Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1915-04-08
Mother Nature and Her Children.

their own resources in the great merciless
world OF wild nature, with no one to
care for them or advise them, should get
on so we'll, and apparently have such a
good time of it, | was, of course, look
ing at the subject from the human point
of view and could not help thinking
how many appliances, how much science,
how much cooperation, and what laws
and government, and the like, we all re-
quire in order TO live out our lives as sue
cessfully as the wild creatures do.
In summer and winter, in storm and
cold, in all seasons and in all places, by
night as by day, without organization,
or power OF reason, or supervision, or
leaders, or defenders, or government, or
schools, or churches, there they 90, well
and happy, equal TO all, or nearly all,
emergencies, and making fewer mistakes
than we human beings 30 Think OF our
elaborate helps and conveniences; ofour
machinery for taking US abroad, or for
preserving US at home, OF our laid-up
stores and then think how unequpped
are the wild creatures in comparison.
Look at the snow buntingS in winter, so
triumphant over storm and cold, or the
tiny chickadees in the frozen winter
woods. They know where 10 look for
their food what to do by day, and where
to 90 by night They know their enc
mics they know where and how TO build
their nests, and how TO rear their young
they know all they have TO know in order
10 live their lives.
When see a chckadee or a kinglet
come TO the bit of suet that put out on
the trunk OF the old maple in front OF my
window in December, | say, "See that
infant-how can he face all alone the
season Of scarcity and cold ?" But he
does not need coaching from me; ne
avails himself OF my suet, but he would
get on without it, He is wise in his own
economies. doubt that our winter birds
ever freeze or starve, unless in eXtraordi-
nary circumstances.
When see band Of robins in late
October disportng in my vineyards, fill
ed with holiday cheer and hilarity, call
ing, singing. squealing, pursuing one
another like children in some sort game,
apparently not at all disturbed by the
approach of the inclement season and the
failure OF their iood supplies, ! almost
envy them their felicity. They are wise
without reason, happy without fore
thought. secure without rulers or safe
guards OF any sort. When a Cooper's
hawk makes dash among them, their
mirth turns to terror, but they are usu-
ally equal to the emergency, and by DART
ing through the vines they manage to es-
| cape him.
1t is said that when flock OF mallards,
or OF black ducks, while feeding upon the
water, see an eagle, or a certain large
hawk coming, they take TO wing, know
ing they can outdistance their enemy,
that when they see duck hawk coming,
they hug The water the closer, knowing
we'll that their safety is not in flight, but
in diving beneath the surface.
What ages upon ages of schooling in
the fierce struggle for existence il must
have taken the wild creatures to get their
wisdom into their very blood and bones !
| Yet we cannot think Of them as existing
without il; we cannot 90 back in thought
TO the time when they did not have 1t; to
be without if would be TO cease to exist.
What, then, is IFS genesis ? We cannot
think OF man as existing without his reas-
on, his tools, his artificial aids OF one
kind and another yet there was time
when he did exist without them, just as
the monkeys and anthropoid apes exist
without them. Sufficient for the day is
the wisdom thereof. Every stage and
phase OF animal life is wise in those things
necessary for IFS continuance, but whether
that wisdom cones from experience or
inheritance, or is one phase OF the WIS
dom that preyades the whole economy
OF nature,-that makes the heart beat and
the eye see, and that adapts every organ
ism 10 its environment.-who can tell?
The plants are all wise in their own
way; they have TO be, or cease to exist.
The cultivated ones cannot shift for them
, selves like the weeds and wild growths
they have been too long dependent upon
the care and culture of man for that
thrown upon their own resources, they
perish, or else revert 10 the habits Of theif
wild ancestors. as the animals do.
suppose it is impossible for US to con-
ceive Of the discipline, the struggle, the
schooling, the selection, that all species
of animals and plants have gone through
in the course OF biologIc time, and that
has given them The hardness, the hold
upon life, that they now possess. The
strongest, the cleverest, the fittest have
always had the best chance TO survive
Natural competition has constantly weed
ed out the feeble, and still does so but
il does not do it so thoroughly among
men as among mice, because mice have
no medicine, no surgery, no hospitals. no
| altruism.
Different species of animals and plants
differ greatly in their power to get on in
the world. The rufied grouse, for ex-
ample, has much deeper hold upon life
than his cousin, the quail, mainly because
he is more miscellaneous feeder. In
deep SHOWS the quail is in danger OF per-
ishing for want Of food, but the grouse
takes 10 the tree tops and subsists upon
the buds OF the birch, the apple. and other
trees.
The flicker will thrive where other
woodpeckerS would starve. because he