18 English

The animals 

Today we are going to go to school with Lelo. It's time for Natural Science. Let's watch what happens.  "When Spring arrives,"  the teacher explains, "it seems like everything wakes up.  Did you see how  the lizards tremble in the rocks and how the woodpeckers knock in the oak tress and how the grasshoppers jump from grass blade to grass blade?  Everything that was weakened by winter revives with the first sun beams.
"Well, there are some creatures which come out more in the winter than now."   a child said.
"That's because in the winter they don't have anything to eat in the hills and they come closer to the houses.  The vixen  likes chickens a lot, but while she finds hares, weasels, mice, black robins or partridges ( which are always going about when it isn't winter),  she doesn't come down to the chicken coop because she is scared of  the dog.  The same thing happens to the wolf.
All creatures  have some mystery for the children and, since the teacher has told them that when  there is something that they don't know, that they should ask,  all of them are asking.
"And why do bats go out during the night?"  Toñín do Xastre asked.
"They go out at night or in dark places, because they hunt the best in the dark.  During the day  there is a lot of noise and since they hunt by ear, because they are blind, they look for the silence of the night, of the caves or even of the stables.  Where they hear the buzz of a fly, a mosquito, a horse fly, there they are to capture it.  The owls also go around at night, even though they  have such a frightful screech, they are very beneficial for agriculture.  I know of a nest of one and when I go to see it, it always has moles or worms, that it caught the night before.  These birds have eyes accustomed to see in the night.  There are other creatures which  come out at one time or another, but they prefer to go out in the moonlight.  Of these,  the wild boar is the one which comes here every night to Caseiro's corn field.
Teacher, "what do snakes eat?"  Lelo asked.
"Toads, because I saw it",  Susiño de Rego said.
"And frogs and salamanders and trout and little birds, the teacher added. The birds, only by looking at them, fall asleep. Then the snakes catch them as they wish."
"Where do the swallows go in the winter?" asked Rosiña de Saavedra.
"They go to Africa. When the first  cold snaps come, they go to warmer lands. But those that emigrate are not only the swallows.  Everyone in Vilanova, except you, know that saying:
Four chosen birds
are the ones that pass the sea,
the cuckoo and the swallow,
the dove and the quail.
"Yes we do know it!" everyone protested.
In the back of the class, there was a boy who had been making signs for a while. He was Miliño de Freixo.
"I wanted to know who tells the butterflies to be happy, as if  a letter were going to arrive."
Nobody tells them it, nor do they know. It's that they like the light. They do as the mosquitoes, the beetles and the moths, who hit against the headlight on your father's tractor at dusk.
The children asked other questions about the bees, the wasps, the ants, the slugs... Then Lelo got up.
"Do you give permission, teacher?"
-You can leave.
The child knew of three nests in the new garden wall and he couldn't wait any longer to see them.  One was a wren's nest,  another was a lavandeira's  nest and another was a robin's nest.  They were taking care of the eggs. He knew of another nest of a magpie and another of a crow in the top of each one of their oak trees.  They had offspring, but he was to small to climb so far up.
When he was returning to school, the others were already leaving for recess.