14 THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE CHAP. 



and discoveries of each year are chronicled, the por- 

 tentous size of a volume which professes to discuss with 

 some completeness even a single sub-class, the number 

 of special departments into which the science of zoology 

 is divided, suggest the vast wealth of numbers at first 

 sight so bewildering. More than two thousand years ago 

 Aristotle recorded a total of about 500 forms, but more 

 new species may be described in a single volume of the 

 Challenger Reports. We speak about the number of 

 the stars, yet more than one family of insects is credited 

 with including as many different species as there are 

 stars to count on a clear night. But far better than 

 any literary attempt to estimate the numerical wealth 

 of life is some practical observation, some attempted 

 enumeration of the inmates of your aquarium, of the 

 tenants of some pool, or of the visitors to some meadow. 

 The naturalist as well as the poet spoke when Goethe 

 celebrated Nature's wealth : " In floods of life, in a storm 

 of activity, she moves and works above and beneath, 

 working and weaving, an endless motion, birth and 

 death, an infinite ocean, a changeful web, a glowing life ; 

 she plies at the roaring loom of time and weaves a living 

 garment for God." 



5. Wealth of Beauty. To many, however, animal life 

 is impressive not so much because of its amazing variety 

 and numerical greatness, nor because of its intellectual 

 suggestiveness and practical utility, but chiefly on account 

 of its beauty. This is to be seen and felt rather than 

 described or talked about. 



The beauty of animals, in which we all delight, is 

 usually in form, or in colour, or in movement. Especially 

 in the simplest animals, the beauty of form is often 

 comparable to that of crystals ; witness the marvellous 

 architecture in flint and lime exhibited by the marine 

 Protozoa, whose empty shells form the ooze of the great 

 depths. In higher animals also an almost crystalline 

 exactness of symmetry is often apparent, but we find 

 more frequent illustration of graceful curves in form and 

 feature, resulting in part from strenuous and healthful 

 exercise, which moulds the body into beauty. 



