Part 4

And a curious thing about those which build of light pieces of bark or reed is this, that they will make the top-piece come over so as to hide their heads, and prevent you from seeing them. Some build of sand; and then as the house would be so light that the water running from the spring might wash it down and carry it away, the wonderful little creature takes care to anchor it by fastening a pretty large stone to it when it has nearly finished it. And as the worm anchors it when it is too light, so it lightens it when it is too heavy, by fixing a bit of light wood or hollow straw to it to buoy it up."

"Well, this is truly a wonderful insect. Uncle Philip."

"Truly so indeed, boys. In all these cases it uses its water-proof cement, and if you break its house to pieces, and will patiently watch, you may see it build another. The insect always lives with its head out of doors, and its body inside; so that its head is firm and hard, while its body is soft."

"Uncle Philip," said one of the larger boys, "there is one thing I have been thinking about, as you have been talking: these little masons have no trowel, but I believe I know of one animal that uses something like that tool."

"Ah! What animal is it?"

"Why, I was reading the other day something about the beavers building their dams and their houses, and the book said that they built their houses of logs first, and then plastered them with mud, and that they used their tails for trowels."

"I am very glad to find that you remember what you read; but I am sorry that your book did not tell you the truth. There have been very strange stories told about the beaver; and these stories have been taken from one book and printed in another, so that an untrue account has gone down for a great many years. The beaver is very ingenious, but is not quite so much of a mason as you suppose."

"Well, Uncle Philip, will you tell us the truth about it?"

"Yes, boys, I will, so far as I know it myself. I have seen these animals, for they were once a great deal more common in our country than they are now; and many of the stories told of them are not true. But before I begin, let me tell you of one book which I think does tell the plain truth about them; and the truth is curious enough."

"What book is it, Uncle Philip?"

"It is a book written on American Natural History, by Doctor John Godman. I knew him, boys, and a most excellent man he was. He is now dead--and he died a Christian. The book he wrote you will find worth reading, when you get old enough to understand it. But now for the beaver.

"His tail is very broad and flat at the end, and might be used very well for a trowel; but when he builds his house he does not cut down trees, and place them first, and then fill up the cracks with mud-mortar; but all the sticks and mud (and stones too when the beaver can get them), are first mixed up together, and the beaver builds his house with this from the very foundation. As soon as he has placed a lump of this stuff upon the wall, he turns round and gives it a blow with his flat tail; and that, boys, is all he does with his tail for a trowel. Sometimes he slaps his tail upon the water when he is swimming; and some persons have supposed that this was done by the king, or ruler, to call his workmen. It may be so, but I do not believe it, because they almost always dive as soon as they have slapped the water; and I think it is probably a part of their motion in diving. In the autumn they cover the outside of their houses with mud, and they walk over it as they are at work, and their tails drag along upon it; and this I expect made persons first suppose that they were plastering it, with the tail for a trowel. When they are caught and kept, boys, they still keep up this fashion of slapping with the tail; so that I rather think it is part of the nature of the animal.

"At another time, perhaps, I will tell you more about the beaver; but it is now late, and I must bid you good morning."

"Good day, Uncle Philip."

CONVERSATION VII.

_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.

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."

"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."

"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."

FOOTNOTE:

[8] Leuwenhoek.

CONVERSATION VIII.

_Uncle Philip tells the Children of a Door, with a Hinge and Spring to it, made by a Spider; and shows them Pictures to let them see the Difference between God's Work and Man's._

"I was thinking, boys, last night, of what you said about killing the poor spiders; and I was sorry that I did not then recollect one thing about a spider which I could have told you, and which would have made you like the poor little creatures better. However, I determined that when you came to see me again, it should be the first thing I would tell you, if you wished to hear it."

"Wish to hear it! Why, Uncle Philip, we always wish to hear you tell us of any thing that you please to talk about. You have told us of a great many strange things, about which we knew nothing before; and we will thank you to tell us the story about the spider."

"Very well, boys; you shall hear it. Pray, do you not think that it is a piece of difficult work to make a door to a house, and to make hinges to hang it with, and to fit it so nicely that when it is done you cannot see the joints where the door is shut?"

"Indeed it is a piece of very hard work. Uncle Philip, and it takes the carpenter a long time to do it; and it is hard work, too, for the blacksmith to make the hinges. But what has that to do with the story about the spider?"

"Patience, boys, patience: you shall know presently. Never be in too great a hurry: it is a bad plan. I have always noticed that those persons who hurried most, went slowest in the end. Another question I wish to ask you is this,--do you not think it was hard work for the first man who ever made a spring, and put it on a door, to make it shut itself again when it had been opened?"

"Yes, it was so: and the man who does it now gets well paid for it."

"Very good, boys. And now what will you say when I tell you that a poor little spider did all these things long before man did?"

"What, Uncle Philip! A spider make a door with a hinge and a spring to make it shut itself!"

"Yes, boys; a spider. Do you think he deserves to be killed for doing it?"

"Oh no, no! But pray tell us all about it. Uncle Philip."

"This kind of spider, then, boys, I saw in Jamaica, and I saw its house, too. It is called the mason-spider. The nest or house which I saw was a tube made of very hard clay, about six inches long, and an inch across, and was a little bent at one end. The inside of this tube was lined all the way through with a kind of soft silky stuff, something like silk-paper, but stronger, and it was of a yellowish colour; but the curious part was the door. I never saw any thing which an insect had made more strange than that. This door was round, about as large as a quarter of a dollar, and was a little hollowed on the upper side like a saucer; the inside of it was rounded like the outside of the saucer. It was of the same stuff with the lining of the nest, and seemed to be made of more than a dozen pieces of that lining, put one on the top of another: it was shaped so, too, that the inside layers or pieces were the broadest, and the outside ones became smaller and smaller, except at the hinge, which was about an inch long. All the pieces in the door were joined into this hinge, and then the hinge was joined and worked into the lining in the tube. That made the hinge the thickest and strongest part of the whole work. How the spider made it so, boys, I cannot tell; but so it was, that this hinge not only was a hinge, but was so good a spring, that whenever the door was opened it would shut itself immediately: and when shut, it fitted so nicely that it was very difficult to see the place of joining."

"Well, Uncle Philip, this is most wonderful! But will not the hinge wear out at last?"

"Wonderful as it is, boys, it is all true. As to its wearing out, I cannot tell you; but I know that a gentleman who had one, said that his friends were very anxious to see it; and there were so many of them, that he had to open the door and let it shut itself many hundreds of times to satisfy them; and it did not hurt the spring at all."

"Uncle Philip, we shall not kill the poor spiders any more."

"A good resolution, boys: only let them alone, and they will not hurt you. There is another kind of mason-spider, which I never saw, but I have read of it. It is found in the south of France; I did not happen, however, to meet with one while I was in that beautiful country. This kind digs a gallery or hole under ground as much as a foot deep. She lines it with a sort of silk glued to the walls, and makes her door, which is round also, with many layers of mud or earth all kneaded and bound together with some of her silk. On the outside, the door is flat and rough, to make it appear like the dirt around it, and hide it; on the inside it is shaped like the inside of the door of the other spider I have told you about; and all covered with a coat of fine silk. The threads of this silk are left long on one side, and fastened to the upper part of the hole; and these make the hinge. There is no spring to this; but when the spider pushes its door open and comes out, it shuts again by its own weight. If this door is forced open by any one when the spider is at home, she will catch hold of it and pull it in; and sometimes even when it is half-opened; she will snatch it out of the hand. Here is a picture which shows the nest open, and another of it shut; and there is a drawing of the spider, too.

A gentleman says, in a book which he wrote about insects, that he once broke one of these doors off, to see what the spider would do."

"And what did she do, Uncle Philip?"

"She made another door; but took very good care not to put any hinge to it, for fear she should be disturbed again. But when she thought all danger was gone, she could then put a hinge to it, you know; and probably she did."

"Well, Uncle Philip, we thank you again for this account of the spiders, and shall always look at them hereafter with more pleasure. Who would have thought that we should ever find doors and hinges among such little creatures, and these too so very well made and fitted!"

"Why, boys, I have noticed the works of God very often; and I will now tell you one thing which I always found. It is this: a piece of the very best work which man can make is really coarse when you compare it with the work of God. The poor spider that we have talked about, when she makes her door, makes it to fit perfectly; because in doing that one thing, God made her to know perfectly how to do it. The knowledge is God's, boys; but the work is the spider's: but in making any thing else, except about her house, the spider knows nothing."

"Uncle Philip, you told us once that you were very fond of watching all sorts of dumb animals, and we think now that we know the reason."

"Well, what is it?"

"It is because you see so much of God's knowledge in them; is it not?"