The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1877-06-07
Animal Wonders.

In each gram OF sand there are mar
vels; in every drop of water world. In
that great spectacle called nature, every
being has its marked place and distinct
role; and in the great drama called life
there presides law as harmonious as
that which rules the movement of the
stars. Each hour removes by death
myriads of e1istences, and each hour
produces legions of new lives. The high
est as well as the lowest organism con-
sumes carbon and water to support life
and its duties, and it is not uninterest-
ing to glance at the food, the habits and
the ways and means peculiar to some of
the inferior animals. From the petrifed
elections we know what such fossilized
reptiles as the plesiosaurus, 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 connected with
branches of industry.
There are miners, masons. carpenters,
paper manufacturers, weavers, and lace
makers even, all working first for them
selves, and not to propagate their kind.
The miners dig into the earth, form
natural arches and supports, and remove
the useless soil; such as the mole, the
chinchilla of Peru, the badger, the lion
ant, as we'll as certain worms and mol
usks. The masons build huts and places
according 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 paste-board. Spiders are
species constructs diving-bell, a palace
of lace. When the astronomer has need
of the most delicate thread for his tele-
scope, he applies to tiny spider. When
the naturalist desires to test his micro
scope, he selects certain shell of sea
insect, so small that several millions OF
them in the water could not be visible
to the naked eye, and yet no microscope
has yet been made sufficiently powerful
to reveal the beautiful variegated de-
signs on this atomic shell. Aristotle re-
marked, and he has since been corrobo-
rated, that variety of plover enters the
>crocodile's mouth, picks the remnants OF
food off 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 a siesta, puts itseli
under the guard of a kind of rat that
gives the alarm on the approach of dan
ger. Parasites are everywhere, depend
ent on no peculiar condition of the
body, and are as abundant in persons ot
the most robust as of the most debilitated
health. They are at home in the mus
cles, in the heart, in the ball of the eye
They are generally either in the form ot
a leaf or a ribbon, and are not necessarily
as was supposed, confined to special
animal. The parasites of fish have beer
detected living in the intestines OF birds
and there are some that, for the purpose
development, must pass into the economy
of a second animal.