THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 From the Library of 
 GERTRUDE WEIL 
 
 1879-1971 
 
'^/x 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00022245269 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/childsbookofnatu02hook 
 
THE CHILD'S BOOK OF NATURE 
 
 FOR THE USE OF 
 
 FAMILIES AND SCHOOLS 
 
 INTENDED 
 
 TO AID MOTHERS AND TEACHERS IN TRAINING CHILDREN 
 IN THE OBSERVATION OF NATURE 
 
 By WORTHfflGTOH HOOKER, M.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "FIRST BOOK IN CHEMISTRY " "CHEMISTRY" "NATURAL PHILOSOPHY ; 
 "NATURAL HISTORY" ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 In Three Parts. Part II. — Animals 
 
 REVISED EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
 1890. 
 
By Dr. WORTHINGTON HOOKER. 
 
 THE CHILD'S BOOK OF NATURE. For the Use of Families and Schools ; intended to 
 aid Mothers and Teachers in training Children in the Observation of Nature. Revised Edition. 
 In Three Parts. Illustrations. The Three Tarts complete in one vol., Small 4to, Cloth, $1 00 ; 
 Separately, Cloth, 44 cents each. 
 
 PART I. PLANTS.— Tart II. ANIMALS.— Part III. AIR, WATER, HEAT, LIGHT, &c. 
 
 FIRST BOOK IN CHEMISTRY. For the Use of Schools and Families. Revised Edition. 
 Illustrations. Square 4to, Cloth, 44 cents. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY. For the Use of Schools and Families. Illustrated by nearly 300 
 Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, 'JO cents. 
 
 SCIENCE FOR THE SCHOOL AND FAMILY. 
 
 Part I. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Illustrated by nearly 300 Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, 
 90 cents. 
 
 Part II. CHEMISTRY. Revised Edition. Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents. 
 Part III. MINERALOGY AND GEOLOGY Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents. 
 
 Published hj HARPER & BROTHERS, FrankUn Square, N.T. 
 
 JK3=- Any of the above volumes will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States 
 or Canada, on receipt of the price. 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty seven, 
 by Harper & Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District Court 
 of New York. 
 
 Copyright, 1885, by Henrietta E. Hookeu. 
 Copyright, 1886, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Having presented in Part First such facts or phenomena of 
 Vegetable Physiology as would be interesting to a child, I pro- 
 ceed in this Part to do the same with Animal Physiology. 
 
 The teacher and parent will observe, that in doing this I bring 
 out quite prominently the analogies that exist between the ani- 
 mal and the vegetable world in the operations of life. Such anal- 
 ogies are always interesting to the child as well as to the adult, 
 and the consideration of them adds much to the enjoyment of 
 the observer of nature, for it opens to him the simple plans and 
 principles upon which the Creator works out the almost endlessly 
 varied results that life, both animal and vegetable, presents to 
 our view. 
 
 What is true of the analogies that exist between the two king- 
 doms of life is also true of those that we find in each kingdom 
 by itself. I have therefore, in this Part, traced the resemblances 
 which the contrivances in the human system bear to those which 
 we see in animals of different kinds, and also the differences, giv- 
 ing to some extent the reasons for them — that is, I have made 
 it in some measure a book of comparative physiology. The ef- 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 feet of this mode of treating the subject will be to interest the 
 child's mind in the observation of the various animals, great and 
 small, that he sees from day to day. Natural History, which is 
 otherwise rather a dull studj T , will thus become very attractive 
 to him. And, to further this object, which I deem to be of great 
 importance, I have noticed the habits of some animals in such a 
 manner as to connect distinctly Physiology with Natural His- 
 tory, a relation which, though an obvious one, has very generally 
 been disregarded. 
 
 While I have aimed in this Part at the same kind of simplic- 
 ity as in the First, there are some points in it which require a 
 greater compass of mind to understand. This is as it should be; 
 for in going through the First Part there will, of course, be ac- 
 quired by the learner some amount of skill in observation and 
 reasoning. I have taken special care, however, not to presume 
 too much upon the mental advance thus made. 
 
 Worth ington Hookee. 
 
C N T E N T S. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. WHAT IS MADE FROM THE BLOOD 7 
 
 II. HOW THE BLOOD IS MADE 12 
 
 III. MOTHER EARTH 14 
 
 IV. THE STOMACH AND THE TEETH 18 
 
 V. MORE ABOUT THE TEETH 21 
 
 VI. THE CIRCULATION OP THE BLOOD 25 
 
 VII. BREATHING 29 
 
 VIII. BRAIN AND NERVES 34 
 
 IX. HOW THE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE 40 
 
 X. SEEING 47 
 
 XI. HOW THE EYE IS GUARDED 54 
 
 XII. HEARING 59 
 
 XIII. THE SMELL, THE TASTE, AND THE TOUCH 65 
 
 XIV. THE BONES 71 
 
 XV. MORE ABOUT THE BONES 75 
 
 XVI. THE MUSCLES 80. 
 
 XVII. MORE ABOUT THE MUSCLES 85 
 
 XVIII. THE BRAIN AND NERVES IN ANIMALS 91 
 
 XIX. THE VARIETY OF MACHINERY IN ANIMALS 95 
 
 XX. THE HAND 100 
 
 XXI. WHAT ANIMALS USE FOR HANDS 106 
 
 XXII. THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS 114 
 
 XXIII. MORE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS 120 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHATTER PACK 
 
 XXIV. INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK 127 
 
 XXV. WINGS 139 
 
 XXVI. COVERINGS OF ANIMALS 147 
 
 XXVII. BEAUTY OF THE COVERINGS OF ANIMALS 153 
 
 XXVIII. HOW MAN IS SUPERIOR TO ANIMALS ICO 
 
 XXIX. THE THINKING OF ANIMALS 1 G6 
 
 XXX. MORE ABOUT THE THINKING OF ANIMALS 174 
 
 XXXI. WHAT SLEEP IS FOR 1 79 
 
 XXXII. HYGIENE 187 
 
 XXXIII. WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY 190 
 
THE 
 
 CHILD'S BOOK OF NATURE. 
 
 PART 1 1. -ANIMALS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHAT IS MADE FKOM THE BLOOD. 
 
 The blood the building-material of the body. 
 
 I HAVE told yon, in Part First, how everything in a plant 
 or tree is made from the sap. This is, then, the building- 
 material, as we may say, of the plant. Now, everything in your 
 body is made from the blood. The blood, then, is to your body 
 what sap is to a plant. It is the common building-material of 
 the body. 
 
 You remember what I told you in Part First about the full- 
 blown rose. This is made from the sap that comes to the bud 
 through the pipes in the stem. Just so the little finger of the 
 child becomes the large finger of the man, from the blood that 
 comes to it through the pipes in the arm. And as the stem of 
 the plant grows larger all the time, so does the arm of a child. 
 The sap makes the stem grow, and the blood makes the arm 
 grow. 
 
 If you cut off a branch of a plant it stops growing, because 
 the sap does not come to it any longer. It soon dies and decays. 
 
WHAT IS MADE FROM THE BLOOD. 
 
 The twig and the infant. Variety of the things made frcm ihe hlood. 
 
 So, if the arm of a child be cut off, it cannot grow, because no 
 more blood can come to it. Like the cut-off branch, it dies and 
 decays. 
 
 You see a twig come up out of the ground. It grows larger 
 and larger every year. Soon it is a small tree. After many 
 years it becomes very large, and spreads out its long branches 
 over a great space. As you look up into it, you think of all that 
 you see, its branches and leaves, as having been made from the 
 sap that is continually running in its pipes. Now, as the little 
 twig becomes a tree, so the infant in the cradle becomes the large 
 man. And when you look up at a man, you can think of all 
 his body as having been made from the blood that runs every- 
 where in its pipes, just as you think of a tree as made from the 
 sap. 
 
 How different from each other are some of the things that are 
 made from the blood ! You could hardly believe that the white, 
 hard teeth are made from the same blood that the red, soft gums 
 are. Suppose that while you are in a china-ware factory a man 
 should tell you that even the whitest china is made from a red 
 liquid, and that they also make in this factory fine red cloth from 
 this liquid. You would not believe him. But white china-ware 
 and the fine red cloth are not any more unlike than the teetli 
 and the gums. 
 
 Suppose, now, that he should show you a yellow, bitter fluid, 
 and then a clear, soft eye-water, and tell you that these he makes 
 from the same red liquid from which the china and the red cloth 
 are made. This, certainly, you would not believe. And yet, in 
 
WHAT IS MADE FROM THE BLOOD. 
 
 The china-ware factory. The body the house of the soul. 
 
 our bodies, the bile and the tears are made from the same blood 
 with the teeth and the gums. 
 
 But not only are a few things, very much unlike, made from 
 the blood, but many things that differ from each other, some of 
 them much and some but little. Suppose that the china-ware 
 maker should tell you that besides making white china and red 
 cloth from his red liquid, he made also a variety of both hard 
 and soft things, such as velvet, and various kinds of cloth, nails, 
 glass, etc. Impossible ! you would say. But this is no more 
 wonderful titan that hair, teeth, gums, nails, bones, and all the 
 different parts of the body should be made from that red flnid — 
 the blood. 
 
 But suppose, again, that the china-ware man should tell you 
 that his factory was made from the same red fluid from which 
 he manufactures so many things in it — that the very pipes that 
 carry the fluid around the building were made from it, and so 
 also was the pump that sends it through these pipes. This 
 would seem to you strangest of all. And yet all the various 
 machinery of the body is made from the blood. The liver, that 
 manufactures bile from blood, is itself made from blood ; and so 
 of other things; even the pipes in which the blood runs all over 
 your body, and the heart that pumps it into them, are made, as 
 I have before told you, from the blood. 
 
 The body is the house or habitation of the soul. It is a well- 
 built and a well-finished house. The bones are its timbers. The 
 skin is its covering. The hair is its thatched roof. The eyes 
 are its windows. It is a house that can be easily moved about, 
 
10 WHAT IS MADE FKOM THE BLOOD. 
 
 All the parts and the furniture of the soul's house made from blood. 
 
 just as the soul wishes. There is for this a great deal of ma- 
 chinery in it. And the soul has little cords, called nerves, run- 
 ning to all parts of this machinery, like telegraphic wires. There 
 are also other kinds of machinery, as the breathing machinery, 
 the machinery for taking care of the food, and the machinery for 
 circulating the blood. The soul resides in the top of this house, 
 the brain. Here it sends out messages everywhere by the little 
 cords, and receives messages by them. Here it thinks and acts, 
 and some of the time sleeps. This part of the house is very 
 curiously and beautifully fitted up. 
 
 Now all the various parts of this house are made, as I have 
 told 3*011, from the blood, and yet there is more variety in them 
 than there is in the parts and furniture of the houses that man 
 builds. Suppose that a man should show you a great quantity 
 of a red liquid, and tell you that with that he intended to build 
 a house and furnish it — that he should make from it all the stones, 
 and bricks, and timbers, and glass, and nails, and plaster, and 
 paper for his walls, and paints of different colors, and then his 
 carpets, and mirrors, and chairs, and curtains, etc., etc. You 
 would say that the man is crazy. But God makes from that 
 red fluid, the blood, all the parts of the house of the soul. 
 
 Exactly in what way all the different parts of the body are 
 made from the blood we do not know. Wise men have studied 
 this a great deal, and they have found out some things about it. 
 What they have found out you are not yet old enough to under- 
 stand. After all, the wisest men know but little about it, and, 
 with all their wisdom, they do not know enough to make skin, 
 
WHAT IS MADE FROM THE BLOOD. 11 
 
 Questions. 
 
 or hair, or anything else that you see in your body, from the 
 blood any more than, as I told you in Part First, they can make 
 even a simple leaf from the sap. 
 
 Questions. — What is everything in a plant made from ? What is everything in 
 your body made from? Tell what is said about the, bud and the ringer, and about 
 the stem and the arm. What is said about cutting off a branch and an arm? How 
 is a child compared to a twig? What is said about the teeth and the gums? Give 
 the comparison about china and cloth. What is said about the tears and the bile? 
 What is said about the variety of things made from the blood ? Give the comparison 
 about the china-ware factory and the machinery of the body. What is said about 
 the different parts of the habitation of the soul ? In what part of this house does the 
 soul reside? Give the comparison about a house and its furniture. What is said 
 about wise men ? 
 
12 nOW THE BLOOD IS MADE. 
 
 Blood made from food. The mouths in the stomach. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW THE BLOOD IS MADE. 
 
 I have told you what is made from the blood, and now you 
 will want to know how the blood itself is made. 
 
 The blood in your body is made from the food that you eat. 
 It is made very much in the same way that the sap in the plant 
 is made. This sounds strange to you, but it is true. You re- 
 member that I told you in Part First that the plant's food is in 
 the ground, and that the root is its stomach. You remember 
 what I told you about the little mouths in the root that suck up 
 'the plant's food out of the ground. There are little mouths in 
 your stomach that suck in the nourishing part of the food that 
 you eat, as the mouths in the root suck up the nourishing part 
 of the earth. And the stomachs of all animals have these little 
 mouths. 
 
 The mouths in the root of a plant do not, you know, suck up 
 all the soil. They drink in only what is good to make the plant 
 grow. So the mouths in the stomach of an animal do not suck 
 up all the food ; they suck up only that part of the food that 
 will make the animal grow — that is, what will make good blood. 
 There is, you know, no sap in the ground, but there is what can 
 be made into sap. So there is no blood in your food, but there 
 is in it what can be made into blood. It is the business of the 
 mouths in the root to take in what will make sap, and so it is the 
 business of the mouths in the stomach to take in what will make 
 
HOW THE BLOOD IS MADE. 
 
 13 
 
 Variety of our food. Stomachs of animals suited to their food. 
 
 blood. And they generally do this business very faithfully. It 
 is very seldom that they take in what they ought not to. 
 
 You have seen how many different things are made from the 
 blood. This is very wonderful. But it is quite as wonderful 
 that the blood can be made from so many different kinds of food 
 as you sometimes take into your stomach. Just think of all the 
 various things that you sometimes eat at dinner — meat, potato, 
 turnip, squash, apple-sauce, cranberry, celery, pie, filberts, raisins, 
 etc. It seems strange that red blood can be made from such a 
 mixture as this. But so it is. There is something in all these 
 different things that helps to make the blood. 
 
 The blood is made from different things in different animals. 
 The cow, you know, never eats meat. It would be of no use in 
 its stomach. The mouths there would not suck up anything 
 from it. This is not their business. Their business is to suck 
 up something from grass, and meal, and potatoes, etc., but not 
 from meat. So grass would be of no use to a dog. The Creator 
 has made the stomach of the cow in such a way that it can get 
 from grass what is needed to make blood ; and he has given such 
 a stomach to a dog that blood can be made from the meat that 
 he eats. Our stomachs are made in such a way that our blood 
 can be made from a great many different tilings; and so the 
 variety of our food is much greater than that of such animals as 
 the cow and the dog. 
 
 Questions. — From what is the blood made ? How is an animal's stomach like the 
 root of a plant? What part of the food do the mouths in stomachs and in roots 
 suck up? What is said about the different kinds of food that blood is made from? 
 Tell about the food of the cow and the dog. What is said about our stomachs? 
 
14 MOTHER EARTH. 
 
 Our food iu the ground. The plants gather it and fit it for onr use. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MOTHER E A R T II. 
 
 The food of plants is in the ground, and the roots take it up; 
 but so, too, is the food of animals in the ground. And yet, if 
 we should fill our stomachs ever so full of earth, we should not 
 be nourished. How is this ? It is because the food is not in the 
 right condition for us while it is in the earth. It must be changed 
 before our stomachs can do anything with it. 
 
 Now this is just what the plants do for us. They get this 
 food out of the earth for us, and put it into such a condition 
 that our stomachs can use it. I will make this plain to you. "We 
 eat bread made from wheat. It nourishes us — that is, blood is 
 made from it. But what is the wheat ? It is grain that is made 
 from the sap that comes up in the pipes of the stalk, and this sap 
 is made from what the root sucks up out of the ground. You 
 see, then, that what the wheat is made from is in the ground; 
 and all that the plant does is to take this up out of the ground 
 and make it into wheat, so that our stomachs can use it for food. 
 The plant's stomach, then, we may sa} T , gathers food out of the 
 ground for our stomachs. 
 
 One of the things that we eat is sugar. Where does it come 
 from ? It is made from the earth. But if you should put earth 
 into your stomach, no sugar could be made from it in your body. 
 There are some plants that have to do this for us. They make 
 
MOTHER EAETH. 15 
 
 Changes in the food while it is becomincr fitted for us 
 
 sugar from the earth for us to eat. This part of our food, then, 
 may be said to be really in the ground, for what it is made from 
 is there. 
 
 The same thing is true when you eat meat. This meat was 
 once a part of the ground. See how this is. Suppose it is a 
 piece of beef from an ox : the grass that the ox ate was made 
 from sap sucked up from the ground ; then from this grass blood 
 was made in the ox ; from this blood the meat was made ; and 
 now from the meat blood is made to nourish you. 
 
 See, now, how many changes the food in the ground goes 
 through in this case before it becomes a part of your body. First 
 it becomes sap ; then it becomes a part of the grass ; then in the 
 stomach of the ox it is sucked up, and is changed into blood; 
 then it becomes a part of the ox ; then it is sucked up in your 
 stomach, and is changed into blood; and now it is ready to be 
 used in your body to make nerve, or bone, or eye, or tooth, or 
 any part of the house of your soul. 
 
 You sometimes drink the milk of the cow. This also comes 
 from the ground. See how this is. The cow goes to pasture, 
 and eats the grass that is made from the ground. The cow's 
 blood is made from this, then milk is made in her bag from the 
 blood, and in you this milk is changed back to blood. 
 
 So you see that all our food really comes from the earth. 
 There is in the earth under our feet just what makes and nour- 
 ishes our bodies. We cannot get at it ourselves, mixed up as it 
 is with the earth, but the plants suck it up and prepare it for us; 
 and in this you see the reason for the expression " Mother Earth." 
 
16 MOTHER EARTH. 
 
 Reasons why animals have a stomach. 
 
 The earth is our mother. We get all our food from the earth 
 as really as the infant gets its food from its mother's breast. 
 
 You can also see, from what I have told you in this chapter, 
 the meaning of the text, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt 
 thou return." We are dust, that is, earth ; for we are made 
 from it, and are nourished by what comes from it, and when we 
 die our bodies will become a part of the earth again. 
 
 You see that there are two reasons why animals have a stom- 
 ach to put their food in. One is that they want to move about. 
 They could not have a root for a stomach, as plants do. They 
 must have a stomach that they can carry about with them. We 
 can suppose an animal made like a plant. It might have feet 
 with roots sprouted out from them, and these roots might have 
 little mouths which would suck up food as soon as they were put 
 into the ground. But how very awkward and inconvenient this 
 would be ! The animal would be obliged every now and then to 
 bury up its feet with their roots in loose, moist earth, and stay 
 still in one spot till enough was sucked up from the earth for its 
 nourishment. And, besides, the roots would be dangling around, 
 and catching in everything as the animal moved about. Your 
 little feet could not carry you about as nimbly as they now do 
 if you had such roots fastened to them. 
 
 Another reason is, that the food in the ground is not fitted to 
 nourish an animal. It must be gathered up in plants, and be 
 changed in them, as I have shown you in this chapter, before it 
 can be of any use to animals. 
 
 The stomach of a plant is much larger than that of an animal. 
 
MOTHER EARTH. 17 
 
 Why the stomach of a plant is so much larger than the stomach of an animal. 
 
 The stomach of an animal, you know, is but a small part of its 
 body; while the root of the plant — that is, its stomach — is nearly 
 as large as the plant itself. What do you think is the reason of 
 this? The little mouths in the root of the plant suck np only a 
 small part of the earth, the plant's food, and so it takes a great 
 deal of earth to give the plant all the sap that it needs. It is for 
 this reason that the root spreads out so far on every side. Now, 
 in the animal the mouths in the stomach suck up a great part of 
 the food. It does not require, therefore, a large stomach, for it 
 needs to put but a small amount of food into it. You see, then, 
 that the food of the plant is bulky, as we say, and therefore it 
 must have a large stomach, while the animal can manage its food 
 w T ith a small one. 
 
 Questions. — Where is the food of animals? What must be done to it before they 
 can use it? What do the plants do for us? Tell about the wheat. What is said 
 about sugar? What about meat? Mention the changes that food goes through in 
 this case before it becomes a part of your body. What is said of milk ? What is 
 the reason of the expression "Mother Earth" ? Explain the text, " Dust thou art, 
 and unto dust shalt thou return." What is the first reason given why an animal 
 has a stomach to put his food in ? What is the second reason ? Why is the stomach 
 of a plant so nuch larger that the stomach of an animal ? 
 
 11 
 
18 THE STOMACTI AND THE TEETTI. 
 
 What is done to the food in the stomach. The grinding of the food. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TIIE STOMACH AND THE TEETH. 
 
 The little mouths in the stomach, as I have told you, suck up 
 from the food what is made into blood, but they do not do this 
 as soon as the food is put into the stomach. The food must be 
 digested first. You have heard people talk about digestion, and 
 now I will explain it to you. 
 
 When you swallow your food, there is a liquid formed in the 
 stomach that mixes up with it. This liquid, after a little time, 
 changes all the different kinds of food in such a way that the 
 whole looks as if it was all one thing. The meat, and potato, 
 and pie, etc., are not only well mixed, but they are so changed 
 that you could not tell one from the other. 
 
 When the food becomes changed in this way, the little mouths 
 begin their work upon it. They suck up from it a white fluid 
 very much like milk; and it is from this fluid that all the blood 
 in our bodies is made. 
 
 Now observe what is done to the food before it goes into the 
 stomach. There is a mill in your mouth for grinding it up, and 
 a very good mill it is. There are twenty teeth there for the pur- 
 pose of dividing up your food very finely. You can see what 
 the use of this is. The finer the food is, the more easily will the 
 digesting fluid in the stomach change it. It takes some time for 
 this fluid to soak through a solid piece of meat or potato. So 
 
TIIE STOMACH AND THE TEETH. 19 
 
 Breaking up the food of plants. The saliva factories. 
 
 you see that you must not swallow your food too fast, but must 
 let the mill in your mouth grind it up thoroughly. 
 
 Something like this grinding we do sometimes for the food of 
 plants. You know that in the spring the gardener digs up his 
 garden, and the farmer ploughs his fields. What is this for ? It 
 is to loosen up the ground ; that is, it is to break up the food of 
 the plants, so that they can use it well. If this was not done, 
 the hard earth would be to the plants just as your food would 
 be to your stomach if you swallow it without chewing it well. 
 So your teeth do to your food what the spade and the plough 
 do to the food of plants. 
 
 While the mill is grinding the food, there are some factories 
 about the mouth, making and pouring forth a fluid to moisten it. 
 This fluid, called the saliva, is what you feel in the mouth when 
 the mouth waters, as we say. The two largest of these factories 
 are just below your ears. It is these that swell up so much when 
 one has the mumps. These saliva factories do a moderate busi- 
 ness generally. Most of the time they only make enough liquid 
 to keep the mouth moist. Sometimes they do not make enough 
 even for this. This is the case when your mouth gets dry, as it 
 is apt to do in fever. When you eat, these factories do a brisk 
 business, for they then have to make a good deal of fluid to mix 
 with the food. It seems as if they knew when it was necessary 
 for them to go to work and make more saliva than usual. This, 
 of course, is not so ; but how it is that they are made to work so 
 hard while we are eating we do not know. 
 
 The food of plants needs moistening just as our food does. 
 
20 THE STOMACH AND THE TEETH. 
 
 Parched plants and the parched mouth in fever compa 
 
 ed. 
 
 The rain moistens it for the root, the stomach of the plant, so 
 that it may get nourishment from it. When you water the dry 
 earth in a flower-pot, you do for the food of the plant what the 
 saliva factories do for your food. 
 
 Sometimes, in fever, as I have just told you, the mouth is very 
 dry. This is partly because the saliva factories have almost 
 stopped work ; hardly any saliva comes through their canals into 
 the mouth. It would be hard work then to eat dry food. The 
 dry cracker must be moistened before it can be eaten. This is 
 very much like what sometimes happen to plants when there has 
 been no rain for a long time. There they are, with their roots in 
 the ground, just as they have been all along. The food is close 
 to their little mouths, but it is so dry that they cannot well 
 manage it. They languish, therefore, and perhaps wilt. The 
 dry earth is to them like the dry cracker to the fevered mouth. 
 
 Questions. — What is done to the food in the stomach? What do the mouths in 
 the stomach suck up? What is done to the food before it goes into the stomach? 
 What is the use of grinding the food ? What harm does it do to eat fast ? What is 
 said about the food of plants? What else is done to our food while the teeth are 
 grinding it? Tell about the working of the saliva factories. What is said about 
 moistening the food of plants? How are plants sometimes like persons in a fever? 
 
MORE ABOUT THE TEETH. 21 
 
 The different kinds of teeth for cutting, and tearing, and grinding. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE TEETH. 
 
 Notice that in the mill in your mouth there are different 
 kinds of teeth. They are for different purposes. The front 
 teeth are for cutting the food ; the large back teeth are for 
 grinding it up fine; the pointed teeth, called the stomach and 
 eye teeth, are for tearing the food. 
 
 You can see these different kinds of teeth in different animals. 
 Every animal has such teeth as it needs to divide its food. The 
 dog and the cat eat meat, and they want to tear this to pieces; 
 they therefore have long, sharp, tearing teeth ; so, too, have the 
 lion and the tiger, for the same reason. Now look at the cow's 
 mouth : she has no tearing teeth. The grass that she eats does 
 not need to be torn ; it needs to be bruised and ground up, and 
 for this purpose she has large, broad, grinding teeth. These are 
 her back teeth. 
 
 But you notice that the cow has a few different teeth in front ; 
 they are made to cut. Now watch a cow as she eats grass, and 
 see how she uses these two kinds of teeth. With the front teeth 
 she bites the grass — that is, she cuts it ; then with the end of her 
 tongue she put it back where the grinding teeth are, to be ground 
 before it goes into the stomach. So the cow has in her mouth 
 both a cutting-machine and a mill. 
 
 The horse has these two kinds of teeth, as you see represented 
 
22 
 
 MOKE ABOUT THE TEETH. 
 
 The teeth of the horse, the cow, and the giraffe. 
 
 in this figure, which is the skull 
 of a horse. 
 
 Now, when you eat an apple 
 
 you do very much as the cow or 
 
 the horse does with the grass ; 
 
 with your front cutting teeth 
 
 you bite off a piece ; then it is pushed back where the grinders 
 
 are, and they grind it up into a soft pulp before you swallow it. 
 
 The cow does not always use her cutting teeth in the way that 
 
 I have mentioned. See 
 her as she eats hay ; she 
 does not cut this as she 
 does the grass. With 
 those front cutting teeth 
 she merely takes up the 
 hay, and it is gradually 
 drawn back into the 
 mouth, the grinders all 
 
 the while keeping at 
 work on it. If the hay 
 is in a rack, she polls it 
 out with her cutting 
 :" teeth. It is the same 
 with the horse. 
 
 That beautiful and 
 singular animal, the gi- 
 raffe, which you see here, has these two kinds of teeth. This 
 
 ^"^ 
 
MORE ABOUT THE TEETH. 23 
 
 Tearing teeth. Stomachs of the cow. 
 
 animal, when of full size, is three times the height of a tall man; 
 it lives on the leaves of trees, which it crops with its front teeth, 
 grinding them up with its large back teeth, as the cow and horse 
 do their hay and grass. 
 
 You notice that your tearing teeth are not nearly as long and 
 powerful as these teeth are in dogs, cats, tigers, etc. What is 
 the reason of this? It is because, although you eat meat as they 
 do, you can, with your knife and fork, cut up your food. They 
 do not know enough to use such things, and so God has given 
 them long, sharp teeth to tear their food to pieces. 
 
 The cow grinds the grass and hay twice. So do the sheep, the 
 deer, the camel, the giraffe, and many other animals. See the 
 cow cropping grass in the pasture; she grinds it partly in her 
 mouth as she crops it, and then stows it away in a very large 
 stomach that she has for the purpose ; after a while she stops 
 eating, and you see her standing or lying in the cool shade chew- 
 ing her cud, as we say. That large stomach is very full of grass 
 now, and this is all to be chewed over again. How do you think 
 this is done ? I will tell you. 
 
 After the grass is well soaked in this large stomach it passes 
 into another, for the cow has more than one stomach — she has 
 four. In the second stomach the grass is all rolled into balls. 
 This is a very curious operation. Now each one of these balls 
 goes up into the mouth to be chewed over again. After it is 
 well chewed, down it goes again, but it goes into still another 
 stomach, and then up comes another ball to take its place ; and 
 so the cow goes on till all the balls are chewed, If you look at 
 
24 MORE ABOUT THE TEETH. 
 
 u* the cud. 
 
 the cow's neck while she is doing this, you can see when the ball 
 a np and when it goes down. She seems to have the same 
 quiet enjoyment while thus chewing her cud that the cat fa 
 when, with her eyes half open, she lies purring and wagging her 
 tail after a full meal. 
 
 Birds, yon know, have no teeth. Their mill for grinding food 
 d r in the mouth, it is in the stomach. What we call the giz- 
 zard is this mill. See a hen pick up the corn that you thro v.' to 
 her. She swallows it very fast. Where do yon think it goes 
 to \ It goes into a bag called the crop. Here it is soaked, jnst 
 as the grass is in the large stomach of the cow. When it be- 
 comes soft enongh it goes into the gizzard. Here it is crushed 
 so as to make a soft pulp by being rubbed between two hard 
 surfaces, as corn in a mill is ground between two mill-stones. It 
 you cut open the gizzard of a fowl, you can see how well these 
 surfaces are fitted to grind up the corn. They do it quite as well 
 as teeth would. Birds that live on food that does not need grind- 
 ing do not have a gizzard, but a common stomach. 
 
 : — Where are the different kinds of teeth that you have in roar month, 
 and what are they for ? What is said about the teetli of the dog. eat, etc. ? What 
 is said about the cow's back teeth ? What of her front ones ? Teil how the cow 
 .ese two kinds of teeth in eating grass, and how in eating hay. How do yon 
 eat an apple ? Tell about the giraffe. Tell about the cow's chewing her cud. What 
 is the crop of a hird fur? What is tl.e gizzard for? Do all birds have gizzards? 
 
THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 25 
 
 Arteries and veins. The heart. The capillaries. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 
 
 You remember that I told you in Part First how the sap cir- 
 culates in a plant or a tree. It goes up in one set of pipes, and 
 goes down in another set. Just so it is with the blood in your 
 body ; it is always in motion. There are two different sets of 
 pipes for it to go back and forth, as there are in the plant for the 
 sap ; these two sets of pipes are called arteries and veins. 
 
 The blood in your body is kept in motion by a pump that 
 works all the time, night and day. This pump is in your chest. 
 It is the heart. Put your ear to the chest of some one, and you 
 can hear its working as it pumps out the blood. You can hear it 
 in your own chest sometimes when it works very hard. When 
 you have been running very fast you can hear it. 
 
 The heart pumps the blood out at every beat into a large 
 artery. From this great main pipe other pipes or arteries branch 
 out everywhere, and from these branches other branches go out; 
 dividing in this way, like the branches of a tree, the arteries at 
 last are very small. 
 
 At the ends of the arteries there are exceedingly small vessels. 
 They are called capillaries, from the Latin word capilla, which 
 means a hair. They are really smaller than the finest hairs, for 
 you cannot see them. When you cut your finger you divide a 
 great many of these vessels, and the blood oozes out from them. 
 
26 TIIK CIRCULATION OF TIIE BLOOD. 
 
 How arteries are guarded more than veins, and why. 
 
 When any one blushes, these capillaries in the skin of the face 
 are very full of blood, and this causes the redness. It is the 
 blood in these little vessels that makes the lips red. These cap- 
 illaries are everywhere, so that wherever you priek with a pin 
 the blood will ooze out. 
 
 The blood goes out from the heart by one set of pipes, and 
 comes back to the heart by another set. It goes out from the 
 heart by the arteries, as I have just told you ; it comes back to 
 the heart by the veins. 
 
 The veins lie, some of them, very deep, and some just under 
 the skin. You see some of them under the skin in your arm 
 and hand. But you cannot see the arteries; they nearly all lie 
 deep. Think of the reason of this. If an artery of any size is 
 wounded, it is not easy to stop its bleeding, for the heart is 
 pumping blood right through it; but it is easy to stop the bleed- 
 ing of a wounded vein, because the blood is going in it quietly 
 back to the heart. Now it is because it is so dangerous to wound 
 arteries that God has placed them so deep that they cannot easily 
 be wounded. 
 
 The Maker of our bodies has guarded the arteries in another 
 way. He has made them much stronger than the veins. If they 
 were not made very strong they would now and then burst. You 
 sometimes see the hose of a fire-engine burst when they are work- 
 ing the engine very hard ; but, though your heart pumps away 
 sometimes so fast and hard, as when you have been running, not 
 one of all the arteries gives way ; but they would often burst if 
 they were not made stronger than the veins are. 
 
THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 27 
 
 Circulation of the sap. Pumping of the heart. 
 
 The blood in the arteries is red ; but the blood that comes back 
 to the heart in the veins is dark. This is the reason that the 
 veins which you see under the skin look dark. I will tell you 
 more about the dark and the red blood in the next chapter. 
 
 You see that the blood is kept in motion in a different way 
 from what the sap is. In a large tree there is a great deal of sap 
 going up in its trunk all the time, but there are no large pipes 
 there like our arteries and veins. The sap goes up and down in 
 a multitude of veiw small pipes, and there is no pump in the tree, 
 as there is in our bodies, and in the bodies of other animals. 
 How the sap goes up to the top of the tallest tree without being 
 pumped up we do not know. 
 
 The heart is at work, as I have told you, all the time, while 
 you are asleep as well as when you are awake. If it should stop 
 pumping the blood, you would die. How steadily it works, 
 ffoins: tick-tack all the while ! How much work it does in a life- 
 time ! It takes but a few days for it to beat a million of times ; 
 and here I will give you something about this work of the heart 
 that I wrote in another book.* 
 
 If the heart could think and know and speak, suppose it 
 should count up how many times it has to beat before the days 
 of seventy years are numbered and finished. I think it would 
 feel a little discouraged at the great, long work that was before 
 it, just as some people do when they look forward and think how 
 much they have to do; but remember that the heart has a mo- 
 ment in which to make every beat. There is time enough to do 
 
 * Every-day Wonders ; or, Facts in Physiology. American Sunday-school Union. 
 
28 THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 
 
 Cheerful working. The discontented pendulum. 
 
 the work; it is not expected to make two or more beats at once, 
 but only one. 
 
 As the heart cannot think, it does not faint with discourage- 
 ment, but goes right on with its work, doing in each moment 
 the duty of that moment; and it would be well if people that 
 can think, whether children or adults, would take a lesson from 
 this little busy worker in their bosoms. If one goes right on, 
 performing cheerfully every duty as it comes along, he will do 
 a great deal in a lifetime, and he will do it easily and pleasantly, 
 if he does not keep looking ahead and thinking how much he 
 has to do. 
 
 There is a pretty stoiy, by Miss Jane Taylor, about a discon- 
 tented pendulum. The pendulum of a clock in a farmer's kitch- 
 en, in thinking over the ticking that it had got to do, became 
 discouraged, and concluded to stop. The hands on the clock- 
 face did not like this, and had a talk with the pendulum about 
 it. The pendulum was, after a while, persuaded to begin its 
 work again, because it saw, as the hands said, that it always had 
 a moment to do every tick in. The pendulum's foolish waste 
 of time in complaining made the farmer's clock an hour too slow 
 in the morning. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about the circulation of the sap and the blood ? What 
 is said about the heart ? What about the arteries ? What are the capillaries ? By 
 what pipes does the blood come back to the heart ? Where can you sec some of the 
 veins? Why are the arteries laid deeper than these veins? Why are they made 
 stronger than veins ? What is the color of the blood in the arteries ? What is its 
 color in the veins? Is the sap kept in motion in the same way that the blood is? 
 What is said about the work that the heart does? Tell about the pendulum. 
 
BREATHING. 29 
 
 The blood changed from dark to red in the lungs. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BREATHING. 
 
 What do you breathe for ? That is plain enough, you will 
 say : I cannot live without breathing. But why is it that your 
 life depends on your breathing? This I will explain to you. 
 
 You remember that I told you that the blood that comes back 
 to the heart in the veins is dark; it is not good blood. It has 
 been used while it was in the capillaries in building and repair- 
 ing bone and skin and muscle and nerve, etc. It is not fit to 
 be used again so long as it is dark blood. What shall be done 
 with it? It must be made in some way into good red blood 
 again. Now the factory where this is done is the lungs. 
 
 Just as fast as the dark blood comes to the heart, it sends it to 
 the lungs to be made into red blood, then it goes back to the 
 heart to be sent all over the body. But how, you will ask, is the 
 dark blood changed into good red blood in the lungs? It is done 
 by the air that you breathe in ; every time that you draw a breath, 
 air goes down into the lungs and changes the blood that it finds 
 there. 
 
 And now you see why it is that you have to breathe to keep 
 alive. If the air does not go down into the lungs, the dark blood 
 that is there is not changed into red blood ; it goes back to the 
 heart dark blood, and is sent all over the body ; but this dark 
 blood cannot keep you alive : it is the red blood that does this. 
 
30 
 
 BREATniNG. 
 
 Drowning 
 
 Situation of the heart and lungs. 
 
 Yon see, then, how death is caused in drowning ; the air is shut, 
 out by the water, and the blood is not changed in the lungs, and 
 the heart stops beating, when, of course, the person or creature 
 dies. 
 
 The heart and the lungs fill up your chest. The lungs cover 
 up the heart, except a little part of it on the left side : this is 
 
 where you can feel its beating so 
 plainly. Here is a figure of the 
 heart and lungs; the lungs are 
 drawn apart, so that you can see 
 the heart, and its large arteries and 
 veins. You see, marked <z, the 
 windpipe by which the air goes 
 down into the lung's. The lun^s 
 are light, spongy bodies. They are 
 light because the} r are full of little 
 cells for the air to go into. It is 
 in these cells that the blood is 
 changed by the air. 
 And now I will tell you about the lungs of fishes. But per- 
 haps you will say that fishes do not breathe, and it cannot be 
 that they have lungs, for they would be of no use to them. It 
 is true that they do not have such lungs as we have ; but they 
 have lungs, and they really do breathe air. How is this, you 
 will ask, when they live in the water? There is a good deal of 
 air always mixed up with water, and the lungs of a fish are so 
 made that the air in the water can change the blood in them. 
 
BREATHING. 
 
 31 
 
 How fishes breathe. 
 
 Breathing of the lamprey eel. 
 
 The voice. 
 
 The gills of a fish are its lungs, and the way that they are used 
 is this. The fish takes water into its mouth, and lets it run out 
 through the gills, and so the air that is mixed with the water 
 changes the blood in them. The gills of fishes are thin, and the 
 arteries and veins in them are very thin tubes. The air in the 
 water easily goes through the thin tubes, and the blood is aired 
 by it, as it is in the lungs of land animals; only, the air that the 
 fishes breathe is mixed with water. Our lungs are fitted to 
 breathe air alone, but the fish may be said to breathe air and 
 water together. Air alone does the fish no good; he cannot 
 live in it ; he must have his air mixed with water, or it is of no 
 use to him. 
 
 Here is a picture of the lamprey eel. You see that it has a 
 row of holes on its neck ; 
 these are openings that 
 lead to its lungs ; there i 
 are seven on each side. | 
 It is from this that it is - 
 sometimes called seven- 
 eyes. Insects have such 
 openings into their 
 lungs. The grasshopper has twenty-four of them, in four rows. 
 
 So you see that there are different ways of breathing in different 
 animals. They do not all breathe through their mouths and 
 noses, as we do. 
 
 You see that the chief use of breathing is to air the blood ; 
 but it is of use to us in another way. It makes the voice. We 
 
32 BREATHING. 
 
 The voices of animals. The purring of the cat. The croaking of the frog. 
 
 could not speak if we did not breathe. The sound of the voice 
 is made in the top of the neck, in what we call Adam's apple. 
 This is a sort of musical box at the top of the windpipe : in this 
 box there are two flat cords stretching right across it. Now, 
 when we speak or sing, the sound is made in this way : the air, 
 coming up out of the lungs, strikes on these cords, and makes 
 them shake or vibrate. It is just as the vibration of the fiddle- 
 string makes a sound when the bow is drawn over it. If you 
 look at an iEolian harp fixed in a window, you can see that the 
 strings are made to quiver by the wind, and this causes the 
 sound. In the same way, the wind that is blown up from your 
 lungs makes the cords in the Adam's apple vibrate; and the 
 chest may be said to be the bellows of that little musical box or 
 organ that you have in the throat. 
 
 Many animals have a musical box in the throat similar to ours. 
 The lowing of the cow, the barking of the dog, and the mewing 
 and squalling of the cat are all done in such a box. You per- 
 haps have wondered how the cat purrs. This noise is made in 
 the same box where she does her mewing and squalling; for if 
 you put your finger on her Adam's apple while she is so quietly 
 purring, you can feel a quivering motion there. 
 
 Fishes, you know, have no voice. They have no musical box. 
 If they had they could not use it, for the only way in which it 
 can be used is to blow air through it. The frog cannot use his 
 so long as he is under water ; he has to stick his head up out of 
 water when he wants to croak. 
 
 Questions. — What do you breathe for ? How is the blood in the lnngs changed ? 
 
BREATHING. S3 
 
 Questions. 
 
 What would it do if it were not changed? How is death caused in drowning? 
 How are the heart and lungs situated? Why are the lungs so light? What is said 
 about the lungs of fishes ? What is said about the breathing of the lamprey eel ? 
 What about the breathing of the grasshopper? How is the breathing of use besides 
 changing the blood ? Tell how the voice is made. What is said about the voices 
 of animals ? Where is the cat's purring done ? Why do fishes have no musical box ? 
 What is said about the croaking of frogs ? 
 
 12 
 
34 BRAIN AND NERVES. 
 
 The use of food. How the mind uses its machinen 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BRAIN AND NERVES. 
 
 I have told you some things in the previous chapters about 
 how the body is built and kept in repair. I have told you that 
 the blood is the building-material from which all the parts of 
 the body are made. The use of food, you have seen, is to make 
 the blood, and the chief use of the breathing is to keep the blood 
 in good order. The heart, with its arteries and veins, keeps the 
 blood moving all about the body, so that it may be used in build- 
 ing and repairing. 
 
 Let us see, now, how it is that the mind uses the machinery 
 of the body. Raise your hand. What makes it go up? It is 
 what we call the muscles. They pull upon it and raise it. But 
 w T hat makes them do it? They do it because you think to have 
 them do it. It is your thinking mind, then, that makes them 
 raise the arm. 
 
 But the mind is not there among the muscles ; it is in your 
 head. Now how does the mind get at the muscles to make them 
 work? It does not go out of the brain to them, just as a man 
 goes out of his house among his workmen to tell them what to 
 do. The mind stays in the brain all the time; but there are 
 white cords, called nerves, that go from the brain to all parts of 
 the body, and the mind sends messages by these to the muscles, 
 and they do what the mind tells them to do. 
 
BRAIN AND NERVES. 35 
 
 Nerves like telegraph wires. The two sets of nerves. 
 
 These nerves act like the wires of a telegraph. The brain is 
 the mind's office, as we may call it ; here the mind is, and it 
 sends out messages by the nerves as messages are sent from a 
 telegraph office by its wires. This is done by electricity in the 
 telegraph office, but how the mind does it we do not know. 
 When you move your arm, something goes from the brain along 
 the nerves to the muscles, and makes them act, but what that 
 something is we do not know. 
 
 If the wires that go out from a telegraph office are broken 
 off in any way, the man in the office may send out messages, but 
 they will not go to the place he wishes. He may work his ma- 
 chine, and send the electricity along the wire, but it will stop 
 where the break is. Just so, if the nerves that go to the mus- 
 cles of your arm were cut, the muscles could not receive any 
 message from the mind. You might think very hard about rais- 
 ing the arm, but the message that your mind sends to the mus- 
 cles is stopped where the nerves are cut, just as the electricity 
 stops where the break is in the wire. 
 
 While the mind sends out messages by one set of nerves, it 
 receives messages by another set ; it receives them from the 
 senses. Just see how this is. If you put your finger upon any- 
 thing, how does the mind in your brain know how it feels ? How 
 does it know whether it is hard or soft, rough or smooth % The 
 mind does not go from the head down into the finger to find out 
 this ; it knows it by the nervous cords that stretch from the 
 brain to the finger. When you touch anything, something goes, 
 as quick as a flash, from the finger along these nerves to the 
 
36 BRAIN AND NERVES. 
 
 The brain. The nerves of the face and head. 
 
 brain where the mind lives, and lets it know what kind of a 
 thing it is that your finger has touched. So, when you smell 
 anything, it is the nerves which connect your nose with the brain 
 that tell the mind what kind of a smell it is. And when you 
 taste anything, it is the nerves of the mouth that tell the mind in 
 the brain whether it is bitter, or sweet, or sour, etc. So, too, 
 when you see anything, it is the nerve which connects the eye 
 with the brain that tells the mind what it is that you see. 
 
 The brain, in which the mind lives and with which it thinks, 
 is the softest part of the body. You can see what sort of a thing 
 your own brain is by looking at the brain of some animal at the 
 meat-market. You can see it very well in the calf's head when 
 it is prepared for cooking by being sawed in two. I have com- 
 pared the nerves to the wires that stretch out from the tele- 
 graph office ; but there are only a few wires, while the nerves that 
 branch out from the brain, all over your body, cannot be counted. 
 On the following page is a figure showing how the nerves branch 
 out over the face and head ; there are a great many of them, and 
 go there are in all other parts of the body. 
 
 The nerves, by dividing, spread out, so that there are little 
 nerves everywhere. If you prick yourself with a pin anywhere, 
 there is a little nerve there that connects that spot with the brain, 
 and that tells the mind about it. Now all the nerves in all parts 
 of the body have their beginnings in the brain. In this soft 
 organ are bundled together, as we may say, all the ends of the 
 nerves, so that the mind can use them. There the mind is at 
 its post, just like the man in the telegraph office ; and from that 
 
BRAIN AND NERVES. 
 
 37 
 
 The mind very bnsy in attending to all its nerves. 
 
 great bundle of the ends of nerves it is constantly learning what 
 is going on at the other ends of them in all parts of the body. 
 
 A great business the mind has to do in attending to all these 
 ends of nerves in the brain ; and how strange it is that it does 
 not get confused, when so many messages are coming to it over 
 its wires from every quarter! It always knows where a message 
 comes from. It never mistakes a message from a finger for one 
 
38 BRAIN AND NERVES. 
 
 Messages go from the brain by some nerves, and come to it by others. 
 
 from a toe, nor even a message from one finger for one from 
 another. 
 
 And so, too, in sending out messages to the muscles, there is 
 no confusion. When you want to move a finger, your mind sends 
 messages by the nerves to the muscles that do it. The message 
 always goes to the right muscles. It does not go sometimes to 
 the muscles of another finger by mistake, but you always move 
 the finger which you wish to move. And so of all other parts. 
 Messages go from your busy mind in the brain to any part that 
 you move. You can see how wonderful this is, if you watch 
 any one that is dancing or playing on an instrument, and think 
 how the messages are all the time going by the nerves so quickly 
 from the brain to the different parts of the body. I shall tell 
 you more about this in another chapter. 
 
 The man in the telegraph office receives messages by the same 
 wires by which he sends them out. It is not so, as I have told 
 you before, with the mind's wires, the nerves ; the mind receives 
 messages from the senses by one set of nerves, and sends mes- 
 sages to the muscles by another set. If yon burn your finger, 
 you pull it away from the fire. Now, in this case, the mind 
 gets a message from the finger by the nerves, and so knows of 
 the hurt. The message goes from the finger along some nerves 
 to their ends in that bundle of them in the brain ; and the mind, 
 being there on the watch, receives it. Now, what does the mind 
 do? Does it leave the finger to burn ? No ; it sends a message 
 at once along some other nerves to the muscles that can pull the 
 finger out of harm's way. 
 
BRAIN AND NERVES. 39 
 
 Questions. 
 
 Questions. — What are some of the things that I have told you in the chapters be- 
 fore this ? When your arm is raised, how is it done? In what way does the mind 
 make the muscles act? What are the nerves? How are they like telegraph wires? 
 What is it that goes along the wires? Do we know what it is that goes along the 
 nerves? Give the comparison between cut nerves and broken wires. From what 
 does the mind receive messages? Tell about touching, smelling, tasting, and seeing. 
 What is said about the brain? What is said about the number of nerves? What is 
 said about the mind's attending to all its nerves? What is said about its making no 
 mistake in its messages ? Give what is said about the burning of a finger. 
 
40 HOW THE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Knowledge enters the mind by the senses. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DOW TnE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 The mind, as you learned in the last chapter, has a sort of tele- 
 graphic communication with all parts of the hody by means of 
 the nerves, and it is all the time receiving messages from the 
 fingers, the eyes, the nose, the ears, the mouth, and other parts. 
 These are instruments which the mind uses to get a knowledge 
 of what is around us. It gets different kinds of knowledge by 
 the different instruments. For example, it learns whether a 
 thing is hard or soft by the touch of the fingers, and it learns 
 how it smells by the nose, how it tastes by the mouth, and how 
 it looks by the eyes. 
 
 There is knowledge, then, going all the time to the mind by 
 the nerves from these instruments. It cannot get there in any 
 other way. Suppose the mind was locked up in the brain, and 
 had no nerves going out from it. It could not learn anything 
 about what is around it; there might be eyes, and fingers, and 
 ears, and a nose, and a mouth, but these would be of no use to 
 the mind if there were no nerves. 
 
 See how the child learns about the world of things all around 
 him. When lie is first born he does not know anything. He 
 does not know how anything feels, or looks, or tastes, or smells. 
 But with his little nerves his mind gets messages from the senses, 
 and so he learns every day about the things that are around him. 
 
HOW THE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE. 41 
 
 How the mind learns about things. The deaf and the blind. 
 
 Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and fingers are all the time telling bis 
 mind something through the nerves. They tell him first about 
 those things that are in the room where he is, and then, after a 
 while, when he is carried out, they tell him about things that are 
 out of doors, and thus he knows more and more every day. 
 
 And then, too, the mind thinks about what the senses tell it. 
 It lays up what comes to it by the nerves, and looks it over, as 
 we may say, and in this way it learns a great deal. There is 
 great difference in people in this thinking about what the mind 
 knows by the senses. Some that see and hear a great many 
 things do not know as much as some that see and hear few 
 things. It is because they do not think much about what the 
 senses tell the mind. 
 
 You see, then, that all that we learn in this world really comes 
 into the mind by the way of the nerves from the senses — the 
 sight, the hearing, the touch, the smell, and the taste. The 
 senses are the inlets or openings by which knowledge enters, and 
 the nerves are the passages by which it gets to the mind in the 
 brain ; and after it gets there the mind thinks about it and uses 
 it in various ways. 
 
 Some persons, you know, do not have all these inlets for knowl- 
 edge open. For example, some are deaf; in them no knowledge 
 can get into the mind by the ears. Some are blind, and no 
 knowledge can get into their minds by the eyes. More knowl- 
 edge comes into the mind by the sight than by the hearing ; it is 
 therefore a greater misfortune to be blind than it is to be deaf. 
 
 It is astonishing to see how much the deaf and the blind can 
 
42 HOW TIIE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Deaf aud dumb. How the blind read. Story of Laura Bridgman. 
 
 learn if they try. If the mind is wide awake and ready to learn, 
 it can get a great deal of knowledge even when one of the open- 
 ings for it is shut up. It can use the knowledge gained by the 
 other senses in such a way as to make up very much for the loss. 
 A lazy mind, with all the senses letting in knowledge, will not 
 know as much as a busy mind will with one of the senses shut 
 up. In the deaf and dumb the eyes have to answer for both 
 eyes and ears in getting knowledge. They have to do double 
 duty; and they do it very well if the mind is only wide awake 
 and attentive to all that it can learn by the eyes. In the blind 
 the ears have to do a great deal more than in those that can see. 
 The fingers also of the blind are very busy, for they learn very 
 much about what is around them by the sense of feeling. There 
 are books now made for their use, with raised letters. By pass- 
 ing their fingers over them, they read just as you do by looking 
 at printed letters. 
 
 And now I will tell you about a girl that has had to get all her 
 knowledge with only one of the senses, the sense of feeling. 
 Her name is Laura Bridgman. When she was in her second 
 year she became very sick. Her sickness lasted a very long time. 
 After she got well it was found that she was blind and deaf, and 
 that she had no taste nor smell; only one of the five inlets for 
 knowledge was open. All that could come into her mind was 
 what could be learned by the touch alone. But she had an 
 active mind, and so she went round feeling of everything, to 
 find out all she could about things. 
 
 The only way that she could know people was by feeling them. 
 
HOW THE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE. 43 
 
 Lanra in the asylum. 
 
 Her mother was very kind to her, and the little helpless girl 
 liked to be with her all the time. She followed her about the 
 house, and tried to do things just as her mother did them. She 
 would feel of her mother's arms and hands while she was doing 
 things, that she might find out how she did them. In this way 
 she learned to knit, which was a great comfort to her, for she 
 did not like to be idle. 
 
 A kind physician, who had charge of an asylum for the blind 
 in Boston, heard about Laura. He was much interested for the 
 helpless child, and went to see her. He persuaded her mother 
 to let her come to the asylum. Laura did not feel at home at 
 first, but, as they were all kind to her in the asylum, she soon 
 liked it very much. 
 
 She now began to learn many things, and I will tell you a 
 little how the teacher managed with her. He put into her hands 
 different things — spoons, keys, books, etc. Each article had a 
 label on it. The letters on the labels were raised letters, such as 
 are used in teaching the blind. She would feel them all over 
 with the tips of her little fingers, her busy mind all the time 
 thinking about how they felt. Then the labels and the things 
 were put before her, but separated from each other. After a 
 little trying, she learned to put the labels on the things right. 
 
 All this time she did not know that these labels had the names 
 of the articles on them. If she were blind only, she would have 
 known this at once, for she could have been told of it; but after 
 a while she in some way got this idea into her mind. She was 
 delighted, for she had now found a new way of learning things, 
 and of telling about things to others. 
 
44 UOW THE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 How Lanra learned to read and to converse. 
 
 And now Laura went on fast with her learning. The letters 
 were separated, and she would put them together so as to spell 
 spoon, key, etc. This was a great amusement to her. Some- 
 times, when she carelessly placed the letters wrong, she would 
 playfully strike her right hand with her left one, and then, when 
 the letters were placed right, she would pat her head, as the 
 teacher was apt to do when he was pleased with anything that 
 she had done. 
 
 After a while the teacher taught Laura to use her fingers in 
 talking, as you, perhaps, have seen the deaf and dumb do. She 
 soon learned to make all the letters in this finger-alphabet, which 
 you can see on page 102 ; and now she could talk with people 
 quite easily, if they happened to know this alphabet. When she 
 had anything to say, she would make the letters with the fingers, 
 while the person to whom she was talking would look at her. 
 But how do you think that she managed when this person said 
 anything to her with his fingers? She could not see his fingers, 
 but she could feel them, and this was the way in which she knew 
 what was said to her ; she would carefully, but rapidly, pass her 
 fingers over his as fast as he made the letters. It was surprising 
 to see how quickly the touch of her nimble fingers would tell 
 her mind what letter was made, and how fast she could converse 
 with persons in this way. 
 
 Laura learned much more at the asylum than we should sup- 
 pose she could with only her one sense of touch. Some persons 
 with the whole five senses do not know as much as she does. 
 She even learned to write ; and writing and knitting were very 
 
HOW THE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE. 45 
 
 Laura's industry. Her fan. A visit from her mother. 
 
 pleasant employments to her. By writing she could put the 
 thoughts of her busy mind on paper, so that others might read 
 them; and while she was sitting alone thinking, she liked to 
 make her nimble fingers useful in knitting. It was a great satis- 
 faction to her that, though she had but one sense, she could do 
 something useful. "What a pity it is that many children, and 
 many adults too, do not have more of this feeling than they 
 seem to have ! The example of Laura teaches a good lesson to 
 all idlers. 
 
 Though Laura could never see beautiful things, nor hear 
 pleasant sounds, as you do all the time, she was very cheerful, 
 and sometimes she was very funny. She liked to play with her 
 doll ; and as the blind children in the asylum had ribbons tied over 
 their sightless eyes, she tied one over her dolFs eyes. One day 
 she was in her play taking care of her doll as one would of a 
 sick child. She made believe give it medicine, and put a hot 
 bottle to its feet ; and when some one proposed to her to put a 
 blister on its back, she was so much amused that she laughed and 
 clapped her hands. 
 
 After Laura had been some time at the asylum her mother 
 came to see her. She did not know her mother at first, but 
 thought that she was some stranger. She held back and would 
 not come near. Her mother handed her a string of beads which 
 she used to wear when at home. She took them, and as soon as 
 she felt them she knew what beads they were. She put them 
 on her neck, and, showing great joy, said with her finger-language 
 that she knew these came from home. Something else from 
 
4:6 HOW THE MIND GETS KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 How Laura knew her mother. 
 
 home was given her. She now drew near and her mother kissed 
 her. The moment that her mother's lips touched her she knew 
 who it was, for that kiss was just like the many kisses her loving 
 mother used to give her. She remembered how those lips used 
 to feel, and they had the same feeling now ; and now she clung 
 to her mother, and put her head into her bosom. They were 
 both very happy. When her mother left her Laura felt sad in- 
 deed. She wanted to go with her, but she knew that it was best 
 for her to stay in the asylum, where she could learn so much. 
 
 Questions. — What are the instruments by which the mind gets its knowledge? 
 How does the knowledge get to the mind ? What good would the instruments do 
 if there were no nerves ? Tell how the child, when first born, learns about things 
 around him. What is said about thinking of what is learned by the senses ? Why 
 may the senses be called the inlets of knowledge ? Tell about the deaf and the blind. 
 Why is it worse to be blind than it is to be deaf? What is said about the amount 
 of knowledge that the blind and the deaf can obtain ? What is said about the sense of 
 sight in the deaf and dumb ? What senses do the blind chiefly use in getting knowl- 
 edge? How do they read? How many of the senses did Laura Bridgman lose? 
 How did she learn about things before she went to the asylum ? Tell how she learned 
 after she went there. How did she talk with people? Tell about her industry. 
 What is said of her cheerfulness ? What of her fun ? Tell about her mother's 
 visit. 
 
SEEING. 47 
 
 The eye a beautiful instrument. Its window and dark chamber. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SEEING. 
 
 The senses by which the mind obtains most of its knowledge 
 are the sight and the hearing. In this chapter we will look at 
 the organ or instrument of sight. 
 
 The eye is a very beautiful instrument. It is very nicely 
 made, and it has a great many different parts. You are not old 
 enough yet to understand all about these parts, but there are 
 some things about them that I can explain to you. 
 
 What we call the white of the eye is a strong, firm sort of bag. 
 It is filled mostly with a jelly-like substance. It is this that 
 makes it a firm ball. If it were empty it would be like a bag. 
 Into the open part of this, in front, is fitted a clear window. 
 The light goes in here. It cannot get in at the sides of the 
 eyeball, through the thick white of the eye. 
 
 Through this very clear window you can look into the bag or 
 ball of the eye. You cannot look through the jelly-like sub- 
 stance that is there, and see the very back of the inside of the 
 eyeball ; but it is like looking into a dark chamber. The reason 
 that it is so dark is, that it is lined with something almost black. 
 If this were not so, the eyes would be dazzled with the light 
 that commonly goes into them, just as they now are when the 
 light is very bright indeed. 
 
 Inside of the front window of the eye, that I have told you 
 
48 SEEING. 
 
 The iris the curtain in the eye. The pupil a round opening in it 
 
 about, there is a fluid as clear as water. In this fluid you see a 
 sort of curtain with a round opening in it. This opening is 
 called the pupil of the eye. It is not always of the same size. 
 When there is a very bright light, it is small ; but when the 
 light is dim, it is large, for then you want all the light that you 
 can get in that dark chamber where the jelly is. You can see 
 the pupil change in its size if you look into the eye of any one 
 while you bring a light very near, and then move it off quickl} 7 . 
 
 The curtain in which this opening is we call the iris. It is 
 circular. Its outer edge is fastened all round to the inside of 
 the eyeball. The watery fluid, that I told you is inside of the 
 window of the eye, is on both sides of this curtain. It would 
 not do to have the jelly here, for the curtain would not move 
 easily in that in changing the size of its opening. 
 
 The iris is, you know, of different colors in different persons. 
 When it is blue, we say that the person has a blue eye ; and if it 
 is quite dark, we say that he has a black eye ; and so of other 
 colors. This curtain makes the eye very beautiful ; but its chief 
 use is, as you see, to regulate the quantity of light that goes into 
 the eye. When there is a great deal of light, the curtain is 
 drawn in such a way as to have the round opening very small ; 
 but when there is little light, it is drawn so as to make this open- 
 ing large. This curtain must be made very nicely, or it would 
 be puckered when the opening in it is changed in this way. No 
 man could make a curtain of this shape, and have it work like 
 this : it would be a very awkward thing if he should undertake 
 it. He could not possibly make it so that the round opening in 
 
SEEING. 49 
 
 The pupil in the eye of the cat and the horse. 
 
 it could be made smaller and larger without wrinkling. But 
 look at this beautiful curtain in the eye, and see how smooth it 
 is, and how perfectly round its edge keeps, as the size of the 
 pupil is changed. Did you ever see anything work more prettily 
 and easily than this does? 
 
 The opening in the curtain is different in different animals. 
 
 In the cat it is of this shape ; in the horse it is shaped in 
 
 this way ( J. The pupil of the cat's eye is de- 
 
 signed by nature to be vertically lengthened, that the creature 
 may easily see things above and beneath. Their habits lead them 
 either to look up or down ; up to rocks or boughs of trees, or 
 down to the ground, if they chance to be on the rocks or trees. 
 If the pupil is oval, or lengthened upwards and downwards, or 
 vertically, the cats can w T atch their prey without moving the 
 head, the long pupil takes in all that is before it. 
 
 The pupil of the horse and the cattle -like creatures, that 
 must graze, have the pupil horizontal, or sidewise, because the 
 creatures require good vision on either side, that no enemy 
 may approach them unaware from behind. You can see the 
 difference in the size of the cat's pupil in different lights: if 
 you look at her eyes in a bright sunlight, and then again in 
 the evening, you will see that it is very much larger in the 
 
 13 
 
50 SEEING. 
 
 The images in the eye's dark chamber. 
 
 evening than it is in the day. When the sun is very bright, 
 
 her pupil is a mere chink, like this 
 
 ; but in the evening it is 
 
 very wide open, shaped in tin's way 
 
 But I have not yet told you how you see. It is done in this 
 way. The light that goes in through the pupil makes an image 
 or picture there of everything that is before the eye. It makes 
 the image on a very thin sheet spread out on the back part of 
 the dark chamber where the jelly is; it is just as light makes 
 images of things in a looking-glass, or in the smooth, still water; 
 the only difference is, that the image or picture in the eye is very 
 small. When you see a tree pictured in the still water, the pict- 
 ure is as large as the tree itself ; but the picture that the light 
 makes of the tree in that dark chamber of your eye is very small. 
 The picture in your eye of a whole landscape, with all its trees, 
 houses, hills, etc., does not cover over a space larger than a ten- 
 cent piece. 
 
 We may see how the image of anything is pictured on the 
 back of the dark chamber of the e} T e by a very simple contri- 
 vance. 
 
 A rude way is sometimes seen in some dark shed that has no 
 window nor any admitted light when the door is closed. Knot- 
 
SEEING. 51 
 
 The retina. The eye compared to a camera-obscnra. 
 
 holes are sometimes seen in such, that are so circular and so 
 smooth they produce the effect of a lens. Should a white sheet 
 be placed on the side of the shed, directly opposite the hole, and 
 there is no other light admitted, the images of all that chance to 
 be before the hole outside are pictured, in the beautiful colors 
 of nature, on the cloth. If you or your companions should stand 
 there, outside, you would also be shown on the cloth. 'Now, 
 this is just what happens all the time in our eyes when there is 
 light enough. There is a picture of just what is before our eyes, 
 and that picture is on the back part of the eye, on a network 
 of nerves called the retina. This is sight. The wonderful 
 photographic pictures are taken in a similar way, by a camera 
 instead of a dark room. If we use a small box and put a glass 
 lens into the hole, there will be a more perfect picture thrown 
 on the cloth behind it. If, instead of a cloth, we use a glass 
 plate, the picture is seen on the glass. Photographers have a 
 preparation of bromide substance and nitrate of silver with 
 which they coat the glass ; this fastens the picture, and when 
 the glass is taken out it is seen to be a small, exact copy of 
 that which was placed before the hole in the box. This is a 
 simple explanation of photography, or the art of taking pict- 
 ures by the use of the camera-obscura, the name given to such 
 dark boxes as are used. 
 
 The photographer's box is like the eye, and is an imitation of 
 it. 
 
 But how does the mind in the brain know anything about 
 these pictures? It knows about them by means of a nerve, that 
 
52 SEEING. 
 
 The nerve of the eye. Why we have two eyes. The eyes of insects. 
 
 goes from the brain to the eye, and is spread out where the pict- 
 ures or images are made. It would do no good to have the 
 pictures made in the eye, if the nerve could not tell the mind 
 about them. The eye might be perfect, and yet there might 
 not be any seeing. It is as necessary to have the nerve in good 
 order as it is the eye itself. It is not your eye that sees, it is 
 your mind, and in seeing it uses both the nerve and. the eye. 
 
 You have two eyes. When you look at one thing, say a house, 
 there is a picture of the house in both eyes. The two nerves 
 tell the mind in the brain about the two pictures. How is this? 
 Why does not the mind see two houses? It is because the pict- 
 ures in the two eyes are exactly alike, and both nerves, therefore, 
 tell exactly the same story ; if the}' did not, then the mind w T ould 
 see two houses ; that is, it would see double, as it is called. You 
 can see double by pressing one eye sidcwise while you let the 
 other go free. 
 
 The eyes of insects are very curious. Y r ou remember what I 
 told you about compound flowers. Now, as in a compound 
 flower there are a great many flowers together, so it is with the 
 eyes of insects. The eye of a common fly is made up of thou- 
 sands of eyes ; so, when he looks at anything, there are thousands 
 of very little images of it made by the light in these eyes, and 
 the nerves tell the fly's mind, in his little brain, about them. 
 These eyes are so exceedingly small that you cannot see them 
 without a microscope. How fine, then, must be the nerves that 
 go from them to the fly's brain ! Y r our eye is a very wonderful 
 instrument, but God has put thousands of them just as wonder- 
 
SEEING. 53 
 
 Questions. 
 
 ful into the head of the fly that buzzes about you. It is as easy 
 for him to make little eyes as large ones, and he can make a 
 multitude as easily as one. 
 
 Questions. — By what senses does the mind learn the most? "What is the white of 
 the eye ? What is it filled with ? What is there in the front part of the eye ? What 
 is said about the dark chamber of the eyeball ? What is just inside of the front 
 window of the eye ? What is the pupil of the eye ? What is the iris ? How is it 
 arranged? What is said of its color? What is its chief use? Tell about this. 
 What is said about its being made nicely? What is said about the shape of its open- 
 ing in different animals? Why is the pupil of the cat's eye lengthened up and down, 
 or vertically ? Why is the pupil of the horse's eye and that of other grazing animals 
 placed crosswise, or horizontally? What is said about the cat's pupil in different 
 lights ? What simple way is there to represent the chamber of the eye ? What is 
 the retina? How does the photographer's box, or camera, resemble the eye? Tell 
 about the images made in the eye. What is said about the nerve of the eye ? How 
 is it that, with two eyes, you do not see double? Why do you have two eyes ? What 
 is said about the eyes of insects ? 
 
54 HOW THE EYE IS GUARDED. 
 
 The eye seldom hart. How it is guarded with the bones mound it. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HOW THE EYE IS GUARDED. 
 
 The eye, you know, is a very tender organ. It is therefore 
 guarded thoroughly, and it is really very seldom hurt. But 
 notice that it is just where it would be likely to be hurt if it 
 were not thus guarded. It is right in the front part of the head. 
 It must be there for the mind to use it in seeing. And it is 
 much of the time open. You would suppose, then, that it must 
 very often be struck and hit by things that are thrown about ; 
 but it is really very seldom hit so as to be hurt much. 
 
 The parts about the eye are often injured, but the eye itself 
 generally escapes. We often see the eyelids and the cheek black 
 and blue from a blow, and yet the tender and delicate eye is as 
 sound as ever. People say, in such cases, that the eye is black 
 and blue, but this is not so ; the injury is all on the outside, and 
 does not go into the eye. 
 
 Now let us see in what ways the eye is guarded. It is in a 
 deep, bony socket. There is bone all around it except in front. 
 Then, too, see how the bones stand out all around it. The bone 
 of the forehead juts over it. Below and to the outside stands 
 out the cheek bone, and the nose is its Avail on the inside. Now 
 you can see that a blow with a stick would be very likely to 
 strike upon some of these walls of bone, and the eye would then 
 escape. They are real walls of defence to the eye. A stick can- 
 
HOW THE EYE IS GUARDED. 55 
 
 The winking muscle. The eye's cushion of fat. 
 
 not hit the eve itself unless it goes with its end pointed to the 
 eye. It must go in this way to avoid striking on these walls, or 
 parapets of bone, by which the eye is surrounded. 
 
 But if the stick gets by these bony walls, it may not hurt the 
 eye, after all. Perhaps you never thought what use there is in 
 being able to wink so quickly. See what winking does. It 
 shuts the eyelids over the eye, so that nothing can get into it 
 unless it is something sharp enough to pierce through the lids. 
 And a blow will not hurt the eye, if the lids are closed, unless 
 it is hard enough to bruise it through the lids. 
 
 How quick is the working of that w 7 inking muscle ! The mo- 
 ment that the eye sees anything coming towards it that may in- 
 jure it, this muscle shuts up the eye out of sight as quick as a 
 iiash. It hardly seems as if there was time for a message to go 
 from the eye to the brain, and then another back from the brain 
 to that muscle in the lids. But all this happens. The nerve of 
 the eye tells the mind of the danger, and the mind sends a mes- 
 sage to the winking muscle. This is done so quickly that when- 
 ever people speak of anything as being done very quickly, they 
 are very apt to say that it was done in the twinkling of an eye. 
 This expression is used in the Bible in this way. 
 
 But I have not told you all that this winking muscle does. It 
 does something more than shut the eye in. It pushes it back in 
 its socket, so that it is a little farther out of the way of a blow. 
 And it does not push it right against the hard bone of the socket ; 
 there is a soft cushion of fat for it to press the eye against. 
 
 And this is not all. When the eye sees a blow coming, this 
 
50 
 
 HOW THE EYE IS GUARDED. 
 
 The winking muscles raise cushions over the eye to defend it. 
 
 muscle acts so strongly that it wrinkles the skin of the eyelids, 
 
 and pulls down the eyebrow, and 
 draws up the cheek, as you see 
 here. Now, see how this guards 
 the eye. The cheek and the eye- 
 brow are brought so near together 
 that there is but little room for the 
 blow to get at the eye ; and even 
 if it does, the wrinked skin of the 
 lids makes a cushion over it that 
 breaks the force of the blow. You 
 can see that the blow would be 
 much more apt to do harm if the 
 winking muscle merely brought the lids together. As it is, a 
 blow commonly hits on the eyebrow or cheek, or both, while the 
 eye is safe, shut up and pushed back in its cavern upon its 
 cushion of fat. To see how much the bringing together of the 
 cheek and eyebrow defends the eye, you must look at some one 
 as he forcibly closes the eye, as represented in the figure. And 
 if, at the same time, you put your finger on the parts, you will 
 see how the cushions which all this wrinkling makes over the 
 eye and about its socket defend it from harm. 
 
 So you see that not only is the eye guarded by parapets of 
 bone, but the busy winking muscle raises up cushions on them 
 whenever the eye sees a blow coming. These cushions often 
 save the bone from being cracked, and in this way also keep 
 the eye from being hurt. 
 
HOW THE EYE IS GUARDED. 57 
 
 The eyebrows. The eyelashes. How the tears defend the eye. 
 
 Of what use do you think the hairs on the eyebrows are? 
 They are for good looks, you will say. But they are for some- 
 thing more than this; they are a defence to the eye. How this 
 is I will explain to yon. You know what the eaves of a house 
 are for when there is no trough to the roof ; they keep the rain 
 from running down from the roof on the sides of the house. 
 They make it drop off to the ground a little way from the house. 
 Just so the hairy eyebrows make the sweat of the forehead drop 
 off upon the cheek, instead of running down into the eye. The 
 eyebrows, then, are the eaves of the roof of the eye's house. 
 
 Perhaps you will ask what hurt the sweat would do if it should 
 run down into the eye. It would be very disagreeable ; and, 
 besides this, it would irritate the eye and make it red. The 
 eye would become inflamed. 
 
 The eyelashes, too, besides making the eye look well, are a de- 
 fence to it. You know that there are often small things flying 
 about in the air which we are not apt to see. If these fly against 
 the eye, they generally hit against the eyelashes, and so are pre- 
 vented from going into the eye. 
 
 The tears, also, are a defence to the eye. If anything hap- 
 pens to get by the eyelashes into the eye, how quick the tears 
 flow to wash it out ! Commonly the gland, or tear factory, onty 
 makes enough tears to keep the eye a little moist; but as soon 
 as anything gets into the eye and irritates it, the tear factory 
 sets to work briskly, and sends down the tears abundantly. At 
 the same time, the winking muscle keeps moving the lids, and 
 generally what is in the eye is soon washed out. 
 
58 nOW TIIE EYE IS GUARDED. 
 
 The sink-drain of the eye. In weeping the tears overflow their bauks. 
 
 Tears are flowing into the eye all the time. If they did not, 
 the ej'eball and the inside of the lids would become dry, and they 
 would not move easily on each other. You would have to keep 
 wetting them with water to prevent them from rubbing. The 
 tear factory, which is just above the eye, continually sends down, 
 through some little tubes or ducts, just enough tears to make the 
 motion of the eye and the lids easy. 
 
 But you will ask where the tears that are made go. They do 
 not commonly run out over the lids, and they must go some- 
 where. I will tell you about this. If you look at the eyelids 
 of any one, you can see in each lid a little hole at the end of the 
 edge towards the nose. The tears go into these holes, and down 
 through a duct that ends in the nose. This duct may be called 
 the sink-drain of the eye, for the tears, after washing the eye, 
 run off through it. The two little holes or mouths in the lids 
 commonly take in all the tears as fast as they come to them ; 
 but when we cry, the tear factory makes tears so fast that these 
 mouths cannot take them all in. The tears, therefore, overflow 
 their banks — the lids — and run down on the cheek. 
 
 Questions. — Is the eye in a very exposed situation ? Why is it seldom much hurt? 
 Are the parts about it often hurt ? Tell how the bones about the eye defend it. Of 
 what use is winking? What is said about the quickness with which it is done? 
 What else does the winking muscle do besides shutting the eye ? What does it push 
 the eye back upon? What else does this muscle do besides what has been men- 
 tioned? How does this defend the eye? On what does a blow aimed at the eye 
 commonly hit? Of* what use are the hairs on the eyebrows? What harm would 
 the sweat do if it van down into the eye ? Of what use are the eyelashes ? In what 
 ways do the tears prevent the eyes from being injured? Where do the tears go to 
 from the eye ? What happens when one cries ? 
 
HEARING. 59 
 
 What sound is. The experiment of scratching on a log with a pin. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HEARING. 
 
 What is sound ? If you look at a large bell when it is struck, 
 you can see a quivering or shaking in it. If you put your hand 
 on it, you can feel the quivering. It is this that makes the sound 
 that we hear. You can see the same thing in the strings of a 
 piano when they are struck, and in the strings of a violin as the 
 bow is drawn over them. The wind makes the music on the 
 iEolian harp in the window by shaking its strings. And when 
 you speak or sing, the sound is made, as I have told you before, 
 by the quivering of two flat cords in your throat. 
 
 But when a bell is struck, how does the sound get to our ears? 
 The quivering or vibration, as it is called, of the bell makes a 
 vibration in the air, and this vibration is continued along through 
 the. air to our ears. 
 
 The vibration can go through other things besides the air. It 
 will go through something solid better than it will through air. 
 Put your ear at the end of a long log, and let some one scratch with 
 a pin on the other end ; you can hear it very plainly. The vibra- 
 tion made by the pin travels through the whole length of the 
 log to your ear; but if you take away your ear from the log you 
 cannot hear it, for the vibration or sound cannot come to you so 
 far through the air. 
 
 The nearer you are to where the sound is made, the louder it 
 
60 HEARING. 
 
 Dying away of sound. Speaking-tubes. 
 
 is ; and the farther sound goes, the fainter it is. It is said to 
 die away as it goes ; that is, the vibration becomes less and less, 
 till, after a while, it is all lost. It is like this : if yon drop a 
 stone into water, it makes little waves or ripples in all directions. 
 These become less and less the farther they go from where the 
 stone was dropped. It is just so with the waves or vibrations of 
 sound in the air. 
 
 What is an echo? It is when a sound that you make comes 
 back to you again. It is done in this way. The vibration strikes 
 against some rock, or house, or something else, and then bounds 
 back to you, just as a wave striking against a rock bounds back. 
 
 Why is it that a person speaking in a building can be heard 
 more easily than one speaking in the open air? It is because the 
 vibrations are shut in by the walls. It is for the same reason 
 that you can hear a whisper so far through a speaking-tube ex- 
 tending from one part of a building to another. The vibrations 
 are shut in within the tube. They have no chance to spread out 
 in all directions, and they go right straight on through the tube. 
 
 I have thus told you how sound is made, and how it goes 
 through the air and through other things; but how is it that we 
 hear sound when it comes to our ears? How does the mind 
 know anything about the vibration of the air? Tin's vibration 
 does not go into the brain, where the mind is; it only goes a 
 little way into the ear, and there it stops. It comes against the 
 drum of the ear, and can go no farther. How, then, can the 
 mind know anything about it? This I will tell you. 
 
 The vibration of the air goes into the ear to a membrane fast- 
 
HEARING. 61 
 
 The bones of the ear. The different vibrations in hearing. 
 
 ened to a rim of bone, and called the drum, and shakes it, and 
 this skakes a chain of little bones that are at the other side of 
 this drum-head. The last of these bones is fastened to another 
 little drum, and, of course, this is shaken. This drum covers an 
 opening to some winding passages in bone. These passages are 
 tilled with a watery fluid. Now the shaking of the second little 
 drum makes this fluid shake. The nerve of hearing feels this 
 shaking of the fluid, and tells the mind in the brain. 
 
 Here are the four little bones that make the chain of bones in 
 
 the ear. They are curiously shaped. The one 
 
 marked a is called the hammer, and h is called the 
 
 anvil. The little bone marked c is the smallest 
 
 bone in the body. That marked d is called the 
 
 T."" c stirrup. This is the bone that is fastened to the 
 
 ^~* second drum — the one that covers the opening into 
 
 ] the winding passages. The vibration that comes 
 
 to the first drum is passed on by this chain of bones 
 
 to the second drum. 
 
 See, now, how many different shakings there are for every 
 sound that you hear. First, the bell, or whatever it is that 
 makes the sound, shakes. Then there is a shaking of the air. 
 This shakes the drum of the ear. Then the chain of bones is 
 shaken. The farthest one of them shakes another drum, and 
 this shakes the fluid in the bony passages. All this happens 
 every time that you hear a sound ; and when you hear one sound 
 after another coming very quickly, how the vibrations chase 
 each other, as we may say, as they go into the ear! But they 
 
62 
 
 HEARING. 
 
 Different sizes of ears in animals. 
 
 Ear-trumpet 
 
 are not jumbled together. They do not overtake one another. 
 Every vibration goes by itself, and so each sound is heard dis- 
 tinct from the others, unless the vibrations come very fast in- 
 deed. Then they make one continued sound. Each puff of a 
 locomotive when it starts is heard by itself. The vibration of 
 one puff gets into the fluid in the bony passages before the one 
 that follows it ; but as the locomotive goes on, the puffs get 
 nearer and nearer together, and when it goes very fast, they are 
 so near together that the vibrations do not go separate into the 
 ear, and they make a continued sound. 
 
 Sound, I have told you, spreads in all directions in vibrations 
 
 or waves. Now the more of 
 these waves the ear can catch, 
 the more distinct is the hear- 
 ing. Some animals that need 
 to hear very well have very 
 large ears. Here is one, the 
 long-eared bat. He must hear 
 very well indeed, for his mon- 
 strous ears must catch a great 
 many of the waves of sound. 
 "^-^ We could hear better if our 
 
 ears were larger; but large ears would not look well on our 
 heads; and we hear well enough commonly. Sometimes, when 
 we do not hear as distinctly as we wish to, we put up the hand 
 to the ear, as you see represented on the opposite page. This 
 helps the hearing by stopping the waves of sound, and turning 
 
HEARING. 
 
 63 
 
 Ears of rabbits, deers, etc. 
 
 How the ear is guarded 
 
 them into the ear. Those who are 
 very deaf sometimes have an ear- 
 trumpet, as it is called. In using it, 
 the large trumpet end is turned tow- 
 ards the person speaking, so as to catch 
 the vibrations, while the tube part of 
 it is in the ear. 
 
 Some animals can turn their ears so 
 as to hear well from different direc- 
 tions. How quickly the horse pricks 
 up his ears when he sees or hears 
 something that he wants to know more about ; and then he can 
 turn his ears backward when he wants to do so. It is in such 
 timorous animals as the hare, the rabbit, and the deer that we 
 see the ears most movable. They are on the watch all the time 
 for danger, and the least sound that they hear they turn their 
 ears in the direction of it. Their ears, too, are large, so that 
 they hear very easily. 
 
 I have told you how the eye is guarded. The ear is well 
 guarded also. I do not mean its outer part : it is the inner parts, 
 where the hearing is really done, that are so well guarded. You 
 remember that I told you that there are passages filled with a 
 fluid. The nerve of hearing has its fine, delicate fibres in these 
 passages. They feel the shaking of the fluid, and tell the mind 
 of it. Now, it is necessary that this part of the hearing appa- 
 ratus should be well guarded ; for this reason, these passages are 
 enclosed in the very hardest bone in the body. 
 
64 HEARING. 
 
 How the ear-wax guards the ear. 
 
 Then, too, the very entrance into the ear is well guarded, and 
 in a curious way. The pipe that leads into the drum of the ear 
 is always open, and you know bugs are very apt to crawl into 
 such holes. What do you suppose is the reason that they do not 
 often crawl into the ear? There is something there to prevent 
 them. It is the wax. They probably do not like the smell of 
 it, and so, if they come to the entrance, they turn about. Once 
 in a while one goes in, and then he is prevented from doing 
 much harm by the wax. He is soon covered with this, and it is 
 so sticky that it keeps him from kicking very hard. And, after 
 all, though he may cause some pain, lie cannot get at the delicate 
 part of the machinery of the ear. He dies after a while, if he 
 is not got out, and perhaps the bitterness of the wax has some- 
 thing to do with killing him. 
 
 Questions. — How is sound made? How does it get to our ears? Tell about the 
 vibration of sound in a log. What is said about the dying-away of sound ? What 
 is this like? What is an echo? What is said about speaking in a building? 
 What about speaking through a tube? Tell how we hear sound. Tell about the 
 little bones in the ear. What do these bones do ? Tell what the different vibrations 
 are in hearing. What is said about the puffing of a locomotive ? Why do some 
 animals have large ears? Why are our ears so small ? What animals can turn their 
 ears different ways, and why ? How is the inner part of the ear guarded ? Tell 
 what is said about the wax. 
 
THE SMELL, THE TASTE, AND THE TOUCH. 65 
 
 How we smell things. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SMELL, THE TASTE, AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 I have told you that most of what the mind knows about the 
 world around it comes to it by the sight and the hearing. But 
 it learns a great deal by the other senses, and these I will tell 
 you about in this chapter. 
 
 Did you ever think how it is that you smell anything? You 
 put a rose up to your nose, and the fragrance is pleasant to you. 
 Now, what is this fragrance % Is it something that goes up into 
 your nose % You cannot see anything come from the rose. But 
 in reality very fine particles come from it. They are finer than 
 the finest powder. They float everywhere about in the air, and, 
 as you breathe, they go with the air into your nostrils. Every 
 perfume that you smell is made of such particles. 
 
 But how do you think the mind knows anything about these 
 particles when they come into the nose? It is in this way. In 
 the lining of the nose are the fine ends of the nerve of smell. 
 These ends of the branches of this nerve are so small that you 
 cannot see them. Now, the fine particles that I have told you 
 about touch these ends of the nerve, and the nerve tells the mind 
 about them ; and this is smelling. 
 
 The nose is a more extensive organ than most people think it 
 is. There are divisions in it. These fold on each other in such 
 a way that there is a great deal of surface in the nose, and the 
 ends of the nerve of smell are all on this surface. 
 
 U 
 
66 
 
 The smell of some animals. The enjoyment afforded by the sense of smell. 
 
 Some animals have a very sharp smell. In them the divisions 
 in the nose are very great in extent, and so the nerve spreads over 
 a large surface. The dog, you know, is able to track his master 
 by scenting his footsteps. The cat, too, has a very quick smell 
 for rats and mice. 
 
 Some persons have a sharp smell for some things. I have 
 heard of a blind gentleman who could always tell when there 
 was a cat anywhere near him by his sense of smell. Once he 
 was very sure that there was one near by, though no one could 
 see her; he insisted upon it that he was right, and after a while 
 pussy was found in a closet of the room. 
 
 The sense of smell affords us great enjoyment. The Creator 
 has, for the purpose of gratifying us, scattered sweet-smelling 
 flowers all over the earth. These are all perfume factories, as I 
 told you in Part First, made by him to give us pleasure. He 
 could have made the flowers and fruits in such a way that they 
 would have no smell ; but, in his desire to please us and make 
 us happy, he has given to them a great variety of pleasant odors. 
 There are, it is true, some unpleasant smells in the world, but 
 these are not anything like as common as the pleasant ones ; and 
 many of them are manifestly very useful in warning us of danger. 
 
 The sense of taste is another source of gratification to us. The 
 nerve of this sense has its fine ends mostly in the tongue. What 
 we take into the mouth touches these ends of the nerve, and the 
 nerve tells the mind about it ; and this is tasting. 
 
 Besides the pleasure which we have from the taste, the great 
 use of this sense is to <ruide us in the choice of food. Animals 
 
THE SMELL, THE TASTE, AND THE TOUCH. 67 
 
 How we taste and how we feel. The nerves of touch in the skin. 
 
 choose the kinds of food that are proper for them, and they do 
 it by their taste. They very seldom make a mistake in this. 
 The sense of taste, like that of smell, sometimes warns us of 
 danger. If our food tastes bad, we know that there is something 
 wrong about it, and do not eat it, and so, perhaps, avoid being 
 made sick. 
 
 The sense of touch gives a great deal of knowledge to the 
 mind. This sense has a large number of nerves in all parts of 
 the body, and they are making reports continually to the mind. 
 Especially busy in this way are the nerves of the tips of the 
 fingers. It^ is by the fine ends of these nerves that the mind 
 finds out how different things feel. It finds out whether they 
 are soft or hard, smooth or rough, etc. 
 
 These nerves in the tips of the fingers are of great service to 
 the mind in guiding it in using the muscles. In playing with 
 the fingers on an instrument, the feeling in the ends of them is 
 a guide to the mind in working them. So it is with anything 
 that we do with them. You could not do some of the simplest 
 things if there was no feeling in your fingers. You could not 
 even button and unbutton your coat. I shall have more to say 
 about this when I tell you particularly about the hand. 
 
 The nerves of touch are not placed on the surface of the skin. 
 We have really two skins, an outer and an inner one. The 
 nerves are in the inner skin, and are covered by the outer skin. 
 This outer skin is very thin except on the sole of the foot and 
 the palm of the hand; from its thinness it is called the scarf- 
 skin. It is this which is raised when a blister is drawn ; and 
 
C8 THE SMELL, THE TASTE, AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 The scarf-skin. Nerves of touch in long-tailed animals. 
 
 perhaps you know that it does not hurt to prick this when we 
 want to let the water out; but if the needle touches the inner 
 skin, where the nerves are, you feel it very quickly. 
 
 Now, when you touch anything, the nerves in the inner skin 
 feel it through this scarf-skin. This is so thin and soft that the 
 nerves can feel through it ; and, at the same time, it is a good 
 protection to them. If it were not for this, the nerves would be 
 affected too much by the rubbing of things against them. They 
 could not even bear the air. If you had no scarf-skin you would 
 be in great distress all the time. You know how much pain you 
 suffer if you rub off the skin, as it is called, anywhere. It is the 
 scarf-skin only that is rubbed off, and this exposes to the air the 
 fine ends of the nerves in the inner skin. 
 
 The ends of the nerves of touch are in rows on the tips of the 
 fingers. 
 
 Animals that have long tails, which they use to climb by, as 
 the spider-monkey (see page 108), have the end on the under 
 surface bare. This portion is very sensitive, and is designed by 
 nature to allow the creature to use it as a fifth hand. The 
 prehensile-tailed monkeys are known to take eggs out of deep- 
 seated nests in trees by the use of their clasping tails. 
 
 The opossum, which lives in the Middle States, can clasp 
 the boughs of trees with its tail, and can hang its heavy body 
 thereby. 
 
 There are no animals that have such perfect instruments of 
 touch as our fingers are to us. Animals that have hoofs, as the 
 horse and the cow, cannot feel much with their fore-feet. They 
 
THE SMELL, THE TASTE, AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 69 
 
 Whiskers of the cat. 
 
 Feelers of insects. 
 
 have their sense of touch mostly in their lips and tongues. The 
 elephant has this sense chiefly in the finger-shaped thing at the 
 end of his trunk. There is not much feeling in the paws of dogs, 
 cats, etc. The whiskers of the cat are feelers. There are nerves 
 at the root of each of those long hairs, so that when anything 
 touches the whiskers the cat's mind knows it at once. 
 
 Insects have feelers extending out from their heads. Some- 
 times they are very long, as you 
 see in this insect, called the ich- 
 neumon fly. We see insects, as 
 they are going about, touch things 
 with these feelers as we do with 
 our hands. Bees can work in the 
 dark, in their hives, guided by 
 their feelers ; indeed, the bee will 
 not work at all if his feelers are cut off: he does not seem to 
 know what to do with himself. Insects sometimes appear to 
 tell each other things by their feelers. In every hive of bees 
 there is a queen. If she dies, those that know about it go 
 around very quickly, telling the other bees by striking their 
 feelers with their own ; and those that are told tell others, and 
 thus the sad event is soon known all over the hive. 
 
 Questions. — By which senses does the mind get most of its knowledge? What 
 is fragrance? How does the mind know anything about it? What is said of the 
 extent of the organ of smell ? What is said of the smell of some animals ? Of the 
 acute smell of some persons ? What is said of the enjoyment afforded by the sense 
 of smell? What is said of the sense of taste? What are its uses ? Where is the 
 sense of touch? Where is it especially active? What do the nerves of touch in the 
 
70 THE SMELL, THE TASTE, AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 Questions 
 
 fingers tell the mind? In what way do they help us in using the muscles ? Tell 
 .about the two skins of our bodies. Why is the outer skin needed? Of what use 
 are the long, bare, tipped tails of spider-monkeys? What is said of the under side of 
 the extremity of the tail ? What remarkable feat do the spider-monkeys perform 
 with their tails ? What other animal has a prehensile tail ? What is said of touch 
 in animals that have hoofs? What are the whiskers of the cat for? W T hat is said 
 of the feelers of insects? What is told about the bees? 
 
THE BONES. 71 
 
 How the mind uses what it learns. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE BONES. 
 
 I have told you, in the last few chapters, how it is that the 
 mind learns about the world around it by the senses. But the 
 mind does something besides learn. It tells others about what 
 it learns. It does this by the muscles in various ways. When 
 you tell anything by speaking, it is the muscles of the throat, 
 and mouth, and chest that do it. When you write, the muscles 
 of your hand are telling what the mind directs them to tell. 
 When your face expresses your thoughts and feelings, it is the 
 muscles of the face that tell what the mind thinks and feels. 
 
 The mind not only tells things, but it does things also, and it 
 does them by the muscles. You see a man busily at work mak- 
 ing something: his muscles are doing the work. The mind is 
 directing them how to do it by the nerves that spread to them 
 from the brain. How does his mind know in what way to di- 
 rect them ? It is by knowledge gained through the senses — by 
 his eyes and ears. He has seen people do the same kind of 
 work, and they have told him about it. His mind uses with the 
 muscles what it has learned by the senses. 
 
 You see, then, that the mind makes use of what it learns by 
 the senses in two ways : it tells about it, and it uses it in doing 
 things ; and in both telling and doing it uses the muscles. Our 
 knowledge, then, goes into the mind by the senses — they are its 
 
72 THE BONES. 
 
 The joints of the bones. The oiling of them. 
 
 inlets ; but it comes out by the muscles — they are its outlets. 
 If a mind were in a body that had the senses, but had no mus- 
 cles, it might know a great deal, but it could never let anybody 
 know what it knew, and it could not do anything. 
 
 The chief things that are moved in the body by the muscles 
 are the bones, and I shall tell you about these before I tell you 
 about the muscles. 
 
 When you bend your arm, the muscles make the bones in the 
 lower part of the arm bend on the bone in the upper part. 
 There is a joint at the elbow for this purpose; and there are 
 joints in many other parts of the body, so that the muscles can 
 move one bone upon another. 
 
 These joints of the bones are so contrived that they do not 
 wear out. They work nicely through a long life. Now it would 
 be very strange if a joint in a machine should work all the time 
 for seventy or eighty years, and still be almost as good as new. 
 No man ever made such a joint. 
 
 You know that men keep oiling the joints in machinery. If 
 they did not, the joints would soon wear out. When the cars 
 stop at a station, you see men with tin vessels oiling the boxes 
 of the wheels of the locomotive and the cars, and other parts that 
 rub on each other. The joints of our bones need no such care 
 from us. We never need to oil them as men oil machinery. 
 They are very nicely made. The ends of the bones are tipped 
 with a very smooth substance, and this is always kept in good 
 order; and then, too, the joints always keep themselves oiled. 
 How this is done I explain in a book for older scholars. 
 
THE BONES. 
 
 73 
 
 Bones of the head. 
 
 Bones of the chest. 
 
 The bones are the framework of the body. They are to the 
 body what whalebones are to an umbrella, what timbers are to 
 a house, or what the ribs of leaves are, as I told yon in Part First, 
 to the leaves. The bones make the body firm. Yon could not 
 stand up if you had no bones ; you would have to crawl like the 
 worm. See one bracing himself to pull or push. The bones 
 are all pressed tightly against each other by the strong muscles. 
 
 The bones of the body have very different shapes and sizes. 
 Let us look at some of them. 
 
 The bones of the head, represented here, 
 make a roundish box. This is to hold the brain. 
 Here the mind, the governor of all the machi- 
 nery of the body, resides. Great care is there- 
 fore taken to guard well this upper room of the 
 body. Its bony walls are made very strong. 
 
 Look at this barrel - shaped set of 
 bones that make the chest. The ribs 
 go round it as hoops do round a barrel. 
 They are joined to the back-bone be- 
 hind and to the breast-bone in front. 
 They are joined to the back-bone in 
 such a way that they move up and 
 down as you breathe. You can feel 
 them move upward if you put your 
 hand on your chest as you take a full 
 breath. Inside of this barrel -shaped 
 set of bones are the heart and lungs. 
 
74 THE BONES. 
 
 Back-bone. Bowing. Position of the head. 
 
 The back-bone, as we call it, is not one bone; it is a chain or 
 pile of twenty-four bones placed one above another. You can 
 see a part of this pile or column, as it is sometimes called, in the 
 figure of the bones of the chest. If it were all one bone, you 
 could not twist your body about as you do. And in making a 
 bow, you could not bend your back. You could only bend your 
 head forward on the top of the back-bone, and bend your body 
 forward on your lower limbs. A very awkward bow that would 
 be. As it is, whenever you make a bow, there is a little motion 
 between each two of the whole twenty -four bones, and this 
 makes the bow easy and graceful. Persons that bow stiffly do 
 not have enough of this movement in the column of bones, but 
 move it altogether, very much as if it were all one bone. 
 
 The head rests on the top of this column of bones. When 
 you move your head backward and forward, it rocks on the top- 
 most bone of this column. There are two little smooth places 
 hollowed out on this bone for it to rock on, and the head has 
 two smooth rockers that fit into these places. 
 
 Questions. — In -what two ways does the mind use what it leavns? With what 
 does it do this ? What are the inlets of the mind's knowledge ? What are its out- 
 lets? What move the bones on each other? What is said about the wearing of 
 the joints ? What is said about their being kept oiled ? What are the bones to the 
 body ? What is said about the bones of the head ? What of the bones of the chest ? 
 To what are the ribs fastened behind? To what in front? How many bones are 
 there in what is called the back-bone? Why are there so many? What does the 
 head rest on ? What is said about the motion of the head ? 
 
MORE ABOUT THE BONES. 
 
 75 
 
 Boues of the arm and hand. 
 
 Shoulder joint and elbow joint. 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE BONES. 
 
 Here are the bones of the arm and the hand. The head of 
 the arm bone that goes into 
 the socket at the shoulder is, 
 as you see, a smooth round 
 ball. It fits into a sort of 
 cup. The joint here is what 
 we call a ball-and-socket 
 joint. The ball turns in the 
 socket very easily in mak- 
 ing any whirling motion 
 with your arm, as you do 
 when you jump the rope. 
 
 The joint at the elbow is 
 of a different kind: it is 
 what we call a hinge joint. 
 You cannot make any whirl- 
 ing motion at your elbow as 
 you can at the shoulder; 
 the motion is all one way, 
 like a hinge. The chief 
 motion at the wrist also is a hinge motion, as you can see by 
 working your hand back and forth. There are two bones, you 
 
76 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE BONES. 
 
 Bones of the leg and foot. 
 
 notice, in the arm below the elbow: these roll 
 on each other in such a way that you can turn 
 the palm of your hand in different directions. 
 
 There are a great many little bones in the body 
 of the hand and in the fingers. There is a very 
 great variety in their motions, so that the hand 
 can do almost anything that you want it to do. 
 I shall have something more to tell you about 
 this when you come to the chapter on the hand. 
 
 You have here the bones of the leg and foot. 
 You see only the lower end of the stout thigh 
 bone, and the knee joint : it makes a hinge joint 
 with the large bone of the leg. The motion of 
 this is only one way, backward and forward, as 
 you see in walking. The small, thick bone, 
 called the knee-pan, is left out in the figure. 
 One of the uses of this bone is to be a shield to 
 the joint. If you fall down, in running, you are 
 apt to come upon the knee, and this shield keeps 
 the joint from being hurt. 
 
 You see that long, very slender bone at the 
 side of the large one : one would suppose that 
 this would be very easily broken, but it is not, 
 because it is so well covered up with muscles. 
 Its lower end is quite thick and strong, and 
 makes the outer part of an ankle. The ankle 
 joint is a hinge joint like that of the knee. 
 
MOKE ABOUT THE BONES. 
 
 77 
 
 Why there are so many bones in the foot. 
 
 Skeleton of the bat. 
 
 There are as many bones in the foot as there are in the hand. 
 Why is this? You remember that I told you that the hand had 
 so many bones because it had to perform so many different mo- 
 tions. But it is not so with the foot ; it does not have much 
 variety of motion. There is some other reason, then, for its 
 having so many bones. It is this. If the bones of the foot 
 were all in one, the foot would be a very stiff and clumsy thing; 
 it would not be springy as it is now. You would make awk- 
 ward work in walking and running with such feet. 
 
 The bones of different animals are made differently, according 
 to the work which they do. 
 Those that do heavy work 
 have heavy, stout skeletons ; 
 but those that have only light 
 work to do have their bones 
 slender. A bird has a light 
 skeleton, for it could not fly 
 so well with a heavy one. 
 Here is the skeleton of a bat. 
 The bones are exceedingly 
 light and slender, for it is 
 light and nimble work that 
 he does in flying. 
 
 The bones in an old person 
 are more brittle than those in 
 a child. If the child's bones 
 were brittle they would be very often broken, because he so oft- 
 
78 MORE ABOUT TIIE BONES. 
 
 The bones of a child's head. Why we have two sets of teeth. 
 
 en tumbles down. If old persons were as careless as children 
 are, there would be broken limbs to be taken care of in almost 
 every house. They would not get off with a short crying-spell 
 and a bruise, as children commonly do when they have a fall. 
 
 There is one contrivance in the child's head that prevents the 
 bones from breaking in its frequent falls. In the grown person 
 the bones of the head are fastened tightly together, and are al- 
 most like one bone. But it is not so with the child. In an in- 
 fant's head they are very loose, and yon can feel quite a space 
 between the bones at the top of his forehead. Now, when the 
 child falls and hits his head, the loose bones give and do not 
 break. 
 
 Though the teeth are like the bones, they are different from 
 them in one thing. The bones grow with the rest of the body, 
 but the teeth never grow any larger after they first push up 
 through the gum. Look at the reason of this. The outside 
 of the tooth — the enamel, as it is called — is made very hard. 
 It needs to be so, that the tooth may do its work well. Such a 
 hard substance, when once made, is finished. It never can 
 grow. No blood can get into it to make it grow, as it can into 
 the bones. 
 
 And now you see the reason that every person has two sets of 
 teeth. If the teeth that one has when a child should remain in 
 his head, they would be too small for him when he became an 
 adult ; and as the jaws grew they would become quite far apart, 
 and so would look very strange. To get rid of these difficulties, 
 the first set begin to be shed about the seventh year, and a new 
 
MORE ABOUT THE BONES. 79 
 
 Skeletons of crabs and lobsters. How they are shed every year. 
 
 set of larger teeth take their places. As the new teeth are not 
 only larger, but are more in number, they fill up all the room 
 designed for them in the enlarged jaws. 
 
 All the bones of our bodies are inside, and are covered with 
 muscles, cords, and ligaments ; and over all is the skin. But the 
 bones of some animals are outside. This is the case with crabs 
 and lobsters. Their bones make a sort of coat-of-mail to defend 
 the soft parts from being injured. The hard coats of many in- 
 sects also may be considered as their skeletons. 
 
 Such animals as crabs and lobsters have new skeletons every 
 year. The old skeletons are too small for their growing bodies, 
 and so they must be cast off. The animal crawls into a retired 
 place to go through the operation. He makes a great effort, and 
 the shell comes apart. He then, by hard struggling, pulls him- 
 self out. He now keeps still a few days in his retirement, and 
 another case or skeleton, as hard as the old one, is formed. 
 When he comes out with his new armor on, he is as brave and 
 as ready to fight as ever. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about the shoulder joint ? The elbow joint ? The wrist ? 
 How is it that you can turn the palm of the hand one way and another? Why are 
 there so many little bones in the hand? What is said about the knee joint? What 
 is one of the uses of the knee-pan ? What is said about the slender bone in the leg? 
 What about the ankle joint ? Why are there so many bones in the foot ? What is 
 said of the difference in brittleness between the bones of the old and of the young? 
 What is said about the bones in a child's head ? How are the teeth unlike the bones ? 
 Why do we have two sets of teeth ? What is said about the bones of some animals ? 
 What is related of crabs and lobsters ? 
 
80 
 
 THE MUSCLES. 
 
 How the muscles act. 
 
 The muscles that bend and straighten the arm. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE MUSCLES. 
 
 I have already told you some things about the muscles. There 
 is no motion in the body that is not made by them. They move 
 the bones, and they move other parts also, as the tongue, the cor- 
 ners of the mouth, the eyes, the eyelids, etc. 
 
 But you will want to know how they do this. Stretch a strip 
 of India-rubber with your hands. Now let it go, and it will 
 shorten itself. When a muscle pulls a bone, it shortens itself 
 just as this strip of India-rubber does. But the cause of its 
 shortening itself is different. The mind makes the muscle 
 shorten. You think to bend your arm ; and, as quick as thought, 
 something goes by nerves to the muscle that can do this, and it 
 shortens itself and bends the arm. 
 
 Here is a figure that shows the muscle that bends the arm, and 
 
 also the muscle that 
 straightens it out. All 
 the other muscles of the 
 arm are left out, so that 
 you may see just how 
 these operate. Look at 
 the muscle marked a: 
 you can see that when 
 this shortens itself it 
 
THE MUSCLES. 
 
 81 
 
 Color of muscles in different animals. 
 
 Muscles that move the fingers. 
 
 must pull up the forearm — that is, that part of the arm which is 
 below the elbow. The muscle h has a contrary effect. The end 
 of this muscle is fastened to the point of the elbow, and when it 
 shortens it pulls the forearm down and straightens the arm. 
 
 When a muscle shortens itself, it swells out and becomes 
 hard. Straighten your arm, and then take hold of it with your 
 other hand a little above the elbow ; now bend up your arm as 
 forcibly as you can, and you will feel the muscle on the front of 
 the arm swell out and harden as you hold your hand upon it. 
 
 The muscles are the fleshy part of the body. The meat of 
 animals is made up of muscles. They are not of the same color 
 in all animals. In some they are quite red, while in others they 
 are of a light color. Beef — the meat of the ox or the cow — is, 
 you know, a deep red, and is very different from the meat of a 
 fowl. The muscles of fishes are generally very light in color. 
 
 Your arm below the elbow is very fleshy. Most of the mus- 
 cles that move the fingers, as well as those that move the hand, 
 are there. Take hold of that part of the arm with your other 
 hand while you work the fingers back and forth, and you will 
 feel the muscles as they shorten themselves to pull the fingers. 
 Here is a figure showing the muscles in this fleshy part of the 
 
THE MUSCLES. 
 
 Muscles in the hand. The round fulness of the arm. Drum-stick of the fowl. 
 
 arm. You see that they are quite large. The wrist is very slen- 
 der. There are no muscles there; there are bright, shining, 
 smooth cords there, that run from the muscles to the fingers. 
 The muscles pull the fingers by these cords just as men pull any 
 thing by ropes. You can see the play of these cords very plainly 
 on the back of the hand of a thin person as the fingers are 
 worked. 
 
 There are only some very small muscles in the hand, as those 
 that spread the fingers out, and those that bring them together 
 again. If you work your fingers in this way, you will see that 
 the muscles, which do such light work, need not be large and 
 strong. The muscles that do the hard work of the hand are up 
 in the arm. They are very large. If the}' were not, you could 
 not grasp things so tightly, and pull so hard as yon sometimes 
 do. ^ 
 
 Now see why it is that these large muscles are put so far away 
 from where they do their work. If they were put in the hand, 
 they would make it a large and clumsy thing. They are there- 
 fore put up in the arm, where there is room for them, and they 
 have small, but very strong cords by which they pull the fingers. 
 They give to the arm that round fullness that makes its shape so 
 beautiful. 
 
 You can see the same kind of arrangement in the drum-stick, 
 as it is called, of the fowl. The large muscles that work the 
 claws are up in the full, round part of the leg, and there are 
 small, stout cords that extend from them down to the claws. 
 Children often amuse themselves with pulling these cords in the 
 
THE MUSCLES. 83 
 
 Muscles of the toes. Ligaments of the wrist and the ankle. 
 
 drum-stick of a fowl, making the claws move just as they are 
 moved by the muscles of the animal when he is alive. 
 
 It is with the muscles that move the toes as it is with those 
 that move the fingers. They are put mostly up in the leg, and 
 their slender tendons, by which the} 7 pull, go down over the ankle 
 to the toes, just as in the arm the tendons go over the wrist to 
 the fingers. If the muscles of the toes were all put in the foot, 
 they would make it very clumsy, and at the same time the leg 
 would be ugly from the want of that fulness which it now has. 
 
 Both at the wrist and the ankle the tendons are bound down 
 very tightly. If this were not so they would be always flying 
 out of place, stretching out the skin before them in ridges. This 
 would be the case especially with the tendons that go to the toes. 
 Every time that the muscles pulled on them, they would start 
 out very much at the bend of the ankle if they were not firmly 
 held by the ligaments. 
 
 The muscles are of many shapes — round, flat, long, short, etc. 
 They are shaped to suit the work which they are to do. 
 
 They vary much in size also. Some are very large, and some 
 are exceedingly small. How large are the muscles of the arm 
 that wield the hammer and the axe ! But how small are the 
 muscles that work the musical cords in your throat when you 
 speak or sing ! These little muscles make all the different notes 
 of the voice by pulling on these cords, and in doing this many 
 of their motions are exceedingly slight. 
 
 You remember that in the chapter on the hearing I told you 
 about the little bones in the ear. These have some very little 
 
84 THE MUSCLES. 
 
 Muscles in the ear. Large and small muscles in birds. 
 
 muscles which move them. The bones and the muscles, a and 
 b, are represented in the following figure. The muscles, you see, 
 
 have tendons or cords to pull by, in the 
 same way that the muscles in the arm 
 have. Both the bones and the muscles 
 are larger in this figure than they are 
 in the body. As the bones are the 
 smallest ones that wo have, so it is with 
 the muscles. T'ery small machinery is 
 l this part of the hearing machinery. 
 The birds that go swiftly on their wings have very large mus- 
 cles to work them. This gives them the full, round breast 
 which you see that they have. But the muscles that work the 
 musical cords in their little throats, as they sing so sweetly, are 
 so small that it is difficult to find them. 
 
 Questiojis. — By what is all motion in the body made? What do the muscles 
 move ? Explain how the muscles move things. Tell about the two muscles of the 
 arm in the figure. What is said about the swelling-out of the muscles as they 
 shorten ? What is the meat of animals ? What is said about the color of muscles in 
 different animals? What is said of the muscles in the arm below the elbow? What 
 is said of the wrist ? What of the muscles in the hand ? Why are most of the mus- 
 cles that move the fingers put up in the arm ? W T hat is said about the drum-stick of 
 a fowl ? What is said about the muscles of the toes ? What about the ligaments of 
 the tendons at the wrist and ankle ? What is said of the shapes of muscles ? What 
 of their sizes ? What are the smallest muscles in the body ? W r hat is said about the 
 muscles of birds used in flying and those used in singing? 
 
MORE ABOUT THE MUSCLES. 85 
 
 Number of muscles in the body. All connected with the brain by nerves. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE MUSCLES. 
 
 There is a great number of muscles in the whole body to pro- 
 duce all its motions. There are about fifty in each arm and hand. 
 In the whole body there are about four hundred and fifty, and 
 each muscle is made up of a great number of fibres or threads, 
 every fibre having its own work to do. 
 
 Now all these muscles have nerves that connect them with the 
 brain, and the mind tells them by these nerves just what to do. 
 Each muscle has a great many little nervous ends scattered 
 through it everywhere. The message from the mind that tells 
 the muscle to act does not go to the whole muscle as one thing, 
 as a message is sent to a person. It goes to each fibre of it, tell- 
 ing that fibre what to do. Every fibre of the muscle has its lit- 
 tle nervous tube connecting it with the brain, for the nerves are 
 bundles of tubes, just as the muscles are bundles of fibres. And 
 each fibre gets its messages from the mind separate from all the 
 other fibres by its own tube, so that each fibre is a workman by 
 itself. How well these workmen pull together when they all 
 get a message from your mind by their telegraphic tubes ! 
 
 Commonly it takes several muscles to make any motion, and 
 sometimes many muscles act together. When this is so, mes- 
 sages are sent to a great multitude of fibres in these many mus- 
 cles. Think of this. Raise your hand. It is not one muscle 
 
MORE ABOUT THE MUSCLES. 
 
 The endless variety of messages sent from the brain to the muscles. 
 
 that does this, bat many. Your mind has sent a message to all 
 the fibres of these muscles, and they have all done their part in 
 raising your hand. But now raise it again a little differently. 
 A different message for this has been sent to all the fibres; and 
 so for all the different motions there are different messages. It 
 does not seem possible that so many different messages should 
 be sent through the nerves to the fibres of all the muscles, and 
 that these fibres should obey them so perfectly. 
 
 This is wonderful even in so simple a motion as raising the 
 hand ; but how much more wonderful when a great variety of 
 rapid motions are made by the muscles, as in playing on a piano ! 
 How busy is the mind of the player in sending its messages, one 
 after the other, to the multitudes of muscular fibres that work 
 the arms and the fingers ! And if he sings at the same time that 
 he plays, his mind is sending messages also to the muscles of the 
 chest, and throat, and mouth. And what adds greatly to the 
 wonder is, that all this time the mind is sending out so many 
 messages, it is receiving messages from the senses. Messages 
 are going from the sounds of the piano and the voice along the 
 nerves of the ear to the mind. They go also from the tips of 
 the busy fingers as they press the keys. How wonderful that- 
 all these messages are going back and forth so rapidly, and the 
 mind in the brain manages them without any confusion ! 
 
 I have told you that there are some parts besides bones that 
 are moved by muscles. Different parts of the face are moved by 
 them, and it is this that gives it its different expressions. Thus, 
 when you are pleased and laugh, the muscles pull up the corners 
 
MORE ABOUT THE MUSCLES. 
 
 87 
 
 The muscles used iu smiling and laughing. 
 
 of the mouth. If you laugh very hard, they pull them up very 
 
 much, as you see in the 
 
 face drawn here. See 
 
 how this face is wrinkled 
 
 under the eyes. This 
 
 is because the muscles 
 
 pull at the corners of 
 
 the mouth so hard as to 
 
 push up the cheeks. 
 
 What do you think 
 the difference is between 
 laughing and smiling? 
 It is this. In laughing 
 the corners of the mouth 
 are drawn up a good 
 deal, but in smiling they 
 are drawn up only a little. Most people think that the eyes 
 have a great deal to do with laughing and smiling, and they talk 
 about a laughing eye and a pleasant eye. But this is not correct. 
 It is these muscles, which pull up the corners of the mouth, that 
 make the eye look pleasant and laughing; indeed, laughing and 
 smiling can be done with the e} 7 es shut. We often see a beauti- 
 ful smile in the face of the sleeping infant. It is because some 
 pleasant dream in his mind plays on the nerves that go to his 
 smiling muscles. 
 
 There are muscles to pull the corners of the mouth down, and 
 these make the face look sad ; and if the muscles that wrinkle the 
 
88 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE MUSCLES. 
 
 The sad muscles. 
 
 Down in the mouth.' 
 
 The proud muscle. 
 
 eyebrows act at the same 
 time, the face is both sad 
 and cross, as you see here 
 Observe just what the dif- 
 ference is between this face 
 and the laughing face on 
 the preceding page. The 
 difference is merely in the 
 corners of the mouth and 
 in the eyebrows. In this 
 face the two wrinklers of 
 the eyebrows are in action, 
 and so are the two muscles 
 that pull down the corners 
 of the mouth. Four small muscles, then, make this face sad 
 and cross. But in the laughing face the eyebrow-wrinklers are 
 quiet, and the corners of the mouth are pulled up instead of 
 being pulled down. It is the two little muscles that pull up 
 the corners of the mouth that do all the laughing in the face. -> 
 You have often heard the expressions, " He had a down 
 look," and "His countenance fell." These refer to the effect 
 produced by sadness on the corners of the mouth. This ex- 
 plains also the meaning of the common expression, "Down in 
 the mouth." 
 
 There is a certain muscle called the proud muscle. It pushes 
 up the under lip. It is chiefly by this that pouting, that ugly 
 expression so common with some children, is done. When the 
 
MORE ABOUT THE MUSCLES. 89 
 
 Snarling muscles. The smiling of the dog. The chief muscles of expression. 
 
 eyebrow-wrinklers act at the same time, there is scowling with 
 the pouting, and then the face is very ugly. I beseech of you 
 not to get into the habit of using these cross muscles. Keep 
 always pleasant and kind, and then those nice little muscles 
 that draw up the corners of the mouth will always be ready to 
 light up your face with a cheerfulness that shall be pleasant to 
 look upon. 
 
 There are some animals that have certain muscles in the face 
 that we have not. These are the snarling muscles. They pull 
 up the lip at the sides of the mouth so as to show the long, 
 tearing teeth. You see them in operation in the dog, the tiger, 
 etc., when they are angry. No animal but man has in the face 
 either the frowning, or the sad, or the smiling muscles. Per- 
 haps you will say that the dog smiles when he is pleased and 
 looks up at his master. He smiles, it is true, but he does it 
 only with his wagging tail, for he has no muscles in his face to 
 do it with. 
 
 How wonderful is the variety of expression in the human 
 face ! And yet all is caused by a few muscles, and the principal 
 ones are those that draw up and draw down the corners of the 
 mouth, and those that wrinkle the eyebrows. 
 
 Questions. — How many muscles are there in the arm and hand ? How many in 
 the whole body? What is each muscle made up of? What is said of the fibres? 
 Is it common for a motion to be made by one muscle alone? What is said about 
 raising the arm in different ways ? What is said about the variety of rapid mo- 
 tions that are sometimes performed ? What gives the face its different expressions ? 
 How is laughing done? What makes the wrinkling under the eyes in laughing? 
 What is the difference between laughing and smiling ? Has the eye anything to do 
 
90 MOEE ABOUT THE MUSCLES. 
 
 Questions. 
 
 with them? What is said about the sad muscles? What about the cross ones? 
 What is the difference between a cross and sad face and a laughing one? What 
 is said about certain expressions in common use? What is said about the muscles 
 of expression in the face of animals? What is said of the variety of expression in 
 the human face ? 
 
THE BRAIN AND NERVES IN ANIMALS. 91 
 
 The brain the mind's central workshop. How animals learn. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE BRAIN AND NERVES IN ANIMALS. 
 
 I have told you how your mind learns about the world 
 around you, and how it makes use of its knowledge by means of 
 the machinery of your body — the muscles, bones, etc. Your 
 mind is in the brain, and uses the brain to think with ; and from 
 the brain branch out all the nerves by which it works all the 
 various machinery of the body. Your brain, then, may be con- 
 sidered the central workshop of your mind * or it is like an en- 
 gine-room of a factory, where the engine is that keeps the ma- 
 chinery in other parts of the building in motion. 
 
 The different animals have a brain and nerves just as you 
 have, and their minds in their brains learn about things around 
 them. They do not learn so much as your mind does, it is true ; 
 but they really do learn. If you look at a kitten when it is first 
 born, it is very much like a baby. It does not know anything. 
 But, like the baby, it knows more and more every day, and when 
 it gets to be a cat it knows a great deal ; and all that it knows 
 has come to its mind in the same way as what you know has 
 come into your mind. It has come in through its senses. All 
 its knowledge came in at its eyes and ears, etc., and got to its 
 brain by the nerves. 
 
 The mind in animals, too, uses the muscles in the same way 
 that your mind does. Watch a kitten at play. The muscles 
 
92 THE BRAIN AND NERVES IN ANIMALS. 
 
 The mind of a kitten as it plays. The minds and brains of insects. 
 
 that move her paws are directed by her mind in the brain by 
 means of the nerves. As she pokes at the thing that you hold 
 out to her, the nerves of her eyes are telling the mind in the brain 
 all the time about the string, and then the mind is telling the 
 muscles of the paws what to do. See her as she springs to catch 
 the string that you draw along on the floor. As she watches it, 
 messages are going from those bright eyes to her mind in the 
 brain ; and then, as she springs, messages are sent from her brain 
 to a great many muscles in different parts of her body. The mind 
 tells the muscles just when and how to act, and they all do exact- 
 ly as the mind tells them. The mind of a cat sets a great deal of 
 machinery at work when she makes a spring to catch anything. 
 
 What I have told you about some animals is true of all. The 
 little insect that flies out of the way when you strike at him has 
 a little brain, and there his mind thinks about what it sees, and 
 hears, and feels, etc., just as your mind does ; and when he flies 
 away so quickly from the blow that his eyes see coming, his 
 mind tells the muscles to make the wings go. There are nerves 
 that carry messages from his senses to the mind in his brain, and 
 there are nerves that carry messages from his brain to his mus- 
 cles, as there are in you. The brain is very small, and the 
 nerves are very fine, but they do their work well. They make 
 a little telegraph, but it is a good one. 
 
 What a quantity of thinking there is done in the brains of all 
 the animals in the world ! How busy their minds are, receiving 
 reports from their senses, and working all the machinery of their 
 bodies. Go out into the garden, and see the birds, the butter- 
 
THE BEAIN AND NEEVES IN ANIMALS. 93 
 
 Animals that think more than others have larger brains. 
 
 flies, the bees, tlie flies, the ants, the frogs, the toads, and the 
 worms; they are all busy thinking. They cannot move with- 
 out thinking. It is their thinking that makes their muscles 
 move them. And they think about what they move for. 
 
 Some of them think more than others. The bird thinks more 
 than the worm. Some think faster than others. The humming- 
 bird, that darts so quickly from flower to flower, thinks as fast as 
 he works. But the lazy toad is a slow thinker. His mind does 
 not work the machinery of his muscles much, and so does but lit- 
 tle thinking. But even he once in a while thinks quickly. Let 
 a fly walk along pretty near him, and he will catch it with his 
 tongue so quickly that you cannot see just how he does it. He 
 watches the fly intently, keeping very still all the while ; and when 
 it gets near enough, he thrusts out his tongue, and the fly is gone. 
 You would hardly think that so lazy-looking an animal could do 
 anything so quickly. But he is nimble as a fly-catcher, if he is 
 not nimble at anything else; and very quickly must the mind 
 in his brain think when it is working its fly-catching machinery. 
 
 The more an animal thinks, the larger is the brain as compared 
 with the rest of the body. Man thinks more than any other 
 animal, and so he has a large brain. But the oyster has hardly 
 anything that can be called a brain, for in his still life, shut up 
 as he is in his shell, he thinks but little. But such animals as 
 horses, dogs, cats, birds, monkeys, etc., have quite , large brains, 
 for they think a great deal. Their brains, however, are not, by 
 any means, as large as the brain of man is in proportion to the 
 size of the body. 
 
94: THE BRAIN AND NERVES IN ANIMALS. 
 
 The brain compared to machinery. 
 
 This is as we should suppose it would be. The brain is the 
 machinery with which the mind thinks. Now, whenever we 
 see a great deal of machinery together, at work, we know that it 
 is because there is much to be done by it; and when we see a 
 small machine that has not many different parts, we know that 
 it is not intended to do much. So it is with the mind's think- 
 ing machinery. The brain of an animal that thinks but little is 
 small and simple; but the brain of one that thinks much is 
 large and has many parts. Though animals do their thinking 
 with their brains as we do with ours, there is some thinking 
 that we do that they cannot. There are some things about 
 which they know nothing. But I will tell you about this in 
 another chapter. 
 
 Questions. — What does your mind do with your brain? How is your brain like 
 the engine-room of a factory ? What is said about the minds of different animals ? 
 How is a kitten, when it is first born, like a baby? How does it learn? What is 
 said about the mind, and brain, and nerves of an insect ? What is said about the 
 quantity of thinking done in the brains of animals? How do some differ from oth- 
 ers in their thinking ? Tell about the toad. What is said about the size of the 
 brain in different animals ? How is the brain compared with machinery ? 
 
THE VARIETY OF MACHINERY IN ANIMALS. 95 
 
 Machinery in the oyster suited to its wants. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE VARIETY OF MACHINERY IN ANIMALS. 
 
 You have seen what a variety of curious machinery there is in 
 our bodies for our minds to work, besides that which is needed 
 to keep the body in repair. But I have told you some things 
 about other animals as I have gone along. There is in them also 
 a great deal of machinery, and it is different in each. The va- 
 riety of it is wonderful. You see that the world is everywhere 
 full of many kinds of animals, making it a very busy world. I 
 do not believe that you have ever thought how different they 
 are from each other. I will therefore tell you a little about this. 
 
 See what a difference there is between man and some animals. 
 Look at the oyster. He lives in the water, shut up in his rough 
 shell. He is no traveller. He has no eyes to see sights with. 
 He has no sense of smell. He has taste for his food, and, no 
 doubt, enjoys it. He has the sense of touch ; this he needs, 
 both to manage his food and to guard himself against harm. As 
 he does not move about, and has no feet or hands, he has but 
 few muscles. He has one to shut up his shell tight, which he 
 does when he is alarmed. His brain and nerves are very small 
 affairs, for he has little use for such things. 
 
 There is little machinery, then, in an oyster, as you compare it 
 with the machinery in your body ; and it is simply because he 
 does not need so much as you do. If he had needed more, God 
 
96 
 
 THE VARIETY OF MACHINERY IN ANIMALS. 
 
 The hydra — all stomach and arms. 
 
 How it acts when alarmed. 
 
 would have given it to him. But there is, after all, considerable 
 machinery even in the oyster. He has machinery for digesting 
 his food. lie has circulating machinery — a heart with its arteries 
 and veins. And he has gills like fishes, by which his blood is 
 aired by the air in the water. Then he lias a few muscles, some 
 nerves, and a sort of brain. 
 
 Look, now, at another animal that has less contrivances in him 
 than the oyster. Look at the hydra. 
 This is a very little animal which is found 
 in ponds, sticking to a straw or stick by a 
 sort of sucker. Here is a representation 
 of it. The small figure shows it of its 
 natural size. The larger figure shows it 
 as magnified by the microscope. This 
 animal is little else than a stomach with 
 lung arms. We can turn the body of 
 it — that is, the stomach, inside out, and 
 the animal will do as well as before. The 
 arms are merely to catch things, as worms 
 and insects, which they put into the mouth 
 of the stomach, marked a. One of the 
 arms is represented as having caught something, which it is about 
 to put into this mouth. When the little creature is alarmed, he 
 gathers up all his arms around his stomach, and looks like a lit- 
 tle ball. No brain has ever been discovered in him, but it is plain 
 that he thinks some in catching his food, and in gathering him- 
 self into a ball to escape notice. 
 
THE VARIETY OF MACHINERY IN ANIMALS. 
 
 97 
 
 One of the arms of the hydra magnified. 
 
 Contrivances in animals almost endles 
 
 Here is one of the arms of this animal as seen with a 
 powerful microscope. It is made up of little cells or 
 bladder-like things. How it is that these make the dif- 
 ferent motions of this arm we do not know. 
 
 The two animals that I have just told you about are 
 very unlike to man, but they are not more so than a 
 multitude of others. The variety in the shapes of ani- 
 mals and in the arrangements of their different parts is 
 almost endless; but, with all this variety, all are alike in 
 some things. 
 
 The variety in the contrivances in animals is so great, 
 that when one undertakes to study them, he continually 
 finds something new. And one thing is always true of 
 the machinery in animals — it is perfect. It is always 
 exactly fitted to do just what it is made for. No ma- 
 chinery that man ever made is equal to it. 
 
 Animals are suited in their shapes and arrangements to the 
 way in which they live. Some are made to fly. These have 
 wings; and the wings exhibit great variety, as you see if you 
 look at the birds and insects that are so busy in the air. Some 
 animals are made to live in the water; most of these have a 
 broad tail and fins to swim with, but some crawl, as the crab. 
 Some float about, like the hydra, and some lie still, like the 
 oyster. 
 
 Some animals walk about on the ground. Man is the only 
 animal that walks about erect upon two feet. The beasts, you 
 know, are four-footed. The monkey is one of the most singular 
 
 16 
 
98 
 
 THE VARIETY OF MACHINERY IN ANIMALS. 
 
 How different animals mov< 
 
 The organs of some animals like those of man. 
 
 -^ 
 
 of beasts: lie has neither feet nor hands, but some things which 
 are like both. With these he is more of a climber than a walker. 
 There are many small animals that walk on many feet. And the 
 
 snakes, without any feet, crawl 
 along the ground. Some animals 
 hop, as the frog and toad. Some 
 go by a long jump, as the grass- 
 hopper, and the troublesome lit- 
 tle flea, which is here represented 
 as magnified by the microscope. 
 Very strong muscles must this 
 animal have to enable it to make 
 such leaps with its long, crooked legs. 
 
 There is great variety in the coverings of animals. But I will 
 tell you about these in another chapter. 
 
 Some animals are much more like man than others. The 
 bones, and muscles, and nerves, and heart, and brain of some are 
 very much like the same things in our bodies. This is true of 
 many of the four-footed animals. You can therefore know how 
 the parts of the machinery inside of yon look by observing the 
 different parts of animals at the meat-market. In a calf's head 
 you can see how your brain looks. Its lungs, or lights, as they 
 are commonly called, are very much like yours, and its heart is 
 quite like your heart. And so of other parts. 
 
 The more an animal moves, the more muscles he has to make 
 liis motions with. Man has more variety of motion than any 
 other animal, and so has more muscles. God gives to each ani- 
 
THE VARIETY OF MACHINERY IN ANIMALS. 99 
 
 Variety of machinery in man. * What the mind of man does. 
 
 mal just the machinery that it needs. Some have machinery 
 that others do not have. Some have very little, while others 
 have a great deal. In our bodies there is a great variety of ma- 
 chinery, for our busy minds want to know and to do very many 
 things. 
 
 The mind of man does more things with the hand than with 
 any other part of its machinery. I shall therefore now go on to 
 tell you about the hand, and then about those things that, in dif- 
 ferent animals, answer somewhat in place of hands. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about the variety of machinery in the bodies of animals ? 
 What senses has the oyster? Why does he have these? What is said of his mus- 
 cles? What of his brain and nerves? Why has not the oyster as much machinery 
 in his body as there is in yours? What machinery has he? Tell all about the 
 hydra. What is said about his brain? What are his arms made of? In what 
 things are all animals alike? Plow does the machinery in animals compare with 
 that made by man ? What are the shapes and machinery of animals suited to? Tell 
 about animals that fly — those that live in the water — those that walk. What is said 
 about man ? What is said about the monkey ? Mention some animals that hop — 
 some that make a long jump — those that crawl without feet. What animals are 
 much like man, and in what ? Why is there so great a variety of machinery in our 
 bodies ? What part of the machinery do our minds use most ? 
 
100 TIIE HAND. 
 
 The hand a set of machinery. It does both coarse and fine work. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE HAND. 
 
 Man is the only animal that has a hand. The monkey has 
 something like a hand ; but, if you watch him as he takes things, 
 you will see that it is a very awkward and bungling thing com- 
 pared with your hand. 
 
 The hand is often said to be a wonderful instrument. I would 
 rather say that it is a wonderful set of machinery. An instru- 
 ment or tool is commonly fitted to do only one thing, as a chisel, 
 a spade, a saw, etc. But how many and how different things can 
 be done with the hand ! 
 
 Let us look at some things that the hand can do. See the 
 blacksmith wielding the heavy hammer; how strongly his hand 
 grasps the handle ! See how it is done. The fingers and thumb 
 are bent by those large muscles that are up in the arm. Now 
 these same fingers, that grasp the hammer so strongly, and do 
 this heavy work, can be trained to do work of the lightest and 
 finest kind. They can take hold of the pen and write. They 
 can move the tool of the engraver, making those fine lines that 
 you sometimes see. 
 
 In the machines that man makes there is no such changing 
 from coarse, heavy work to that which is fine and delicate. No 
 man ever made a machine that would pull a large rope one 
 moment, and the next pull a fine thread, and do the one just 
 
THE HAND. 101 
 
 Variety of things done by the hand. The most common things that it does wonderful. 
 
 as well as the other. But that wonderful machine, the hand, 
 can do this. It can grasp the rope firmly, and yet can take bo 
 tween its thumb and finger a thread so fine that you can hardly 
 see it. 
 
 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. 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, that, after working a long time, he did really succeed, and 
 
102 
 
 THE HAND. 
 
 Variety of shapes which the hand takes in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. 
 
 Thej is made by raising the little finger as represented, and then moving it as if 
 to make the tail of the letter. The z is made by raising the forefinger, and moving 
 it in a zigzag way. 
 
THE HAND. 103 
 
 A buttoning-machine. The hand an instrument of feeling. 
 
 that you saw his machine, with its fingers and thumb, put a but- 
 ton 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 re- 
 quire different machines ; and, besides, a machine that could button 
 up could not unbutton. But your hand is a machine that, besides 
 buttoning and unbuttoning buttons of various sizes, is doing con- 
 tinually a great variety of things that machines cannot 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 pur- 
 pose ! 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 XIII., 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. 
 
104 THE HAND. 
 
 The hand guided by the touch. Uow it differs from machines made by man. 
 
 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 busi- 
 ness 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 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 machin- 
 ery. 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 per- 
 
THE HAND. 105 
 
 How to get an idea of the variety of things which the hand can do. 
 
 form 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 tli£ things that are 
 done by the hand, but there is no end to the things that can be 
 done by this set of machinery. Yon 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 dif- 
 ferent 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 instru- 
 ment? 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 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? 
 
106 
 
 WHAT ANIMALS USE FOR HANDS. 
 
 now teeth can serve in place of hands. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 WHAT ANIMALS USE FOK 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. 
 
 >.§iMSfe 
 
 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 cannot carry them 
 in any other way. You carry a basket along in your hand, but 
 
WHAT ANIMALS USE FOE HANDS. 107 
 
 Cropping grass. Anecdotes of horses. 
 
 the dog takes it between his teeth, because lie 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 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 anything. 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 barn- 
 yard 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 w r as in a pasture where 
 there were several horses; and what is very curious, the other 
 
108 
 
 WHAT ANIMALS USE FOR HANDS. 
 
 Monkeys great climbers?. 
 
 "What cats use in place of hands. 
 
 horses, 
 
 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. The}' are half-way 
 between hands and feet. With 
 these they are very skilful at 
 climbing. There are some kinds 
 of monkeys, as the one repre- 
 sented here, that use their tails 
 in climbing as a sort of fifth 
 hand. 
 
 The cat uses for hands some- 
 times 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 anything that you hold 
 out for her to run after. She strikes with her paws, just as 
 angry children and men sometimes do with their 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 cannot 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. 
 
WHAT ANIMALS USE FOR HANDS. 
 
 109 
 
 The dormousi 
 
 The humming-bird's bill. 
 
 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 hum- 
 ming-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 cannot see them, 
 he runs his bill into the bottom of the flower where the insects 
 are. 
 
 The humming-birds are now known to be insect-eaters to a 
 great extent; and though they appear to suck honey or nectar 
 from the flowers they visit, are really searching for insects. The 
 humming-bird moth, a kind of night butterfly, looks so much 
 like a real bird some people mistake one for the other. There 
 are some humming-birds that are but a trifle larger than a 
 humble-bee ; and the humming-bird moth is twice that size. 
 The resemblance between the latter insect and some of our more 
 common humming-birds, in size, form, flight, flitting, and hum- 
 ming, is very great. The way each approach a flower and hover 
 over it is much the same. 
 
110 
 
 WnAT ANIMALS USE FOR HANDS. 
 
 The bill of a cluck. The power of the elephant's trunk and the variety of things it can do. 
 
 The bill of the duck is made in a peculiar way. You know that 
 it gets its food under water in the mud. It cannot see, therefore, 
 what it gets. It has to work altogether bv feeling, and it has 
 
 nerves in its bill for 
 this purpose. Here 
 is a picture of its billj 
 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 ele- 
 phant puts this organ is very wonderful. It can strike very 
 heavy blows with it. It can wrench of! 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 ele- 
 phant 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 
 
WHAT ANIMALS USE FOE HANDS. Ill 
 
 The elephant's trunk can do little things as well as great. 
 
 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 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. 
 
112 WIIAT ANIMALS USE FOE HANDS. 
 
 The elephant and the tailor. 
 
 The elephant can reach a considerable distance with his trunk. 
 And this is necessary, because he lias 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 machin- 
 ery. 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, his 
 nostrils. 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 lie uses 
 the water in his trunk in another \va.y ; 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 pass- 
 ing, 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 trunkful of dirty water, 
 which he had taken from a puddle for this purpose. 
 
WHAT ANIMALS USE FOR HANDS. 113 
 
 Questions. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about the dog? What answer for hands to the cow and 
 the horse? Tell the anecdotes 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. What do the humming-birds feed on mostly? What 
 insect resembles a humming-bird? In what way does the insect resemble the bird ? 
 How small are the smallest humming-birds ? Tell about the bill of the duck. What 
 is told of the humming-bird ? Mention some of the variety of uses to which the ele- 
 phant 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. 
 
 17 
 
114 
 
 THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Man alone makes tools. 
 
 Animals have some kinds of tools ready made. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 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. 
 
 jMb-^L, You see a man in the 
 
 stern or hinder end of a 
 small boat. He is scull- 
 ing, 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 
 
THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 115 
 
 The tail of a fish a scnlling-oar. The drill of the woodpecker. 
 
 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 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 wood- 
 pecker 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 knock- 
 ing 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 wood- 
 pecker 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, 
 
116 
 
 THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Tongne and claws of the woodpecker. Digging tools of the elephaut, the hen, and the pig. 
 
 armed with sharp teeth 
 pointing backward, like 
 the barbs of a fish-hook, 
 Here are, then, two in- 
 struments or tools to- 
 gether. 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 
 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 di^s 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 
 
THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 117 
 
 The mole's ploughing and digging tool. 
 
 His habitation. 
 
 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 ploughs 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 
 ploughing 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. 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 under- 
 stand 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 passages that goes 
 
118 
 
 THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 How the woodchuck digs. 
 
 How beavers build their cabins. 
 
 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. 
 
 Beavers are very singular animals. They do not live alone, 
 
 but many of them live to- 
 gether. 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. 
 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 
 
THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 119 
 
 The arrangement of the cabins and dams of beavers. 
 
 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? De- 
 scribe the arrangement of the mole's habitation. How does the woodchuck dig ? Tell 
 about the beavers. What is the arrangement of the cabin ? What is the dam for ? 
 
120 MORE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 The paw-fly. The bee that cuts leaves so curiously. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 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 dif- 
 ferent 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.* 
 
 * 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. 
 
MORE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 121 
 
 The spinning machinery of the silk-worm and the spider. 
 
 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 regu- 
 lar set of machinery for 
 spinning silk. It winds it 
 up as it spins it. Then 
 man unwinds it, and makes 
 a great variety of beau- 
 tiful 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, spin- 
 ning the rope that holds him as he goes dow r n. When he does 
 this his spinning machine must work very briskly. 
 
 The wasp has a paper factory in him. He makes his paper 
 
122 MOKE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Paper-making of the wasp. Teeth. Pumps of some animals. 
 
 out of fibres of wood, which he picks off, I suppose with his 
 teeth, and gathers them into a bundle. lie 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 gener- 
 ally 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. 
 
 Animals cannot 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 thor- 
 oughly as we can cut it up. We do not need such teeth, because 
 with inst?uments 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 
 
MOKE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 123 
 
 The proboscis in some insects. 
 
 Cat's tongue a cnrry-comb. 
 
 such an instrument that the mosquito 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 bot- 
 tom 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 a cat is a singular instru- 
 ment. It is her curry-comb. For this pur- 
 pose 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 cannot reach with her tongue, 
 
124 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 How the heron catches fish. 
 
 The tailor-bird. 
 
 and so she has to make her fore -paws answer the purpose in- 
 stead. 
 
 There are some birds that live on fishes. They have instru- 
 ments, 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 some- 
 thing else. He is looking stead- 
 ily and patiently down into the 
 water, and the moment a fish 
 
 1:^ 
 
 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 skilfully as 
 an oysterman can with his knife. 
 
 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. On 
 the opposite page we see its nest hid in leaves which it has sewed 
 
MOKE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 125 
 
 The wingless bird. 
 
 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 be- 
 lieve 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 con- 
 sists of snails, 
 insects, and 
 worms. Ileuses 
 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 
 
126 MORE ABOUT THE TOOLS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 The fish that shoots insects. 
 
 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 ani- 
 mals. 
 
 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 ? 
 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. 
 
INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 127 
 
 Fighting instruments of animals. Why.man has none of them. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE 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 de- 
 fend themselves when attacked. 
 
 But man has none of these things. Why is this? It is be- 
 cause, as I have told you about tools, with his mind he can con- 
 trive instruments of defence, 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 noth- 
 ing 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. 
 
128 
 
 INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 Claw and beak of a cruel bird. 
 
 The vulture and the lamb. 
 
 The fighting instruments of some birds are very powerful. 
 Here are a claw and a beak of a very 
 cruel bird. How fast this claw would 
 hold the victim, and how would this 
 beak tear it in pieces ! Very differ- 
 ent 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 be- 
 low. 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 
 
INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 129 
 
 The bill of the toucan. 
 
 How it trims its tail. 
 
 np 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 crashing and tearing 
 its food, which consists 
 of fruits, mice, and 
 small birds. Its edges 
 are toothed somewhat 
 like a saw, adapting it 
 to tear in pieces the lit- 
 tle animals which this 
 bird feeds on. But 
 it can use its bill also 
 for another purpose. 
 It is a powerful in- 
 strument of defence 
 in fighting off the an- 
 imals 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, keep- 
 ing off all intruders with its big beak. The mischievous mon- 
 keys are its worst enemies; but, if they get a blow from that 
 beak, they are very careful to keep out of the w T ay of it after- 
 wards. When the toucan sleeps, it manages to cover up this 
 large bill with its feathers, and so it looks as if it was nothing 
 
 18 
 
130 INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 Tue cat's paw and its cushions. Horned animals. 
 
 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 yon 
 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 con- 
 cealed, and the paw, with its cushions, seems a very gentle, 
 peaceable thing; but awaken her 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 cush- 
 ions. 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. 
 
INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 131 
 
 The horns of the koodoo. 
 
 The sword-fish. 
 
 Some animals have 
 horns which they use 
 in attack and defence, 
 and very powerful 
 weapons they are in 
 some cases. Animals 
 that have them often 
 defend themselves suc- 
 cessfully against the at- 
 tacks of lions, tigers, 
 etc., that are so power- I 
 ful with their teeth and 3 
 claws. They gore with 
 them. They can toss 
 up quite a large animal 
 into the air with them. 
 In this animal (called 
 the koodoo) they are nearly three feet long. You see that they 
 have a beautiful spiral shape ; indeed, the whole animal is very 
 handsome. It lives in South Africa, in the woods at the side 
 of rivers. You might suppose that it would be rather diffi- 
 cult to get about among the trees and bushes with such long 
 horns; but the koodoo manages to do this very well by 
 throwing his head back and letting his horns rest on his shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 Here is a drawing of a sword-fish. Its sword is made of bone, 
 and it is so very strong that it has been known to be run 
 
132 
 
 INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 The saw-fish. 
 
 The porcupine. 
 
 7 7 
 
 through the bot- 
 torn of a ship. 
 In the British 
 Museum there is 
 a piece of the 
 bottom of a ship 
 with one of these 
 swords ru n 
 through it, and broken short off. The fish must have died at 
 once, for such a blow must have dashed his brains out, as we 
 say. This sword must be a powerful weapon of defence or at- 
 tack in the fights of this fish with other animals. 
 
 Here is a fish 
 that has a saw in- 
 stead of a sword. 
 The teeth, you see, 
 are on both sides 
 of the saw. This 
 fish is very large, 
 and uses this weap- 
 on with great effect in its fights with whales and other mon- 
 sters of the deep. It sometimes, very foolishly, pushes its saw 
 into the bottom of a ship, as the sword-fish does his sword. 
 
 There are some animals that have very singular instruments 
 of defence. The porcupine is one. It is covered with two 
 kinds of quills. Those of one kind are long, slender, and curved. 
 The others are short, straight, very stout, and have a sharp 
 
INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 133 
 
 What the porcupine does with its quills 
 
 The ink-bag of the cuttle-fish. 
 
 point. Whenever the 
 
 porcupine is chased 
 
 by any animal, and 
 
 finds that he cannot 
 
 escape by running, he 
 
 stops and bristles up 
 
 all his quills, as you 
 
 see in the picture 
 
 here given. He then 
 
 backs, so that the 
 
 short, sharp quills 
 
 may stick into the 
 
 animal that pursues him. It has been said that he shoots his 
 
 quills at any one that attacks him; but this is not so. The 
 
 error came from the fact that, if any of the quills happen 
 
 to be a little loose, they fall out or stick into the flesh of his 
 
 adversary. 
 
 The octopus has a curious way of escaping from those fishes 
 that attack him. He is a strangely-shaped animal, as you see 
 on the following page. He has eight long arms, and the little 
 spots that you see on these are suckers, with which he can stick 
 to a rock, or can hold tightly any fish or shell that he catches. 
 This queer-looking animal has inside of him a bag filled with a 
 dark fluid like ink. This he uses as a means of defence in this 
 way: if he is chased by a fish larger than he is, he empties his 
 ink-bag in the water, and thus makes such a cloud that it blinds 
 his pursuer, and then the cuttle-fish very easily gets out of the way. 
 
134 
 
 INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 The pens and ink. 
 
 [ndian ink. 
 
 We might say of 
 
 these animals, they 
 
 carry with them pens 
 
 w> ^^ / and ink. They cer- 
 
 [ ^^^^^^^m /m^J~ \ tainly do have ink, as 
 
 ■ we have seen. Some 
 of you may have seen 
 Indian ink, that has 
 heen pricked into the 
 hand or arm of some 
 idle boy, that foolish- 
 ly spent his time in 
 doing what he will 
 always regret. It is a mark that can never be removed ; and 
 many a grown man has wished he could take out such a useless 
 mark. It is a custom belonging to savages, and boys when 
 they grow to be men become ashamed to show such marks. 
 
 Indian ink is the dried black fluid that is found in the blad- 
 ders of cuttle-fishes and octopuses. It is of great use in water- 
 color painting and sepia drawings. The pen is the only hard 
 part of consequence in the cuttles, excepting their beaks, which 
 resemble those of a parrot. The color of the latter is a chest- 
 nut. In some, as the common squid, such as those found on 
 our sea-shores, the pen lies along the body, just under the back. 
 If you chance to see one on the beach, and you open it by cut- 
 ting along the back, you will find it looking like isinglass, and 
 shaped like a goose-quill. It looks just like a quill pen ; and if 
 
INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 135 
 
 Poulpes. Giant squids. 
 
 you did not know that it was natural it would be hard to believe 
 it is not made artificially. So it is not strange to say this creature 
 has a pen and ink. The ink of our common squid is very black, 
 and when mixed with water is a very good writing-ink ; and is 
 good for drawing. The bladder, which holds the ink, inside 
 the squid, may be cut out, and the whole dried for future use. 
 
 It is only a few years since the great squids or cuttle-fishes 
 were found. Before that, the largest known octopuses were 
 thought to be about two feet in length, or extent of arms. Victor 
 Hugo, a French writer, described one which measured about three 
 feet. It was said to be native to the shores of France, on the 
 Mediterranean Sea. People thought this story was not true, but 
 the discovery of much larger ones proves the truth of the French 
 tale. They are called poulpes in Europe. 
 
 In the waters of the Grand Banks, near Nova Scotia, 
 where so many cod-fishes are taken, the giant squids were dis- 
 covered. The largest measured, in its body, twenty feet in 
 length. The two tentacles, or feelers, measured sixty feet more. 
 The ink-bag of these creatures is very large. Whales, the kind 
 without teeth, feed on the soft animals of the sea, as they can- 
 not crush such as have bones, like fishes. The squids, therefore, 
 are eagerly chased by the whales. We see how nature has pro- 
 vided these soft and otherwise defenceless creatures with means 
 to baffle their enemies. 
 
 The instant danger comes the squid, as you have seen the oc- 
 topus does, throws out his ink, which makes a thick cloud in 
 water so dark and so disagreeable the enemy stops, in terror, 
 while the squid makes good his escape. 
 
130 
 
 INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 The torpedo. 
 
 The electrical eel. 
 
 This singularly-formed fish, the torpedo, has two electrical bat- 
 teries — that is, ma- 
 chines for making w -' 
 electricity or light- 
 ning; and it can 
 give a shock when 
 it pleases. If the 
 fish is a large one, 
 it can give a shock 
 powerful enough to 
 knock a man down. 
 It can disable, of 
 course, almost any 
 fish that attempts 
 to fight with it, 
 
 and it probably uses its battery also to 
 that it devours. 
 
 overcome the animals 
 
 Here is an eel, call- 
 ed the electrical eel, 
 which has the same 
 power, and uses it for 
 the same purposes. A 
 sailor was once knock- 
 ed down by a shock 
 from one of these eels, 
 and it was some time 
 
 before he recovered his senses. 
 
INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 137 
 
 The armor of turtles. 
 
 The different kinds of turtles, while they have no great means 
 of attack, have most extraordinary means of defence. They have 
 a complete suit of thick, bony armor. Most kinds of turtles can 
 draw in their heads and 
 
 limbs out of sight, and rr''' : ^-'"~ ;',- -■■:-•" ; ~&0.:-~.. 
 
 some can shut up their 
 armor as tight as a box, 
 and so be secure against 
 almost any attack. This 
 is a picture of the green 
 turtle, which sometimes 
 grows so large as to weigh 
 as much as three or four 
 men. It is found in most 
 of the islands of the East 
 and West Indies. Its 
 
 flesh is considered a great luxury. The beautiful tortoise-shell, 
 from which combs are made, is obtained from this armor of 
 some kinds of turtles. The green and loggerhead turtles are 
 very abundant on the coast of Florida. In summer, during 
 moonlight nights, they go ashore on the islands to lay their eggs. 
 They creep slowly up above high-water mark, and then dig, with 
 their hind-feet, a deep hole; here they deposit their eggs, several 
 hundred in number, at one time. So intent is the female to 
 finish her work, one may sit on her back until she has completed 
 her task. The hole is then covered in by the alternate sweeping 
 of the sand by each hind-leg. 
 
138 INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENCE AND ATTACK. 
 
 The leather-back turtle. Questions. 
 
 The eggs are good for food ; and the meat of the turtle is 
 also good. 
 
 The largest known turtle is the leather-back, now seen fre- 
 quently in the ocean of our Atlantic coast. Its extreme length 
 is nine feet. Its color is black. 
 
 Questions. — What are some of the instruments of defence and attack that animals 
 have? Why has man none of these? What is the use which men ought to make 
 of the weapons which they contrive? How are hands, teeth, and nails often im- 
 properly used? What are the fighting instruments of birds? Tell about the vul- 
 ture. Tell the different uses of the large bill of the toucan. What are the weapons 
 of the cat? What is said about the muscles of her claws? Of what use are the 
 cushions on her feet? Tell about the koodoo. Tell about the sword-fish and about 
 the saw-fish? What is said about the porcupine? What about the octopus? What 
 may be said of the squids? What is Indian ink ? What is the result of pricking ink 
 into the flesh? To whom does the custom of pricking ink into the flesh belong to? 
 For what is Indian ink used? What is the only hard portion of a squid or cuttle- 
 fish, excepting the beaks? What do the beaks resemble ? What is the situation of 
 the bone or isinglass ? What is the shape of the bone? What is said of the ink of 
 our common squid? What can be done with the bladder of ink when cut out? How 
 large were the squids known before the giant ones were discovered? What of Victor 
 Hugo's story of a squid ? What were these creatures called in France? Where were 
 the giant squids found ? How much did the largest measure in length of body ? How 
 much did the tentacles measure ? What creatures feed on the squids? Why are these 
 soft animals more suitable for the great creatures' food? What does the squid do 
 when danger comes to him ? What about the torpedo and the electrical eel ? What 
 about the turtles? What turtles are abundant on the coast of Florida? When do 
 these great reptiles go on shore to lay their eggs ? Describe the way they prepare to 
 lay. How many eggs do they lay ? What are the eggs useful for ? Of what use is 
 the meat of these turtles? What is the largest known turtle? Where is it found? 
 How much is its length ? 
 
WINGS. 139 
 
 Bones of a bird's wing like the bones of the arm and hand. Why wings are so large. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 WINGS. 
 
 Birds walk upon two legs as we do ; but, instead of such 
 hands as we have, they have hands made for the purpose of lift- 
 ing them up ill the air. The bones in a bird's wing are very 
 much like the bones in our arms and hands; but they make a 
 frame-work for the feathers of the wing to spread out from. 
 The bones that go out almost to the very end of the wing are 
 like the bones of our fingers, only they are much longer. 
 
 A bird's wing, when it is stretched out, is a very large thing. 
 It needs to be large to do its work well. A bird could not fly 
 with small wings. You know that by trying very hard you 
 jump up into the air a very little way. But see, the bird goes 
 up very easily as high as it pleases, and does not seem to be tired. 
 This is because its wings spread out so broadly. 
 
 The reason that birds need such large wings is this. As the 
 bird rises by pressing upon the air, it must press on a good deal 
 of air to do this. If it pressed upon ou\j a little air it could not 
 rise at all, because the air gets out of the way so easily when it 
 is pressed upon. Swimming is flying in the water ; and, as water 
 when pressed does not get out of the way as easily as air does, 
 the tail and fins, with which fishes swim, do not need to be as 
 large as the wings of birds. For the same reason, hands and feet 
 answer very well for us to swim with, though we cannot fly 
 
140 
 
 WINGS. 
 
 Win<'8 of the condor 
 
 Muscles that work the wings of hirds. 
 
 with them. I shall tell you more particularly about this in Part 
 Third. 
 
 Here is a very large 
 bird, the condor. To 
 lift such a heavy body 
 as he has up into the 
 air must require very 
 large wings, and you 
 see that he has them. 
 
 Now, to work such 
 
 broad wings, the bird 
 
 has very stout muscles. 
 
 You know how the 
 
 b-- $>F?W ^H breast of a bird stands 
 
 out. You see it here 
 in the condor. This is 
 because the muscles 
 with which it works its 
 wings are there. You 
 can see that this is the reason, when a bird is cooked. The 
 meat, you know, is very thick on the breast-bone — thicker than 
 in any other part of the body. If we had as large muscles on 
 our breast-bones we should look very strange. But we do not 
 need such large muscles to work our arms as birds do to work 
 their wings. 
 
 A man could not fly if he had wings fixed on to his arms. It 
 has been tried. I knew a man once who made something like 
 
WINGS. 
 
 141 
 
 Why men cannot fly. 
 
 Short winajs. 
 
 The ostrich. 
 
 wings for himself. After he had made them, he went up on to 
 the roof of a shed to try them. He jumped off and flapped his 
 wings, but down he came about as soon as if he had no wings, 
 and he was so much bruised that lie was not disposed to try the 
 experiment again. Now why could he not fly ? It was not for 
 want of wings. There the wings were, and he had made them 
 right, for he had shaped 
 them like the wings of birds. 
 They were large enough and 
 light enough ; the difficulty 
 was, that the muscles of his 
 arms were not strong enough 
 to work them well. They 
 were arm-muscles and not 
 wing-muscles. A man can- 
 not be like a bird merely 
 by having wings. He must 
 have a bird's flying muscles, 
 or he cannot fly. 
 
 Different birds have wings 
 of different sizes. Those 
 that fly very far and swiftly 
 have the largest wings. The 
 wings of the hen are not 
 large enough to carry her 
 far up into the air. The 
 most that she can do is to 
 
142 
 
 WINGS. 
 
 The beautiful motions of birds. 
 
 The swallow. 
 
 The humming-bird. 
 
 fly over a very high fence; and if her wings are partly cut off, 
 or cropped, as it is called, she cannot even do that. There arc 
 some birds that do not use their wings in flying. The ostrich, 
 represented on the previous page, is a great runner. He cannot 
 
 flv, but 
 
 Ins win^rs h 
 
 help him some in running. 
 
 In what way the wings act in raising birds and carrying them 
 along I will explain to you in Part Third, when I come to tell 
 you about the air. 
 
 How beautiful are the motions of many of the birds as they 
 
 fly in the 
 
 air ! 
 
 How easily and gracefully their wings work! 
 
 Sec that bird as it goes up and up ; and now see it as it makes a 
 turn, and comes down so swiftly on its outstretched wings, tak- 
 ing a beautiful sweep off at a distance; and then up it goes 
 again to come down, in the same way that boys do when they 
 travel up a long hill to slide down so swiftly on their sleds. The 
 ..,._. swallow, as he has this 
 
 tine sport, is, at the same 
 
 time, getting 
 
 Ins 
 
 As he skims along close 
 to the ground or the wa- 
 ter, quick as thought he 
 catches any unlucky fly 
 that happens to be in his 
 way. 
 
 Especially beautiful are 
 the motions of the humming-bird. See him as he stops before 
 some flower, fluttering on his wings, or as he darts with them 
 
WINGS. 143 
 
 The structure of feathers. The delicacy of a bat's wing-. 
 
 from one flower to' another. The muscles of his wings are very 
 nimble workmen. Our muscles can make no motions as quick 
 as these. 
 
 Did yon ever examine a feather from a bird's wing to see 
 what a curiously-made thing it is? The quill part of it is very 
 strong, but, at the same time, light. The plume or feather part 
 is quite strong also. It is made up of a great many very thin 
 and delicate flat leaves, as we may call them, which are locked 
 together curiously by fine teeth on their edges. If you separate 
 them they soon come together again, and are locked as fast as 
 ever. You can see the teeth by which they hold on to each 
 other very well with a common microscope. 
 
 ~No w r onder that the bat can fly so swiftly with such very 
 broad and light wings as he has. Did you ever observe how a 
 
 bat's wino- is made? It ,^> 
 
 • j i — ***£- 
 
 is a very curious and real- 
 ly beautiful thing. It is 
 an exceedingly fine, thin 
 skin, on a frame- work of 
 long, slender bones. These 
 are to it what sticks of 
 whalebone are to an um- 
 brella ; and the wings can 
 be folded up somewhat as 
 an umbrella is. This is 
 done whenever the bat is 
 not flying. When it is on 
 
144 
 
 WINGS. 
 
 The vampire bat. 
 
 Locust's wing. 
 
 Wing of the katydid. 
 
 the ground it is very awkward in its movements. It cannot get 
 a start to fly, and so it pushes itself along with its hind-feet, at 
 the same time pulling by the hooks in its wings, which it puts 
 forward, first one and then the other, hooking them into the 
 ground. It never likes to get upon the ground, and it takes 
 its rest always, as you see represented on the previous page, by 
 hanging itself up by the two hooks in its wings. 
 
 Here is a picture of 
 
 ^ 
 
 the vampire bat, a na- 
 tive of South America, 
 that lives by sucking 
 the blood of animals 
 when they are asleep. 
 Nothing is more deli- 
 cate than the wings of 
 insects. They are like 
 gauze ; but they have 
 a frame-work that 
 makes them quite firm, 
 just as leaves are firm 
 
 from the ribs that are in them. Here is a drawing of the wing 
 
 of a locust. But you can get no idea 
 
 of the beauty of insects' wings from 
 
 such drawings. You must examine 
 
 the wings themselves. Even the wing 
 
 of a common fly is very beautiful, so delicate is its structure. 
 The wing of the katydid, as it is called, is peculiarly beautiful. 
 
WINGS. 
 
 145 
 
 How the katydid makes its noise. 
 
 How you can stop it. 
 
 Here it is. You see that it is very 
 delicate. Its color is a light green. 
 You see that rather thick three-cor- 
 nered ridge at that part of the wing 
 which joins the body. There is a 
 similar ridge on the wing of the other side. In the space within 
 this ridge there is a thin but strong membrane or skin, so that it 
 makes a kind of drum-head. It is the rubbing together of these 
 two drum-heads on the wings that makes the noise. It is a 
 queer sound. There is no music in it, but the katydids seem to 
 enjoy making it. 
 
 The katydid commonly makes three rubs at a time with its 
 drum-heads. It sounds somewhat as if it said " Katy did," and 
 from this comes its name. Sometimes there are only two rubs, 
 and then you can fancy that it says " She did " or " She didn't." 
 The katydids, you know, are all quiet in the daytime, but when 
 evening comes they are very noisy. I have often been amused to 
 hear them as they begin just at dusk. One will begin, and per- 
 haps say its " Katy did " several times ; then another, on a neigh- 
 boring tree, will reply ; and after a little time the whole tribe 
 will be at work. Each one appears to rest upon it after each 
 rubbing, and so it seems as if they answered each other from 
 one tree and another. It is curious that you can at once stop 
 the noise of this insect by striking the trunk of the tree on 
 which he is with your hand. 
 
 Questions. — What are the bones in a bird's wing like? What is said about the 
 size of birds' wings ? What about the muscles that work them ? Why cannot a 
 
 19 
 
14:6 WINGS. 
 
 Questions. 
 
 man fly if he makes wings for himself? What birds have the largest wings? What 
 is said about the hen ? What about the ostrich ? What is said about the motions 
 of birds in flying? What is said of the swallow? What of the humming-bird? 
 Tell about the parts of a feather from a bird's wing. What is said about the bat's 
 wings ? What about its motions on the ground ? How does it rest ? What is said 
 about the wings of insects ? How does the katydid make its noise ? 
 
COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 147 
 
 The skin of man. Why it is different from the covering of animals. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 The skin of man is his covering. It covers up like a case all 
 the machinery that I have told you is in his body — the bones, the 
 muscles, the nerves, the arteries, the veins, etc. It keeps them 
 from being injured. Besides this, how strange we should look 
 if there were no skin to cover up these parts from view. 
 
 The skin fits very nicely all parts of the body. On the hand 
 it is like a glove. See how well it fits. But observe that there 
 are some places where it is quite loose and full of wrinkles. It 
 is so between the thumb and forefinger, and around the joints 
 of the fingers. In these places it would not do to have it fit 
 tight, because if it did you could not move your thumb and 
 fingers as freely as you do. 
 
 But the covering of man's body is different from that of other 
 animals. It is, for the most part, bare skin, while most animals 
 have either hair, or feathers, or scales, or hard plates like armor, 
 or shells. Why is it that man has a covering that protects him 
 so much less than animals generally are protected by their cov- 
 erings? It is because he knows how to make such a covering 
 as he needs to put on over his skin. He can suit this to the de- 
 gree of heat or cold. But animals know nothing about this. 
 
 ]STo one ever saw an animal make clothes and put them on. 
 The Creator has given to each animal such covering or clothes 
 as it needs, ready-made Let us look at this a little. 
 
148 COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Fur and hair. Blanketing the horse. The fur of the cat. Feathers. 
 
 Animals in very cold climates need a very warm covering. 
 They therefore have a thick fur. But animals that live in warm 
 countries have rather thin hair instead of fur. The elephant 
 has very little hair, and it is only with the greatest care that he 
 can be made to live through our cold winters. The same is 
 true of the monkey. If these animals had a good covering of 
 fur on their skins the cold would not affect them in this way. 
 
 The hair of the horse is rather thin. It is not like fur; and 
 if the horse's master is kind, he is very careful to put a good 
 blanket on him whenever the cold makes it necessary. If he 
 did not, the horse would get chilled and take cold. The horse 
 is not a native of cold countries, but of such warm countries as 
 Arabia. There horses run wild, and are always in large com- 
 panies or herds. 
 
 You know how thick the fur is on the cat. You can see how 
 fine it is, and how thickly the hairs stand together, if you blow 
 on it so as to separate the hairs. With this warm coat on her, 
 she does not feel the cold much. You see her often in cold 
 weather out-of-doors, with her feet gathered up under her to 
 keep them warm. The monkey, with his thin hair, could not 
 do so. He has to be kept in a warm place in the winter. 
 
 The covering of birds, while it is such as to keep them warm, 
 is very light. If it were not so, they could not fly as well as 
 they do. Feathers are so light that, when we wish to speak of 
 anything as being very light, we say that it is as light as a 
 feather. The downy feathers on the breast of birds are espe- 
 cially light. The feathers of the wings are different. They are 
 
COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 149 
 
 The oily feathers of the duck. 
 
 Why fishes have scales, and why they are oily. 
 
 made strong for the work of flying, and at the same time they 
 are quite light. How this is done I have told you in the chap- 
 ter before this. 
 
 Birds that go much into the water have an oil about their 
 feathers which keeps them from being soaked; for this reason, 
 a duck, when it comes out of the water, is almost as dry as before 
 it went in. But if a hen should go into the water in the same 
 way, she would be wet through her feathers to her skin. She 
 was not made to go into the water, and so has neither the oily 
 feathers nor the webbed feet which are given to the duck. 
 
 Why is it that fishes have scales ? It is because they need a 
 smooth covering in order to get along easily in the water. A 
 covering which is rough, or which would soak in water, would 
 be bad for them. The 
 scales, you know, lap 
 over one upon another, 
 as you see here in the 
 herring. They thus 
 make quite a firm coat 
 of mail, and at the 
 same time do not hin- 
 der the bending mo- 
 tions of the fish. If the same covering were all in one, instead 
 of being made up of many scales, it could not bend as easily as 
 it does now in turning its course in the water. The scales are 
 kept oiled, and this helps the fish to glide along swiftly. It is 
 this that makes the fish so slippery that it is difficult to hold it 
 in its struggles when it is first taken out of the water. 
 
150 
 
 COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 IIow the hermit-crab guards its naked tail. 
 
 I have told you, in another chapter, about the coverings of 
 such animals as lobsters and crabs. There is one kind of crab, 
 called the hermit-crab, that has no covering over his tail as he 
 has over the other parts of his body. It is therefore very liable 
 
 to be injured unless it is guarded 
 in some way. And how do you 
 think he guards it ? He just puts 
 it into some shell that he finds, as 
 you see here,and then goes about, 
 dragging it after him. As he 
 grows the tail becomes too large 
 for the shell, and as soon as he 
 feels the shell be^innina: to 
 pinch, he pulls his tail out and 
 goes in search of another shell. 
 It is amusing to see him try one after another till he finds one 
 that fits well. Sometimes two of these crabs come to the same 
 shell, and then they have a fight about it. Very foolish must a 
 crab feel when he has driven another one off, and finds, after all, 
 that the shell he has been fighting for does not fit his tail. 
 
 The hermit-crabs are subjects for our wonder; for we do 
 not see why they should not be provided with hard shells for 
 protection, which would seem to be better than depending upon 
 the death of other kinds of creatures whose shells they may use 
 for covering. But we know from experience, as well as from 
 our faith in the good Father, that some wise purpose is served 
 in such, to ns, singular freaks. The hermits actually become 
 
COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 151 
 
 Like armed men. Tame hermits. 
 
 better protected when they choose the hard, cast-off shells of 
 shell-fish. They can draw within, and then all tender parts are 
 out of harm's way, the stout claws being left out for defence. 
 The hermits are like armed men of old, who carried their armor 
 on their bodies, and had heavy weapons to fight with. The 
 soft body of a hermit-crab winds quite naturally up the coil 
 of a cast-off shell, and seems as if the shell belonged to him by 
 nature. 
 
 The great horse-conch, as large as a person's head, is often 
 found occupied by a large sea-hermit crab. The long, soft body 
 coils around the whorl, inside, and after some time it grows to 
 be bent, so that one would think it was made there. This 
 heavy shell is carried wherever the hermit goes. 
 
 There are great numbers of small hermits, occupying the little 
 turret shells that are so common on our beaches ; but there are 
 some that live exclusively on land. One, that occupies a shell 
 about the size of an apple, and has pretty, rounded, and red- 
 colored claws, is seen at Key West and Tortugas, on the Florida 
 Reef. Its habits are much like those of burrowing insects. 
 They have been kept in confinement, and, so tamed, they feed 
 from the hand. One was found adhering to an old pipe-bowl, 
 instead of a shell; which shows the instinct of the creature to 
 thrust its soft body into something for protection. Though this 
 creature's body must have clung with difficulty to the inside of 
 the pipe, yet he executed some feats quite remarkable. He 
 climbed up the corner of a set of drawers to drink from a sau- 
 cer, frequently, and became quite tame. 
 
152 COVEEINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Questions. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about our skin as a covering? What is said about its 
 fitting well ? Where are there wrinkles, and why? How is the covering of man's 
 body different from that of other animals, and why? What is said about animals 
 in cold climates? What about those that live in warm countries ? What about the 
 elephant, the monkey, and the horse? What about the fur of the cat? What 
 about the covering of birds? How are the feathers of the wing different from those 
 of the breast, and why ? Why are the feathers of some birds oily ? Tell about the 
 duck and the hen. Why do fishes have scales? Why are they kept oiled? Tell 
 about the hermit-crab. What is there strange about a hermit-crab? What do the 
 hermit-crabs remind one of? What shell does the great sea-hermit occupy? What 
 of the small hermit-crabs ? Where are the land-hermit crabs found ? What of their 
 habits? Mention some of the habits. 
 
BEAUTY OF THE COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 153 
 
 Beauty of some very small insects. Butterflies. Colors in shells. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 BEAUTY OF THE COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 There is great variety in the coverings of insects. In some 
 the covering is like burnished armor. The variety of colors is 
 exceedingly great, and in many they have a splendid brilliancy. 
 Some of the smallest insects, which most people never notice, 
 are surpassingly beautiful when examined with the microscope. 
 It is with them in this respect as it is with some of the smallest 
 flowers. We know not how much beauty there is all around us 
 in the small things that God has created till we take the micro- 
 scope and look at them. 
 
 The butterflies are among the most beautiful of insects. Al- 
 most every variety of color is to be seen in them, and often many 
 colors are seen together, arranged in the most beautiful manner. 
 You cannot have any idea of the great variety of their beauty 
 unless you see some collection of them, in cases, in some museum. 
 
 You have often admired the beauty of different shells. These 
 are the coverings of animals who lead a very quiet life in them, 
 as I told you about the oyster. Very splendid are the colors 
 often on the inside of these coverings, and sometimes on the 
 outside also; and even when the outside is not at all handsome 
 when we get the shell from the water, we often find clearing 
 of! the outer coating with acid, or by rubbing, will show us 
 beautiful colors. Then, too, by grinding the shell in different 
 parts of it, different layers are seen of different hues. 
 
154 
 
 BEAUTY OF TIIE COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 "Why God made .shells so beautiful. 
 
 The hoopoe. 
 
 The beauty of these coverings is of no use to the animals that 
 live in them. They have no eyes to see it. For what, then, is 
 it intended? It is for our gratification. The Creator strews 
 beautiful things even on the bottom of the ocean for us. If the 
 coverings, or houses, as we may call them, of all the animals 
 that live there were as homely as that of the oyster, they would 
 be as useful and comfortable for them as they are now, decked 
 with their elegant colors. So far as they are concerned, the 
 beauty is thrown away. But men gather the shells, and, while 
 they admire them, they see in the beauty which the Creator 
 lavishes even in the depths of the sea the evidence of his abound- 
 ing goodness. 
 
 in the coverings of birds is veiy great. 
 The various colors are arranged 
 
 The variety of beauty 
 
 ".... r^ 
 
 in their plumage in every va- 
 riety of manner, and there are 
 all shades of the colors, from 
 the most brilliant to the most 
 delicate. 
 
 Commonly the greatest dis- 
 play in the plumage of birds 
 is in the delicate and downy 
 feathers of the breast. But 
 the bird that you see here, the 
 hoopoe, has its chief beauty in 
 its crest, which is of an orange 
 color tipped with black. It is 
 one of the most elegant of birds. 
 
BEAUTY OF THE COVEEINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 155 
 
 The beauty of the peacock. 
 
 Its pride. 
 
 Its disagreeable voice. 
 
 In the peacock, a drawing of which you have here, there is a 
 great display of colors. The animal struts about, and, lifting 
 its tail in the air, spreads it like a fan, and seems to be very fool- 
 
 ishly proud of its beauty. Proud people generally have some- 
 thing disagreeable about them, and so it is with the peacock. 
 
156 
 
 BEATTTY OF THE COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 A bird-of-paradise. 
 
 Its cleanliness. 
 
 Its voice is so harsh and screeching that no one wants it in his 
 neighborhood. 
 
 Birds-of-paradise, as they are called, are exceedingly beautiful. 
 There are several kinds 
 of them. The most com- 
 mon kind is the one 
 pictured here. I will 
 give you an idea of its 
 colors. Most of its body 
 is a rich brown ; the 
 throat is a golden green ; 
 the head is yellow; the 
 long, downy feathers 
 that you see so abun- 
 dant about the tail are of 
 a soft yellow color. This 
 elegant bird is very care- 
 ful to prevent the least 
 speck of dirt from get- 
 ting on its plumage ; 
 and when it sits on a branch of a tree it always faces the wind, 
 so that its feathers may not be ruffled. 
 
 There is, I think, in the humming-birds more variety of color 
 than in any other kind of birds. The colors are very brilliant, 
 especially upon the delicate feathers of their breasts ; and they 
 are shaded in the most beautiful manner. I never saw a finer 
 display of colors than I once saw in a collection of humming- 
 
BEAUTY OF THE COVEEINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 157 
 
 Humming-birds. 
 
 Beauty of the furs of animals. 
 
 birds in a museum in Philadelphia. Below is an engraving of 
 a few varieties of these birds. Yon can see what different 
 shapes they have. They are alike only in their long, slender 
 bills. And when one sees a large collection of them, with all 
 their varied forms and colors, he is struck with admiration and 
 wonder. 
 
 Many of the furs of animals have much beauty, but there is 
 no such great variety of color as there is in the plumage of birds. 
 As you blow on a fine fur, and see how thickly its delicate fibres 
 stand together, you admire its richness. Each fibre of it is in 
 
 itself a beautiful thing. 
 
158 BEAUTY OF THE COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 A caterpillar. Why such animals are often very beautiful. 
 
 We hardly know w T hy it is that some animals that we dislike 
 so much should have so much beauty. Worms and caterpillars 
 are disgusting to us, and yet in many of them there is a great 
 display of elegant colors. While writing this, I see one crawling 
 along on my coat-sleeve with its numerous feet of curious shape. 
 Its color is a brilliant green. On its back stand up in a row 
 three beautiful light-yellow tufts. Behind these, on a dark stripe, 
 are two fleshy-looking round bunches, that are a most brilliant 
 red. On its side bristle out white hairs in bundles. Its head is 
 red, and from it extend forward dark-colored but very delicate 
 feelers, in two bundles. I suppose they are feelers, because they 
 are shaped like the feelers of the butterfly, which you see on 
 page 123. 
 
 Now, why is it that so much beauty is given to such animals? 
 It does not seem to be of any use. But this cannot be so, for 
 God has a use for everything that he makes. We are to remem- 
 ber that he can make a thing beautiful as easily as he can make 
 it homely. And it is just this lesson, perhaps, that he means to 
 teach us when he clothes such creatures as worms and caterpil- 
 lars in coverings of beautiful colors. It is different with us. We 
 try to make beautiful only those things that we prize much. 
 There are some things that it would be a foolish waste of time 
 for us to ornament. This is because we can do but little in mak- 
 ing things beautiful. But there is no end to God's power in the 
 creation of beauty. He can, by the word of his power, make 
 just as many beautiful things as he pleases. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about the variety of colors in insects? What is said 
 
BEAUTY OF THE COVERINGS OF ANIMALS. 159 
 
 Questions. 
 
 about butterflies? What about shells? Is their beauty of any use to the animals 
 that live in them ? Why is so much beauty put in them ? What is said about the 
 variety of colors in the coverings of birds ? Tell about the hoopoe. Tell about the 
 peacock and about the birds-of-paradise. What is said about humming-birds? 
 What is said of the furs of animals ? What is said about worms and caterpillars ? 
 Why is so much beauty often given to such animals ? 
 
160 HOW MiN IS SUPERIOR TO ANIMALS. 
 
 Man's superiority in his mind. Machinery of animals suited to their minds. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 HOW MAN IS SUPERIOR TO ANIMALS. 
 
 You see, from what I liave told you, that man can do with his 
 hands a great variety of things that animals cannot do. It has 
 been said, therefore, by some that the hand is the great thing 
 that makes man superior to animals. But this is not true. Of 
 what use would the hand be if there was not a mind in the head 
 that knew how to use it? Suppose that your cat had a hand 
 instead of a paw, could she write with it ? No ; the mind 
 in her brain does not know enough for this. And so there 
 are a great many other things that we do with our hands 
 which the cat would not know enough to do with hands, if she 
 had them. 
 
 So, then, it is not the hand merely that makes you superior to 
 a cat, but it is the mind that uses the hand. Your mind knows 
 more than her mind does, and wants to do more things than her 
 mind ever dreams of. Your mind, therefore, needs such an in- 
 strument as the hand to do these things with, while a paw an- 
 swers very well for the cat. 
 
 God gives to every animal just such machinery as its mind 
 can use. If it knows a great deal, that is, if it has a great deal 
 of mind, he gives it a great deal of machinery ; but if it has but 
 little mind, he gives it but little machinery ; for if he gave it 
 much, it would not know how to work it. An oyster, as I have 
 
HOW MAN IS SUPERIOR TO ANIMALS. 161 
 
 Machinery of the oyster, and of the cat arid dog. Machinery in the face. 
 
 told you, knows but little as it lies covered up in its shell. It 
 knows how to do only a few things, and so it has but little ma- 
 chinery. A dog or a cat knows a great deal more than an oyster, 
 and therefore it has paws, claws, teeth, 1 etc., as machinery for its 
 mind to use. And as your mind knows so much more than that 
 of a dog or cat, it has that wonderful machine, the hand, to do 
 what it knows how to do. 
 
 The mind of man knows so much that it will contrive, when 
 there are no hands, to use other things in place of them. I once 
 saw a man who had no hands write and do various other things 
 very well with his toes. You know that we generally use the 
 right hand most, making the left hand rather the helpmeet of 
 the right. But when the right hand is lost in any way, the mind 
 sets the left to work to learn to do as the lost one did. I once 
 had to cut off the right arm of a very bright little girl. But her 
 busy mind did not stop working because it had lost the best part 
 of its machinery. In less than a fortnight I saw her sewing 
 with her left hand, fastening her work with a pin instead of 
 holding it as she used to do. 
 
 There is some other machinery, besides the hand, that you 
 have which animals have not. It is the machinery that is in the 
 face. I have told you about this before, in the chapter on the 
 muscles. A dog, when he is pleased, looks up at you and wags 
 his tail ; but he cannot laugh or even smile ; neither can he 
 frown. Why ? Because there is none of the smiling, and laugh- 
 ing, and frowning machinery there. And so it is with other 
 animals, 
 
 20 
 
1G2 
 
 HOW MAN IS SUPERIOR TO ANIMALS. 
 
 Variety of expression in the face. The wolf. Why we have no marling muscles. 
 
 The variety of work that this machinery of expression does 
 in the face of man is very great, as you can see if you watch 
 the varied expressions of countenance in persons engaged in ani- 
 mated conversation. But there is very little variety of expres- 
 sion in the face of an animal. Now why is it that they have 
 not the same muscles of expression that we have ? It is for the 
 same reason that they have not hands. The mind of man has a 
 great many more thoughts and feelings than the mind of an ani- 
 mal has. It needs, therefore, more machinery to express these 
 thoughts and feelings. The wagging of the dog's tail answers 
 very well to express his simple feeling of pleasure ; but you have 
 so many different pleasant thoughts and feelings that you need 
 the varied play of the muscles of the face to express them. 
 
 But some animals have certain muscles of expression in the 
 face that we have not. They are the snarling muscles, as 
 
 they are called. They 
 
 -^§=» 
 
 draw up the upper lip on 
 each side of the mouth 
 in such a way as to 
 show the long, tearing 
 teeth. In this wolf, about 
 to devour a lamb that he 
 has caught, you see what 
 a fierce and horrid ex- 
 pression these muscles 
 give to the face. Now 
 the reason that we have 
 
HOW MAN IS SUPERIOR TO ANIMALS. 163 
 
 Why animals cannot talk. Some things done better by some animals than by man. 
 
 no such muscles is that we ought never to have snarling feel- 
 ings. I have seen both men and children look very bad when 
 they were angry ; but they would have looked a great deal 
 worse if they had snarling machinery in their faces, as wolves 
 and cats and dogs have in theirs. 
 
 There is some machinery that animals have just as we do, 
 which they cannot use to do as many things as we can, because 
 they do not know how. I will give you an example, and then 
 you will see what I mean. Did you ever think why it is that 
 animals cannot talk ? It is not because they have not the ma- 
 chinery for talking. Many of them have tongues, teeth, lips, 
 etc. These are the things that we use to talk with, and yet, 
 though they have them, and have a voice that comes out from 
 their throats as ours does, they cannot talk. "Why is this? It 
 is because they do not know how to use these parts in talking, 
 though they do know how to use them in other things, as eating. 
 The cow knows how to use her teeth and lips and tongue in eat- 
 ing; but if she had a mind like yours, she would use them in 
 talking, and would not merely low. 
 
 The parrot, you know, does know how to talk, after a fashion. 
 This particular faculty is given to it, though it is rather a stupid 
 bird about other things. And, after all, its talking is a very 
 awkward imitation of the speech of man ; it only says what it 
 hears people say, and that in a very bungling manner. 
 
 Though man has more machinery and can do more things 
 than any other animal, there are some things that some animals 
 can do better than he can. Man can climb, but he cannot do it 
 
1G4 HOW MAN IS SUPERIOR TO ANIMALS. 
 
 Some animals can do things which man cannot. 
 
 as well as a cat or a monkey. He can swim, but not as well as 
 a fish. The frog and the grasshopper are better jumpers. The 
 horse and the dog can run faster than he can. lie cannot see as 
 far as some birds. He has but two eyes, but the fly has thou- 
 sands of eyes, so that it can see in almost all directions at 
 once. He cannot smell as well as the dog, who can follow the 
 track of his master by the scent left in his footsteps. lie can 
 mimic different sounds, but the mocking-bird can beat him at 
 this. 
 
 But, besides all this, there are some things done by some ani- 
 mals that man cannot do at all. He cannot fly like the birds 
 and insects. He cannot go to roost like the birds. He cannot 
 walk along on the wall over his head, as the fly does with the 
 suckers on its feet. 
 
 Each animal is fitted to do just those things that it needs to 
 do. For example, the monkey needs to climb to get his living, 
 and the Creator has therefore made him so that he can climb 
 very easily. For this purpose, instead of having two hands and 
 two feet, as we have, he has four things shaped somewhat like 
 hands, with which he can grasp the limbs of trees. I might give 
 you other examples, but you can find many in the chapters on 
 what animals use for hands, the tools of animals, and their in- 
 struments of defence and attack. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about the hand? In what is man superior to animals? 
 What is said about the machinery that God gives to different animals? Tell about 
 the man that had no hands, and about the girl that had her arm cut off. What is 
 said about the machinery in the face? What about the variety of work that this 
 
HOW MAN IS SUPERIOR TO ANIMALS. 165 
 
 Questions. 
 
 machinery does? Why do not animals have the same muscles of expression that 
 man has? What muscles of expression do some animals have that man has not? 
 Why does not man have them ? Why cannot animals talk ? What is said about 
 the parrot? Mention some things that some animals can do better than man. Men- 
 tion some things done by animals that he cannot do at all. What is every animai 
 fitted to do? 
 
1G6 THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 What animals think about. The cat and the snow. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 You saw in the last chapter that the great superiority of man 
 over other animals is in his mind. Let us look, now, at those 
 things in which their minds are like his, and those things in 
 which they differ from it. 
 
 I have already told you some things about the thinking of ani- 
 mals. Some of them think a great deal. They think about 
 what they see, and hear, and feel very much as we do. I once 
 had a cat that was born in the spring, after the snow was all gone. 
 In the beginning of the next winter the first snow that came 
 was quite deep. It fell in the night. It was, of course, a new 
 sight to my cat. When she came out in the morning she looked 
 at it with very curious eyes, just as we look at anything new. 
 I suppose that she thought how clean and white and pretty it 
 was. After looking a little while, she poked the snow first with 
 one paw and then with the other several times, to see how it felt. 
 Then she gathered up between her paws as much as she could 
 hold, and threw it up in the air over her head ; and then she ran 
 swiftly all around the yard, making the snow fly about like 
 feathers wherever she went. Xow, though my cat could not 
 talk, I could see by her actions that her thoughts and feelings 
 were very much such as children have when they play in the 
 snow. 
 
THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 167 
 
 The sport of animals. 
 
 Sober animals. 
 
 Animals are much like children in their sports. We notice 
 this very often in dogs and cats. But the same thing is true of 
 other animals. It is amusing to see porpoises playing with each 
 other in the water. As they throw themselves up out of the 
 water, and dive down again, they chase each other as dogs and 
 cats do. Some birds are very lively in their sports. Insects 
 have their sports also. The ants, industrious as they generally 
 are, have their times for play. They run races ; they wrestle ; 
 they carry each other on their backs in the same way that boys 
 do ; they run one after another, and dodge each other behind 
 stalks of grass, as boys 
 do behind trees and 
 posts ; they have scuf- 
 fles and mock -fights 
 together. Very busy 
 are their minds in their 
 little brains in these 
 sports — as busy as your 
 minds are in your 
 sports. 
 
 There are some ani- ; 
 
 mals that you never - \. 
 see engaged in sports. y 
 Their thoughts seem J 
 to be always of the so- i \ . 
 ber kind. You never *V' 
 see toads and frogs 
 
168 THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 The Irishman and the owl. The thinking of animals in taking care of their young. 
 
 play. They always look very grave. The owl is one of the 
 soberest-looking of animals. He looks as if he were considering 
 something. There is a picture of one on the preceding page. 
 A man once bought an owl, supposing it to be a parrot. Some 
 one asked him, a day or two after, if his parrot taJked yet. No, 
 said he, but he keeps up a great thinking, and I suppose he will 
 speak his thoughts when he gets more acquainted. 
 
 Animals think a great deal in taking care of their young. 
 What care the hen exercises over her brood of chickens ! She 
 has some of the same thoughts and feelings of love that a mother 
 has in taking care of her child. And the bird, that has her little 
 ones in the nest, has many thoughts about them as she goes out 
 to gather food, and then wings her way back to put it into their 
 open mouths. 
 
 It is interesting to watch canary-birds as they hatch and rear 
 their young. The male bird commonly insists upon it that the 
 female shall sit upon the nest all the time, while he takes upon 
 himself the task of feeding her. A male canary belonging to a 
 friend of mine was excessively particular on this point. He 
 would not let his mate leave the nest for a moment, and if she did 
 he would fight her till she went back. He w T as exceedingly busy 
 in feeding her, and might certainly be called a good provider. 
 
 A lady gave me a very interesting account of two orioles that 
 built their nest on a tree close by her father's house. They 
 came regularly every year to the same spot, and the family al- 
 ways knew the very day of their arrival by their joyous singing. 
 They seemed to have the same feelings of joy that people gener- 
 
.THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 169 
 
 The two orioles. 
 
 ■^<&' 
 
 ally do when they return to a much-loved home after a long ab- 
 sence. At one time one of their little ones fell from the nest. 
 The parents manifested their concern by flying about in the 
 most hurried, uneasy manner, and making mournful cries. The 
 family pitied the poor birds, and the little one was carefully 
 picked up, amid the flutterings and cries of the old birds, and 
 
170 THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 The spider. The thinking of animals in building their dwellings. 
 
 was replaced in the nest. And now the joy of the parent birds 
 over their restored one was expressed by a long and merry peal 
 of song, as they sat perched on the branch close by their little 
 nestlings. At length one of these orioles died, and the other left 
 the nest and never more returned. 
 
 See that spider on his web. lie is watching for flies. The 
 mind in his little brain thinks of every fly that comes buzzing 
 along, and is anxious that it should get its legs entangled in the 
 snares that he has woven. How glad he feels when he sees one 
 caught by these snares ! And if he thinks that they are not strong 
 enough to hold the fly, he runs and quickly weaves some more 
 threads about him. In the same way do all animals that catch 
 their prey think very busily while they are doing it. 
 
 Animals think much in building their dwellings. The bird 
 searches for what it can use in building its nest, and in doing 
 this it thinks. The beavers think as they build their dams and 
 their houses. They think in getting their materials, and also in 
 arranging them, and in plastering them together with mud. 
 
 Some spiders build houses that you would think must have 
 been made by some thinking creature. They have no brain, but 
 small, nervous threads with here and there knots which seem to 
 answer as little brains. You have learned something of this in 
 Chapter XVIII. 
 
 Now we see, occasionally, creatures doing more intelligent 
 things than we expect them to do, if we judge them according 
 to the amount of brain they have. We know that a man may 
 do things that a monkey cannot: and we see that man has a 
 
172 THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 The tarantula. Spiders nests. Florida spiders. 
 
 • 
 
 larger brain ; the largest of all. We see, also, that a monkey can 
 do more intelligent things than a cat or a cow, because his brain 
 is larger in proportion ; and so through the whole animal creation. 
 
 There are now and again creatures exhibiting strange facul- 
 ties ; they do things that one would think could onry be done by 
 man. We cannot yet explain this, but we may admire these things, 
 and bear in mind that the Creator has designed all things well. 
 
 A kind of tarantula, the spider whose bite is poisonous, builds 
 its house in a wonderful manner. It first digs a hole in the 
 ground, and then lines it by spinning a pure white satin-like silk 
 over the interior, making the sides one continuous tube of silk. 
 When you come to study the insects, yon will learn how this 
 spinning is done. When the underground room or cellar is fin- 
 ished, the spider proceeds to pile up bits of wood, and he places 
 them just as boys build log houses, by laying them at right an- 
 gles on each other. You will see a picture of this spider's nest 
 on the preceding page. 
 
 Persons have watched these spiders closely, at work. Does it 
 not seem too wonderful to be true; but they have been seen. 
 The spaces between the logs, or sticks, he fills with plaster, made 
 up by wetting the earth by his mouth. 
 
 The silk he spins for lining is as good as that made from the 
 silk-worm. A spider that is very common in Florida weaves its 
 net across bushes, and such threads are so strong they resist, for 
 an instant, the pressure of the body in passing through it. This 
 silk has been wound in quantities sufficient to test its qualities, 
 but it is not convenient to wind the silk from the spider's body 
 
THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 173 
 
 Trap-door spiders. 
 
 as it is in the cocoons 
 
 OT' Perhaps the most interest- 
 ing work ever seen by such hum- 
 ble creatures is the nest of the trap- 
 door spiders. These nests are en- 
 tirely underground, and open on 
 the surface, always on a slight in- 
 cline. It is impossible to distin- 
 guish the nest until the door is 
 opened. Then it is seen that the 
 opening is fitted with a stopper so 
 tightly closed there is no line to show where it fits. The 
 nest is about eight inches deep, and is a straight tube an inch 
 and a half in diameter inside. This tube is lined completely 
 with beautiful satin-silk. The stopper or trap-door is made of 
 mud, and lined with silk, which is connected with the silk of the 
 interior by a narrow bar, which forms a hinge. It all looks like 
 the hand of man. We see what design there is in placing the 
 
174 THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Florida worms. Tube building. 
 
 nests all on a side hill. The spider takes advantage of this, and 
 puts his hinge on the cover and tube on the highest point, so 
 that the cover will always surely fall down and shut him in when 
 he retreats. If you try to pry open his door he seizes hold of 
 the inner side of it and pulls with all his might, only giving up 
 when the tube is broken. The best security is from the chances 
 of the door escaping detection entirely, for one cannot see where 
 the sharp lines are that form the borders. The grass, too, aids in 
 concealing it. There are some that have a second tube, built 
 underground, an offshoot from the first; in this is a second valve, 
 or trap-door, behind which the spider retreats when pushed be- 
 yond the first entrance. This kind of spider reminds us of some 
 warrior or chief, who has a castle to live in and defend. These 
 houses all have a small hole at the bottom, through which any 
 moisture escapes. The trap-doors or stoppers to these tubes are 
 so circular that they look as if punched out by a perfectly circular 
 steel implement. 
 
 On the Florida Reef lives, among many another kind of worm, 
 one that builds up a house much as the tarantula builds. It lives 
 on the flats, in shallow water, where one can examine it very 
 closely. It belongs to an order of worms called Annelids. It 
 has no long limbs, and nothing but soft tentacles to work with, 
 which are around the mouth. With these soft tentacles the worm 
 reaches forth and selects certain bits of debris and builds up a 
 tube, several inches in length. The bottom of the shallow flats, 
 where these house-building worms are seen, is mostly made up 
 of bits of coral and little limestone leaves of corallines, or sea- 
 
THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 175 
 
 Tube building. Questions. 
 
 weeds that have a lime skeleton or framework within the green 
 portion. When these seaweeds die, the green and vegetable por- 
 tion washes away, and leaves a frame of lime, made up of little 
 heart-shaped blocks. The wonderful part of this worm's work 
 is, that it selects these little tiles of lime, and builds up its tube 
 exclusively of them. The little tiles are flat, and they are placed 
 one upon the other just as a faced-stone wall is built. During 
 the construction of this wall the creature introduces here and 
 there bits of green algae, that hang down and conceal somewhat 
 the work ; and this produces a protection, from its resemblance to 
 the surrounding seaweeds, thus cheating the hungry fishes that 
 are looking around for a bite. Still more wonderful is the fact 
 that the creature tops off his tube by constructing a cover. A bit 
 of shell hinged at one point by some glue-like substance, which 
 he also uses for lining his tube, is covered with green seaweeds. 
 It is singular that a spider should exercise so much intelligence 
 (seemingly), but here is a worm, quite low in the scale of life, 
 doing what we expect to see done only by the highest animals. 
 Nature has given these lowly creatures this faculty of deception, 
 which allows them to place weeds upon their structures, to re- 
 semble the surrounding growth. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about the thinking of animals? What is told about a 
 cat? What is said about the sports of animals? Tell about the ants. Tell about 
 the owl. What is said about animals taking care of their young? Tell about the 
 canary-bird. Tell about the orioles. What is said about the spider ? What is said 
 about animals building their dwellings ? What of the house-building spiders ? Have 
 they a brain ? What have they instead ? What do they do that is strange ? What 
 animal has the largest brain ? Why does a monkey do more intelligent things than 
 
176 THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Questions. 
 
 a cat? What is a tarantula? What of its bite? Does it build a house? How is 
 it built? What does the spider build on the top of the cellar? How does he fill up 
 the spaces left between the logs or sticks? What is the nature of the silk? What 
 of the spider in Florida ? What of the trap-door spiders ? Describe the nest. How 
 is it lined ? What does it look like? Why are the nests all placed on an incline or 
 side hill ? What happens when you try to pry open a nest ? What of the worm on 
 the Florida Reef? To what order does the worm belong ? What does it work with ? 
 What is the nature of the flats on which the worm builds ? What kind of material 
 does the worm use in building? Describe the nature of the corallines. What does 
 the worm do to deceive? What does the worm do to line his tube ? What is strange 
 about this house-building by a worm ? 
 
MORE ABOUT THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 U7 
 
 Stories about the shepherd's do^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 MOKE ABOUT THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 As animals think, they learn. Some learn more than others. 
 The dog learns a good deal ; so do the monkey and the elephant. 
 Some are good at learning some particular things. The parrot 
 learns to mimic talking, though it is quite stupid about some 
 other things. The mocking-bird learns to imitate a great many 
 different sounds. The 
 shepherd's dog, seen here, 
 though he does not know 
 as much about most things / 
 as dogs of some other : . 
 kinds, understands par- / 
 ticularly well how to take >- 
 care of sheep. If he is t' ':■ 
 trained to this business 
 he will show great skill in 
 doing it. James Hogg, 
 a Scotch poet, commonly 
 called the Ettrick Shep- 
 herd, relates many wonderful anecdotes of his dog, whom he 
 called Sirrah. He says that one night a large flock of lambs got 
 out from their fold and ran away among the hills. When the 
 shepherd said, " Sirrah, they're a' awa' !" the dog dashed off after 
 them, and was soon out of sight. The shepherd also, and his 
 
 21 
 
178 MORE ABOUT TIIE TIIINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 Animals build always the same way, aud have no new fashions. 
 
 man, started off in pursuit. They searched all night, but could 
 find nothing of the dog or the lambs ; but in the morning they 
 espied Sirrah standing guard at the mouth of a gorge, or narrow 
 pass, and anxiously looking for his master to come. He had 
 succeeded in finding all the scattered lambs, and here they were 
 in this gorge, into which he had driven them. It is told of an- 
 other dog of this kind that he would pick out any stray sheep 
 from the midst of a whole flock, and drive it back to the flock 
 to which it belonged. This dog was once observed trying to 
 drive a flock over a bridge which they were afraid to cross. He 
 managed very well, and at length succeeded in getting them 
 over. It was amusing to see how he did it. At one moment 
 he was driving up some of the scattered ones, and the next he 
 was among the foremost, urging them forward. After a while 
 he made some of the foremost pass over, and then the whole 
 flock followed. 
 
 Though animals think and learn, they do not have much orig- 
 inality. They always do things very much in the same way. 
 They do not keep contriving some new ways of doing things as 
 men do. Each kind of bird has its own way of building a nest, 
 and it is always the same way. The robins build their nests 
 now just as they did hundreds of years ago. The moles build 
 their tunnelled habitations under ground year after year after the 
 plan that you see on page 117. And so of other animals. They 
 have no new fashions, and learn none from each other. But men, 
 you know, are always contriving new ways of building houses, 
 or learning them from other men. 
 
MOEE ABOUT THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 179 
 
 What is done by instinct. Hens hatching duck's eggs and sitting on pieces of chalk. 
 
 Many of the things that animals know how to do they seem to 
 know either without learning, or without learning in the same 
 way that we learn. They are said to do such things by instinct ; 
 but what instinct really is no one can tell. It is by this instinct 
 that birds build their nests, and bees their honeycombs, and 
 beavers their dams and huts. If these things were all contrived 
 and thought out just as men contrive houses, there would be 
 some changes in the fashions of them, and some improvements. 
 Nearly all that we know about this instinct is that some very 
 nice things are done by it, without much thinking being mixed 
 up with it. 
 
 This want of thinking sometimes leads to some queer mistakes. 
 If you put a duck's eggs in a hen's nest she will sit on them as 
 if they were her own eggs, and after the ducks are hatched she 
 will take care of them, not seeming to know that they are not 
 chickens. One would suppose that she would know, because 
 they look so different from chickens, and have bills so unlike 
 theirs. But she does not seem to think of this. And it is 
 amusing to see her after the ducks get large enough to go 
 into the water. Off they run, and plunge in, and swim about, 
 while the old hen stands by the water, greatly alarmed lest 
 they should be drowned. She does not understand it; she 
 does not know that ducklings have an instinct different from 
 chickens. 
 
 So, too, if the hen has rounded pieces of chalk put in her nest, 
 she will sit on them as if they were real eggs. Her instinct 
 makes her sit; but if she had much reason she would not sit on 
 
180 MORE ABOUT THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 
 
 The building instinct of the beaver. How the minds of animals differ from ours. 
 
 pieces of chalk. If she thought much, she would find out what 
 they were and quit her nest. 
 
 I have mentioned the building instinct of the beavers. An 
 English gentleman caught a young one and put him at first in a 
 cage. After a while he let him out in a room where there was 
 a great variety of things. As soon as he was let out he began 
 to exercise his building instinct. He gathered together what- 
 ever he could find, brushes, baskets, boots, clothes, sticks, bits of 
 coal, etc., and arranged them as if to build a dam. Xow, if he had 
 had his wits about him, as we should say, he would have thought 
 that there was no use in building a dam where there is no water. 
 It is from such mistakes as these that I have mentioned that the 
 instinct of animals is said to be blind. 
 
 It is plain that, while animals learn about things by their 
 senses as we do, they do not think nearly as much about what 
 they learn, and this is one reason that they do not know as much 
 as we do. Even the wisest of them, as the elephant and the dog, 
 do not think over what they see and hear very much. 
 
 But this is not all. There are some things that we understand 
 about which animals know nothing. They know nothing about 
 what happened before they were born, or what happens now in 
 their lifetime away from them in other places. They know noth- 
 ing about what is to happen. They know nothing about God 
 and another world. You cannot teach them anything about any 
 such subjects. The reason is, that while their minds are like 
 ours in some things, they are different in other things. 
 
 You can see this great difference between your minds and the 
 
MOKE ABOUT THE THINKING OF ANIMALS. 181 
 
 What some wise men are foolish aud wicked enough to say. 
 
 minds of animals in one thing. You never would think of tell- 
 ing a story to a dog or a cat as you would to a child, for you 
 know that it would not be understood. 
 
 The minds of animals are so much unlike ours that they do 
 not know the difference between right and wrong. Some sup- 
 pose that a dog will not do certain things because he knows that 
 it is wrong to do them. But this is not so. He is afraid to do 
 what he would be whipped for. If he sees a piece of meat on a 
 table, he will not take it simply because he knows his master 
 w r ould not like it, and not because he knows that it is wrong to 
 steal. 
 
 Questions. — What is said about the learning of animals? Tell about the shep- 
 herd's dog. What is said about the contrivance of animals ? Why do they have 
 no new fashions? What is said about instinct? Tell about the hen's hatching 
 duck's eggs. Tell about her sitting on pieces of chalk. What is told about the 
 beaver? What is one reason that animals do not know as much as we do? What 
 things do they know nothing about? Do they know the difference between right 
 and wrong ? 
 
182 WHAT SLEEP IS FOR. 
 
 The machinery of the body needs seasons of rest for repairing. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 WHAT SLEEP IS FOR. 
 
 All animals have their times for sleeping. It would not do 
 for their minds to use the machinery of the bod} 7 all the time ; 
 if they did, the machinery would soon wear out. The brain 
 and nerves and muscles, etc., are all repaired during sleep, so 
 that they may be ready for use again. 
 
 When you feel tired, it is because your mind lias worn the 
 machinery of the body by using it. Now, when you lie down 
 and sleep, the muscles stop working; no messages pass through 
 the nerves, and the brain is at rest, because the mind pretty much 
 stops thinking. But all this time that you sleep the blood keeps 
 circulating, and the breathing goes on. What is this for? It is 
 that the repairing of the machinery may be done, so as to get 
 the brain and nerves and muscles ready for the work and the 
 play of to-morrow. The repairing, you know, is all done with 
 the blood. This is the material for repairing as well as for 
 building, and therefore it must be circulating everywhere while 
 you are asleep, and the breathing must go on to keep the blood 
 in good order. 
 
 The repairing of the body is going on all the time while you 
 are awake as well as when you are asleep. But it goes on more 
 briskly when the machinery is not in use than when it is. So 
 we may say that when you are asleep the machinery is lying by 
 for a full repair. 
 
WHAT SLEEP IS FOE. 183 
 
 The night the time for sleep. Why merely keeping still will not answer. 
 
 The same is true of the building of the body. More of it is 
 done when you are asleep than when you are awake. You are 
 growing all the time, but you grow most when you are asleep. 
 And it is because the child is growing that he needs more sleep 
 than the adult does. The baby is growing very fast, and so he 
 sleeps a great deal of his time in the day as well as in the night. 
 
 The night is given to us as the time to sleep. Then it is dark 
 and still, and w T e can go to sleep easily. Most animals sleep 
 through the night. You remember that I told you, in Chapter 
 X., Part First, how still the garden becomes as evening comes 
 on. The flies and bees and bugs and birds have gone to rest, 
 to get repaired for the next day ; so, too, have the larger animals. 
 But it is curious that some animals are busy in the night, and 
 take their sleep in the day. It is so with the owl and the bat. 
 The katydid, you know, does not begin its noise till evening. I 
 suppose that it sleeps in the daytime. 
 
 Those people that stay up late at night, and do not get up 
 early in the morning, make a great mistake. They do not take the 
 right time for sleeping. They ought not to turn night into day, 
 as bats, and owls, and katydids do, for they are not made for it. 
 
 When you are tired and need sleep the trouble is not merely 
 in the muscles. If it were, then keeping still merely, without 
 sleeping, would answer. But the brain and nerves need repair- 
 ing as well as the muscles. But as long as you are seeing and 
 hearing and feeling the nerves are kept too busy to be repaired 
 well ; and as long as your mind keeps thinking the brain does 
 not get thoroughly repaired. So, then, merely keeping still will 
 
184 WHAT SLEEP IS FOE. 
 
 Dreaming. The winter sleep of some animals. The long sleep of frogs. 
 
 only repair the muscles ; and sleep is needed to repair the brain 
 and the nerves. 
 
 Yon know that when yon dream very much yon are not as 
 much refreshed as when yon sleep soundly. What is the reason ? 
 It is because that when you dream the mind is not wholly at 
 rest, and works the brain, so that it is not thoroughly repaired. 
 
 There is another kind of sleep into which some animals go. 
 It is a very long sleep. It lasts all winter. Great numbers of 
 such animals as frogs, bats, flies, and spiders, go into by-places in 
 the fall to sleep till spring comes. Many of the birds do this. 
 
 It is a deeper sleep than that which animals go into at night. 
 It is a different kind of sleep. In the sleep at night the blood 
 keeps moving, and the animal breathes; but in this winter sleep 
 there is no breathing, and the blood stops circulating. All is as 
 still as death. But there is life there, just as I told you, in Part 
 First, there is life in the seed, and in the trees that look so dead 
 in winter. It is life asleep. The warmth of spring wakes up 
 again the life in these animals, as it does the life in the trees. 
 The blood then begins to circulate in them, as the sap does in 
 the trees, and they come out from their hiding-places. 
 
 I have said that this sleep which some animals go into lasts 
 through the winter. It may be made to last longer than this. 
 Some frogs were once kept in this winter sleep for over three 
 years in an ice-house ; and then, on being brought out into the 
 warm air, revived and hopped about as lively as ever. We do 
 not know how much longer they might have been kept in this 
 sleep. You remember that in Part First, Chapter XVI., I told 
 
WHAT SLEEP IS FOE. 185 
 
 The long sleep of a toad. The winter sleep of some animals not perfectly sound. 
 
 you about some seeds in which the life was asleep many hundred 
 years. And it may be that the life might be kept asleep in frogs 
 and other animals as long as this by steady cold. A toad was 
 found lately in the middle of a tree fast asleep. How he came 
 there was not known, but the wood had kept growing year after 
 year, and as there were sixty-seven rings outside of the toad, it 
 was clear that he had been there sixty-seven years. A long sleep 
 it was, but he soon woke up and hopped about like other toads. 
 
 There are some kinds of animals that crawl into winter-quar- 
 ters in whom life is not wholly asleep. The blood moves a little, 
 and they once in a while take a breath ; and, besides, they now 
 and then, when the weather is quite warm, wake up enough to 
 eat a little. Now it is curious that such animals always lay up 
 something to eat right alongside of them when they go into 
 their winter sleeping-places. But those that do not wake up at 
 all do not lay up any food, for it would not be used if they did 
 lay it up. They are governed by instinct in this matter. 
 
 The field-mouse lays up at its side nuts and grain when it 
 goes into its winter-quarters, and when it is partly waked up by 
 a warm day eats a little of its store. The bat does not lay up 
 anything, although he wakes up when it is warm. He does 
 not need to lay up anything, because the warmth that wakes him 
 up wakes up also gnats and insects on which he lives. He 
 catches some of these, and then, as he finds himself going to 
 sleep again, he hangs himself up by his hooks as before. The 
 marmot or woodchuck does not wake up at all, but he always 
 lays up some dried grass, in his hole. What is this for? He 
 
186 WHAT SLEEP IS FOE. 
 
 How much life is asleep in the winter. Flight of birds south in winter. 
 
 feeds on it when he first wakes up in the spring, to get a little 
 strength before he comes out from his hole. 
 
 How much life, then, is asleep in the winter, in animals as 
 well as in plants ! And how busy is life in its waking in the 
 spring! While the roots and seeds in the ground send up their 
 shoots, and the sap again circulates in the trees and shrubs, and 
 the buds swell, multitudes of animals are crawling out of their 
 winter hiding-places into the warm, balmy air. And when the 
 leaves are fully out, and the flowers abound, the earth swarms 
 with the busy insects and birds and creeping things, of which 
 we saw none during the winter. 
 
 Some of the birds that we see in the spring have not been 
 asleep during the cold weather, but have spent their winter at 
 the South, and have now winged their way back to spend their 
 summer with us. They go back and forth in this way every 
 year, guided by that wonderful and mysterious thing, instinct. 
 How this makes them take their flight at the right time, and in 
 the right direction, we do not understand. 
 
 Questions. — Why do animals need sleep? Why do you feel tired after work, or 
 play, or study? Why does the blood circulate and the breathing go on in sleep? 
 When is most of the repairing of the body done ? How is it with its growth ? What 
 is said about night as the time for sleep ? Mention some animals that sleep in the 
 day and are awake in the night ? What is said about people that turn night into 
 day? Why would not merely keeping the body still, without sleeping, answer for 
 our rest? What is said about dreaming? What is said of the winter sleep of some 
 animals ? Tell about the frogs and the toad. Why do some animals take food into 
 their winter sleeping-places? Tell about the field-mouse, the bat, and the marmot. 
 What is said about the waking-up of life in the spring in animals and in plants? 
 What is said about the birds ? 
 
HYGIENE. 1ST 
 
 Care of our bodies. The pores of the skin. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 HYGIENE. 
 
 In some of the chapters you have learned how our bodies are 
 made, and how they are kept alive; you have seen how much 
 like machinery the different parts of the body are. To take 
 good care of these different parts of our body is what we are 
 expected to do ; it is reasonable for us to do so, because we 
 suffer if we do not. But it is wicked, also, if we neglect such 
 duties, for the good Father has given us life and the faculties 
 for its preservation to good old age. The knowledge and care 
 that we use in such duties is called hygiene. 
 
 We do wrong if we do not carefully preserve our natural good 
 health by the use of faculties we have. One of the first and the 
 simplest rules of health, or hygiene, we should heed is, be cleanly. 
 No respectable person will long be otherwise. 
 
 In your studies in physiology you find that the skin is full 
 of pores that reach down to glands or little sacs. These give 
 out a fluid from the blood we call perspiration. If one is not 
 cleanly, by frequent washing, the little pores become filled up, 
 the moisture hardens, and the free circulation is stopped ; and 
 this is liable to be injurious to health. 
 
 Hygiene, then, teaches us to get a knowledge of all we can of 
 the machinery of our bodies, and honestly to use it always when 
 necessary for the preservation of our health. A very necessary 
 
188 HYGIENE. 
 
 Keep the feet warm. Intoxicating drinks. 
 
 tiling to do is to prevent a sudden check of perspiration, as many 
 very dangerous diseases come right from such carelessness. 
 The feet should always be kept warm, and the shoes and stock- 
 ings w r ell and quickly dried, when wet. Sitting in a draft of 
 air, in coaches, cars, and many other places, often causes serious 
 diseases. We should dress warmly, but so as to preserve a uni- 
 form, comfortable condition, in doors or out. We should avoid 
 being chilled, and, if so exposed, should get warm as soon as 
 possible ; especially care should be taken to heat the feet well 
 after such exposure. 
 
 Hygiene teaches us to preserve health by eating and drinking 
 what is known to be wholesome for us. Our parents are good 
 teachers in such things ; they usually give what is for the best, 
 and advise against what is wrong and hurtful. Therefore it is 
 wise and best for the young to observe, carefully and strictly, 
 the advice of their parents. 
 
 It would seem that when you are old enough to notice the 
 disgusting looks of a drunkard, and see the dreadful sufferings 
 he brings on his family, his wife, and his children — their loss of 
 home, and sufferings from starvation — all this, one would think, 
 should caution us against the use of intoxicating drinks for pleas- 
 ure. Horrible beyond measure is the result to the drinker, if he 
 continues. It is dangerous to meddle with it for a moment, and 
 it is much the best to have nothing at all to do with it, except- 
 ing through a prescription of a doctor. 
 
 Many people find that it makes them want more, the more 
 they drink, and, like all that is evil, it carries them onward to a 
 
HYGIENE. 1 89 
 
 Bad results. Narcotics. 
 
 bad end. One very bad result is, to those who become regular 
 drinkers, the loss of moral faculty. Such persons are not so 
 truthful, and there is little to hold them from doing much that 
 is evil. Such are easily led astray. This is a sad thing to re- 
 flect on, but it is too true. Then, let our young folks shun such 
 evil things. 
 
 There are some curious facts that show that alcoholic drinks 
 are not even so valuable for a medicine as was once thought. 
 Those who brave the intense cold of the arctic regions find that 
 the use of much alcoholic liquor is no help to them, and sur- 
 vive, when those who depend on daily drinks suffer, and die 
 even. Men who have all their faculties in a natural condition 
 find that they bear the heat and cold of the tropic and arctic 
 regions much better and more safely than those who depend 
 upon spirits to help them. The latter, in cases of great emer- 
 gency, are known to lose courage quickly. Men undergoing 
 training for violent exercises do not use alcoholic liquors at 
 such times, even if they do at others, knowing that alcohol 
 really weakens the muscles, the stimulus of a drink soon pass- 
 ing off, and leaving a corresponding want behind. People who 
 habitually use liquors are not so likely to survive serious ill- 
 ness. Our young folks will, then, abstain from such unreason- 
 able courses, and lead healthy and godly lives. 
 
 There are many other articles besides spirits, called narcotics, 
 which are such deadly poisons, one would think it unnecessary 
 to caution people against their use. Leave them all to your 
 doctor, and do not dare to use any without his advice, for they 
 
190 HYGIENE. 
 
 Effects of narcotics. Tobacco. 
 
 are dangerous. They soon beget an appetite, as rum does, 
 which brings ruin in every form. The stomach is disturbed, 
 and many ailments are produced that you would shudder to 
 know about. 
 
 Tobacco is another very useless article we should shun. Smok- 
 ing and chewing tobacco are idle habits at best, and cannot but 
 be bad in some way. One would suppose that the nauseating 
 effects of a trial at smoking or chewing would preveut our boys 
 from further trials ; but it seems manly, they think. Oh, no, 
 it is not manly; leave them alone. There are many reasons 
 why smoking and chewing are very undesirable, besides being 
 an injury to health. Our comfortable homes are polluted by 
 the stale tobacco smoke ; the floors are sometimes not free from 
 the vile juices. No household can be sweet and clean where to- 
 bacco is used to any considerable extent. 
 
 People whose lives are spent mostly within doors suffer the 
 most from excessive smoking. Of the many evil effects that hap- 
 pen to them, the worst is a general paralysis, first felt in vertigo, 
 confusion of the mind, and tingling of the finger nerves. These 
 symptoms should prompt a complete abandonment of tobacco. 
 
 Cigarettes are known to be very injurious ; perhaps the pa- 
 per is most irritating. Smoking tobacco induces a depression 
 of spirits that calls for stimulants. In that respect it is doubly 
 dangerous. 
 
 Questions. — What is hygiene? Why should we first of all take good care of our 
 body? What is the simplest rule of hygiene? Describe the pores of the skin? 
 What fluid is given out from them ? From what does the perspiration come ? What 
 
HYGIENE. 191 
 
 Questions. 
 
 happens if the pores of the skin become stopped ? What does hygiene teach ? What 
 is another very important thing to do ? What about the feet ? Why should we 
 avoid being in a draft of air? How should we dress? What should we do after ex- 
 posure to wet? What further does hygiene teach? Who are the good teachers 
 in such things ? Why should we let spirituous liquors entirely alone ? What hap- 
 pens to many who drink habitually? What is one very bad result mentioned? 
 What happens in such cases ? What do some curious facts show ? What about 
 men who have all faculties in a natural condition in the tropics and arctic zones? 
 How do men that train for violent exercise do ? What effect does alcoholic liquors 
 have on the muscles ? What else happens to people that habitually drink much al- 
 coholic liquor ? What about other stimulants, narcotics, etc. ? What is best to do 
 with them? What effects are seen from the use of narcotics? What about to- 
 bacco? What would one suppose concerning the use of tobacco? What do boys 
 think of the habit of smoking ? What do you think of it ? Why are the habits of 
 smoking and chewing very undesirable as well as hurtful ? What is sometimes the 
 effect of the use of tobacco on the brain? What should be done in such a case? 
 Why are cigarettes more hurtful ? 
 
192 WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY 
 
 How to help those apparently drowned. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY. 
 
 There are many things we may do for the relief of people 
 who are in danger. If you observe the simple rules for the 
 recovery of persons rescued from drowning, you do what a 
 doctor cannot do, unless he comes in time. One may have 
 been under water some minutes — from fifteen to thirty — and 
 all appearance of life gone. Such a person may not live if let 
 alone; but you are, happily, at hand, and immediately turn his 
 face downward, and heels and lower body upward, to let out 
 the water from his mouth. You quickly, but gently, press 
 once against his ribs with a hand on each side of his chest ; 
 then you blow forcibly into his mouth, with his nostrils closed, 
 and again you press his chest, and again blow into his mouth 
 to inflate his lungs. You do all this to make him breathe. If 
 you have anything at hand that will irritate his nose, it is val- 
 uable — snuff, or even tickling the nose with a straw, is good ; 
 and the result is, sometimes, that the person will be convulsed 
 in those parts, and sneeze — a most happy occurrence, for then 
 the lungs are brought into action. Heat, by any means, is val- 
 uable now — warm clothes, etc. ; but this is of little value before 
 the all-necessary action of the lungs. 
 
 A most memorable instance of resuscitation occurred to us in 
 the case of a fisherman who was taken ashore after being, at 
 
WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY. 193 
 
 Learn to swim. What to do for fainting. 
 
 least, thirty minutes under water. All means seemed to fail, 
 even shocks from a galvanic battery. A bottle of tincture of 
 cayenne pepper was at hand, and a few drops of that turned 
 into the nose produced instant sneezing, which inflated the 
 lungs sufficiently to continue the functions of life. 
 
 This is recorded as an instance of what may be done, even at 
 the last extremity. A prompt application of a few simple rem- 
 edies will often save life, when, if you wait for a doctor, all is lost. 
 
 Boys and girls should learn to swim ; there ought to be no 
 exception to this. One increases his chances for life many 
 times by being able to swim. Any one may learn by taking 
 into the water with him a board to rest upon ; but a flat rub- 
 ber bag is best. Salt water, of considerable depth, is the best 
 for learners. 
 
 Fainting is often treated wrongly. Most persons know what 
 fainting is, and it is desirable that all should know. When a per- 
 son faints, the simplest remedy is to lay him down horizontally ; 
 water, or rubbing, or anything else, even ammonia, is of little ac- 
 count compared to the effect of lowering the head. 
 
 Fainting is simply a temporary loss of the usual volume of 
 blood in the head — a slight and usually harmless occurrence 
 that requires first the reclined position, and then fresh air. But 
 persons in a faint should not be kept upright, even if they have 
 no fresh air or other restoratives. 
 
 All is of little importance beyond the relief of the brain by a 
 recumbent posture. Therefore, in case of fainting in a close 
 room, as is often the case, as in a theatre or lecture-room, the 
 
 22 
 
194 WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY. 
 
 Learn physiology. How to stop bleeding. 
 
 person should be laid upon the seat, or floor, even, rather than 
 be carried out at the risk of the head remaining upright. 
 
 It should be the duty of young folks to learn physiology 
 and the nature of some few simple and common ailments, that 
 they may readily lend aid in emergencies. They should cer- 
 tainly learn to distinguish the difference between fainting and 
 "fits," as they are called. The latter are known at once by the 
 twitching of the face and body, and the frothing at the mouth. 
 Persons thus affected should be placed in a nearly upright posi- 
 tion, as it often happens the illness is apoplectic, a "rush of blood 
 to the head," so to speak, and requires just the opposite treat- 
 ment to that used in fainting. Cold water, in either case, applied 
 to the head freely, is very useful as a remedy. 
 
 These are among the more important emergencies in which 
 all, as intelligent citizens and Christians, should be ready to 
 give aid. No young person should allow himself to be in the 
 least ignorant of them. Let it, then, be a duty to know all about 
 the subject, and be prepared to help yourself or any one you 
 may meet in distress. 
 
 There are some other things you will learn from a studv of 
 anatomy and physiology. You should know what to do if you 
 cut your own or another's limbs or body. If an artery is cut 
 you should be ready with your knowledge that the blood is com- 
 ing from the heart, in all directions, towards the extremities — 
 to the fingers, to the toes, to the head. Therefore you will, if 
 an artery is cut in your head or neck, press on the part that 
 is between the cut and the heart. You will also, if the hand 
 
WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY. 195 
 
 How life may be saved by a little knowledge. 
 
 or arm is cut in the course of an artery, tie a bandage on above 
 the cut, or press your finger on the great vein above where it is 
 bleeding. So with the feet and legs ; the great artery that you 
 may feel right under the knee, or up in the inside of the thigh, 
 must be pressed upon tightly if the cut is below ; and this is to 
 be done until you are relieved by a doctor. Many a person has 
 had his life saved by some bright one that had learned how to 
 do these simple things. How much a duty it is, then, to learn ! 
 
 Questions. — What would you do if a person had been to all appearances drowned ? 
 Why do you blow into his mouth and press on his chest alternately ? What about 
 irritating his nose? What is all-important to be done first? What about heat? 
 How long a time is it stated a man remained under water, and yet was restored? 
 By what was he restored ? What effect did the tincture have on the body ? Why is 
 this example mentioned? Why should you not wait for a doctor? Why should 
 boys and girls learn to swim ? How may one learn to swim ? What water is most 
 favorable? What is fainting? Is it comparatively harmless? What position is 
 necessary to restore a person in a faint ? Which is most important, the horizontal 
 position or fresh air ? What would you do in a close room when one faints ? What 
 is the real duty of young folks in this particular ? What is important to distin- 
 guish? What difference is there? What would you do if you saw one in a fit? 
 Why is it more proper to raise the head of one in a fit? What handy thing is 
 useful in any case? Why is it our duty to know how to give aid in emergencies 
 of this kind? What about anatomy and physiology? What would you do, if an 
 artery were cut on the head or neck, to check the flow of blood ? What if the hand 
 or forearm is cut ? What if the foot or leg ? Why would you press on the artery, if 
 you can find it, or the part near it, in such cases ? Is it not our duty to know how 
 to do these things ? 
 
 THE END.