_Uncle Philip talks to the Children about Animals that throw
Dirt with a Spade; and about an Animal with a Hook; and about one
that is a Wire-drawer._
"Boys, I have some men at work digging a small ditch for me, and I wish
to see them; will you go with me?"
"Oh, yes--very gladly, Uncle Philip; for you will be sure to tell us of
something curious before we come home."
"Come on, then: yonder are the men at work; they have been very
industrious, I see."
"But, Uncle Philip, look! There is one of the men putting a bottle to
his mouth. Is that right?"
"Yes, boys, right enough; for the bottle has nothing but molasses and
water in it; and the man is thirsty, I suppose. I would not employ him
if he brought a bottle of spirits out with him, for two reasons. In the
first place, I think that I ought not to encourage a man who gets drunk,
by employing him; for I would rather give my money to a sober man who
will not spend it for rum and brandy, but will take care of his family:
and, in the second place, a drunkard would not work faithfully without
being watched all the time. I never knew a drunkard who was really and
honestly an industrious man."
"See, Uncle Philip, how strong that man is; what a large spadeful of
dirt he throws out!"
"Yes, I see, boys: do you think that men had the first spades in the
world?"
"Ah! now you are going to tell us something about tools among animals:
that is good; we like to hear of that. What animal is it that has a
spade?"
"Oh, a very common animal indeed in some parts of our country. The
country people call it a _woodchuk_, and sometimes a _ground-hog_:
its right name is the marmot; and as there are several sorts, ours is
called the Maryland marmot, to distinguish it; but it is in New-York,
Connecticut, New-Jersey. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and some of the other
states, as well as in Maryland. This is rather a mischievous animal,
and does harm to the clover-fields; but it is in making his house that
he uses his spade."
"Then he digs his house in the ground. Uncle Philip?"
"Yes; he burrows, or digs his nest in banks of earth, or on the sides
of hills; and he has sense enough to make the passage to the inside
upwards, instead of downwards, so that water cannot run in. In digging
soft earth he uses his fore-paws to loosen the dirt, for his fore-legs
are very strong; and if the ground is hard he will use his teeth too.
As he gets farther in, he throws the dirt with his fore-paws under his
belly, and when he has a heap gathered, he balances himself on his
fore-feet, and begins to throw it out with his spades."
"What are his spades, Uncle Philip?"
"His hinder feet, boys, which are very broad, and just fit to take up
the dirt as a spade does, and to throw it from him: there is a skin
which grows between the toes of his hinder feet, so that he can spread
them out when he chooses, like a duck's foot."
"But, Uncle Philip, perhaps they are made so for the sake of _swimming_;
the duck's are."
"That is a sensible thought, boys. Always think for yourselves; and when
you make a mistake, try again: everybody is mistaken sometimes. Let it
teach you to be modest and humble; but do not be afraid to think again.
A person who is always thinking cannot _always_ think wrong. Now you
suppose the marmot's feet may be made like a duck's for swimming: let me
tell you something else, and we shall see what you will think then. The
marmot hates a rain as much as you would if you had no umbrella; he very
seldom even drinks water, and then only a little; and you cannot drive
him into a stream or pond; he is afraid of it. What do you think now?"
"Why, Uncle Philip, we think that he is no swimmer."
"Very true, boys: so his feet, then, you now think, were made for
spades, and not for paddles?"
"We do. Can you tell us any thing more about this animal, Uncle Philip?"
"Oh yes. The burrows or holes of the marmot run a great distance under
ground, and end in several chambers or rooms, according to the number
that is to live in them. They make beds in them of dry leaves, or
grass, or any thing soft and dry which they can find. They cram their
mouths full of it to carry, when they are making their nests. As soon as
cold weather begins, the animal goes into his house, and stops up the
hole on the inside; and there he stays till the warm weather has come
again.
"He is quite a thief at times. I saw one once which a gentleman had
tamed, and he played about the yard; but every thing that he could get
hold of which was fit to make his bed of, he was sure to steal, and
carry into his hole under ground. When clothes were hung out to dry
he would take them off the line, and as soon as any were missed the
washerwoman knew very well where they were. She kept a long stick with
a hook at the end of it, and with this she drew them out of the burrow.
He soon found out what it meant, and whenever she used the stick, it was
necessary first to tie him up; for he did not choose to have his bed
spoiled, and would run to the hole and try to get in, and prevent the
clothes from being drawn out. One day he stole eight pairs of stockings,
a towel, and a little girl's frock; and he carried them into his burrow
as far as six feet from the entrance.
"But, boys, as we have begun this morning upon the old subject of tools
among animals. I will tell you of something which, though not exactly
a tool, is a very useful instrument, and is found belonging to a very
common creature. Did you ever take notice of a bat?"
"Oh yes, Uncle Philip, often, as they were flying about in a room at
night, but not nearer."
"Then you never saw what I mean, I expect. Our common bat, boys, has
two very excellent hooks; one on each of what you call its wings: I
say what you call its wings, because the bat is not really a bird, but
a quadruped; that is, an animal with four feet: and when it is on the
ground, any one may see that it is a four-footed animal. If a monkey's
paw should be flattened out very much, it would be something like a
bat's paw or hand. The long finger-bones are just like the sticks of an
umbrella; there is a thin skin between them, and they stretch it out, so
that the air underneath will keep them up. When they are on the ground
all this is folded up. Their hinder feet have five toes, all small, and
ending in sharp claws. On the fore-feet there is but one finger which
the bat can use much, because the others are like umbrella-sticks, as I
told you; and the end of that one is a hook. Here is a picture, in which
you can see it plainly.
[Illustration]
When the bat is on the ground, it is hard work for it to get along. At
first it will reach forward a little to one side the hooked end of its
fore-leg, and stick it in the ground; then it draws its hind-legs under
its belly, and raising itself up, just tumbles forward its whole body.
At the next step it stretches out the other fore-leg, and hooks it, as
it did before, and drawing itself up, tumbles forward again. The bat
does not like a level place, because it cannot raise itself in the air
from it. When they rest, they hang by the hooks; and here is a drawing
of one, resting. In the other picture which I showed you just now the
bat was flying."
[Illustration]
"Uncle Philip, we did not know before that bats were such curious
things; we always thought that they were birds; but if these pictures
are like them, these hooks are as good as fish-hooks."
"The pictures, boys, are very much like the animal, and the hooks are
just as plain as they seem to be in the drawings. But how often do you
suppose that you have seen a bat?"
"Oh, many hundreds of times; for they are very common."
"True, boys; and yet you never knew before that they had hooks about
them. Suppose that everybody had done as you have, just passed by the
bats, without taking notice of them; I could not have told you then
what strange creatures they are, for no person would have known any
thing about them. You see, then, that men may have eyes, and yet not see
things; because they will not look for them. Use your eyes, boys; God
made them to be used."
"But, Uncle Philip, bats are such ugly things! and they can bite, too.
We are afraid of them."
"Ugly, boys! And what of that? Will you look at nothing but what is
handsome? If the bat could think and speak, I expect he would call
you very ugly. But it is foolish, boys, to be afraid of these smaller
animals. There are many creatures which might hurt you, and I would
advise you to keep out of their way: but it is silly to be afraid of
every poor little insect or animal which you see. I have seen a large
boy cry when he saw a poor little caterpillar or bug near him. Now
there are very few insects, indeed, which can or will hurt you; and a
great many of them you may watch without touching them at all. And I
think that he is a wicked and cruel boy who kills every poor bug that he
sees, merely because he is stronger than the bug. It would be a great
deal kinder and wiser in the boy to notice what the bug was doing, for
then he might learn something worth knowing."
"But, Uncle Philip, is it wrong to kill _spiders_?"
"Spiders! Why, boys, the spider is one of the very last of these little
creatures that I should wish to kill. There is not a more curious little
animal in the world, nor one that will pay a man better for watching its
motions. At some other time I will tell you all about spiders and ants,
for I have noticed them a great deal: but now, just to show you how much
you would lose if you should kill all the spiders, I will talk with you
about a tool which man uses, and which he might have learned to make
from a spider."
"Oh, do tell us; what is it?"
"The next time you go to Mr. Brown's, the silversmith, ask him to show
you his plate for drawing out wire. Tell him that I told you to ask
him, and he will show it to you. You will see a flat piece of steel with
holes made through it in regular lines, beginning with a large size, and
growing smaller and smaller until the last is very small indeed.
"Now the wire is drawn through these holes; beginning at the larger
ones, and passing every time through the next smaller one, it stretches
the wire out, until it becomes as small as the workman wishes it to be.
"The spider is a wire-drawer, too; for it has a contrivance to draw
out its threads, and make them smaller or larger, as it pleases. If
you will look at a very large spider, you can see with your naked eye,
just at the end of its body, four, and sometimes six, little knobs like
teats, with a circle around them. These are its spinners. Each one of
these small knobs, inside of that circle, is so full of little holes or
tubes, that Mr. Reaumur (of whom I told you before, you will recollect)
calculated that a place no larger than the point of a pin had a thousand
of these little holes in it. These holes are sometimes so very small,
that another gentleman,[8] who looked at spiders through a microscope
very often, thought it would take four millions of the threads which
came through those holes to make one thread as thick as a hair of his
beard. Here is a picture of a spider hanging by a thread coming out of
its spinner, or, as it is sometimes called, its spinneret."
[Illustration]
"Then, Uncle Philip, the spider does not spin its thread all at once?"
"No, boys. Fine as you see that thread to be, it is not one single line,
but it is made of many thousands joined together. The spiders have
little bags of gum within their bodies, near their spinners, and out of
these they draw the threads: when they have come out about the tenth
part of an inch, they join them all into one with their claws; and they
can shut their spinners when they please, so as to make the threads
longer or shorter; and they can break them off, too, when they wish."
"But, Uncle Philip, we do not see why there should be so many threads to
make up one."
"I cannot exactly tell you, boys, why there are so many; but probably
to make the thread dry quicker, by letting the air touch so many parts
of it: and I expect, too, the thread is stronger, because we know that
in two pieces of cord of one size, if one is made of several smaller
cords put together, it will be stronger than the other, which was spun
all at once. The following is a picture of the spider's spinnerets, and
some of the threads as it appears through the microscope; only you must
recollect that _all_ the threads are not drawn: there are a great many
more than you see in the picture."
[Illustration: Spider's Threads coming from the Spinnerets.]