Chance plays a much larger part in the lives of some animals than of
others. The frog and the toad lay hundreds of eggs, the fishes spawn
thousands, but most birds lay only five or six eggs.
A spendthrift with one hand, Nature is often a miser with the other. She
lets loose an army of worms upon the forests, and then sends an
ichneumon-fly to check them. She wastes no perfume or color upon the
flowers which depend upon the wind to scatter their pollen.
Cross-fertilization is dear to her, and she invents many ingenious ways
to bring it about, as in certain orchids. She will rob the bones of the
fowl of their lime to perfect the shell of the egg. She wastes no wit or
cunning on the porcupine or on the skunk, because she has already
endowed each of them with a perfect means of defense.
Two things Nature is not chary of--fear and pain. She heaps the measure
here because fear puts her creatures on the safe side; it saves them
from many real dangers. What dangers have lurked for man and for most
wild things in the dark! How silly seems the fear of the horse! a
fluttering piece of paper may throw him in a panic. Pain, too,
safeguards us; it shields us against real dangers. The pains of
childbirth are probably no check upon offspring, because the ecstasy of
procreation, especially on the part of the male, overcomes all other
considerations.