish, rubbish! - the mallard answered her.

And in the evening she led all her ducklings with one long rope along a dry path. They passed under the very nose of the important bird, black, with large duck-like noses; no one even looked at such a mother.

We collected them all in one high basket and left them to spend the night in the warm kitchen, near the stove.

In the morning, when we were still sleeping, Dusya crawled out of the basket, walked around on the floor, screamed, and called the ducklings to her. The whistlers answered her cry in thirty voices.

To the duck cry of the walls of our house, made of sonorous pine forest, responded in their own way. And yet, in this confusion, we heard the separate voice of one duckling.

- Do you hear? - I asked my guys.

They listened.

- We hear! - they shouted.

And we went to the kitchen.

There, it turned out, Dusya was not alone on the floor. One duckling was running next to her, very worried and whistling continuously. This duckling, like all the others, was the size of a small cucumber. How could such and such a warrior climb over the wall of a basket thirty centimeters high?

We all began to guess about this, and then a new question arose: did the duckling himself come up with some way to get out of the basket after his mother, or did she accidentally touch him with her wing and throw him out? I tied this duckling's leg with a ribbon and released it into the general herd.

We slept through the night, and in the morning, as soon as the morning duck cry was heard in the house, we went into the kitchen.

A duckling with a bandaged paw was running on the floor with Dusya.

All the ducklings, imprisoned in the basket, whistled, were eager to be free and could not do anything. This one got out. I said:

- He came up with something.

- He's an inventor! - Leva shouted.

Then I decided to see how this “inventor” solved the most difficult problem: to climb a steep wall on his duck’s webbed feet. I got up the next morning before light, when both my boys and

The ducklings slept soundly. In the kitchen, I sat down near the switch so that, when necessary, I could turn on the light and look at the events in the depths of the basket.

And then the window turned white. It was getting light.

- Quack-quack! - said Dusya.

- Hang down! - answered the only duckling.

And everything froze. The boys slept, the ducklings slept.

A beep sounded in the factory. The light has increased.

- Quack-quack! - Dusya repeated.

No one answered. I realized: the “inventor” has no time now - now, probably, he is solving his most difficult problem. And I turned on the light.

Well, that's how I knew it! The duck had not yet stood up, and its head was still level with the edge of the basket. All the ducklings slept warmly under their mother, only one, with a bandaged paw, crawled out and climbed up the mother’s feathers, like bricks, onto her back. When Dusya stood up, she raised it high, level with the edge of the basket. The duckling, like a mouse, ran along her back to the edge - and somersaulted down! Following him, the mother also fell to the floor, and the usual morning chaos began: screaming, whistling throughout the house.

About two days after that, in the morning, three ducklings appeared on the floor at once, then five, and it went on and on: as soon as Dusya quacked in the morning, all the ducklings would land on her back and then fall down.

And my children called the first duckling, who paved the way for others, the Inventor.

Guys and ducklings

A small wild teal duck finally decided to move her ducklings from the forest, bypassing the village, into the lake to freedom. In the spring, this lake overflowed far, and a solid place for a nest could only be found about three miles away, on a hummock, in a swampy forest. And when the water subsided, we had to travel all three miles to the lake.

In places open to the eyes of man, fox and hawk, the mother walked behind so as not to let the ducklings out of sight for a minute. And near the forge, when crossing the road, she, of course, let them go ahead. That’s where the guys saw them and threw their hats at them. All the time while they were catching the ducklings, the mother ran after them with an open beak or flew several steps in different directions in the greatest excitement. The guys were just about to throw hats at their mother and catch her like ducklings, but then I approached.

- What will you do with the ducklings? - I asked the guys sternly.

They chickened out and replied:

- Let's go.

- Let’s “let it go”! - I said very angrily. - Why did you need to catch them? Where is mother now?

- And there he sits! - the guys answered in unison.

And they pointed me to a nearby hillock of a fallow field, where the duck was actually sitting with her mouth open in excitement.

“Quickly,” I ordered the guys, “go and return all the ducklings to her!”

They even seemed to be delighted at my order and ran straight up the hill with the ducklings. The mother flew away a little and, when the guys left, rushed to save her sons and daughters. In her own way, she quickly said something to them and ran to the oat field. Five ducklings ran after her. And so, through the oat field, bypassing the village, the family continued its journey to the lake.

I joyfully took off my hat and, waving it, shouted:

- Bon voyage, ducklings!

The guys laughed at me.

-Why are you laughing, you fools? - I told the guys. - Do you think it’s so easy for ducklings to get into the lake? Quickly take off all your hats and shout “goodbye”!

And the same hats, dusty on the road while catching ducklings, rose into the air, and the guys all shouted at once:

- Goodbye, ducklings!

Forest Doctor

We wandered in the forest in the spring and observed the life of hollow birds: woodpeckers, owls. Suddenly, in the direction where we had previously identified an interesting tree, we heard the sound of a saw. It was, as we were told, the collection of firewood from dead wood for a glass factory. We were afraid for our tree, we hurried towards the sound of the saw, but it was too late: our aspen lay, and there were many empty trees around its stump. fir cones. The woodpecker peeled all this off over the long winter, collected it, carried it to this aspen tree, laid it between two branches of his workshop and hammered it. Near the stump, on our cut aspen, two boys were resting. All these two boys were doing was sawing the wood.

- Oh, you pranksters! - we said and pointed them to the cut aspen. “You were ordered to cut dead trees, but what did you do?”

“The woodpecker made a hole,” the guys answered. “We took a look and, of course, we cut it down.” It will still be lost.

Everyone began to examine the tree together. It was completely fresh, and only in a small space, no more than a meter in length, did a worm pass inside the trunk. The woodpecker obviously listened to the aspen like a doctor: he tapped it with his beak, realized the emptiness left by the worm, and began the operation of extracting the worm. And the second time, and the third, and the fourth... The thin trunk of the aspen looked like a pipe with valves. The “surgeon” made seven holes and only on the eighth he caught the worm, pulled out and saved the aspen. We cut this piece out as a wonderful exhibit for a museum.

“You see,” we told the guys, “the woodpecker is a forest doctor, he saved the aspen, and it would live and live, and you cut it down.”

The boys were amazed.

Hedgehog

Once I was walking along the bank of our stream and noticed a hedgehog under a bush. He noticed me too, curled up and started tapping: knock-knock-knock. It was very similar, as if a car was walking in the distance. I touched it with the tip of my boot; he snorted terribly and pushed his needles into his boot.

- Oh, you do this to me! - I said and pushed him into the stream with the tip of my boot.

Instantly, the hedgehog turned around in the water and swam to the shore, like a small pig, only instead of bristles there were needles on its back. I took a stick, rolled the hedgehog into my hat and took it home.

I had a lot of mice, I heard that a hedgehog catches them, and I decided: let him live with me and catch mice.

So, I put this prickly lump in the middle of the floor and sat down to write, while I kept looking at the hedgehog out of the corner of my eye. He did not lie motionless for long: as soon as I quieted down at the table, the hedgehog turned around, looked around, tried to go there, there, and finally chose a place for himself under the bed and became completely quiet there.

When it got dark, I lit the lamp and - hello! — the hedgehog ran out from under the bed. He, of course, thought to the lamp that the moon had risen in the forest: when there is a moon, hedgehogs love to run through forest clearings. And so he started running around the room, imagining what it was like forest clearing. I took the pipe, lit a cigarette and blew a cloud near the moon. It felt just like being in the forest: the moon and the clouds, and my legs were like tree trunks and the hedgehog probably really liked them, he just darted between them, sniffing and scratching the back of my boots with needles.

After reading the newspaper, I dropped it on the floor, went to bed and fell asleep.

I always sleep very lightly. I heard some rustling in my room, I struck a match, lit the candle and only noticed how a hedgehog flashed under the bed. And the newspaper was no longer lying near the table, but in the middle of the room. So I left the candle burning and didn’t sleep myself, thinking: “Why did the hedgehog need the newspaper?” Soon my tenant ran out from under the bed - and straight to the newspaper, hovered around it, made noise, made noise and finally managed to somehow put a corner of the newspaper on the thorns and dragged it, huge, into the corner.

That’s when I understood him: the newspaper was like dry leaves in the forest to him, he was dragging it for his nest. And it turned out, however, that soon the hedgehog wrapped himself in newspaper and made himself a real nest out of it. Having finished this important task, he left his home and stood opposite the bed, looking at the candle - the moon.

I let the clouds in and ask:

- What else do you need?

The hedgehog was not afraid.

- Do you want something to drink?

I wake up. The hedgehog doesn't run.

I took a plate, put it on the floor, brought a bucket of water, and then I poured water into the plate, then poured it into the bucket again, and I made such a noise as if it was a stream splashing.

“Well, go, go,” I say, “you see, I made the moon for you, and sent up the clouds, and here is water for you...”

I look: it’s like he’s moved forward. And I also moved my lake a little towards it. He moves, and I move, and that’s how we agreed.

“Drink,” I say finally.

He began to cry.

And I ran my hand over the thorns so lightly, as if I was stroking them, and I kept saying:

- You’re a good guy, you’re a good one!

The hedgehog got drunk, I say:

- Let's sleep.

He lay down and blew out the candle.

I don’t know how long I slept, but I hear: I have work in my room again.

I light a candle - and what do you think? A hedgehog is running around the room, and there is an apple on its thorns. He ran to the nest, put it there and ran to the corner after another, and in the corner there was a bag of apples and it fell over. So the hedgehog ran up, curled up near the apples, twitched and ran again - on the thorns he dragged another apple into the nest.

So this is how my hedgehog settled down. And now, when drinking tea, I will certainly bring it to my table and either pour milk on a saucer for him to drink, or give him some buns for him to eat.

Golden Meadow

My brother and I always had fun with them when dandelions ripened. It used to be that we were going somewhere on our business, he was in front, I was at the heel.

“Seryozha!” - I’ll call him in a businesslike manner. He will look back, and I will blow a dandelion right in his face. For this, he begins to watch for me and, like a gape, he also makes a fuss. And so we picked these uninteresting flowers just for fun. But once I managed to make a discovery.

We lived in a village, in front of our window there was a meadow, all golden with many blooming dandelions. It was very beautiful. Everyone said: “Very beautiful! Golden meadow." One day I got up early to fish and noticed that the meadow was not golden, but green. When I returned home around noon, the meadow was again all golden. I began to observe. By evening the meadow turned green again. Then I went and found a dandelion, and it turned out that it had squeezed its petals, just as if our fingers on the palm side were yellow and, clenching it into a fist, we would close the yellow one. In the morning, when the sun rose, I saw the dandelions opening their palms and this made the meadow turn golden again.

Since then, dandelion has become one of the most interesting colors, because dandelions went to bed with us children, and got up with us.

Beast chipmunk

You can easily understand why a sika deer has frequent white spots scattered everywhere on its skin.

Once I'm on Far East walked very quietly along the path and, without knowing it, stopped near lurking deer. They hoped that I would not notice them under the trees with wide leaves, in the thick grass. But it happened that a deer tick bit the little calf painfully; he trembled, the grass swayed, and I saw him and everyone. It was then that I realized why deer have spots. The day was sunny, and in the forest there were “bunnies” on the grass - exactly the same as those of deer and fallow deer. It’s easier to hide with such “bunnies.” But for a long time I could not understand why the deer has a large white circle like a napkin on its back and near its tail, and if the deer gets scared and starts running, then this napkin becomes even wider, even more noticeable. What does the deer need these napkins for?

I thought about this and this is how I guessed it.

One day we caught wild deer and started feeding them beans and corn in the home nursery. In winter, when in the taiga it is so difficult for deer to get food, they ate our ready-made and favorite, the most delicious dish in the nursery. And they are so used to it that when they see a bag of beans on our premises, they run to us and crowd around the trough. And they poke their snouts so greedily and hurry that the beans and corn often fall out of the trough onto the ground. The pigeons have already noticed this - they fly in to peck the grains under the very hooves of the deer. Chipmunks, these small, striped, pretty squirrel-like animals, also come running to collect the falling beans. It’s hard to convey how shy these sika deer are and what they can imagine. Our female, our beautiful Hua-Lu, was especially shy.

It happened one time, she was eating beans in a trough next to other deer. Beans fell to the ground, pigeons and chipmunks ran near the deer's hooves. So Hua-Lu accidentally stepped on the fluffy tail of one animal with her hoof, and this chipmunk responded by biting into the deer’s leg. Hua-Lu shuddered, looked down, and she probably thought the chipmunk was something terrible. How she will rush! And behind her all at once onto the fence, and - bang! — our fence fell down.

The small chipmunk animal, of course, immediately fell off, but for the frightened Hua-Lu, now it was not a small, but a huge chipmunk animal that was running after her, rushing in her footsteps. The other deer understood her in their own way and quickly rushed after her. And all these deer would have run away and all our great work would have been lost, but we had German Shepherd Taiga, well accustomed to these deer. We let Taiga follow them. The deer rushed in insane fear, and, of course, they thought that it was not the dog running after them, but the same terrible, huge chipmunk beast.

Many animals have such a habit that if they are chased, they run in a circle and return to the same place. This is how hunters of hares chase with dogs: the hare almost always comes running to the same place where it was lying, and then the shooter meets it. And the deer rushed for a long time over the mountains and valleys and returned to the same place where they lived well - both well-fed and warm.

So the excellent, smart dog Taiga returned the deer to us. But I almost forgot about the white napkins, which is why I started this story. When Hua-Lu rushed over the fallen fence and out of fear her white napkin became much wider, much more noticeable, then only this flickering white napkin was visible in the bushes. Another deer ran after her along this white spot and he himself also showed his white spot to the deer following him. It was then that I first realized what these white napkins serve for sika deer. In the taiga, there are not only chipmunks - there are also wolves, leopards, and the tiger itself. One deer will notice the enemy, rush, show a white spot and save another, and this one saves the third, and everyone comes together to a safe place.

White necklace

I heard in Siberia, near Lake Baikal, from one citizen about a bear and, I admit, I didn’t believe it. But he assured me that in the old days this incident was even published in a Siberian magazine under the title:

"Man with a bear against wolves."

There lived a watchman on the shore of Lake Baikal, he caught fish and shot squirrels. And then once this watchman seems to see it through the window - he runs straight to the hut A big bear, and a pack of wolves is chasing him. That would be the end of the bear... He, this bear, don’t be bad, is in the hallway, the door closed behind him, and he still leaned on it with his paw. The old man, realizing this matter, took the rifle off the wall and said:

- Misha, Misha, hold it!

The wolves climb on the door, and the old man aims the wolf at the window and repeats:

- Misha, Misha, hold it!

So he killed one wolf, and another, and a third, all the time saying:

- Misha, Misha, hold...

After the third, the pack scattered, and the bear remained in the hut to spend the winter under the guard of the old man. In the spring, when the bears come out of their dens, the old man allegedly put a white necklace on this bear and ordered all the hunters that no one should shoot this bear with a white necklace: this bear is his friend.

Conversation between birds and animals

Hunting foxes with flags is fun! They will go around the fox, recognize its bed, and by the bushes a mile or two around the sleeping one they will hang a rope with red flags. The fox is very afraid of colored flags and the smell of red, frightened, looking for a way out of the terrible circle. They leave her a way out, and a hunter is waiting for her near this place under the cover of a Christmas tree.

Such a hunt with flags is much more productive than with hounds. And this winter was so snowy, with such loose snow, that the dog drowned up to its ears, and it became impossible to chase foxes with the dog. One day, having exhausted myself and the dog, I said to the huntsman Michal Mikhalych:

- Let's leave the dogs, let's get flags - after all, with flags you can kill every fox.

- How is it each? - asked Michal Mikhalych.

“It’s so simple,” I replied. - After the powder, we’ll take a fresh trail, go around, cover the circle with flags, and the fox will be ours.

“That was in the old days,” said the huntsman. “It used to be that a fox would sit for three days and not dare to go beyond the flags.” What a fox! The wolves sat for two days! Now the animals have become smarter, often rutting right under the flags, and goodbye.

“I understand,” I answered, “that seasoned animals, who have been in trouble more than once, have become wiser and go under the flags, but there are relatively few of them, the majority, especially young people, have never seen flags.”

- We haven’t seen it! They don't even need to see. They are having a conversation.

- What kind of conversation?

- Ordinary conversation. It happens that you set a trap, an old, smart animal will visit you, he won’t like it and will move away. And then others won’t come far. Well, tell me, how will they find out?

- What do you think?

“I think,” answered Michal Mikhalych, “animals read.”

- Do they read?

- Well, yes, they read with their noses. This can be seen in dogs as well. It is known how they leave their notes everywhere on posts, on bushes, others then go and take everything apart. So the fox and the wolf constantly read; We have eyes, they have noses. The second thing in animals and birds, I think, is their voice. A raven flies and screams, at least we have something. And the fox pricked up its ears in the bushes and hurried into the field. The raven flies and screams above, and below, following the cry of the raven, the fox rushes at full speed. The raven descends on the carrion, and the fox is right there. What a fox! Haven’t you ever guessed something from a magpie’s cry?

Of course, like any hunter, I had to use the magpie’s ticking, but Michal Mikhalych told a special case. Once his dogs broke during the hare rutting. The hare suddenly seemed to fall through the ground. Then a magpie began to cackle in a completely different direction. The huntsman stealthily approaches the magpie so that it does not notice him. And this was in winter, when all the hares had already turned white, only all the snow had melted, and the white ones on the ground became far visible. The huntsman looked under the tree on which the magpie was chattering, and saw: a white midge was simply lying on a green one, and its little eyes, black as two bobbins, were looking...

The magpie betrayed the hare, but it also betrays a person to the hare and to any animal, as long as it wants to notice whom it notices first.

“You know,” said Michal Mikhalych, “there is a small yellow marsh bunting.” When you enter the swamp for ducks, you begin to quietly sneak away. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this same yellow bird lands on the reed in front of you, swings on it and squeaks. You go further, and it flies to another reed and squeaks and squeaks. This is what she lets the entire swamp population know; you look - there the ducks guessed that the hunter was approaching and flew away, and there the cranes flapped their wings, there the snipes began to escape. And it’s all her, it’s all her. Birds say this differently, but animals read tracks more.

Birds under the snow

The hazel grouse has two salvations in the snow: the first is to sleep warmly under the snow, and the second is that the snow drags with it to the ground from the trees various seeds for the hazel grouse to eat. Under the snow, the hazel grouse looks for seeds, makes passages there and opens upward for air. Sometimes you go skiing in the forest, you look - a head appears and hides: it’s a hazel grouse. There are not even two, but three salvations for a hazel grouse under the snow: warmth, food, and you can hide from a hawk.

The black grouse does not run under the snow, it just needs to hide from the bad weather.

Grouse do not have large passages, like hazel grouse under the snow, but the arrangement of the apartment is also neat: in the back there is a latrine, in front there is a hole above the head for air.

Our gray partridge does not like to burrow in the snow and flies to the village to spend the night on the threshing floor. A partridge spends the night in the village with the men and in the morning flies to the same place to feed. The partridge, according to my signs, has either lost its wildness, or is naturally stupid. The hawk notices her flights, and sometimes she is just about to fly out, and the hawk is already waiting for her on the tree.

The black grouse, I think, is much smarter than the partridge. Once it happened to me in the forest.

I'm going skiing; Red day, good frost. A large clearing opens up in front of me, in the clearing there are tall birches, and on the birches black grouse feed on buds. I admired it for a long time, but suddenly all the black grouse rushed down and buried themselves in the snow under the birches. At the same moment, a hawk appeared, hit the place where the black grouse had buried itself, and entered. But he walks right above the black grouse, but he can’t figure out how to dig with his foot and grab it. I was very curious about this, I thought: “If he walks, it means he feels them under him, and the hawk has a great mind, but he doesn’t have enough to guess and dig with his paw an inch or two in the snow, which means it’s not for him.” given."

He walks and walks.

I wanted to help the black grouse, and I began to steal the hawk. The snow is soft, the ski does not make any noise, but as soon as I started to go around the clearing with bushes, I suddenly fell into the juniper up to my ear. I climbed out of the hole, of course, not without noise and thought: “The hawk heard this and flew away.” I got out and don’t even think about the hawk, and when I drove around the clearing and looked out from behind a tree, a hawk right in front of me was walking for a short shot at the black grouse overhead. I fired. He lay down. And the black grouse were so frightened by the hawk that they weren’t even afraid of a shot. I approached them, swung my ski, and one after another they began to fly out from under the snow; whoever has never seen it will die.

I’ve seen a lot of things in the forest, it’s all simple for me, but I’m still amazed at the hawk: so smart, but in this place he turned out to be such a fool. But I think the partridge is the stupidest of all. She got spoiled among people on the threshing floors, she doesn’t have, like a black grouse, so that when she sees a hawk, she can rush into the snow with all her might. The partridge will only hide its head in the snow from the hawk, but its entire tail will be visible. The hawk takes her by the tail and drags her like a cook in a frying pan.

Squirrel memory

Today, looking at the tracks of animals and birds in the snow, this is what I read from these tracks: a squirrel made its way through the snow into the moss, took out two nuts hidden there since the fall, ate them right away - I found the shells. Then she ran ten meters away, dived again, again left a shell on the snow and after a few meters made a third climb.

What kind of miracle? It’s impossible to think that she could smell the nut through a thick layer of snow and ice. This means that since the fall I remembered about my nuts and the exact distance between them.

But the most amazing thing is that she could not measure centimeters like we did, but directly by eye she determined with precision, dived and reached. Well, how could one not envy the squirrel’s memory and ingenuity!

Forest floors

Birds and animals in the forest have their own floors: mice live in the roots - at the very bottom; various birds like the nightingale build their nests right on the ground; blackbirds - even higher, on the bushes; hollow birds - woodpeckers, titmice, owls - even higher; At different heights along the tree trunk and at the very top, predators settle: hawks and eagles.

I once had the opportunity to observe in the forest that they, animals and birds, have floors that are not like our skyscrapers: with us you can always change with someone, with them each breed certainly lives in its own floor.

One day while hunting we came to a clearing with dead birch trees. It often happens that birch trees grow to a certain age and dry out.

Another tree, having dried up, drops its bark to the ground, and therefore the uncovered wood soon rots and the whole tree falls; The birch bark does not fall off; This resinous bark, white on the outside - birch bark - is an impenetrable case for a tree, and a dead tree stands for a long time as if it were alive.

Even when the tree rots and the wood turns into dust, weighed down with moisture, the white birch appears to stand as if alive. But as soon as you give such a tree a good push, it suddenly breaks into heavy pieces and falls. Cutting down such trees is a very fun activity, but also dangerous: a piece of wood, if you don’t dodge it, can hit you hard on the head. But still, we hunters are not very afraid, and when we get to such birches, we begin to destroy them in front of each other.

So we came to a clearing with such birches and brought down a rather tall birch tree. Falling, in the air it broke into several pieces, and in one of them there was a hollow with a nut nest. The little chicks were not injured when the tree fell; they only fell out of the hollow together with their nest. Naked chicks, covered with feathers, opened their wide red mouths and, mistaking us for parents, squeaked and asked us for a worm. We dug up the ground, found worms, gave them a snack; they ate, swallowed and squeaked again.

Very soon the parents arrived, little chickadees, with white plump cheeks and worms in their mouths, and sat down on nearby trees.

“Hello, dears,” we told them, “a misfortune happened: we didn’t want this.”

The Gadgets couldn’t answer us, but, most importantly, they couldn’t understand what had happened, where the tree had gone, where their children had disappeared.

They were not at all afraid of us, they fluttered from branch to branch in great anxiety.

- Yes, here they are! — we showed them the nest on the ground. - Here they are, listen to how they squeak, how they call you!

The Gadgets didn’t listen to anything, they fussed, worried, and didn’t want to go down and go beyond their floor.

“Or maybe,” we said to each other, “they are afraid of us.” Let's hide! - And they hid.

No! The chicks squealed, the parents squeaked, fluttered, but did not go down.

We guessed then that the birds, unlike ours in skyscrapers, cannot change floors: now it just seems to them that the entire floor with their chicks has disappeared.

“Oh-oh-oh,” said my companion, “what fools you are!”

It became pitiful and funny: so nice and with wings, but they don’t want to understand anything.

Then we took that one big piece, in which the nest was located, they broke the top of a neighboring birch tree and placed our piece with the nest on it exactly at the same height as the destroyed floor. We didn't have to wait long in ambush: a few minutes later the happy parents met their chicks.

birch bark tube

I found an amazing birch bark tube. When a person cuts himself a piece of birch bark on a birch tree, the rest of the birch bark near the cut begins to curl into a tube. The tube will dry out and curl up tightly. There are so many of them on birch trees that you don’t even pay attention.

But today I wanted to see if there was anything in such a tube.

And in the very first tube I found a good nut, grabbed so tightly that it was difficult to push it out with a stick.

There were no hazel trees around the birch tree. How did he get there?

“The squirrel probably hid it there, making its winter supplies,” I thought. “She knew that the tube would roll up tighter and tighter and grab the nut tighter and tighter so that it wouldn’t fall out.”

But later I realized that it was not a squirrel, but a nutcracker bird that stuck the nut, maybe stealing it from the squirrel’s nest.

Looking at my birch bark tube, I made another discovery: I settled under the cover of a walnut - who would have thought? — the spider covered the entire inside of the tube with its web.