meat in the summer"; on this account they have their place among the "four
things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise," and
we do well to consider their ways and learn the lesson which they teach us.
Before we quite leave the ant-city, I should like to tell you that the eggs
of ants grow while hatching, to accommodate themselves to the increasing
size of the tiny creature within them. There are many interesting things
to be observed about the eggs of insects; as to their colour, they are
generally of that best adapted for concealment; as to the way in which
they are hatched, I have heard that the mother insect--the Earwig was the
one mentioned--sometimes sits upon her eggs, and that one of the spiders
has been seen sitting upon the silken bag which contained its eggs, and
carrying it away if disturbed.
I ought to have told you that there are two great divisions of the insect
family--those which suck liquid food through their proboscis or trunk,
such as flies and butterflies, and those--such as the beetles, bees, and
locusts--which bite and eat solid food with their jaws. Dearly as I should
like to tell you about bees, both "solitary" and "social," "masons" and
"carpenters," we must not make this chapter longer, so we will speak only
of the Locusts.
If I could let you have a peep into the box where I keep a specimen-locust,
which came to me by post from his native country, you would notice his
powerful jaws, which are so strong that they inflict a severe wound; but it
is not on account of their bite that locusts have been used by God as His
"exceeding great army" to punish those who hardened themselves against Him;
but because wherever they alight in their countless myriads, they devour
every green thing, turning a fruitful field into a barren desert in a few
hours.
[Illustration: THE LOCUST.]
Did you ever _see_ as well as hear a grasshopper? The locust is an insect
of the same kind, and I have heard that African locusts in the first stage
of their life are as green as grasshoppers, but wingless--though they
afterwards have very pretty wings. They are described as crowding together,
"standing upon each other in heaps four or five deep, or gradually
advancing over each other's backs, eating all before them."
A flight of locusts is indeed a wonderful sight. An African traveller once
saw advancing towards him a dark cloud; the seeming storm came nearer and
nearer; ah! it was no snow-storm or hail-storm, but a living cloud of
locusts. He thus describes it, as it came upon him and his companions:
"Each flake of snow was a locust; we stood with our backs to them, and
they struck us over the face and ears; we had to protect our eyes with our
hands; the ground where the flight had settled was soon bare, and the trees
leafless." Can you wonder that such a storm-cloud should be dreaded beyond
any other, and that when the Egyptian sky was darkened by it--and "before
them there were no such locusts as they"--Pharaoh besought that God might
be entreated to take away this "death" from him and from his land? And they
were not the only creatures used by God at that time to punish the proud
and wilful king who refused to let His people go that they might serve Him.
But we must now end this long chapter, remembering that we have spoken
of only a few of the living creatures which belong to the vast family of
animals which have no body framework or skeleton; you can read in larger
books the wonderful things which are told about jelly-fishes and sponges,
bees and wasps, flies and gnats, and green tiger-beetles--for when we
have made a beginning in these little talks of ours together about God's
creatures, it will be pleasant to go on; so pleasant for some of us that,
having once begun, the difficult thing will be to know where to leave off.
I wish I could show you some pictures which I have seen of fossil insects.
I believe white ants and dragon-flies, and even a butterfly, have been
found among the rocky strata, but those of which I speak were preserved in
amber, which is a clear yellow substance, long thought to be a mineral,
but now recognised as the hardened resin of ancient pine-trees. In this
transparent sepulchre bees and wasps, gnats, spiders, and beetles have been
buried, some uninjured, and others with broken legs or wings. They must
have got into the sticky gum while it was moist, and been unable to
escape--and so have lain for ages in their transparent tomb.
I wonder whether these verses, which came to my mind while we were speaking
of the lessons we should learn from those creatures which faithfully use
the wisdom given them, are new to you.
"_Never man spake like this man_."
"From everything our Saviour saw,
Lessons of wisdom He would draw;
The clouds, the colours in the sky;
The gently breeze that whispers by;
The fields, all white with waving corn;
The lilies that the vale adorn;
The reed that trembles in the wind;
The tree where none its fruit can find;
The sliding sand, the flinty rock,
That bears unmoved the tempest's shock;
The thorns that on the earth abound;
The tender grass that clothes the ground;
The little birds that fly in air;
The sheep that need the shepherd's care;
The pearls that deep in ocean lie;
The gold that charms the miser's eye:
All from His lips some truth proclaim,
Or learn to tell their Maker's name."
CAROLINE FRY.
THE FIFTH DAY.
"FOWL OF THE AIR, AND FISH OF THE SEA."
"_And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much.... He spake
also of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes._"--I
KINGS iv. 29-33.
"_The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth
through the paths of the seas._"--PSALM viii. 8.
We have already seen that it was on the FIFTH DAY that the two great
oceans--the world of air above, and the world of water below--were peopled
with inhabitants; that "God saw that it was good," and that all these happy
living things began their life blessed by Him who gave it.
I wonder whether it will surprise you to hear that in some respects the
inhabitants of these two worlds are alike.
Perhaps if you think of a fish and a bird--say a herring and a sparrow--you
will say two creatures could hardly be less like each other; the bird has
soft warm feathers, and the fish has scales, overlapping each other as the
slates on the roof of a house do, thus making a perfectly waterproof coat
for its whole body; the bird has legs and wings, and the fish has neither;
the bird can chirp and sing, while fishes generally make no noise.
But if you could look inside the feathers and the scales, you would
see that there is a likeness in the bony structure of these creatures,
otherwise so unlike. Both are vertebrate animals, though the backbone of
a fish is in some respects unlike that of a bird, still the _plan_ is the
same, and it has been truly said that "among the many wonders of nature
there is nothing more wonderful than this--the adaptability of the one
Vertebrate type to the infinite variety of life to which it serves an as
organ and a home." But when you said that the herring had neither legs nor
wings, you forgot to notice the fins, by means of which it moves from place
to place in its watery home; as the bird, on its strong wings, makes its
way through the fields of air. Birds too, lay eggs, and so do most fishes,
some of them even making nests; so there are points in which they resemble
each other, are there not?
But while we know a good deal about the ways and habits of birds, very
little is known of the life of a fish; for it is much more difficult to
watch its way of living, and what is known about animals has been learned
by watching them patiently.
Sometimes when you are in a boat sailing over very calm, clear water, you
may look down and see the fishes darting here and there, and you may even
think that if the boat would but stop you could catch one in your hand; but
the only way in which you can really watch fishes sufficiently to see their
mode of life, is by studying the habits of those which have been caught and
put into glass tanks in an aquarium, where they live and move about just as
birds do in their cages; only the fishes' tank must contain water as well
as air.
Some time ago I went to an aquarium; it was close to the sea, so that there
was no want of water to fill the tanks. At the bottom there was sand, and
there were bits of rock, among which brown and green seaweeds were growing,
in order that the prisoners might forget that they were shut up in a glass
prison-house, and feel as much at home as possible in their captivity.
There they were, big fish and little fish, flat plaice and long
serpent-like eels--fish of all sorts, of all shapes and sizes. There were
other creatures as well as fish; lobsters and crabs and star-fishes; and
the anemones, which "blow flower-like," and have such lovely colours that
they are sometimes called "sea-roses," were waving their bright fringes to
and fro, and catching the shrimps for their dinner with those same soft
fingers of theirs. I should like you to see an aquarium such as this was;
but if you cannot just now, I daresay you may have the chance of watching a
gold-fish in a globe of water, and noticing how it uses its fins to balance
itself and steer its way through the water, and its tail to move itself
along so gracefully and swiftly; how it has two pairs of fins, which serve
for legs and arms, besides three others, the use of which you cannot so
well make out; and how the boat-like shape of the fish helps it to cut its
way so rapidly through the water. If you keep drilled those two bright eyes
over which God has made you officer, you will notice something near the
fish's eye which keeps opening and shutting like a little door. That little
door covers the gills, and it opens and shuts every time the fish breathes.
But now comes a question which used to puzzle me--that is, What does a fish
breathe?
[Illustration: A CRYSTAL-WALLED PRISON]
When I heard, long ago, that fishes cannot breathe if they are taken out of
the water, I used to think that they breathed the water; for then I knew no
better than the boy who, when he had at last caught a minnow, put it into a
bottle with plenty of water, and corked it up tight, in order to keep his
prize safely.
Of course the poor little fish was dead before he got home. It died, not
from want of water, but from want of air; for fishes draw in and send out
the air through their gills, which are to them what your lungs are to you.
Those fringes which you see when the little doors open, are the gills. They
are so red because they are filled with blood; indeed, they are made of
a great number of little blood-vessels. As the fish swims along with its
round mouth open, it does not swallow the water, but lets it run over its
gills, and then out it comes at the little doors; the red fringes take the
oxygen out of the water, and it goes into the fish's blood. The water is
the fishes' atmosphere, and it is only from it that they can get air to
breathe; so that if the glass globe were broken, and the pretty goldfish
were let fall upon the carpet, unless they were quickly put back into water
they would gasp and die from want of air; just as you would, if someone
held your head long under water.
So you see that the home of the fish is perfectly suited to it. In the
aquarium you would observe that while most of the fishes dart hither and
thither, there are some which never rise to the surface of the water. These
are the flat-fish; and they keep at the bottom, because for some wise
purpose God has made them without the power of rising and sinking like
others.
Inside most fishes there is a bag filled with air, as is the india-rubber
ball which you delight to bounce so high. The fish can make this little
balloon larger or smaller, just as it wishes to be itself lighter or
heavier. As it swims along, it is usually about the same weight as the
water; but when it wants to dive, the fish squeezes its air-bag tightly
together, which causes its body to become heavier than the water--for air
pressed closely together becomes heavy, and its own weight sinks it down.
When it wants to rise again to the surface, it ceases to squeeze this bag,
the air in the little balloon expands, and the diver rises again and floats
or swims because its body is now lighter than the water.
Is not this a very perfect and beautiful plan? How true it is that God has
provided for the wants of all His creatures, and fitted them for the life
designed for them!
But besides rising or sinking when they please, fishes can turn themselves
about very quickly. To understand how they do this, you must look at the
long bone which runs right through the body, from head to tail. You will
see that it is made, like your backbone, of a number of small bones which
move upon each other so easily that they enable the fish to turn itself
rapidly, as you see it does. The wonderful way in which these tiny bones
are fitted together by what is called the "ball and socket arrangement" may
best be seen in a large fish, such as the salmon; but a sardine's frame is
made in the same beautiful way.
The scales, overlapping each other as they do, serve to protect the fish
in its journey through watery ways, and their smooth, polished surface
rendered slippery by a sort of natural oil, helps it to move quickly. We
have imitated the scales of a fish in the way in which we arrange slates
and tiles to keeps our houses dry. You know how the slates on the roof of
your house overlap each other, so closely that no rain can get between
them.
When I tell you that there are said to be nine thousand different kinds
of fish in all parts of the world, you will understand that even in a
large aquarium you can see but few varieties. In England alone hundreds of
fresh-water fishes are known, while those whose home is in the sea are much
more numerous still.
It has been found that if fresh-water fish is taken out of its natural
element and put at once into the sea, it will die. But there are some fish,
like the salmon, which live in the sea, but go up the rivers to lay their
eggs, and then back again to their proper home; taking "change of air," as
it were, but taking it gradually, and not plunging into a foreign country
all at once.
Some fishes are great travellers. I have heard that what is called a
"shoal" of herrings consists of millions of fish, and takes up a place in
the sea larger than the area of London. This fish takes its name from an
old word which means an army; and the herring-army has to come a long, long
march--if we so speak of a journey through "the paths of the seas"--before
it, as it were, encamps near our shores.
In winter the herrings are far away north, within the Arctic Circle, but in
the spring they go south, travelling in shoals, six miles in length, and
three or four in breadth.
When one of these great shoals comes near our northern shores it divides,
one part travelling west, the other east. It is in September that the
herring fishing begins, and a busy time it is for the fishermen.
The fish are always caught at night, and the darker the night the better
chance there is of a good catch. When I was a child I used often to stand
and watch the boats setting out about sunset, and many a time did I wish I
might be of the party, for I thought no treat could be greater than to be
allowed to stay out all night and see the nets full of shining fish drawn
in over the sides of the boat. However, the fishermen are too wise to take
children with them, for any noise frightens the herrings, so the fishing is
done in silence, under the quiet stars. If you saw a herring-net taken in,
you might forget yourself so far as to scream with delight at the sight of
the fish flashing like silver, and bright with blue and purple hues which
no painter could copy. But the rainbow colours, like those you see upon a
soap bubble, are almost as soon gone; they will have lost their brilliancy
before the boats come in, and the men begin to throw the fish on shore, and
to count them.
One fish, "the Arrow of the Sea," is never so beautiful as when it is
dying. I have read that the Romans--after they ceased to be a brave people,
and became idle and pleasure-loving--used to have these fish brought in
before dinner and shown to the guests. The gay, thoughtless ladies, as they
clapped their hands with delight at the beauty of the quickly-changing
colours--white turning to sky-blue, and then to deep red--cared no more for
the suffering of the poor fish, gasping and dying before them, than for the
fading petals of a rose; so hard-hearted can people become, who think only
of their own pleasure. If poor Jack had been there, it would have made
him grieved and angry indeed to have seen one of the "God-made" creatures
treated so cruelly, would it not? You remember how he loved all living
things, and could not bear that they should be hurt.
From the Gold-fish, with their brilliant, flashing scales, you can form
some idea of how brightly coloured the fish in tropical seas are; but the
most brilliant fishes have not always the most graceful forms, nor are they
so good for food as those better known to us.
It is very interesting to observe that the sea-creatures which live upon
the surface of the ocean are bluish or quite colourless and transparent, as
some jelly fish, which look as if they were made of glass, and one kind of
fish of which I have heard that its body is so transparent that the words
of a book can be read through it. Others, not very unlike, but whose home
is at the bottom of the sea, have opaque and mud-coloured bodies. We
find that many creatures are of the same colour as their dwelling-place;
butterflies are bright, like flowers, insects living on leaves are green,
desert creatures are yellow or sand-coloured, those which live among the
snow are white or grey, while the winter lasts, though some of them change
their coats during their short summer. In this way the hunters and the
hunted alike escape observation.
Fish have been divided into different classes: there are those which have
bony plates instead of scales, as the Sharks and Rays, and many fishes
which exist only as fossils; and those called the "splendid" fish, from the
brilliancy of their coats of mail, which lock together like ancient armour.
Most of them are extinct species, but the Sturgeon is one of these armoured
fishes. Then the Mud-fishes form another class. But by far the most
numerous is that to which the Bony-skeletoned fishes, with scales like
those of the Salmon, belong. A few species are destitute of any bony
or scaly covering; and one of them--the Electric Eel of South American
rivers--protects itself by giving a sharp electric shock to any creature
that comes in its way!
The eyes of fish are sometimes large, and they can see a long way, and
also hear very quickly. Turbot, plaice, and other flat-fish, which have no
swim-bladder, lie with one side in the mud at the bottom of the sea or
rivers--Can you guess in which side of the head their eyes are placed?
"In the uppermost, and sometimes _both_ eyes are there."
You are right, for there would be no use for an eye in the side turned to
the mud.
As far as we know, fish are not clever creatures, but I have heard that
some kinds, kept as pets, have learnt to know the sound of the dinner
bell just as well as the lions and tigers at the Zoo know their bell; and
you have seen how _they_ rush about their cages, and roar with hungry
impatience when it rings. I have read that some fishes of various kinds,
such as Cod and Ling, kept for the use of the owners in a pond to which the
tide came, near a house in Scotland, and regularly fed with limpets by an
old woman who had charge of them, knew her voice, and would put out their
heads and crowd to the side of the pond when she came near, and even let
her take them up and stroke their cold backs; but I doubt that you will
find your gold-fish so intelligent and affectionate.
I must not forget to speak of the fishes which make nests, for very
few such have been discovered, and they are considered curiosities of
fish-life. Perhaps when we know more of the habits of the finny-tribe, we
shall find that some others provide for the safety of their young in a
similar way, but at present I believe the Stickleback, which not only makes
a nest but takes care of his young brood until they are six days old and
can "find for themselves," is the only one known in Europe. In Demerara, a
fish called the Hassar makes a floating cradle of grass or leaves for its
eggs, over which it watches carefully, being ready to defend it bravely
when attacked; thus in Australia, an eel called the Jew-fish was one day
noticed swimming round and round a clear place among the reeds, and it
turned out that it was guarding a nest of stones which it had placed in the
river bed.
There are one or two strange fishes which you will not see in any shop;
though if you have friends who "follow the sea," they may have told you
of the Sun-fish, sometimes caught in the west of Ireland; very large and
round it is, of a silvery-white colour, so that on dark nights, when the
fishermen have seen it shining as it swam, just under the water, it has
seemed to them like the sun shining behind the clouds on a showery day; and
they have given it this name.
You may too, have heard strange tales of another round fish, called from
its shape the Globe-fish, and from its skin the "Sea-hedgehog"; it is
covered with sharp thorns, and has the power, by swallowing air, of so
greatly increasing its size (without sharing the fate of the poor toad in
Æsop's Fable) that it not only can rise to the surface of the water, but
float as long as it pleases. Then there are the blue Flying-herrings, with
long fins, which you would see if you took a voyage to Australia. These
poor little creatures have enemies both in birds and fishes. When the
sharks want to make a meal of them, they leap into the air, using their
long fins almost as a bird uses its wings, and are able to keep up for some
distance; some say they can fly five hundred feet; but alas! when they are
on the fin, the sea-gulls are eager and ready to pounce upon them, and they
have to take refuge in the sea again. With all their beauty, they have
a hard life of it, constantly escaping away from the sea-gull, into the
shark!
And now, when we have time, I think both you and I shall be pleased not
only to observe carefully the fishes which we see every day, but to
read about others; about the sword-fish, which has neither scales for
its protection, nor teeth, but whose snout forms a bone, four or five
feet long, set with sharp pointed teeth on each side--somewhat like a
double-edged saw; this bone is a most formidable weapon when used against
large fish, and is so strong that it has even pierced through the planks of
a boat; about the tiny Sea-horse, with its head so curiously like that of a
horse, and its wing-like fins; about the Whale, which is not really a fish
at all (and why it is not will be something for you to find out), besides
a great many monsters of the deep of which I have not time to tell you.
We have already had a much longer talk about fish than my children had,
although it was while we were speaking about fishing, and how the night is
the usual time for it, that we read two accounts of great numbers of fish
being caught in the sea of Galilee--not at night, but in broad daylight.
One account is given in the gospel of Luke. You know that--the disciples,
Simon and Andrew his brother, and James and John his brother, were
fishermen, and used to launch their boats upon the Sea of Galilee, and let
down their nets into the deep blue water. It was when they had been fishing
all night, and had caught nothing, that they left their boats beside the
sea, and were busy washing their nets.
[Illustration: "THERE IS NOT A BREATH THE BLUE WATERS TO CURL."]
Fishermen feel very downhearted and disappointed when the morning comes,
after they have been out all night, and finds them with only a few fish in
their boats: but these fishermen had got one fish. Peter said, "We have
toiled all the night, and have taken nothing."