Some Things Animals Teach Us
THE woodpecker has a powerful little trip-hammer. The jaws of the tortoise and turtle are natural scissors. The framework of a ship resembles the skeleton of a herring. The squirrel carries a chisel in his mouth, and the bee the carpenter’s plane. The gnat fashions its eggs in the shape of a life-boat. You can not sink them without tearing them to pieces. A porcupine’s bill is strengthened by ribs in the same way that the iron masts of modern ships are strengthened. The divingbell imitates the water spider. It constructs a small cell under the water, clasps a bubble of air between its legs, dives down into its submarine chamber with the bubble, displacing the water gradually, until its abode contains a large, airy room surrounded by water. — Kind Words.