Chapter 22

Another, called the Winged-lizard, had bat-like wings and dreadful jaws armed with numerous teeth. All these "Saurians" are believed to have frequented the sea or rivers; but another called the Great-lizard, was a land-animal, as was the Forest-lizard, and a monster kind of Toad with very curiously formed teeth. But no description will give you an idea of the size of these creatures, though I may tell you that a party of gentlemen dined inside the body of one great extinct lizard at the Crystal Palace, where models, not very accurately made, of the most remarkable ancient animals are to be seen. I think my first thought when I see the actual remains of these old-world monsters, with their terrible jaws, is that of thankfulness that they have passed away from sea and land. But we know that God who created them "saw that it was good," and in the Book of Job we may read His description of mighty and terrible creatures which show forth His power.

We were speaking of a monster toad whose fossil remains have been found; and I must tell you that before we had done with the "Creeping Things," I was asked a difficult question. "To what class do the frogs and toads and newts belong? Are they Vertebrate animals? Do they belong to the land or the water?"

I said they certainly do belong to the great Backboned family, and are placed in a class by themselves, as they are neither Mammalia, Birds, Fishes, nor Reptiles, properly speaking, and are called Amphibia, because they live, as it were, a double life.

They have gills, which enable them to breathe in water, to begin with, and lungs which enable them to breathe in air, later on. They are mostly without scales, and do not need to drink, because they imbibe moisture from the air through their soft damp skin. When you see a frog hopping across your path, you see a creature which has known many a change in its life, for frogs are among those very interesting animals which undergo what are called _metamorphoses_. We have met with this word before, and may remember that it is used to express the change from one form to another which is wrought in some living creatures in the course of their growth. I daresay you imagine as I once did, that all young animals are like their parents, only on a smaller scale; for you see that a young horse, or elephant, or whale, a pup or a kitten, is at its birth in all respects just what it will be when full-grown, only smaller. So it is with the reptiles and the birds--the young ones, when hatched, are like the parents. But in the case of frogs and newts, and also most insects, the young ones do not merely increase in size as they grow, but pass from one stage of growth to another, each different from the former, until like the butterfly when it emerges from the chrysalis, they reach what is called their perfect state--and these metamorphoses or changes are very curious and interesting indeed.

When Master Froggie was a young tadpole, some pond or ditch was his home, for he was an aquatic animal; but now that he is full-grown he has passed into another way of living: he breathes, or rather swallows _air_, and must, as he swims about with his beautifully webbed feet, come to the surface of the water now and then, or he would die. I am sure you know the frog well enough, and you may even have heard the harsh croak from which it has its name, as you have passed some damp meadow or weedy pond, on a summer evening. But I wonder whether you know frogs' eggs when you see them?

My brothers and I did not, long ago, when we used to fish with sticks in a pond by the cross-roads for what we called "bunches of grapes!" The grapes were little balls of jelly with a tiny black spot in each, and we never guessed that they were really eggs, and that the little black spot in the slimy covering would one day actually turn into a live, leaping, croaking frog. If we had had the patience to watch, we should have seen that little black dot grow and grow, until it seemed to have become a creature almost all tail, with the head and body still only a tiny ball. By-and-by we should have seen legs and feet begin to appear, and as the legs grew longer, the tail become shorter, until it quite disappeared. Meanwhile, other changes which we could not see would have taken place; instead of the gills, which made the tadpole a water-breather, Master Froggie would have acquired lungs, like any land animal; the aquatic would have changed into an aërial, the herbivorous into a carnivorous creature, so that we may well say it has lived two lives.

The beautiful little newts' life-history is much the same, only that their transformation is not quite so complete, for they never lose their lizard-like tails, but remain little crocodiles to the end of the chapter.

"_Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father who is in heaven is merciful._"

"Turn, turn thy hasty foot aside, Nor crush that helpless worm; The frame thy wayward looks deride None but our God could form.

"The common Lord of all that move, From whom thy being flow'd, A portion of His boundless love On that poor worm bestow'd.

"The light, the air, the dew He made To all His creatures free, And spreads o'er earth the grassy blade For them as well as thee.

"Let them enjoy their little day, Their lowly bliss receive; Oh! do not lightly take away The life thou can'st not give."

GISBORNE.

THE SIXTH DAY.

THE ANIMAL WORLD.

"_Every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills._"--PSALM l. 10.

"_... God ... who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven._"--JOB xxxv. 11.

"_Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?_"--ECCLESIASTES iii. 21.

Now that we have come to the last of those wonderful working-days of which God has told us, I want you--just as we all did when we had reached the SIXTH DAY in our readings--to read over again all the verses in the first chapter of Genesis down to verse 26, and to notice carefully the _words_ which God has used in speaking to us about what He created and made. And I want you especially to think of those two words of which we were speaking a little while ago--God _created_, and God _made_.

Before God speaks to us of the FIRST DAY, with its evening and its morning, He tells us that "in the beginning" He "created the heaven and the earth."

(_Day I_.) Then--we do not know how long after--God spoke, and commanded the light to shine out of the darkness; so that where the dark had been the light now was. "And God saw the light, that it was good," and divided it from the darkness. The light God called Day. Then after the night had passed, the light returned, and there was morning. "And the evening and the morning were the First Day."

(_Day II_.) Again God spoke, and that great globe of air which surrounds the earth was formed--the blue sky above us, and the clouds, the treasure-house for the rain. "And God called the firmament," or expansion, "Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the Second Day." Upon this day we do not read of anything new being made; and it is not said, "And God saw that it was good," as after the work of the other days.

(_Day III_.) Again God spoke, and the dry land appeared'; so that upon this Day there were already in existence earth and sea, air and water, day and night. And God Himself saw that all was good in the world which He had made. Then He adorned the earth with verdure and beauty, and brought out of it grass, corn, fruit-trees; each "after its kind," "And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the Third Day."

(_Day IV_.) Again God spoke, and the two great lights, sun and moon, were set to give light--day and night--upon the earth, and to order the seasons. "And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the Fourth Day."

(_Day V_.) Again God spoke; living creatures swarmed in the waters, and "winged fowl" flew "in the open firmament of heaven." It is now, in connection with air and sea being filled with living beings, to which God gave not only the same power to grow and multiply with which He had endowed the trees and the herbage, but in addition to it, power to move from one place to another at will, power to enjoy, and to go in quest of that which seems to them desirable, that we have again the word, "God created," and also a new word, never before used about day or night, earth or sea, sun or moon, tree or flower--"God blessed."

You remember how we noticed, when we were reading about the work of God on the Fifth Day, that as soon as He had made, not stones or plants, but fishes and birds, He blessed them. God made these living creatures happy, each in the place suited to the kind of life He had given it. And again of this Day's work we read, "And God saw that it was good.... And the evening and the morning were the Fifth Day."

Now let us read verses 24 and 25 very carefully. These verses tell us of part of God's work on the Sixth Day; and we notice that this Day begins, like the former ones, with those three words which we have read so many times in this chapter--"And God said."

(_Day VI_.) I wish you to stop at the end of verse 25 because there the account which God has given us of His creation of the world ends. All was now complete; and all was very good in the eyes of Him who had made and fashioned it. The rest of the chapter speaks of a distinct part of God's Creation, when man, who was to be over it all, was made; a part of the Creation, but head and Crown of all; a being distinct from any other inhabitant of earth, air, or sea, because created _in the image of God_.

The old writer who speaks so quaintly about the "great pond of the world," and the "guests" which it contains, exclaims with wonder when he thinks of the "tenant" which God, when He had made the great house of the world and furnished it, brought in to possess it. He says:--

"But, oh God, what a little lord hast Thou made over this great world!... yet none but he can see what Thou hast done; none but he can admire and adore Thee in what he seeth.... Other creatures Thou madest by a simple command, man not without a divine consultation; others at once, man Thou didst first form, then inspire; others in several shapes, like to none but themselves, man after Thine own image ... others with qualities fit for service; man for dominion; other creatures grovel to their earth, and have all their senses upon it, this is reared up towards heaven."

We talked a good deal about this; for I wished that Eustace and Leslie, and even little Dick, should understand something of the great difference which God has put between those creatures--the cleverest and best of them--who live their little life in the sea or on the earth, and then pass away altogether, and even a little child who does not know its right hand from its left, and cannot take care of itself perhaps nearly so well as a bird or a beast, but who has within it what God has given to no bird or beast, a spirit which can never die, a spirit which must some time "return unto God who gave it," because it belongs to Him.

No beast will have to give an account of itself to God; for to these creatures of a day, He has given their bodies, so wonderful and beautiful, and the breath by which they live; but not that deathless part, the spirit, because of which every man is responsible to God, and knows that he is, even though he may never have read in God's Word that "every one of us shall give account of himself to God."

Let me tell you how a missionary explained this, not long ago, to a king far away in the heart of Africa.

He had been talking to him about the stars and the sun; and the king presently asked where God, who had made the sun, dwelt, and what He did with people after they were dead.

The missionary says, "I answered that God was not confined to one place as we are; that when man's body died, the spirit of him who was a child of God went above, and dwelt for ever in the presence of God, and those whom God knew not here in this life were cast out into a place of sorrow and burning."

"But why does God do so?" the king asked. "What reason has He for putting man from Him?"

The missionary explained that God is righteous, and must punish those who are guilty in His sight.

"But," said the king, "_we_ did not know the laws of God _here_. How can He punish _us_ for not keeping them?"

The missionary answered that God had put His law in their hearts, so that they all knew what was right and what was wrong.

"You know," he said, "when a man lies to your face and steals from you, that he injures you; and call him bad and wicked. So when you tomorrow do the same thing, God judges you with the same judgement with which you judged your fellow-creature yesterday."

"Yes," replied the king, "that is true; that I understand."

We shall think more by-and-by about the great difference which God has put between man, whom He created in His own image, and every other creature, but I want you never to forget it.

In reading of the beautiful life which God gave to the fishes and the birds, and to those beasts that He commanded the earth to bring forth, about which we are going to speak a little today, we must always remember, while we admire the wonderful gifts and powers which they have from God, that He has put the widest possible distance between us and them.

We shall see that many of these animals are much stronger than the strongest man; that to some of them God has given senses keener than ours; and to others, in an especial degree, that great gift called instinct, by which the little swallow finds its way over sea and land, the ants "prepare their meat in the summer," the beaver makes dams across the stream, and the little prairie dogs build pleasant towns, where they can all live together, one of them always keeping watch lest any enemy should surprise the workers.

All these are beautiful proofs of the kindness and faithfulness of God towards the creatures He has made; and we may admire them, and learn all we can from them; but never imagine for one moment, that man is only a grander and more wonderfully made sort of animal, as a lion is superior to a mole, and a mole to a worm.

Just as God has told us there would be, there are now some people who think they know better than to believe what His Word says about this, and who try to think that there never was such a "wonderful animal" as man has grown to be, and are not ashamed to talk of his "ape-like ancestors." But among all the fossil-animals which the earth has kept so safely, I need hardly tell you that not one specimen of an animal between a monkey and a man has ever been found. As has been well said, those who speak in this way "have to convert a four-handed ape into an erect man, a screaming baboon into an articulating, speaking being; brutal instinct into reason, will, conscience; a thing that perishes into that which believes in God, and whose soul is immortal."

Mr. Frank Buckland, whose interesting books I hope you may one day read, had a great many strange pets; among them a remarkably clever monkey. He studied the habits of this monkey very carefully and describes some of the things which it did by instinct--a sense which no one can understand, given by God to guide those living creatures upon whom He has not bestowed reason--and he also tells most amusing stories of the way in which it imitated what it saw him do; but he found that this monkey never reasoned about things, as even a very young child will.

It could use its own powerful head and hands to defend itself, if attacked; but he never saw it make a weapon to use against its enemies. It was very glad to get near the good fire which its master had made, and would spread out its hands and warm them in the blaze; but it never made a fire for itself. And though Mr. Buckland laid plenty of wood close to the fire, and watched to see what a creature so fond of heat would do, he found that the monkey sat by the fire and allowed it to go out; for although he shivered with cold, he did not understand that by putting fresh wood on, the heat which he had so enjoyed would be kept up.

So it is with animals generally; they do things by instinct or by imitation rather than through reason; though we often see them look as if "putting this and that together." And we know no animal able to tell its thoughts by speaking, though some birds have been trained to repeat words.

In that charming book, written for French children "The First Year of Scientific Knowledge," _man_ is placed first among animals, as the most wonderful of them all, but the author is careful to explain that he is there treating only of man's body; as, were it otherwise, it would be needful to allow him a particular division all for himself. We see that in God's Book man is put last, and that he is not counted with the other living creatures at all.

You may say that men are born, and eat, and sleep, and breathe, and grow old, and have bones, and a heart, and blood running through their veins; and so it is with beasts, and birds, and fishes. But God speaks to us of the spirit of a beast--its natural life--which goes downward, in contrast with the spirit of man, which goes upward, and returns "unto God who gave it." It is because of this immortal part, that the life of a man is not to be compared with, or put beside, that of a beast that perishes.

Put your hand upon your heart for a moment. You can feel something there, going "beat, beat," and you know that as long as that "beat, beat" goes on you are alive. If it were to stop you would die, for no man has power to set it going again. Now, you can also feel the beating of the heart of a dog, or of a little frightened bird as you hold it in your hand; and you know that when its heart ceases to move, its little hour of pleasure or pain is over, for there is nothing in the dead body of a bird, as there is even in a dry seed, that will make it spring up and grow again--_all_ its life has gone.

Even as I am writing this for you, a sparrow, picking up crumbs of bread, comes hopping close to my feet. The crumbs feed his little life, and you know that he would soon die, starved to death like many a poor birdie in its cage, if he could get no food. You, too, would die if you had nothing to eat; that is, your body would, but not what has most right to be called _you_; that never-dying spirit which has lived in your body as its house--_it_ would still be alive--alive to God: "for all live unto Him." So different are you from the beasts that perish that we will turn to the Book from which alone we can know the truth, and there let us notice, first, that when man was to be made, it is no longer, "And God said, Let there be: and there was;" but instead, the wondrous words are written, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.... So God created man in His own image"; and again we read, "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

We are now going to study some of the wonderful works of God in the animal-world, and I hope to be able to tell you some interesting stories of what creatures who have not language, and cannot reason in the way in which we can, have been able to do by instinct and intelligence.

It is very pleasant to read the accounts given by other people of what they have observed, but even better still to learn to use our own eyes. Try this plan, and you will be surprised at the many curious and beautiful things about the ways of animals which you can find out for yourself.

You remember, when we were talking about fishes and birds, we found that they both belong to the great group of animals called Vertebrate, from having a backbone made of many pieces beautifully fitted together.

We are now going to speak of the last class in that great group--the Mammalia, so called because they feed their young, not as birds do, with insects or grain, but with milk. They are chiefly "four-footed beasts of the earth," and are covered with hair or fur. In this class extremes meet; we find the great elephant and the playful little squirrel, the kingly lion and the timid mouse which is said to have set him free when snared in the hunter's net.

To this class also belong the land-monsters of bygone days, whose skeletons you may see in museums: such as the Mammoth, or hairy elephant, found in the British Isles, and also over half the globe; the Mastodon, another elephantine extinct monster, whose remains are found in America; the Woolly Rhinoceros, with two large horns on his face, dug out of the frozen soil of Siberia; the Great Irish Deer, whose antlers measured 9 feet from tip to tip; and Giant Sloths of South America, inhabitating the same region as the Sloths of to-day.

But we must leave the "unnumbered, unremembered tribes" of buried creatures which once trod this earth; and speaking only of those now alive, I must tell you that in the first Division of the great class, Mammalia, naturalists place the Quadrumana, or four-handed creatures. This name is given to all monkeys; because their great-toes are like thumbs, so that they can take hold of the branches in the forests where they spend their lives, quite as well with their feet as with their hands.

I need not tell you what they are like, for you know something of the noisy, chattering, mischievous creatures, from watching them at the "Zoo." But you have never seen the enormous apes which live in Africa and the forests of Borneo. Of these the Orang-outang--its name means "man of the woods"--is the largest. He is as tall as a man, and very strong, with long arms, which almost reach the ground as he stands. From the pictures I have seen, I certainly should not like to meet this "man of the woods" at home, seated in the sort of nest which he makes for himself in the trees. But these great, fierce-looking creatures can be tamed; and I have read of one who might be seen walking in the garden, arm-in-arm with his keeper; and of another who would sit at table and imitate everything which he saw people do. He would pour out his tea, put sugar and milk in it, and then hold his cup and saucer, and drink the tea, all very cleverly; for no animals are so good at imitating others as monkeys are. Remember this, if you are fond of copying what other people do and say, be sure that you copy only what is worthy of imitation.

Here is an amusing traveller's tale about some monkeys which carried their love of imitating very far; as you will say when you have read

"THE SAILOR AND THE MONKEYS.

"Once, in the hope of honest gain From Afric's golden store, A smart young sailor crossed the main, And landed on the shore.

"And leaving soon the sultry strand Where his fair vessel lay, He travelled o'er the neighbouring land To trade in peaceful way.

"Full many a toy had he to sell, And caps of scarlet dye; And such things as he knew full well Would please the native's eye.

"But as he travelled through the woods He longed to have a nap, And opening there his pack of goods, Took out a scarlet cap,

"And drew it on his head, thereby To shield him from the sun; Then soundly slept, nor thought an eye Had seen what he had done.

"But many a monkey dwelling there, Though hidden from his eyes, Having well watched the whole affair, Now longed to win a prize.

"And while he slept each one did seize A cap to deck his brows; Then climbing up the highest trees, Sat chattering on the boughs.