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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



the wasp's nest is composed of several stories 

 supported on numerous pillars. The well-known 

 instance of the building of the Crystal Palace on 

 a " new principle," by Sir Joseph Paxton, is 

 mentioned by the author, and is one of the many 

 cases where man has confessedly copied Nature 

 in art ; for that beautiful structure of iron and 

 glass is simply an adaptation of the framework 

 of the enormous leaves of the Victoria rcgia 

 plant, which, owing to its formation, combines 

 great strength with great apparent fragility. The 

 present Eddystone Lighthouse, which has so long 

 withstood the force of the waves, was constructed 

 in 1760 by Smeaton on an entirely new idea, the 

 model being taken from a tree-trunk, and the 

 stones of which it was built being strengthened 

 by being dovetailed into one another, as is the 

 case with the sutures of the skull. 



The study of the eye of man, as well as of 

 birds, quadrupeds, and insects, has shown how 

 the most beautiful and gradually-improved in- 

 ventions, such as the telescope, microscope, pseu- 

 doscope, stereoscope, multiplying-glass, etc., had 

 already been perfected in Nature for ages. By 

 the combination of a few prisms and a magni- 

 fying- glass is produced that most wonderful of 

 all optical instruments, the spectroscope, which 

 equally reveals to us the constituents of the 

 most distant stars or the coloring-matter of the 

 tiniest leaf; and yet the prismatic colors devel- 

 oped by this marvelous instrument have existed 

 equally within the glorious arch of the rainbow 

 and in the tiniest dew-drop as it glitters in the 

 rising sun, ever since the sun first shone and the 

 first rain fell. 



In the arts of peace we must look to the ani- 

 mal world for the most perfect specimens of 

 tools for digging, cutting, or boring. No spade 

 is equal to the foot of the mole ; and our ham- 

 mers and pincers look clumsy indeed beside the 

 woodpecker's beak or the lobster's claw. More- 

 over, the dwellings, in the construction of which 

 such tools are employed, are models of beauty 

 and ingenuity. Symmetrically - shaped pottery 

 made of moulded mud or clay is found in Nature 

 in the form of birds' and insects' nests ; in the 

 jaws of the skate is found the crushing-mill, and 

 in the tooth of the elephant the grindstone. In 

 the ichneumon-fly and the grasshopper was per- 

 fected from the first the modern agricultural im- 

 provement on the hand-dibble, the seed-drill. It 

 is only of late years that the use of the teasel 

 has been superseded by machinery ; and brushes 

 and comhs, buttons, hooks, eyes, stoppers, filters, 

 etc., are all found in Nature. The principle of 



the diving-bell and air-tube exists in varieties of 

 insects ; birds make beds and hammocks and 

 even sew, and the bower-bird emulates us in the 

 construction of ornamental bowers and gardens. 

 Graceful fans exist in plants and insects, cisterns 

 in the traveler's tree and the camel's stomach, 

 and natural examples of the balloon and para- 

 chute. 



In other varieties of art, Nature has stolen a 

 march on man : certain insects make paper of 

 different textures ; the art known as " Nature- 

 printing" was anticipated in the coal-measures. 

 Star-stippling, as now used in engraving to pro- 

 duce extra softness of effect, exists in utmost 

 perfection in every flower-petal. The caddis- 

 worm, common in all our fresh waters, constructs 

 for itself a circular window-grating which ad- 

 mits the water and yet protects the pupa from 

 injury — an apparatus exactly like the wheel-win- 

 dows of a Gothic building. There is a bird in 

 South Africa, the Sociable Weaver-bird, which 

 may be looked upon as a dweller in cities, each 

 pair, up to the number of perhaps three hundred, 

 building its own nest ; while the whole com- 

 munity unite to form a common roof or covering 

 of thatch made from a coarse kind of grass, to 

 protect their habitations from the heavy tropical 

 rains. The Driver-ants, also found in Africa, 

 are so sensitive to the fierce heat of the sun that, 

 when on their marches they are obliged to cross 

 open ground, " they construct as they go on a 

 slight gallery, which looks very much like the 

 lining of a tunnel stripped of the surrounding 

 earth ; " and, if they come to thick grass which 

 makes a shelter for them, they take advantage 

 of it, and only resume the tunnel when they 

 emerge on the other side. Not less wonderful 

 than any of these are the Trap-door spiders, of 

 which mention has been before made in this 

 Journal. In making their nests, they begin by- 

 sinking a shaft in the ground ; it is then lined 

 with a silken web, and closed by a circular door, 

 which can scarcely be distinguished from the 

 moss and lichens which grow around. The hinges 

 are most exactly fitted, and the spider has an 

 extraordinary power of closing his door from the 

 inside, and resisting all intrusion. 



It is curious that, as we advance in the scale 

 of creation, these wonderful dwellings cease. 

 Strange to say, the creature which roams at will 

 through the forest, and has no settled resting- 

 place, is higher in the scale of life — according 

 to the recognized scheme of naturalists — than 

 the animal that is mechanically capable of con- 

 structing the most perfect abode ! 



