Arabella Burton Buckley

“ No, it is the struggle for life and the necessity for work which make people invent and plan, and improve themselves and things around them. And so it is also with plants and animals: life has to educate all her children, and she does it by giving the prize of success, of health, and strength, and enjoyment to those who can best fight the battle of existence, and do their work best in the world.
Every plant and every animal which is born upon the earth has to get its own food and earn its own livelihood, and to protect itself from the attacks of others. ”

“ And by and by we reach the sea, and there we find masses of tangled seaweed, the plants of the salt water, while all along the shores myriads of living creatures are left by the receding tide. In the rocky pools we find active life busily at work. Thousands of tiny acorn shells, scarcely larger than the head of a good-sized pin, cover the rocks and fling out their thread-like arms in search of food. ”

“ And now, since we live in the world with all these numerous companions, which lead, many of them, such curious lives, trying, like ourselves, to make the best of their short time here, is it not worth while to learn something about them? May we not gain some useful hints by watching their contrivances, sympathizing with their difficulties, and studying their history? And, above all, shall we not have something more to love and to care for when we have made acquaintance with some of life's other children besides ourselves? ”

“ Look at the little water-beetles skimming on the surface of the shady wayside pool, watch the water-snails feeding on the muddy bank, notice the newts putting their heads above water to take breath, and then remember that besides these and innumerable other water animals visible to the naked eye, the fairy-shrimp and the water flea, and other minute animals, are probably darting through the water, or floating lazily near its surface, while the very scum which is blown in ridges toward one corner of the pool is made up of microscopic animals and plants. ”

“ We come now into quite a new life, for we are going to wander among the conquerors of the air, who have learned to rise far beyond our solid ground, and to soar, like the lark, into the clouds, or, like the eagle, to sail over the topmost crags of the mountains, there to build his solitary eyrie. ”

“ Small crabs scramble along, or swim across the pools, sand-skippers dart through the water, feeding on the delicate green seaweed, which in its turn is covered with minute shells not visible to the naked eye, and yet each containing a living being. ”

“ From the time we are born till we die, there is scarcely a waking moment of our lives in which our eyes do not rest either upon some living thing or upon things which have once been alive. Even in our rooms, the wood of our furniture and our doors could never have been if life did not exist; the paper on our walls, the carpet on our floors, the clothes on our back, the cloth upon the table, are all made of materials which life has produced for us; nay, the very marble of our mantel-piece is the work of once living animals, and is composed of their broken shells. ”

“ What we most want to learn is something of the lives of the different classes of animals, so that when we see some creature running away from us in the woods, or swimming in a pond, or darting through the air, or creeping on the ground, we may have an idea what its object is in life—how it is enjoying itself, what food it is seeking, or from what enemy it is flying. ”

“ But who would have thought that, after rising step by step above the fish, and tracing the history of the backboned animals through their development in the air and over the land till we brought them to a state of intelligence second only to man, we should have to follow them back again to the water and find the highly-gifted milk-givers taking on the form and appearance of fishes? ”

“ But a higher and better explanation was soon to be found, for there was growing up among us the greatest naturalist and thinker of our day, that patient searcher after truth, Charles Darwin, whose genius and earnest labors opened our eyes gradually to a conception so deep, so true, and so grand, that side by side with it the idea of making an animal from time to time, as a sculptor makes a model of clay, seems too weak and paltry ever to have been attributed to an Almighty Power. ”

“ Now, the cat and the cow, as we all know, do not lay eggs as birds do; but the mother carries the young within her body till they are born, perfectly formed, into the world. And when at last her little ones see the light, the mother has nourishment ready for them: part of the food which she herself eats is turned into milk, and secreted by special glands, so that the newly-born calf or kitten is suckled at its mother's breast till it has strength to feed itself. ”

“ If we glance back to the far-off time when the ancient fishes were wandering round the shores and in the streams of the coal-forests, we find that the amphibia were not then the small, scattered groups they are now, but huge and powerful creatures, which sported in the water or wandered over the land with sprawling limbs, long tails, and bones on which gills grew, while their heads were covered with hard, bony plates, and their teeth were large, with folds of hard enamel on the surface. ”

“ Many and fierce must have been his conflicts, for the wild beasts were still strong and numerous, and man had not yet the skill and weapons which he has since acquired. But, rough and savage though he may have been, he had powers which made him superior to all around him. He had a brain which could devise and invent, a memory which enabled him to accumulate experience, and a strong power of sympathy which made him a highly social being, combining with others in the struggle for life. ”

“ Nevertheless it is so, for seals and whales are as truly flesh-eating milk-givers as bears and wolves. "Do you really mean, then," exclaim nearly all people who are not naturalists, "that a whale is not a huge fish?" Certainly I do! A whale is no more a fish than crocodiles, penguins, or seals, are fishes, although they too live chiefly in the water. ”

“ There is scarcely a street or alley where, if it be neglected for a time, some blade of grass or struggling weed does not make its appearance, pushing its way through chinks in the pavement or the mortar in the wall; no spot from which we can not see some insect creeping, or flying, or spinning its web, so long as the hand of man does not destroy it. ”

“ It was in the long struggle for life that the animals with the largest and strongest horns got the upper hand, that the swiftest horses or antelopes survived and left young ones; while we must remember that it is more often the sickly, worn out, and diseased animals that fall a prey to the devourers, and their life is ended far less painfully than if they dragged themselves into some hole to die. ”

“ Plants, it is true, can live on water and air, but animals can not; and, if there were not myriads of plants to spare in the world, there would not be enough for food. Then consider again how many animals live upon each other. If worms, snails, and insects were not over-abundant, how would the birds live? Upon what would lions and tigers and wolves feed if other animals were not plentiful, while, on the other hand, if a great number of larger animals did not die and decay, what would the flesh-feeding snails and maggots and other insects find to eat? ”

“ Then, as we pass over plain, and valley, and mountain, we find things creeping innumerable, both great and small, hidden in the moss or the thick grass, rolled up in the leaves, boring into the stems and trunks of trees, eating their way underground or into even the strongest rock. ”

“ And when we go into the quiet country, leaving man and his works behind, how actively we find life employed! Covering every inch of the ground with tiny plants, rearing tall trees in the forest, filling the stagnant pools full of eager, restless beings; anywhere, everywhere, life is at work. ”

“ A far different race from the Herbivora is the large army of flesh feeders, which we find throughout all past ages harassing and destroying the vegetable-feeders on all sides. And yet it would not be fair to speak of these larger flesh-feeding animals as if they had worked nothing but evil to their more peaceful neighbors, for how would Life educate her children if she put no difficulties in their way to be conquered, no sufferings to be endured? ”

“ A whale is a warm-blooded, air-breathing, milk-giving animal. Its fins are hands with finger-bones, having a large number of joints; its tail is a piece of cartilage, and not a fish's fin with bones and rays; it has teeth in its gums, even if it never cuts them; and it gives suck to its little one just as much as a cow does to her calf. Nay, the whalebone whales have even the traces of hind legs entirely buried under the skin, and in the Greenland whale the hip-joint and knee-joint can be distinguished with some of their muscles, though the bones are quite hidden and useless. ”

“ Many times he rises again, especially at first, till he has got used to breathing at the muddy bottom, and meanwhile the eye that lies underneath is gradually working its way round to the upper side, his forehead wrinkles so as to draw the under eye up, while his whole head and mouth receive a twist which he never afterward loses. His skeleton, it must be remembered, is still very soft, and the bones of his face are easily bent ”

“ The one great law which all living beings obey is to "increase, multiply, and replenish the earth"; there has been no halting in this work from the day when first into our planet from the bosom of the great Creator was breathed the breath of life, the invisible mother ever taking shape in her children. ”

“ The tortoises, it is true, feed upon plants, except those that live in fresh water, and feed chiefly on fish, snakes, and frogs, while most of the lizards are insect-feeders. But the crocodile, as he lurks near the river's edge, and the snake, when he fastens his glittering eye on a mouse or bird, are both on the lookout for animals higher in the world than themselves. ”

“ If every man had all he required and could live comfortably, and bring up his children to enjoy life without working for it, do you think people would take such trouble to learn trades and professions, and to improve themselves so as to be more able than others? ”

“ Most of us have read anecdotes about one animal or another, but this does not give us any clew to the history of the whole animal world; and, without some such clew, the few observations we can make for ourselves are very unsatisfactory. On the other hand, most people will confess that books on zoölogy, where accounts are given of the structure of different classes of animals, though very necessary, are rather dull, and do not seem to help us much toward understanding and loving these our fellow creatures. ”

“ The young shark has nothing but a rod of gristle or cartilage, and, though he is one of the strongest of sea-animals, he retains this gristly state of his skeleton throughout his life; however much he may strengthen it by hard matter, it never becomes true bone. ”

“ Why does this irresistible living breath go on so madly, urging one little being after another into existence? Would it not be better if only enough were born to have plenty of room and to live comfortably? ”

“ If the ocean and the rivers be full, then some must learn to live on the land, and so we have, for example, water-snails and land-snails, and whereas the one kind can only breathe by gills in the water, the other breathes by means of lungs in the air, while between these are some, such as the river-snails of the tropics, which have both gills and lungs, and can breathe in both water and air. ”

“ So that the whole life of an animal depends upon the way in which its body is made; and it will lead quite a different existence according to the different tools with which life provides it, and the instincts which a long education has been teaching to its ancestors for ages past. ”

“ Among the earliest milk-givers must have been the ancestors of the curious pouched creatures of Australia, the "marsupials," which have a large pouch of skin, into which the mothers put their little ones when they are less than two inches long, and so imperfect that their legs are mere knobs, and they can do nothing more than hang on to the nipple with their round, sucking mouths, as if they had grown to it. ”

“ In the same way, when we see how like the ancient birds and reptiles were to each other, so that it is very difficult to say which were bird-like reptiles and which were reptile-like birds, we can only conclude that they, too, once branched off from some older race which had that bone between the jaws, that single neck-joint, and the other characters which birds and reptiles have in common. ”