The Beauties of Nature

L LIFE-c

. Again, Birds have their own gardens and farms from which they do not wander, and within which they will tolerate no interference. Their ideas of the rights of property are far stricter than those of some statesmen. As to freedom, they have their daily duties as much as a mechanic in a mill or a clerk in an office. They suffer under alarms, moreover, from which we are happily free. Mr. Galton believes that the life of wild animals is very anxious. "From my own recollection," he says, "I believe that every antelope in South Africa has to run for its life every one or two days upon an average, and that he starts or gallops under the influence of a false alarm many times in a day. Those who have crouched at night by the side of pools in the desert, in order to have a shot at the beasts that frequent it, see strange scenes of animal life; how the creatures gambol at one moment and fight at another; how a herd suddenly halts in strained attention, and then breaks into a maddened rush as one of them becomes conscious of the stealthy movements or rank scent of a beast of prey. Now this hourly life-and-death excitement is a keen delight to most wild creatures, but mu

ims,[15] "what happiness reigns! What ease, grace, beauty, leisure, and content! Watch these living specks as they glide through their forests of alg?, all 'without hurry and care,' as if their 'span-long lives' really could endure for the thousa

e points of a character almost universal among animals, and one that would lighten many a heart were it more common among men. That character is the direct result of the golden law 'If one will not work, neither let

motions, but we can hardly be mistaken in supposing that they enjoy certain scents and sounds. It is difficult to separate the games of kittens and lambs from those of children. Our countryman Gould long ago described the "amusements or sp

L

lance and weight that equals the shepherd with the king, and the simple with the wise." Some animals dream as we do; Dogs, for instance, evidently dream of the chase. With the lower animals which cannot shut their eyes it is, however, more difficult to make sure whether t

e earth, and the brother of death extracteth a third part of our lives." The obvious suggestion is that we require rest. But this does not fully meet the case. In sleep the mind is still

cturnal in their habits. Humboldt gives a viv

s of the sapajous, the moans of the alouate apes, the howlings of the jaguar and couguar, the peccary and the sloth, and the cries of (many) birds. When the jaguars approached the skirt of the forest our dog, which till then had never ceased barking, began to howl and seek for shelter beneath our hammocks. Sometimes, after

peccaries and the tapirs, which, having no defence, flee in close troops, and break down the bushes they find in their way. Terrified at this struggle, the timid and distrustful monkeys answer, from the tops of the trees, the cries of the large animals. They awaken the birds that live in society, and by degrees the whole assembly is in commotion. It

addition to the more usual weapons-teeth and claws-we find in

le; and though the venom of the Cobra or the Rattlesnake appeal perhaps more effectively to our imagination, we have conclusive evidence of concentrated poison even in the bite of a midge, which may remain for days perceptible. The sti

, of the Electric Cat Fish, and the Torpedoes, one of which is said to

ts of a cell, within which a firm, elastic thread is tightly coiled. The moment the Medusa touches its prey the ce

sesses a store of dark fluid, which, if attacked, it at once e

American rivers, he went out with a lantern to make an astronomical observation, accompanied by one of his black servant boys; and as they were proceeding, their attention was directed to numerous beetles running about upon the shore, which, when captured, proved to be specimens of a large species of Brachinus. On being seized they immediately began to play

ed; as for instance the web of the Spider, the pi

NS

our own senses we really know or understand very little. Take the question of colour. The rainbow

ely ignorant how we perceive these colours. Thomas Young suggested that we have three different systems of nerve fibres, and Helmholtz re

at they enable us to maintain the equilibrium of the body, but no satisfactory explanation of their function has yet been given. In the cochlea, Corti discovered a remarkable organ consisting of some four thousand complex arches, which increase regularly in length and diminish in height. They are connected at one end with the fibres of the auditory nerve, and Helmholtz has suggested that the waves of sound play on them, like the fingers of a performer on the k

ves, no wonder that with reference to

e senses of animals must closely

s are sometimes constructed on different principles, and situated in very unexpected places. The

oreover, our eye is much more sensitive to some colours than to others; least so to crimson, then successively to red, orange, yellow, blue, and green; the

ond the red at the one end, and beyond the violet at the other: the existence of the ultra red can be demonstrated by the thermometer; while the ultra violet are capable of taking a photograph. But though the red and violet are respectively the limits of our vision, I have shown[16] by experiments which have be

rill sounds is greater in some persons than in others. Sound, as we know, is produced by vibration of the air striking on the drum of the ear, and the fewer are the vibrations in a second, the deeper is

e, and so constituted as to vibrate in response to particular notes. In others the ear cavity contains certain minute solid bodies, known as otoliths, which in the same way play upon the nerve fibres. Sometimes these are s

ey must see everything reversed, as we ourselves really do, though long practice enables us to correct the impression. On the other hand, the compound eyes consist of a number of facets, in some species as many as 20,000 in each eye, and the prevailing impression among entomologists now is that each facet receives the impression of one pencil of ra

t as an independent eye, in which case m

t on the st

d that I

kies with th

ight loo

only substitute one d

imals are confined to our five senses, but there are s

structure, and rich supply of nerves, are evidently organs of sense; a

ly demonstrated by our great countryman Young, is the impression produced by vibration of the ether on the retina of the eye. When 700 millions of millions of

. When we consider how greatly animals differ from us, alike in habits and structure, is it not possible, nay, more, is it not likely th

nsects and worms have, at any rate under certain conditions, the same power, and it is possible that many others are really luminous, though with light which is invisible to us. In w

brilliantly luminous at night. Deep-sea animals are endowed also in

OF DIR

this fact it has been suggested that animals possess a sense with which we are not endowed, or of which, at any rate, we possess only a trace. The homing instinct of the pigeon has also been ascribed to the same faculty

ied them a quarter of a mile, stopping at a point where an old cross stands by the wayside, and whirled the bag rapidly round his head. While he was doing so a good woman came by, who seemed not a little surprised to find the Professor solemnly whirling a black bag round his head in front of the cross; and, he fears, suspected him of Satanic practices. He then carried his Bees a mile and a half in the opposite direction and let them go. Three out of ten found their way home. He tried

. It would be interesting to try the experiment again, taking the Bees say five miles. If they really possess any such sense, that distance would be no bar to their return. I have myself experimented with Ants, taking

R OF

ercised their imagination in recounting the wonders thus revealed. As in other cases, however, the realities of Science have proved far more varied and surprising than the dreams of fiction. Of these extinct species our knowledge is even more incomplete than that of the existing species. But even of our contemporaries it is not too much to say that, as in the case of plants, there is not one the structure, habits, and life-history of which are yet fully known to us

OF THE SMAL

and individually less important, species. Beavers may have dammed up many of the rivers of British Columbia, and turned them into a succession of pools or marshes, but this is a slight matter compared

and fragments of shells. Chalk consists mainly of Foraminifera and fragments of shells deposited in a deep sea. The number of shells required to make up a cubic inch is almost incredi

in numbers. We live indeed in a cloud of Bacteria. At the observatory of Montsouris at Paris it has been calculated that there are about 80 in each cubic meter of air. Elsewhere, however, they are much more numerous. Pasteur's researches on the Silkworm disease led him to the discovery of

nly due to the presence of microscopic organisms; and Lister, by his antiseptic treatment which destroys these

OF AN

small to be formidable; but off the Newfoundland coast is a species with arms sometimes 30 feet long, so as to be 60 feet from tip to tip. The body, however, is small in proportion. The Giraffe attains a height of over 20 feet; the Elephant, though not so tall, is more bulky; the Crocodile reaches a length of over 20 feet, the Python of 60 feet, the ex

OF ANIMAL

at of the arteries, veins, and capillaries must be very great; the blood contains millions of millions of corpuscles, each no doubt a complex structure in itself; the rods in the retina, which are supposed to be the ultimate recipient of light, are estimated at 30,000,000; and

TH O

rot mentioned by Humboldt, talked, but could not be understood, because it spoke in the language of an extinct Indian tribe. It is supposed from their rate of growth that among Fish the Carp is said to reach 150 years; and a Pike, 19 feet long, and weighing 350 lbs., is said to have been taken in Suabia in 1497 carrying a ring, on which was inscribed, "I am the fish which was first of all put into the lake by the hands of the Governor of the Universe, Frederick the Second, the 5th O

, for in its larval condition the Ephemera lives for weeks. Many writers have expressed surprise that in the perfect state its life should be so short. It is, however,

and shortness of life in living creatures, the information which may be had is but slender, observation is negligent, and tradition fab

DIVID

d reptiles, there is no difficulty in deciding whether a given organism is an individual, or a part of an individual. Nor does the difficulty arise in the case of most insects. The Bee or Butterfly lays an egg which develops successively into a larva and pupa, finally producing Bee or But

g the Zoophytes. These beautiful creatures in many cases so closely resemble plants, th

eawrack here

oubting, knows n

ne is dropped t

vegetates a

capture the food by which the whole colony is nourished. Some of these cups, moreover, differ from the rest, and produce eggs. These then we might be disposed to term ovaries. But in many species they detach themselves from the gr

a fruticosa; natural

with Medus? in all stages of development (Fig. 3), some still in the condition of minute buds, in which no trace of the definite Medusa-form can yet be detected; others, in which the outlines of the Medusa can be distinctly traced within the transparent ectotheque (external layer); others, again, just casting off this thin outer pellicle,

fruticosa; magnified

Medusa or free form of

villea fruticos

se. For our first knowledge of the life-history of these Zoophytes we are indebted to the Norwegian

as might have been expected by the posterior but by the anterior extremity (2). The cilia then disappear, a mouth is formed at the free end, tentacles, first

a, and progressive s

and gradually develops into a Medusa (6). Thus, then, the life-history is very similar to that of the Hydroids, only that while in the Hydroids the fixed condition is the more permanent, and the free swimming more transitory, in the Medus?, on the contrary, the fixed condition is apparently only a phase in the produc

art and swim away. In this case, therefore, there was one, and there are now two exactly similar; but are these two individuals? They are not parent and offspring-that is clear, for they are of the same age; nor are they twins, for there is no parent. As already mentioned, we regard the Caterpillar, Chrysalis, and Butterfly as stages in the l

ce much difficulty into our conce

IMMOR

a mass of coral as an individual because it arises by continuous growth from

dual gradually becomes more and more difficult, and the continuity of existence, even among the highest animals, gradually forces itself upon us. I bel

ion takes place, which grows gradually deeper and deeper, until at last the two halves become quite detached, and each swims away independently. The process is repeated over and over again, and in this manner the species is propagated. Here obviously there is no birth and no

TNO

o Microscopica

nd Wasps, and The

th great force on the manner in which the soil

ve Longevity. See also We