The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1881-10-27
Men and Animals.

Within certain limits the lower animals
are much more skillful in supplyingtheif
wants than men. Insects, birds, fishes,
reptiles, mammals-one really does not
know which department of the natural
world exhibits the most skill in supply
ing its wants. Let ma instance the CASE
of trap-door spiders. I refer to their
doings, because they are less familiar
than those of ants and bees and other
creatures which I might mention. The
trap-door spider lives in a buITow which
he makes in the ground where the grass ,
grows, generally ina sloping bank; he
covers the entrance to his burrow with
q trap-door, which works upon a hinge,
and which so nearly resembles the sur
rounding grass that only a careful OBJ
server can detect it. This, however, is
not all /; if an enemy finds the door and
opens it, and enters the spiders castle
he may very easily fancy that there is
no one at home, for in the sides of the
burrow, which is lined with q soft silky
substance, there are other trap-doors
communicating with branches of the
burrow, and covering these branches SO
crafty that they may easily be passed
by unnoticed. Nay, if the enemy should
be clever enough to find his way into
one of these branches, he may still find
no one at home, the owner of the castle
being perhaps in a branch of this branch
of the burrow, concealed by another
trap-door. Architecture of this kind
shuts the mouth of any one who should
say that the inferior members of crea-
ton do not know how to adapt means to
ends. Nor can it be said that the power
of adoption does not go to some extent
havon1 tho uondoro IF instinct
The old story of the bees who de-
stroyed an intruding o with their
stings, and then covered it over with
wax because they could not get rid of
the body, feared the results of its con-
t%inuance in the hive, is only one of a
number which go to prove that in the
lower world of living things there is un-
~questionably a power of adaptation to
unforeseen circumstances, q reasoning
out of results and acting accordingly,
which cannot possibly be set down to
the credit of instinct properly SO called.
But the important point to be observed
is this, the infinite superiority of the
animals operations when it does not
reason, and the infinite inferiority of its
operations to those of man when it does.
It has been said that u bird will carry ar
oyster in the air and let it drop upon
rock in order to break the shell and get a
the treasure within a simple operation
this, and yet we stand well-nigh aghas
at the birds prodigious superiority above
all that we had expected, and we doub
whether such a wonderful feat "a b.
positively s~ubstantiated. I will not So.
that there may not be in insects and bird
and mammals the germ of that faculty
which invented the steam engine /; bu
certainly it seems almost impossible Il
contain in one description or definition
two faculties SO diverse in the import
ance of the results. Adaptation O
means to ends is not in the case of maj
something subsidiary, and exhibiting il
self now and then in exceptional circum
stances, but it is the law of his being
The merest savage contrives machines t
catch his prey +; he makes his stone i'm
plements till he sees his way to bronz
) and iron he constructs his boat, or float
| on his log of timber; he may be an
doubtless is rude and elementary, bu
, he is the genuine ancestor of jaime
Watt and George Stephenson. - Tn
RishoD of Carlisle.