I took him in my hands, and made him the subject of an immediate lesson. I showed to my pupils his eyes and his interesting method of handling them, his tongue and its strange insertion; showed them how to look into his mouth and look up his ears to his ear drums, and pointed out many other interesting facts. Then I told them how Cope had said that the toad had power to emit from its skin a fluid so nauseous that many an animal hesitates to eat it. This is the first peculiarity I had mentioned which I had not myself observed, and a scientific qualm came over my conscience. Why had I never verified this statement which I had so frequently repeated? On the impulse of the moment, with the bright, clean skin of the creature fresh from the dewy gra.s.s, making it less than usually repulsive, I ran my tongue up its back only to find that it had no taste whatever. I was of course surprised, but I was not foolish enough to deny, as the result of one observation, the statement of a good scientist. The observation, moreover, was one which I naturally did not care to repeat with any frequency. Of one thing I was sure, toads do not always have an unpleasant taste.
A year later I had a cla.s.s down by the side of a neighboring pond. The pool was not an attractive one, and I had picked from it a more than commonly unappetizing looking toad, which proved to be a mother which had not yet laid her eggs. As I held her in my hands and exhibited her various points to my pupils, I told them of Prof. Cope"s statement. I also told them of my unsuccessful attempt the previous year to verify the statement. I added, however, that I would not repeat this experiment on this unappetizing specimen. Hereupon the toad not only exuded, but squirted, from a gland over her left shoulder blade a fluid, milky-like in appearance, and forming a jet as thin as a needle, but ejected with force enough to strike my face, which was at least fifteen inches away. I moistened my finger on my tongue, lifted the fluid from my cheek, and tasted it. Cope was right. A toad can exude a most nauseous fluid. Horsechestnuts extracted and distilled might possibly provide something as bitter. Why did I not find this in the preceding case? I have too few observations on which to base a conclusion, but I have a suspicion as to the reason. In the case of the toad which spurted the fluid in my face, we had a creature with whose life were tied up the lives of her many offspring, to be produced from the eggs she was so soon to lay. Under conditions like these, nature is more than commonly careful of her children. Whether this be the reason or not, toads do not always have an unpleasant taste, but when they do it certainly is most unpleasant.
There remains to be considered the most effective plan yet mentioned of escaping the enemy, and that is of really escaping. In all the devices we have considered thus far the enemy is eluded. When the creature lies quiet, or finds safety in its protective coloration, or in its bad taste, or unpleasant odor, it still remains in the presence of the enemy. A more progressive plan altogether is to escape the enemy by flight. The great advantage of this plan lies in the fact that the acquisition is valuable for every purpose. The creature then can escape the enemy, can range widely for food or for a mate. This gives it an enormous advantage in the struggle for life. The power to fly, in insects, was doubtless originally gained in the attempt to escape the enemy. Among many of the lower animals it is nearly the only purpose that flying serves. Later on it enables the animal to pa.s.s from one food locality to another. In a few creatures it plays an effective part during the mating season. These last are probably both derived powers, and the original function was that of escape from the enemy. The gra.s.shopper has grown its long legs to serve him for safety, and through them it is helped along, moving about chiefly by leaps when it wishes to go any material distance. It is only toward the very end of its life that the gra.s.shopper has wings, and then they serve probably to aid in the search for a mate. Among the birds flight began simply in sailing out of the trees, into which the creature, still half lizard, had crept to escape its enemy. The earliest bird known to us had comparatively insignificant wings. There was really more support in its tail than in its wings, and this would distinctly indicate that it glided more than it flew. It had claws also upon its wings, and it was probably the case that this creature crept into the trees, at least in its earliest forms, and sailed down in a manner not unlike that employed to-day by the flying squirrel. From such simple beginnings came the wonderful power of flight in the birds.
Among mammals the attempt to escape from the enemy has led to an interesting development, which will be more fully explained in a later section when we speak of the history of the horse. The early mammals walked flat-footed, as we do on our feet and as the racc.o.o.n and the bear do on theirs. Gradually, however, as their enemies became more fierce and better able to injure the larger mammals, the latter gained in power of flight, and this gain consisted first in rising from the toes, lifting the heels completely off the ground. At the same time the leg and foot were gradually lengthened. Doubtless in this way the fleet animals, like the deer, the horse and the giraffe, first came by their long legs. Constant elimination of the short-legged ones, by the pursuing enemy, resulted in the selection of the long-limbed ones for breeding purposes, and hence to the ultimate elongation of the legs of the species.
The method of escape from the enemy involves cowardice. "He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day," and so it may be the part of wisdom in the weak creature to escape from his enemy by flight. It is a far more estimable process, from our standpoint at least, to stand against the onslaught of the enemy and beat him upon his own ground. This end is secured in many animals by acquiring horns or by lengthening certain of the teeth. The horn is a very ancient instrument of defense. When the reptiles ruled the land horns were not uncommon. They consisted in those days of hardened scales, which lengthened and fastened themselves over a core of bone. Such an old-fashioned instrument, sometimes made of newer materials, still remains the defense of a number of animals. The rhinoceros has upon his nose a lengthened projection, which is what might not improperly be called hair glued into a cone. This enormous horn is a frightful weapon, both of offense and defense, and, when backed by the terrible weight of the body of the rhinoceros, it can do as deadly work as almost any instrument of destruction known to animals below the grade of man. But, after all, this is an old-fashioned method, and the rhinoceros is a relic.
Among the carnivorous animals the teeth, which were developed first chiefly for the tearing of flesh in its consumption, became effective for their courageous owners. Because these tearing teeth are well developed in the dog they have come to be known as canine teeth.
Usually where an animal can use its teeth effectively for offense or defense, it is the canine teeth that are thus modified. The cat has developed them better than the dog, and one of the cats of a bygone geological period had canine teeth so magnificently enlarged and so sharp at the back as to give this frightful creature the name of the saber-toothed tiger. The long teeth in the upper jaws of the elephant, commonly known as tusks, are not canine teeth. The elephant has completely lost his canines. His tusks are his incisors, and they have developed as have almost no other teeth in the mammals.
These are only a few of the numberless devices nature has evolved for furthering the success of her children. There are so many others that to many of us they form almost the chief point of interest in our study of a new animal, or our closer observation of an old friend.
CHAPTER V
ADAPTATION FOR THE SPECIES
The strife, as we have described it thus far, is a purely selfish struggle. Every point gained is a point favorable to the welfare of the individual animal. But nature is uncommonly careless of the individual unless the advantage gained is also of use to the species as a whole. Very often the life of an animal ceases when provision has been made for its young. The male garden spider may have a long and dangerous courtship, in which the uncertain temper of his ladylove may lead her to bite off four or five of his eight legs. But her ingrat.i.tude is not yet complete. He may have barely accomplished his desperate purpose of fertilizing her eggs at all hazards, when she ends the process by eating him. The male b.u.mblebee fertilizes the female in the late summer and then dies. She does not lay her eggs before the next season. So it happens that no b.u.mblebee ever sees its own father, and no father b.u.mblebee ever sees his own children. In the honey bee the male, which has been fortunate enough to fertilize the queen, pays for his honor by death within the hour. Superfluous bachelors, among the honey bees, when the bridal season has pa.s.sed, are driven from the hive to die of starvation.
An animal need not always be successful himself, but it is more essential that he hand down his successful traits to those who come after him. It is more important for the future generation that an animal should have had it in him to do great things, though he himself really have never done them, than that he should have learned to do great things on a meager original endowment. Not what an animal accomplishes is important to his children, but what he has it in him to accomplish. Accordingly Nature is full of devices by which those who have proved their original endowment by winning out in the struggle shall hand on this endowment to a subsequent generation. In other words, Nature is anxious that they may successfully mate. Here we are again on distinctly debatable ground. Darwin himself believed thoroughly in what he called s.e.xual selection. It is the essence of this idea that the males and females have grown unlike, more technically have developed secondary s.e.xual characters, through the choice of the mating pair. It would usually be the more serious loss if accident should come to the female, for she may carry fertilized eggs for some time. Hence, if both s.e.xes may not become attractive, it is usually the male that develops fine colors, ornamental appendages or a captivating voice.
An interesting reversal of this process has taken place in civilized man. His more savage ancestor adorned himself more lavishly than he permitted his mate to do. With the advance of civilization man has undertaken to defend his own mate most valorously. The result is it is safe for her to be beautiful. Under these circ.u.mstances, however, it is more necessary to her welfare that her consort be vigorous rather than that he be handsome. Hence in the human species beauty has become the prerogative of the woman, and this is increasingly the case the higher the civilization. Whether woman suffrage and self-support will reverse this process remains to be seen. There are indications that point that way.
There are many biologists who are at present expressing serious doubt as to the validity of s.e.xual selection. As in the previous cases of protective coloration, I believe it will be wise for us to retain, even though with an interrogation point behind it, the idea of s.e.xual selection until such time as those who object to it have furnished us with another theory which will more nearly account for the observed facts. While entirely conscious of the possibility that there is a weak spot in the theory, we will still tentatively hold to s.e.xual selection. The fact that beauty in women is so intensely attractive to man, and that vigor and manliness in man are so attractive to women, leads us to infer that among the lower animals, although of course in a vastly less degree, vigor and beauty are also attractive.
The weakest point of the position lies in the fact that it probably presupposes a higher degree of capacity for appreciation on the part of lower animals than they possess. Those who deny the truth of the theory laugh at the idea that a b.u.t.terfly can see clearly enough and care enough for what it sees to notice whether its mate has wings of one type or of another. The size, number and position of the spots on the wings of many b.u.t.terflies are so nearly constant that they cannot of themselves have been entirely determined by the choice of the insect. Yet this may not preclude the possibility of the fact that, while the spots were produced through some other agency, certain types of them were selected by s.e.xual preference.
If attractive coloration is effective anywhere in the animal world, it will possibly be found among the insects, but it is especially likely to be found among the birds. Very many field workers in these groups feel quite sure of the value of attractiveness. When b.u.t.terflies chase each other up and down, circling and doubling, following each other for long distances, it would certainly seem as if they were pleased with each other"s appearance. Some naturalists, especially those who have worked chiefly in the laboratory, insist that it is the odor, not the color of these insects, which is attractive, and some experiments which have been made would seem to point in this direction. But the creatures experimented upon most carefully were night-flying moths, and it is quite possible that the sense of sight in the night-flying moths has lost its vigor.
The great difficulty in understanding s.e.xual attraction in insects, as based upon beauty, lies in the undoubtedly lower development of their nervous activity; in other words, in the apparent absence of anything worth calling mind. I think no one imagines that a b.u.t.terfly, looking upon two other b.u.t.terflies who are competing for her affections, deliberates between them and determines to admit to the circle of her friendship the more brilliantly colored male. Moths are so irresistibly attracted to a light as to fly into it without apparent power to withstand its influence. They repeat the flight again and again until they are destroyed. If they react so vigorously to the stimulus of the light, it seems not impossible that they may also act vigorously to the stimulus of color pattern, and that the male most beautifully colored, according to the nervous ideal of the female, should win her unconscious regard. At least it is certain that, in very many of the b.u.t.terflies and moths, the attractive coloration is chiefly displayed when they are moving actively about; and when they alight and their enemies can the more easily capture them, they conceal their brilliant colorings. Most b.u.t.terflies are very brilliant on the upper surface of the wings and very much duller on the under surface. Hence in flight they show their colorings exquisitely, but when they alight, and are thus more likely to be captured, they fold the brilliant surfaces together in an upright position. In this way not only is the dull side of the wings placed outward, but the wings themselves are placed edgewise to the sky, and it is from this direction that their enemies, the birds, are most likely to see them.
Once upon the wing these creatures display their beauty with much greater safety because they can escape the birds very readily by use of their exceedingly jerky flight. The b.u.t.terfly"s motion is as irregular as any we have except the bat"s. This eccentricity is one great element in their safety, and makes it less dangerous for them to display their attractive colorations.
One very large group of the night-flying moths have been named the "underwings," because of the fact that their hind wings are very much more brilliant than the front, and in lighting they fold the dull pair back over the bright, completely concealing them. These creatures are in the habit of resting in the daytime against walls, or stones, or the bark of trees. The similarity in color between their front wings, which alone show while sitting, and the background on which they rest, is most remarkable. One may pa.s.s them again and again, although they are of considerable size, and not notice them at all. Once let them display their hind wings and the brilliancy of their color always attracts immediate attention.
It is among birds, however, that brilliant coloration serves its most effective purpose. The birds are alert, exceedingly quick of sight, and are much more discriminating than insects in almost every respect.
It is not so impossible that these creatures might even voluntarily prefer a distinctly more brilliant mate, though the voluntary character of the process is not essential to its success. Men certainly are constantly attracted to women for whose charm it would puzzle them to account. If this is true with regard to men, it is certainly probable that birds would be largely influenced by phases of attractiveness, of which they were observant, but unconscious.
Certain it is that in many birds the males are far more beautiful than the females. Perhaps the commonest ill.u.s.tration, and, at the same time, one of the best is found in the so-called red-wing or swamp blackbird. The male of this creature is a brilliant black, excepting that upon the angle of the wing, spoken of roughly as his shoulder, though in reality it is equivalent to our wrist, there appears a splendid orange patch with a border of lemon yellow. When he folds his wing he pushes this colored angle of the wing so deftly under the feathers of his shoulder as almost to conceal it. When in flight the bird is exceedingly conspicuous, showing, with every bend and twist of his body, his gorgeous epaulets. Meanwhile, the female is likely to pa.s.s unnoticed. She is dull in color and streaked like the gra.s.s among which she lives. During the mating season the male hovers about her, swaying from side to side in such a way as certainly to make it appear as if he realized his good points and was bringing them to bear as effectively as he knew how. After his mate has nested and is rearing her young, it would appear that the male uses his brilliancy to lure the observing enemy away from the nest containing his wife and children.
Another ill.u.s.tration of the remarkable superiority of the male over the female, in many parts of the bird world, is seen in the case of the common barnyard fowl. The rooster is so much more gorgeous than the hen that anyone reasonably acquainted with these birds cannot have failed to notice the fact. In some of our modern varieties we have by breeding colored them nearly alike. The original chicken is colored much like the common Leghorns. Shades of red and yellow decorate his neck and back, while the flight feathers of his wings and of his tail and the sickle feathers which ornament the rear of his back and hang over his tail are l.u.s.trous dark green. The hen meanwhile is very much less brilliant in her contrasts. I shall speak more fully of this in discussing polygamy.
The attraction of beauty is not the only lure by which a creature may win its mate. Sound may captivate as effectively as beauty. This is true of insects as well as of birds. Certain insects at least advise their mates of their presence by means of a sound which they emit.
This is particularly noticeable among the group of straight-winged insects to which the gra.s.shopper, katydid and cricket belong. The gra.s.shopper has a ridge on the angle of his wing and a roughness on the side of his leg. When these two are rubbed together the result is sometimes a fiddling, sometimes a snapping or cracking sound, differing in different gra.s.shoppers. I doubt not these sounds are pleasing to the female of the species, for they are always made by the male. The katydid, instead of fiddling in this way, has a sort of drum on the angle of his one wing, which he can rub over a tooth in the corresponding angle of his other wing, thus producing the familiar "katydid" sound. I have never succeeded in making a dead gra.s.shopper fiddle, but I have long known how to make a dead katydid say "ka."
Quite recently I have added to my accomplishment in this respect and can make it say "katy." The "did" part of the song still lies beyond my power. The crickets produce their sharp notes in much the same fashion as the katydids.
One observer of the chirping of the cricket says that the pitch of the song varies with the temperature. He has even worked out a formula by which one can tell the pitch of the chirp, if he knows the temperature, or, knowing the temperature, can determine the pitch. Of course this is too mechanical; yet it indicates that there must be considerable relation between the two; the warmer the cricket the happier he is.
It is the males among insects that chirp their love songs. The females never answer them. There is a peculiar notion that the female katydid, when thus accused of some offense, replies "katy didn"t." The truth of the matter is that no female katydid ever replied to the accusations of her lover, if accusation it be. She is absolutely dumb, not having the drum upon her wings with which to reply. She is provided with ears wherewith to hear, and, strange to say, she keeps them on her elbow, as does also the cricket, while the gra.s.shopper has his ears upon the side of his body.
Everyone who lives in the country, or goes into the country in the summertime, is sure to know the humming of the so-called locust. It is an unfortunate fact that the word locust may have several meanings. It is properly applied to one group of the gra.s.shoppers. The creature most commonly called a locust is a cicada, or harvest fly. When the weather gets quite warm the cicada starts his love song. He has two long flaps to his vest, and under each flap he has a vibrating drum head. This is set shivering by a muscle on its under side. The female cicada again is silent.
It is among birds that the love song reaches its finest development.
It may consist simply of a little chirp as in the chippy. It may consist of two notes of a different pitch repeated steadily, as in the tufted t.i.tmouse. It may attain considerable variation, as in the robin. But in the choir of our best singers, like the catbird, thrasher, and mocking bird, there is unending variation of notes. It seems almost impossible to doubt the charming quality of this voice upon the mate. It certainly is chiefly confined to the mating season, and is indulged in almost entirely by the males. This does not mean that a male does not sing excepting when he wishes to charm his mate.
But the time when he is in his most exquisite feather and most charming mood is the time when he sings most sweetly, and this is the time when he is taking to himself a mate. The love joy may so overcrowd his life that he sings much and often, but the increase in its amount and character during the mating season seems to proclaim its purpose beyond a doubt.
In addition to the allurements above described there are certain peculiar behaviors of the animal during the mating season which are intensely interesting. Sometimes they consist simply of a wild delirium of joy, which overpowers the animal completely and makes him do wonderful things. Birds will fly with impetuous leaps in the air, mount higher and higher, singing wildly, only to turn suddenly at the top of the flight and drop promptly to the ground. I have seen such ecstatic flights in the oven bird and in our rollicking gold finch. I have seen a catbird on his way to a tree turn three somersaults, much like those performed by a tumbler pigeon, after which he alighted upon the bough. None of these acts seemed deliberately performed in front of the females, but I have seen three or four killdeer parading in most stately and precise manner, spreading their wings and fluffing their feathers, performing a sublimated cup-and-cake walk amid a circle of attracted females.
Even our little English sparrow, as I have previously mentioned, fluffs himself up and spreads his wings and prances around in front of his presumably adoring ladylove. But the weirdest performance of this sort I have ever seen is that shown by the male ostrich. When he becomes excited, swaying his body from side to side, he sinks slowly upon his knees, until his body touches the ground, his wings spread on either side and the feathers fluffed up so as to show every exquisite plume in all its splendid beauty. The long neck is laid back until the head, which is doubled sharply forward, is pressed almost against the back, and in this strange position he sways from side to side, apparently utterly oblivious, for a time, of everything. After about a minute of this performance, he seems slowly to come to himself and rise again to his feet. Now he is particularly likely to make vicious attack upon anything within reach.
It is not only necessary that the animal should be able to attract a mate. There may be more than one claimant for the damsel"s affection.
In many animals we see provisions whereby the male may effectively deal with his rivals. This is especially likely to be the case if the animal be a polygamist. In every species there are produced about as many males as females. If the polygamous habit leads one male to gather about him a group of females, with whom he mates, it is evident that he is displacing an equal number of rivals, and they are not willingly displaced. Accordingly we find that polygamy is usually accompanied by a belligerent disposition on the part of the males. In our ordinary barnyard fowl this trait is very evident. The rooster not only domineers over the hens, not only struts about among them in stately fashion and gives vent to his feelings by his sonorous voice, he must also drive away from the neighborhood any rivals for the affections of his wives. Hence the rooster attacks upon sight the neighboring rooster, and battles with him to his entire discomfiture and sometimes to the death.
Among the members of the deer family this particular phase of the relation between the s.e.xes has produced in the males, and only very rarely in the females, the magnificent branching horns. These are intended not so much as a protection against the enemy as for an offensive weapon in the battle for the mates.
Beautiful and stately as are these magnificent horns, they last only for a part of the year. We begin to understand their meaning. When the wolf is hungriest, toward the close of the bitter winter, the deer is without horns. When the time for mating comes, the deer within a few weeks grows his horns, which at first are covered with a plushlike coating, known as velvet. After a while this dries and he rubs his horns against the trees until they are clean and smooth. Now he is ready for the battle royal.
In the case of the fur seals polygamy has carried its specialization of the males to a remarkable extent. The bull seals are several times as large as the cows, and are provided with terrific canine teeth.
With these they battle with a violence that very often results in the death of one of the combatants. A successful bull seal who has gathered about him a cl.u.s.ter of seal cows is seamed and scarred with the marks of his annual combats.
One more type of adaptation can be profitably considered. Animals have developed many devices which serve for the protection of their young.
The wonderful silk spun by the spider was evidently primarily intended to serve as a covering for the eggs. Probably all of our spiders agree in using the silk for this purpose. Many of them employ it for practically no other, though there are half a dozen different uses to which different spiders may put their silk. Under these conditions we have a right to infer that silk was primarily developed as a coating for the eggs. In the case of some of our spiders a little fluffy ma.s.s of silk covers the egg, while a firmly woven sheet of silk covers both egg ma.s.s and fluff, holding it flat against a wall or the trunk of a tree. In some of the higher spiders, notably our bank spiders, the silken covering becomes an effective coc.o.o.n, spherical in shape, with a little opening at the top like the neck of a small bottle. The egg coc.o.o.n is woven in a ma.s.s of tangled silk between the branches of some tough weed which will be sure to outlast the winter. Into the egg coc.o.o.n the spider may place one thousand or more eggs. Having thus provided her children with a snug winter home, the spider dies. When spring comes with the warm rays of the sun, the eggs hatch and the coc.o.o.n becomes a creeping ma.s.s of minute spiders. At the time these spiders appear there is nothing for them to eat. The obvious way out of this difficulty is taken. At once there begins a progressive party.
Spider fights with spider, and the prize in each conflict is the body of the victim, which is promptly eaten. The winners in the first round pair off again, and a little later, as hunger drives them, another set of combats comes on, resulting in another halving of the number of spiders in the coc.o.o.n. This process continues until not more than one-tenth of the original number of spiders remains. By this time they have gained sufficient strength of leg and jaw, and sufficient dexterity in the use of both, to make it safe for them to venture out and try their fortunes among the accidents of a strenuous world. There can be little doubt after this long process has worked its final results which tenth remains. Chance plays but small part in this game. It is the fittest that survive. When this procedure goes on generation after generation, the result must necessarily be that the spiders grow fitter and fitter for their work. This method is hard on the little spider, but it makes good spiders.
Most insects die before their eggs hatch; accordingly they can pay no attention to their own children. Whatever arrangements are provided for the safety and strength of these offspring must be provided before they appear. About the only care the majority of insects take in this direction is to see that the eggs are placed where the young shall find food as soon as they emerge. Insects" eggs are very small, and as a consequence the creatures which emerge from them are likewise exceedingly minute. As a result they cannot be expected to hunt far for their food. Different insects use different devices by which to overcome this difficulty. The katydid, for instance, must die with the approach of fall. Her children will not appear until the following year. Her food consists of leaves, but to lay the eggs in such a situation would be a fatal process, because the leaf will drop off before the eggs hatch. Accordingly, the katydid lays its shield-shaped eggs in a double row near the end of a young twig. Next year when the weather is sufficiently warm to hatch katydids, it is also warm enough to force the buds on the end of the twigs. When the katydids arrive their jaws are young and tender, but so are the leaves upon which they are born. Hence there is little difficulty on the part of the young katydids in finding an abundance of food. By the time the leaves have grown tougher, the katydid"s jaws are stronger, and the leaves will still serve as food.
Everyone who is at all familiar with country life and gardening is familiar with what is called the potato or tomato worm. It is a long, green, smooth, caterpillar, as long and as fat as your finger and provided with a horn upon his tail. The gardener may not know that after a while this creature will burrow into the ground, and there change into an oblong brown ma.s.s with a sort of a pitcher handle at one side. Next year this pupa will split down the back, and from out of the brown case will come a hawk-moth, which soon will fly with rapidly quivering wings and feast upon the nectar of our moon flowers or on that of the "Jimson" weed. Those who have cleaned these pests from the potato or tomato vines will often have noticed one of them covered with what look almost like grains of rice. This appearance reveals an interesting story. Some time earlier an insect that looked very much like a dainty wasp with a rather long sting in its tail hovered over the caterpillar. This is the ichneumon fly. Eventually lighting upon the caterpillar"s back, it punctured the skin with its sting, and deposited eggs within the caterpillar"s body. These eggs soon hatched and the little grubs worked their way through the body of its host. The infested victim feeds upon leaves and fills itself with rich food. These parasites eat the food, and, try as it may, the caterpillar does not succeed in getting fat. After the grubs have gotten their full growth, each of them eats its way through a little hole to the outside of the caterpillar"s body. Here it spins around itself a little white case, and looks like a rice grain. As the caterpillar moves about, these seeming rice grains are rubbed off and fall to the ground. Next year there will come up new ichneumon flies to sting fresh caterpillars and repeat the entire process.
Another remarkable provision for the young on the part of insects is seen in the behavior of the big sphex wasp, known as the cicada killer. The cicada, it will be remembered, is what is commonly called a locust. The cicada killer is a magnificent big wasp, whose body is nearly an inch long, banded with black and yellow, while the wings are colored a smoky brown. This muscular wasp digs a long tunnel eight or ten inches deep, which ends in a slightly larger room. Having provided the location, he now sallies forth in search of the cicada. The heavy song of the male probably serves as a guide to the wasp in case of scarcity of cicadas, but the killer has apparently little difficulty in finding his prey. The wasp pounces upon the insect, and in spite of its strength and the thrashing of its vigorous wings punctures it with his sting again and again. The poison of the sting entering into the nerve centers gradually paralyzes, but usually does not kill, the cicada. Now the killer carries its prey home, pushes it to the bottom of the tunnel and deposits upon it a single egg. The wasp closes up the hole and leaves the place. When the egg hatches and the grub of the wasp emerges, it finds a big cicada just at hand, upon which it feeds. By the time the cicada is completely devoured, the wasp grub has obtained its full growth. After a short period of development a new sphex wasp is ready to work its way out of the tunnel, find a mate, dig a hole, and safely provide for its own children.
Still more remarkable adaptations for the care of the young appear among the birds. Here the eggs are not to be deserted, but are to be cared for until the young appear. These again must have attention until such time as they are quite able to take care of themselves. The birds are warm-blooded animals, and even their young, while they are developing in the egg, are warm-blooded. Consequently the temperature of the egg must be maintained evenly and uniformly, or there will be no development.
The fish may drop its eggs carelessly upon the bottom of the stream. A frog may deposit them in a ma.s.s of jelly and leave them forever. A turtle may bury its eggs in a sand bank and abandon them to their fate. The warm blood of the young bird demands more attention than this. Accordingly, the parent bird has learned to make for itself some sort of nest, in which the young may be kept properly warm until they are developed. The ancestral bird, who was to be the progenitor of the entire bird cla.s.s, must have had some very simple method of providing a place in which its eggs might be hatched. As the descendants of this original bird have pa.s.sed into new situations, the various lines have taken upon themselves different shapes until we have the multiform birds of to-day. The habits of the birds have also varied. Each has adapted itself to the situation in which it found itself, and no adaptation has been more varied and effective than the adjustment of the nesting site. Nests are found upon the ground, in the bushes, on the lower limbs, in the crotches of the trees, in the trunks of the trees, upon their very summits, and on the tops of inaccessible crags.
To every sort of situation some bird has been enabled to adapt itself.
This has made it possible for very many more birds to thrive than could have found a place in the world, had they all lived upon the same plan.
In the case of the bank swallow his nest may be a very simple contrivance, consisting only of a tunnel running back into a bank, and widening at the back. Some material that will soften the bed upon which eggs are to be laid must be placed in this cavity. The whole home is a very simple and crude affair. But little better is the arrangement which the woodp.e.c.k.e.r calls a home. This has been cut into the dry wood of a defective tree. No woodp.e.c.k.e.r can make his home in absolutely solid sapwood. Hence the first labor of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r must consist in finding a place in which it can dig. If there is an old stump of a limb sticking up, the problem is readily solved. Such wood has no sap in it, and is brittle enough to be easily dug out. But, if there be no such stub, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r will find a suitable place in most trees. At some time or other almost every tree loses a big limb.
When such accident occurs there will always be in the old trunk a region through which sap once went to this limb. This region, deprived of its function, goes completely dry, like the heartwood of the tree, and it is into such material as this that the woodp.e.c.k.e.r succeeds in drilling his well-protected home.
As birds rise higher in the scale the nest-building becomes a more complicated affair, and after a while we find a well-woven substantial nest, through which even the air will not chill the eggs enough to prevent their hatching, while the warmth is supplied by the mother"s body. It is often a matter of surprise to many people that a bird should contrive to build a nest so exquisitely circular. The trick, after all, is not quite so difficult as it looks. The robin gathers up a few sticks and places them as the beginning of the platform. More and more are brought and woven into each other, making a framework altogether too big for the nest. Then mud is brought and plastered inside of this. With the plastering of this mud the careful circularity of the work begins. Every time a little material has been added the robin sits down in the nest and revolves her body, in this way shaping the interior much as the potter shapes a pot. In the case of the artisan, it is the pot that revolves. In the case of the robin, the bird itself revolves. The effect is the same in both cases--a circular vessel is produced. A little lining added to the interior of the nest softens it for the reception of the eggs. In this exquisite home the robin lays her eggs, and sits upon them until they are developed enough to hatch, and then feeds the young until they are old enough to feed themselves.
Far more remarkable than any of the devices thus far described are the wonderful developments which have come in the cla.s.s of animals known as the mammals. Here the most wonderful protection is made for the care and feeding of the young. But this is to be the subject of a separate chapter.
As long as we thought of each sort of animal as being a separate species shaped in the beginning by the hands of the Creator, each of these devices seemed to us a new manifestation of the Divine Providence, whose fertile planning had conceived so many methods of providing for his children. Unconsciously we thought of G.o.d acting as man acted. Each animal seemed a purely separate invention purposely designed for an especial place. Now we understand the plan in creation better, and see that each animal has come from another not quite like itself, some distance back, and this from still another. Our admiration for these devices as they arise through evolution is no less, but takes on another form.