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22. Variety of things
done by the hand.
Variety of shapes
which the hand
takes in the deaf
and dumb
alphabet.
But the difference in the work of the hand is not
merely in coarseness and fineness. It can do a
great many different kinds of coarse work and a
great many different kinds of fine work. The hand
works very differently with different things. See how differently it
manages a rope, a hammer, a spade, a hoe, a knife and fork, etc. It
takes hold of them in different ways to work them. And then, as to
fine work, how differently it manages a pen, an engraver’s tool, a
thread, a needle, etc.
If you watch people as they do different things, you can get some
idea of the variety of the work that the hand can perform. See how
differently the fingers are continually placed as one is playing on an
instrument. You can see very well what a variety of shapes the hand
can be put into if you observe a deaf and dumb person talking with
his fingers. On the following page is a representation of the different
ways in which the letters are made.
23. The most
common things
that it does
wonderful.
A buttoning
machine.
The most common things that we do with our
hands are really wonderful. Watch one as he is
buttoning up his coat: how easily his fingers do it;
and yet it is a wonderful performance. Suppose a
man should try to make a machine, shaped like the
hand, that would do the same thing, do you think
that he would succeed? It would be very strange if
he did. Suppose, however, that, after working a
long time, he did really succeed, and that you saw his machine, with
its fingers and thumb, put a button through a button-hole in the
same way that you do it with your fingers. Do you think that it could
manage buttons of all sizes, large, middle-sized, and small? No; it
could only button those that are of one size. The different sized
buttons would require different machines; and, besides, a machine
24. The hand an
instrument of
feeling.
The hand guided
by the touch.
that could button up could not unbutton. But your hand is a machine
that, besides buttoning and unbuttoning buttons of various sizes, is
doing continually a great variety of things that machines can not do.
No machine can take up a pen and write, or even move a stick about
as your hand can. When some ingenious man makes a machine that
can do any one thing like what the hand does, it excites our wonder,
and we say, How curious! how wonderful! how much like a hand it
works!
But the hand is not merely a machine that
performs a great many motions; it is also an
instrument with which the mind feels things. And
what a delicate instrument it is for this purpose!
How small are the things that you sometimes feel
with the point of the finger! As you pass it over a smooth surface,
the slightest roughness is felt. A great deal of knowledge, as I told
you in Chapter XIV., gets into your mind through the tips of your
fingers. Messages are going from them continually by the nerves to
the mind in the brain. The blind, I have told you, read with their
fingers. They pass them over raised letters, and the nerves of the
fingers tell the mind what the letters are, just as the nerves of your
eyes are now telling your mind what the letters are in this book.
Now, while the hand is performing its different
motions as a machine, it is generally very much
guided by this sense of touch. If your hand had no
feeling in it, it would make awkward business even
in such a simple operation as buttoning; and it could not do it at all
if you did not look on all the time that it was doing it. Your eye-
nerves would have to take the place of your finger-nerves, as in the
reading of the blind the finger-nerves take the place of the eye-
nerves. As it is, you need not look at your fingers while they are
buttoning, for they are guided by the feeling that is in them.
There was once a woman who lost the use of one arm, and at the
same time lost all her feeling in the other. She had a baby to take
care of. She could hold it with the arm that had no feeling, because
25. How it differs
from machines
made by man.
How to get an
idea of the variety
of things which
the hand can do.
she could work the muscles in that arm, but she could not do it
without looking at it all the time. If she looked away, the arm would
stop holding the baby and let it fall, for it could not feel that it was
there. In her case the eye-nerves had to keep watch in place of the
arm-nerves that could not feel.
You see that the hand is different from the
machines that man makes in two things—in the
variety of things that it can do, and in the
connection which it has with the mind by the
nerves. While the mind, by the nerves, makes it do
things, it knows by other nerves all the time whether it is doing
them right.
See, now, what are the parts of this wonderful set of machinery.
There are in the hand and arm thirty bones. There are about fifty
muscles, and all these are connected with the brain by nerves. It is
by them that the mind makes the muscles perform all the various
motions of the hand and fingers, and then there are other nerves
that tell the mind what is felt in any part of this machinery.
I have mentioned in this chapter a few of the
things that are done by the hand, but there is no
end to the things that can be done by this set of
machinery. You can get some idea of this in two
ways—by moving your hands and fingers about in
all sorts of ways, and by thinking of as many as you can of the
different things that people, in work or in play, do with their hands.
And observe in how many more ways the hand is useful than the
foot is. The foot has but a few things to do compared with the
multitude of things done by the hand.
Questions.—What animal has something like a hand?
How does it compare with your hand? Why would you call
the hand a set of machinery rather than an instrument?
What is said about the fingers doing heavy and light
work? Tell about the rope and the thread. What is said
about the different kinds of both coarse and fine work that
26. the hand can do? What is said about playing on an
instrument? What is said of the alphabet of the deaf and
dumb? What is said about the common things done
continually by the hand? What is said of the hand as an
instrument for feeling? If your hand had no feeling, what
would happen? Tell about the woman who lost the power
of motion in one arm and feeling in the other. In what two
things is the hand different from the machines made by
man? What are the parts of the machinery of the hand? In
what two ways can you get an idea of the variety of things
that this machinery can do?
27. How teeth can
serve in place of
hands.
CHAPTER XXII.
WHAT ANIMALS USE FOR HANDS.
Though animals do not have hands, they have different parts
which they use to do some of the same things that we do with our
hands. I will tell you about some of these in this chapter.
You see this dog dragging along a rope which he
holds in his mouth. He is making his teeth answer
in place of hands. Dogs always do this when they
carry things. They can not carry them in any other
way. You carry a basket along in your hand, but the dog takes it
between his teeth, because he has no hand as you have.
I have told you, in another chapter, how the cow and the horse
crop the grass. They do it, you know, with their front teeth. They
take up almost any kind of food—a potato, an apple—with these
teeth. These teeth, then, answer for hands to the cow and horse.
Their lips answer also the same purpose in many cases. The horse
28. Cropping grass.
Anecdotes of
horses.
gathers his oats into his mouth with the lips. The lips are for hands
to such animals in another respect. They feel things with their lips
just as we do with the tips of our fingers.
My horse once, in cropping some grass, took
hold of some that was so stout and so loose in the
earth that he pulled it up by the roots. As he ate it
the dirt troubled him. He therefore knocked the
grass several times against the fence, holding it
firmly in his teeth, and thus got the dirt out, just as
people do out of a mat when they strike it against
any thing. I once knew a horse that would lift a latch or shove a bolt
with his front teeth as readily as you would with your hand. He
would get out of the barnyard in this way. But this was at length
prevented by a very simple contrivance. A piece of iron was fixed in
such a manner at the end of the bolt that you could not shove the
bolt unless you raised the iron at the same time. Probably this
puzzled the horse’s brain. Even if he understood it, he could not
manage the two things together. I have heard about a horse that
would take hold of a pump-handle with his teeth and pump water
into a trough when he wanted to drink. This was in a pasture where
there were several horses; and what is very curious, the other
horses, when they wanted to drink, would, if they found the trough
empty, tease this horse that knew how to pump; they would get
around him, and bite and kick him till he would pump some water
for them.
Monkeys have four things like hands. They are half way between
hands and feet. With these they are very skillful at climbing. There
are some kinds of monkeys, as the one represented here, that use
their tails in climbing as a sort of fifth hand.
The cat uses for hands sometimes her paws, with their sharp
claws, sometimes her teeth, and sometimes both together. She
climbs with her claws. She catches things with them—mice, rats, or
any thing that you hold out for her to run after. She strikes with her
paws, just as angry children and men sometimes do with their
29. Monkeys great
climbers.
What cats use in
place of hands.
The dormouse.
The humming-
bird’s bill.
The bill of a duck.
hands. When the cat
moves her kittens from
one place to another,
she takes them up with
her teeth by the nape of
the neck. There is no
other way in which she
can do it. She can not walk on her hind
feet and carry them with her fore paws. It
seems as if it would hurt a kitten to carry
it in the way that she does, but it does
not.
When a
squirrel nibbles
a nut to make a
hole in it, he holds it between his
two fore paws like hands. So also
does the dormouse, which you
see here.
The bill of a
bird is used as its hand. It gathers with it its food
to put into its crop. When you throw corn out to
the hens, how fast they pick it up, and send it
down into their crops to be well soaked! The humming-bird has a
very long bill, and in it lies a long, slender, and very delicate tongue.
As he poises himself in the air before a flower, his wings fluttering so
quickly that you can not see them, he runs his bill into the bottom of
the flower where the honey is, and puts his little long tongue into it.
The bill of the duck is
made in a peculiar way.
You know that it gets its
food under water in the mud. It can not
see, therefore, what it gets. It has to work altogether by feeling, and
it has nerves in its bill for this purpose. Here is a picture of its bill,
30. The power of the
elephant’s trunk
and the variety of
things it can do.
The elephant’s
trunk can do little
things as well as
great.
showing the nerves branching out on it. You see, too, a row of
pointed things all around the edge. They look like teeth, but they are
not teeth. They are used by the duck in finding its food. It manages
in this way: it thrusts its bill down, and as it takes it up it is full of
mud. Now mixed with the mud are things which the duck lives on.
The nerves tell the duck what is good, and it lets all the rest go out
between the prickles. It is a sort of sifting operation, the nerves in
the sieve taking good care that nothing good shall pass out.
One of the most remarkable things used in place
of a hand is the trunk of the elephant. The variety
of uses to which the elephant puts this organ is
very wonderful. It can strike very heavy blows with
it. It can wrench off branches of trees, or even pull
up trees by the roots, by winding its trunk around them to grasp
them, as you see it is doing here. It is its arm with which it carries
its young. It is amusing to see an old elephant carefully wind its
trunk around a new-born elephant, and carry it gently along.
But the elephant can also do some
very little things with his trunk. You see
in this picture that there is a sort of
finger at the very end of the trunk. It is a
very nimble finger, and with it this
monstrous animal can do a great variety of little things. He will take
with it little bits of bread, and other kinds of food that you hand to
31. The elephant and
the tailor.
him, and put them into his mouth. He will take up a piece of money
from the ground as easily as you can with your fingers. It is with this
finger, too, that he feels of things just as you do with your fingers. I
once saw an elephant take a whip with this fingered end of his
trunk, and use it as handily as a teamster, very much to the
amusement of the spectators.
The elephant can reach a considerable distance with his trunk.
And this is necessary, because he has so very short a neck. He could
not get at his food without his long trunk. Observe, too, how he can
turn this trunk about in every direction, and twist it about in every
way. It is really a wonderful piece of machinery. Cuvier, a great
French anatomist, says that there are over thirty thousand little
muscles in it. All this army of muscles receive their orders by nerves
from the mind in the brain, and how well they obey them!
You see that there are two holes in the end of
the trunk. Into these he can suck water, and thus
fill his trunk with it. Then he can turn the end of
his trunk into his mouth and let the water run
down his throat. But sometimes he uses the water in his trunk in
another way; he blows it out through his trunk with great force. He
does this when he wants to wash himself, directing his trunk in such
a way that the water will pour over him. He sometimes blows the
water out in play, for even such great animals have sports like
children. Sometimes, too, he blows the water on people that he does
not like. You perhaps have read the story of the tailor who pricked
the trunk of an elephant with his needle. The elephant, as he was
passing, put his trunk into the shop window, hoping that the tailor
would give him something to eat. He was angry at being pricked,
and was determined to make the man sorry for doing such an
unkind act. As his keeper led him back past the same window, he
poured upon the tailor his trunk full of dirty water, which he had
taken from a puddle for this purpose.
Questions.—What is said about the dog? What answer
for hands to the cow and the horse? Tell the anecdotes
32. about horses. What does the cat use for hands, and how?
What is said about the squirrel and dormouse? What is the
bird’s hand? Tell about feeding the hens. Tell about the bill
of the duck. What is told of the humming-bird? Mention
some of the variety of uses to which the elephant can put
his trunk. What is said about the finger on the end of it?
Why does the elephant need so long a trunk? What is said
about the muscles in it? How does the elephant drink?
How does he wash himself? Tell about the tailor.
33. Man alone makes
tools.
Animals have
some kinds of
tools ready made.
The tail of a fish a
sculling-oar.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS.
Man is the only animal that makes tools to use.
God has given him a mind that can contrive tools,
and he has also given him hands by which he can
use them. But he has given no such mind to other
animals, and therefore he has not given them hands. They do not
know enough to make tools, and so hands are not needed by them.
But, though other animals do not make tools,
they have tools which they use. God has given
them ready made, as we may say, such tools as
they need. Let us look, then, at some of the tools
that we find in different animals.
You
see a
man in
the
stern or hinder end of a
small boat. He is
sculling, as it is called.
He is making the boat
go by working the oar to
the one side and the
other. The oar is the tool
or instrument by which
he does it. Now a fish
has an instrument like this, by which he goes through the water. His
tail is like the sculling-oar that man has contrived, and which he uses
with his hands. If you watch the fish as he goes through the water,
you will see that he moves it to one side and the other as the man
does his oar; and while he goes ahead by means of his tail, he uses
34. The drill of the
woodpecker.
his fins mostly as balancers to guide his motion. He moves them
rather gently except when he wants to change his course quickly.
When he is moving along fast, and wants to stop, he makes his fins
stand out straight on each side. This is just as rowers in a boat use
their oars when they want to stop the boat.
You see a man drilling a hole in a rock, and you hear the sound of
the tool as it goes click, click, all the while. The woodpecker has a
drill that works in the same way. With his bill he drills holes in the
trees, and you hear the sound of his tool as you do that of the tool
of the rock-blaster. It is a sort of knocking sound repeated many
times very quickly.
What do you think that the woodpecker drills
holes for? It is to get at worms and insects, which
he eats. These are in the bark and wood of dead
trunks and branches of trees. The woodpecker
knows this, and so drills to find them. He does not drill into live bark
and wood, for he knows that there are generally no worms or
insects there.
But the woodpecker’s instrument is something more than a drill. It
is a drill with another instrument inside of it. This instrument is for
pulling out the insect or worm that he finds in drilling. It is shown in
the following figure. It is a very long, straight tongue, and ends in a
bony thorn. This is, as you see, armed with sharp teeth pointing
backward, like the barbs of a fish-hook. Here are, then, two
instruments or tools together. And the way that the woodpecker
manages them is this: while he is drilling, the two parts of the bill
are closed together, making a good wedge-pointed drill, and at the
same time a snug case for the insect-catcher. As soon as he comes
to an insect he opens the drill, and pushes the barbed end of his
long tongue into the insect, and draws him into his mouth.
As the woodpecker has to strike so hard in drilling, the bones of
his skull are made very heavy and strong. If this were not so, his
drilling would jar his brain too much. And another thing is to be
observed: while he is drilling he needs to stand very firmly. He must
35. Tongue and claws
of the
woodpecker.
Digging tools of
the elephant, the
hen, and the pig.
The mole’s
plowing and
digging tool.
His habitation.
hold on tightly to the
tree, or he will slip as
soon as he begins to
drill. He has, therefore,
such claws as you see
here to hold on with.
Some animals have
tools to dig with. The
elephant, you know, has
long, strong tusks. These
he uses in digging up
roots of different kinds from the ground to eat. The hen digs in a
small way with the claws of her feet, to find grains and other kinds
of food that happen to be mingled with the earth. The pig can dig
with its snout. It does not have much use for this when shut up in its
pen; but let it out, and see how it will root, as we say. It does this to
find things in the ground that it can eat. When the pig runs wild, it
roots to get acorns and other things that become mixed up with the
earth.
The mole has a similar
contrivance to work in the
earth with. This animal also
has heavy claws with which it
plows and digs. Here is a
figure showing the bones of one of its fore paws. They are very
heavy and strong, and are worked by large muscles. The claws on
its fingers, you see, are very powerful. The mole does great
execution with this digging and plowing machine in making his
tunnels and galleries in the ground.
The mole’s
habitation is a
singular affair. It
consists of a large circular room,
with several galleries and passages.
36. How the
woodchuck digs.
How beavers build
their cabins.
He makes all this in this way. He first heaps a round hill or mound,
pressing the earth to make it very solid and firm; he then digs out
his round room, where he lives, and the passages. You can
understand how he arranges these by the figure. You can see that
there are two circular galleries, one above the other, and that these
are connected together by five passages. The circular room is
connected with the upper gallery by three passages. It also, you see,
has a deep passage out from it at the bottom, which opens into a
passage that goes out from the lower gallery; this passage, and
another like it on the other side, lead out into the open air. I suppose
that the use of all these winding passages is to enable the mole to
keep out of the way of those who want to catch it.
The marmot, or woodchuck, as he is commonly
called, is a great digger. He digs his hole where he
lives in this way. He loosens the dirt with his fore
paws, using his teeth also when the earth is very
hard, or where any roots happen to be in the way. He pushes back
the dirt as he loosens it. When he gets a considerable heap, what do
you think that he does with it? He shovels it out with his hinder feet,
for they are so shaped that he can use them as shovels. They have a
strong skin between the toes, so that when the toes are spread out
the feet answer very well to shovel dirt with.
Beavers are
very singular
animals. They
do not live
alone, but many of them live
together. They live in a sort of
cabin, which they build with
branches of trees and mud, the
mud answering for mortar. In
gathering the branches they often
gnaw them off with their sharp
and powerful teeth. They are great diggers. They dig up the earth
with their paws to use in building their cabin. It is said that they use
37. The arrangement
of the cabins and
dams of beavers.
their flat tails somewhat as masons do their trowels, spatting and
smoothing the coating of mud as they put it on. The tail, which you
see is very stout, answers another purpose. As the beaver builds the
wall of the cabin, when it gets rather high he props himself up on his
tail as he works.
The beavers build their cabin close to a stream
of water, and their entrance to it is below, so that
they have to go down under water to get to it; and
a dam is built to keep the water over this entrance
of the proper height. If it were not for this, the
door to the cabin might get closed up with ice if the water should
get low in the stream during the winter. This dam the beavers build
of branches of trees, and mud, and stones. The stones are used to
make the branches stay down. In the cabin there are two rooms: in
the upper one they live, and in the lower one they stow their food.
This is the arrangement of these animals for the winter. In the
summer they do not live together in companies, but each one makes
a burrow for itself. Every autumn they come together, and unite in
building their dams and cabins.
Questions.—Why does man make tools? Why do not
other animals make them? Do they have tools? How is the
swimming of a fish like sculling? What does the fish do
with his fins? What is said about the bill of the
woodpecker? What does he drill for? Tell about his tongue.
What is said about the bones of his head? What about his
claws? What is said about the digging of the elephant—of
the hen—of the pig? How does the mole dig? What is said
about his fore paws? Describe the arrangement of the
mole’s habitation. How does the woodchuck dig? How
does he shovel away the dirt that he digs? Tell about the
beavers. In what two ways do they use their tails? What is
the arrangement of the cabin? What is the dam for?
38. The saw-fly.
The bee that cuts
leaves so
curiously.
CHAPTER XXIV.
MORE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS.
Insects have various tools or instruments. There
is a fly called the saw-fly, because it really has a
saw. It is a very nice one, much nicer than any saw
that man ever made. The fly uses the saw to make a place to put its
eggs, where they will be secure. And what is very curious, it has a
sort of glue with which it fastens the eggs in their place.
There are some insects that have cutting
instruments, which will cut as well as you can with
scissors, if not better. There is a bee that is
remarkable in this respect. It has also a boring
tool. Its nest is commonly in old, half-decayed
wood. It clears out a space in it with its boring instrument; it then
sets itself to work with its cutting instrument to cut out pieces of
leaves to line the nest and make the cells in it. These are cut of
different shapes, as they are needed, as you may see in the next
engraving. Below the leaves you see the nest represented. It is
opened by taking off some of the wood, and there you see the lining
of leaves. Great pains is taken by the bees in getting each piece of
leaf of the right shape to fit well, and the pieces are very nicely
fastened together.[A2]
[A2]
A more full account of the operations of this little animal you
can find in a book published by Harper and brothers, entitled
Natural History, by Uncle Philip, which I recommend to my
young readers as a very interesting book about animals.
39. The spinning
machinery of the
silk-worm and the
spider.
Paper-making of
the wasp.
There are some animals that have machinery for making things.
All the silk that is used in the world is made by worms. The silk-
worm has a regular set of machinery for spinning silk. It winds it up
as it spins it. Then man unwinds it, and makes a great variety of
beautiful fabrics with this silk thread.
The spinning machinery
of the spider is much finer
than that of the silk-
worm. The thread which
he spins is made up of a
multitude of threads, each one of these
coming out from an exceedingly small hole
in the spider’s body. You know that there is
a large number of fibres or threads in a
rope. So it is with the spider’s rope, for his
thread that you see, small as it is, is a rope
to him. It is a rope that he walks on like a rope-dancer; and you may
sometimes see him swinging upon it. Sometimes, too, he lets
himself down from some height, spinning the rope that holds him as
he goes down. When he does this, his spinning machine must work
very briskly.
The wasp has a paper factory in him. He makes
his paper out of fibres of wood, which he picks off,
I suppose, with his teeth, and gathers them into a
bundle. He makes this into a soft pulp in some
way; then, from this, he makes the paper with which he builds his
nest. It is very much, you know, like the common brown paper that
man makes. The wasps work in companies, and though each one
can make but little paper, they all together make their nest in a very
little time. The pulp from which they make their paper is very much
like the pulp from which man makes paper, and which you may see
any time in the large tubs or vats of a paper factory. This pulp is
generally made from rags ground up fine, but lately wood has been
much used. Perhaps the hint was taken from the wasps, who were
the earliest paper-makers in the world.
40. Teeth.
Pumps of some
animals.
The proboscis in
some insects.
The proboscis of
the humming-
bird.
Animals can not use knives and forks, as we do,
in dividing up their food. They therefore have
instruments given them which do this very well.
Those long, sharp teeth that dogs, cats, tigers, etc., have, answer to
tear to pieces the flesh they eat, as thoroughly as we can cut it up.
We do not need such teeth, because with instruments contrived by
man’s mind for his hands to use we cut up the food sufficiently.
I have told you that the elephant can draw up
water into his trunk. His trunk is therefore like the
tube with which we suck up water or any liquid.
And it is like a pump too, for, as I shall show you in
Part Third, water is raised in the pump just as it is in a tube when
we suck through it. It is with a pump something like the elephant’s
that many insects get the honey from the flowers. This pump is
called a proboscis. It is with such an instrument that the musquito
sucks up your blood. At the end of his pump he has something with
which he pierces a hole in your skin, and then he pumps your blood
up into his stomach. In some insects the proboscis is very long, as
you see here. This is hollow, and with it the insect sucks up the
honey from very deep flowers, without being obliged to go to the
bottom of them.
The proboscis is
commonly coiled up
when it is not in use.
Here is the proboscis of
a butterfly coiled up. The two long things
above it are feelers.
The tongue of the humming-bird is
really a proboscis, and a very curious
one it is too. It has two tubes
alongside of each other, like the two
barrels of a double-barreled gun. At the tip of the
tongue these tubes are a little separated, and their ends are shaped
like spoons. The honey is spooned up, as we may say, and then it is
41. Cat’s tongue a
curry-comb.
How the heron
catches fish.
drawn into the mouth through the long tubes of the tongue. But the
bird uses its tongue in another way. It catches insects with it, for it
lives on these as well as on honey. It does it in this way: the two
spoons grasp the insect like a pair of tongs, and the tongue,
bending, puts it into the bird’s mouth. The tongue, then, of the
humming-bird is not merely one instrument, but it contains several
instruments together—two pumps, two spoons, and a pair of tongs.
The tongue of a cat is a singular instrument. It is
her curry-comb. For this purpose it is rough, as you
will find if you feel it. When she cleans herself so
industriously, she gets off the dirt and smooths her
coat just as the hostler cleans and smooths the horse’s coat with the
curry-comb. Her head she can not reach with her tongue, and so she
has to make her fore paws answer the purpose instead.
There are some
birds that live on
fishes. They have
instruments,
therefore, purposely for catching them.
The heron is a bird of this kind. He
manages in this way: when the light is
dim, either at dawn or when there is
moonlight, it is his time for going a
fishing. He will stand, as you see him
here, in shallow water, so stiff and so
still that he might be mistaken for a
stump of a tree or something else. He
is looking steadily and patiently down into the water, and the
moment a fish comes along, down goes his sharp bill, and off he
flies to his nest with his prey. The plumes of this singular bird are
beautiful, and are very highly prized as ornaments.
There is one bird that lives chiefly on oysters. It has a bill,
therefore, with which it can open an oyster-shell as skillfully as an
oysterman can with his knife.
42. The tailor-bird.
The wingless bird.
The fish that
shoots insects
with a squirt-gun.
Some birds can sew very well with
their beaks and feet. There is one
bird that sews so well that it is called
the tailor bird. Here is its nest hid in leaves which it
has sewed together. It does this with thread which it
makes itself. It gets cotton from the cotton-plant, and
with its long, delicate bill and little feet, spins it into a
thread. It then pierces the holes through the leaves
with its bill, and, passing the thread through the holes,
sews them together. I believe that in getting the
thread through the holes it uses both its bill and its
feet.
Here is a very strange-looking bird.
It has no wings. It has a very long bill, which it
uses in gathering its food, which
consists of snails, insects, and worms.
He uses his bill in another way. He
often, in resting, places the tip of his bill
on the ground, and thus makes the
same use of his bill that an old man
does of his cane when he stands leaning
upon it.
There is a fish that has a singular
instrument. It is a squirt-gun for
shooting insects. It can shoot them not
only when they are still, but when they
are flying. It watches them as they are
flying over the water, and hits one of them,
whenever it can get a chance, with a fine stream of
water from its little gun. The insect, stunned with
the blow, falls into the water, and the fish eats it.
I could give you a great many more examples of the different
tools that we find in animals, but these are sufficient. You can
observe other examples yourselves as you look at different animals.
43. Questions.—What is said about the saw-fly? Tell about
the boring and cutting instruments of a certain kind of
bee. What is said about silk-worms? What about spiders?
What about wasps? Why do some animals have such long,
sharp teeth? What kind of machine is an elephant’s trunk?
What is the proboscis of an insect? Tell about the tongue
of the humming-bird. How many instruments are there
together in his tongue? What is said about the cat’s
tongue? Tell about the heron. Tell about the bird that lives
on oysters. What is told about the tailor-bird? Tell about
the bird that has no wings. Tell about the fish that shoots
insects with water.
44. Fighting
instruments of
animals.
Why man has
none of them.
Claw and beak of
a cruel bird.
CHAPTER XXV.
INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENSE AND ATTACK.
Animals have various instruments for defending
themselves. Some have claws, some horns, some
hoofs, some spurs and beaks, some powerful
teeth, and some stings. These they use to defend
themselves when attacked.
But man has none of these things. Why is this?
It is because, as I have told you about tools, with
his mind he can contrive instruments of defense,
and with his hands he can use them. If men could
not contrive and use such things as spears, and swords, and guns,
they would stand a poor chance with some of the animals if obliged
to contend with them. A lion or tiger, you know, could tear the
stoutest man in pieces if he had nothing in his hands to defend
himself.
It would be well if men would use the fighting instruments which
they make only for defending themselves. But they often use them
in attacking others, just as beasts do their weapons, and sometimes
they even use their hands, and teeth, and nails in the same way that
beasts do. Hands were made for useful work and innocent play; but
they are often used to strike with. Teeth are given to us to eat with;
but children, and even men sometimes, bite with them like an angry
beast. Nails are given us for various useful purposes, but I have
known children to use them in fighting as beasts do their claws and
spurs.
The fighting
instruments of some
birds are very powerful.
Here are a claw and a
beak of a very cruel bird. How fast this
45. The vulture and
the lamb.
claw would hold the victim, and how would this beak tear it in
pieces! Very different are they from the slender claws and the light
beak of such birds as the canary.
Here is a very rapacious bird, the vulture. He is
on a rock, and has under his feet a lamb which he
found in the valley below. It had perhaps wandered
from the flock, and, as it was feeding, not thinking
of danger, the vulture espied it. Swiftly diving down, he caught it
with his strong claws and brought it up here. You see what a beak
he has to tear the lamb in pieces, that he may devour it.
The toucan, which you see here, has a larger bill than most other
birds. It uses it in crushing and tearing its food, which consists of
fruits, mice, and small birds. You see that its edges are toothed
somewhat like a saw, adapting it to tear in pieces the little animals
which this bird feeds on. But it can use its bill also for another
purpose. It is a powerful instrument of defense in fighting off the
animals that attack it. The toucan makes its nest in a hole of a tree,
which it digs out with its bill, if it does not readily find one already
made; and there it sits, keeping off all intruders with its big beak.
The mischievous monkeys are its worst enemies; but, if they get a
blow from that beak, they are very careful to keep out of the way of
it afterward. When the toucan sleeps, it manages to cover up this
46. The bill of the
toucan.
How it trims its
tail.
The cat’s paw and
its cushions.
large bill with its
feathers, and so it
looks as if it was
nothing but a
great ball of
feathers. There is
one curious use
which it makes of its bill: it uses it
to trim its tail, cutting its feathers
as precisely as a pair of scissors
would. It takes great care in doing
this, evidently thinking that it is
important to its beauty. It waits till
its tail is full grown before it begins to trim it.
The claws of the cat hold the rat very fast, while
her long, sharp teeth tear its flesh, and pull even
its bones apart. If you see a cat do this, you will
get some idea of the way in which a lion or tiger
tears in pieces any animal. As your cat lies quietly purring in your
lap, look at her paws. The claws are all concealed, and the paw, with
its cushions, seems a very gentle, peaceable thing; but wake her up
and let her play with a string, and as she tries to catch it with her
paw, the claws now thrust out make it look like a powerful weapon,
as it really is in the eyes of rats and mice. There are muscles that
work those claws when the cat’s mind tells them to do it. When the
claws are not thrust out these muscles are quiet, but they are ever
ready to act when a message comes to them from the brain.
Did you ever think what the use is of those springy cushions in the
cat’s foot? They are to keep her from being jarred when she jumps
down from a considerable height, as she often does. Other animals
that jump have them. There is another use for these cushions. They
are of assistance to animals in catching their prey. If the cat had
hard, horny feet, as she went pattering around the rats and mice
would take the alarm and get out of the way.
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