CHAPTER XXII.

WHAT ANIMALS USE FOR HANDS.

Though animals do not have hands, they have different parts which they use to do some of the same things that we do with our hands. I will tell you about some of these in this chapter.

[Sidenote: How teeth can serve in place of hands.]

You see this dog dragging along a rope which he holds in his mouth. He is making his teeth answer in place of hands. Dogs always do this when they carry things. They can not carry them in any other way. You carry a basket along in your hand, but the dog takes it between his teeth, because he has no hand as you have.

I have told you, in another chapter, how the cow and the horse crop the grass. They do it, you know, with their front teeth. They take up almost any kind of food--a potato, an apple--with these teeth. These teeth, then, answer for hands to the cow and horse. Their lips answer also the same purpose in many cases. The horse gathers his oats into his mouth with the lips. The lips are for hands to such animals in another respect. They feel things with their lips just as we do with the tips of our fingers.

[Sidenote: Cropping grass.]

[Sidenote: Anecdotes of horses.]

My horse once, in cropping some grass, took hold of some that was so stout and so loose in the earth that he pulled it up by the roots. As he ate it the dirt troubled him. He therefore knocked the grass several times against the fence, holding it firmly in his teeth, and thus got the dirt out, just as people do out of a mat when they strike it against any thing. I once knew a horse that would lift a latch or shove a bolt with his front teeth as readily as you would with your hand. He would get out of the barnyard in this way. But this was at length prevented by a very simple contrivance. A piece of iron was fixed in such a manner at the end of the bolt that you could not shove the bolt unless you raised the iron at the same time. Probably this puzzled the horse’s brain. Even if he understood it, he could not manage the two things together. I have heard about a horse that would take hold of a pump-handle with his teeth and pump water into a trough when he wanted to drink. This was in a pasture where there were several horses; and what is very curious, the other horses, when they wanted to drink, would, if they found the trough empty, tease this horse that knew how to pump; they would get around him, and bite and kick him till he would pump some water for them.

[Sidenote: Monkeys great climbers.]

Monkeys have four things like hands. They are half way between hands and feet. With these they are very skillful at climbing. There are some kinds of monkeys, as the one represented here, that use their tails in climbing as a sort of fifth hand.

[Sidenote: What cats use in place of hands.]

The cat uses for hands sometimes her paws, with their sharp claws, sometimes her teeth, and sometimes both together. She climbs with her claws. She catches things with them--mice, rats, or any thing that you hold out for her to run after. She strikes with her paws, just as angry children and men sometimes do with their hands. When the cat moves her kittens from one place to another, she takes them up with her teeth by the nape of the neck. There is no other way in which she can do it. She can not walk on her hind feet and carry them with her fore paws. It seems as if it would hurt a kitten to carry it in the way that she does, but it does not.

[Sidenote: The dormouse.]

When a squirrel nibbles a nut to make a hole in it, he holds it between his two fore paws like hands. So also does the dormouse, which you see here.

[Sidenote: The humming-bird’s bill.]

The bill of a bird is used as its hand. It gathers with it its food to put into its crop. When you throw corn out to the hens, how fast they pick it up, and send it down into their crops to be well soaked! The humming-bird has a very long bill, and in it lies a long, slender, and very delicate tongue. As he poises himself in the air before a flower, his wings fluttering so quickly that you can not see them, he runs his bill into the bottom of the flower where the honey is, and puts his little long tongue into it.

[Sidenote: The bill of a duck.]

The bill of the duck is made in a peculiar way. You know that it gets its food under water in the mud. It can not see, therefore, what it gets. It has to work altogether by feeling, and it has nerves in its bill for this purpose. Here is a picture of its bill, showing the nerves branching out on it. You see, too, a row of pointed things all around the edge. They look like teeth, but they are not teeth. They are used by the duck in finding its food. It manages in this way: it thrusts its bill down, and as it takes it up it is full of mud. Now mixed with the mud are things which the duck lives on. The nerves tell the duck what is good, and it lets all the rest go out between the prickles. It is a sort of sifting operation, the nerves in the sieve taking good care that nothing good shall pass out.

[Sidenote: The power of the elephant’s trunk and the variety of things it can do.]

One of the most remarkable things used in place of a hand is the trunk of the elephant. The variety of uses to which the elephant puts this organ is very wonderful. It can strike very heavy blows with it. It can wrench off branches of trees, or even pull up trees by the roots, by winding its trunk around them to grasp them, as you see it is doing here. It is its arm with which it carries its young. It is amusing to see an old elephant carefully wind its trunk around a new-born elephant, and carry it gently along.

[Sidenote: The elephant’s trunk can do little things as well as great.]

But the elephant can also do some very little things with his trunk. You see in this picture that there is a sort of finger at the very end of the trunk. It is a very nimble finger, and with it this monstrous animal can do a great variety of little things. He will take with it little bits of bread, and other kinds of food that you hand to him, and put them into his mouth. He will take up a piece of money from the ground as easily as you can with your fingers. It is with this finger, too, that he feels of things just as you do with your fingers. I once saw an elephant take a whip with this fingered end of his trunk, and use it as handily as a teamster, very much to the amusement of the spectators.

The elephant can reach a considerable distance with his trunk. And this is necessary, because he has so very short a neck. He could not get at his food without his long trunk. Observe, too, how he can turn this trunk about in every direction, and twist it about in every way. It is really a wonderful piece of machinery. Cuvier, a great French anatomist, says that there are over thirty thousand little muscles in it. All this army of muscles receive their orders by nerves from the mind in the brain, and how well they obey them!

[Sidenote: The elephant and the tailor.]

You see that there are two holes in the end of the trunk. Into these he can suck water, and thus fill his trunk with it. Then he can turn the end of his trunk into his mouth and let the water run down his throat. But sometimes he uses the water in his trunk in another way; he blows it out through his trunk with great force. He does this when he wants to wash himself, directing his trunk in such a way that the water will pour over him. He sometimes blows the water out in play, for even such great animals have sports like children. Sometimes, too, he blows the water on people that he does not like. You perhaps have read the story of the tailor who pricked the trunk of an elephant with his needle. The elephant, as he was passing, put his trunk into the shop window, hoping that the tailor would give him something to eat. He was angry at being pricked, and was determined to make the man sorry for doing such an unkind act. As his keeper led him back past the same window, he poured upon the tailor his trunk full of dirty water, which he had taken from a puddle for this purpose.

_Questions._--What is said about the dog? What answer for hands to the cow and the horse? Tell the anecdotes about horses. What does the cat use for hands, and how? What is said about the squirrel and dormouse? What is the bird’s hand? Tell about feeding the hens. Tell about the bill of the duck. What is told of the humming-bird? Mention some of the variety of uses to which the elephant can put his trunk. What is said about the finger on the end of it? Why does the elephant need so long a trunk? What is said about the muscles in it? How does the elephant drink? How does he wash himself? Tell about the tailor.