which surround it. It provides for its It provides for its young, either by getting food for them or by putting them, even before they come out of the egg, into places where their food is ready for them as soon as they are born. 3. It is clear that both plants and animals are the children of Life. Now let us consider the several different classes of animals. And, first, we meet with those simple forms that manage so cleverly to live without any separate parts with which to do their work. Marvelous little beings these, which live and move and grow in ways quite incomprehensible to us. Delicate, frail, and helpless, they are, as it were, but first attempts at the results which life can accomplish. They live, and increase in multitudes, but in multitudes also they die or are devoured. 4. Next we pass on to slightly higher forms, of the second division of life, in which the members have some simple weapons of defence and attack-the wonderful living sponge, building its numerous canals, which are swept by special scavengers; the traveling jellyfish, with rudiments of eyes and ears, and a benumbing sting; the sea anemones, with their lasso-cells; the wondrous coral builders, -and already we begin to find that the need of defence causes Life to arm her children. They sweep the waters with their tiny arms, and fill the sea with beautiful, active life. The huge whale is greatly dependent for his nourishment upon the shoals of jellyfish that throng the Arctic Ocean, and many shellfish and other sea animals feed upon them; and beyond their use to others we cannot but think that there is enjoyment in these frail existences, and that from them rises the silent hymn of praise for the gift of life, even if it have its struggles and dangers. 5. The third division is a small, yet most curious one, containing the starfish with their countless sucker-feet, the sea urchins with their delicate, sharp spines and curious teeth, and the sea cucumbers with their power of bearing the loss of nearly all their parts and growing them again. 6. The fourth division, though starting with creatures almost as simple as the coral builders, takes quite a different line, having for its members the periwinkle, the oyster, the spinning pinna, leaping cockle, clinging limpet, and many others, whose shells were the cherished playthings of our childhood, and ending with huge creatures with green staring eyes, horny beaks, and waving arms, as well provided for their work as the dragon fly among insects or the tiger among beasts. 7. The fifth division, starting also by the side of the third and fourth, includes the creeping worms, working in their own peculiar fashion-an ugly division, yet full of curious forms showing strange habits and ways. 8. The sixth is a vast army in four great groups, agreeing chiefly in their jointed feet-the crabs, centipedes, spiders, and six-legged insects. Four fifths of the living beings on our globe belong to this division. In it we have all the strange facts of metamorphosis, the wondrous contrivances and constructions of insect life, and at the head of it those clever societies of wasps, bees, and ants, with laws sometimes even nearer to perfection than those of man himself. 9. Seventh, and last, comes the great division of backboned animals, which has struggled side by side with the other six till it has won a position in many respects above them all. Nearly all the animals we know best belong to it-the fishes, toads, and newts, the reptiles, the birds, and the mammalia, including all four-footed animals, as well as whales, seals, monkeys, and man himself. 10. Under these seven divisions are grouped all the living animals as they are spread over the earth to fight the battle of life. Though in many places the battle is fierce, yet it consists chiefly in all the members of the various brigades doing their work in life to the best of their power, so that all, while they live, may lead a healthy, active existence. 11. The little bird is fighting his battle when he builds his nest and seeks food for his mate and his little ones; and though in so doing he must kill the worm, and may perhaps, by and by, fall a victim himself to the hungry hawk, yet the worm heeds nothing of its danger till its life comes to an end, and the bird trills his merry song after his breakfast without thinking of perils to come. 12. "All are devourers, all in turn devoured, Its first, last suffering, unforeseen, unfear'd, Ends with one struggle pain and life forever.” 13. So Life sends her children forth. If we could know the thousands of different ways in which the beings around us struggle and live, we should be overwhelmed with wonder. Even as it is we may hope to gain such glimpses as may lead us to wish to fight our own battle bravely, and to work and strive and bear patiently, if only that we may be worthy to stand at the head of the vast family of Life's children. 1. Feelers, constructs, existence, instincts, fortunately, immense, acquaintance, marvelous, scavengers, benumbing, nourishment, cherished, metamorphosis, contrivances, devourers, overwhelmed, glimpses, multiform, ingenious. Does all animal life Into what divisions is Under which division 2. What does the bee work with? With what does he defend himself? What is "instinct"? depend for existence on animal food? animal life separated in this extract? does man belong? LXXXII. COLONIAL DAYS IN NEW ENGLAND. PART I. 1. The world presents no parallel to the history of New England, based, as it was, on religion, intense, austere, in which God, even in the midst of solitude, seemed all in all. 2. To a religious model, by force or choice, everything in private and public life was made to conform. Religion, politics, fashion, education, and war were close companions. The meetinghouse and the arand the schoolhouse were often built side by mory side. 3. The awful responsibility of reasoning for one's self was assumed by its founders, while the idea of the infallibility of the majority led to the persecution of a minority that dared to follow its own reasonings. 4. A courage that shrinks from no danger was too common to be noticed even among women, and the brave mother seldom has a coward son, 5. The moral, intellectual, religious, and political |
