The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1875-04-29
Animal Wonders.

In each grain of sand, there are mar
vels; in every drop of water, a world.
In that great spectacle called Nature,
every being has its marked place and dis
tinct role; and in that grand drama called
life, there presides law as harmonious
as that-which rules the movement of the
stars. Each hour removes by death myr-
lads of existences, and each hour pro-
duces legions of new lives. The highest
as well as the lowest created organism
consumes carbon and water to support
life and its duties, and it is not uninter
esting to glance at the food, the habits
and the ways and means, peculiar to
some of the inferior animals. From
their petrified elections we know what
such fossilized reptiles as the plesiosau-
rus, etc., are, and may some day be able
to discover the fish and crustacea they
hunted down. Animals, when not living
by their own respectable efforts, are
either parasites or dependents; many
would seem to have positive trades, or
are competed with branches of industry.
There are miners, masons, carpenters,
paper manufacturers, and weavers, lace
makers even, all working first for them
selves, and next to propagate their kind.
The miners dig into the earth, form nat
ural arches and supports, remove the
chilla of Peru, the badger, the lion ant,
as well as certain worms and mollusks.
The masons build huts and places ac-
cording to all the rules of architecture,
as the bees and tropical ants: there are
fish that construct boats that the waves
never can upset, and Agassiz has drawn
attention to fish which builds its nest
on the floating sea weed in the middle of
the ocean, and deposits therein its eggs
The wasps of South America fabricate a
sort of paper or pasteboard. Spiders are
weavers as well as lacemakers; one spe-
cies constructs diving bell, palace of
lace. When the astronomer has need of
the most delicate thread for his teles-
cope, he applies to tiny spider. When
the naturalist desires to test his micro
scope, he selects certain shell of a sea
insect, so small that several millions of
them in water could not be visible to the
naked eye, and yet no microscope has
yet been made sufficiently powerful to
reveal the beautiful variegated designs
on the atomic shells Aristotle remark
ed, that variety of plover enters the
crocodile's mouth, picks the remnants of
food off of the animals tongue and from
between its teeth This living tooth
pick is necessary, as the tongue of the
crocodile is not mobile. The Mexican
owl, when enjoying siesta, puts itself
under the guard of kind of rat, that
gives the alarm on the approach of
danger. Parasites are everywhere, de-
pend on no peculiar condition of the
body, and are as abundant in persons of
the most robust as of the most debilita-
ted health. They are at home in the
muscles, in the heart, in the ventricles OF
the brain, in the ball of the eye. They
are generally either in the form of a leaf
or ribbon, and are not necessarily as
was once supposed, confined to a special
animal. The parasites of fish have been
detected living in the intestines of birds
and there are some that for the purpose
of development, must pass into the
economy of second animal