ANIMAL POWERS OF OFFENSE AND DEFENSE. 355 



laws of the world improve as rapidly in the future as they have in the 

 past ? If so, who would not wish to fall into such a trance as that of 

 the Seven Sleepers and wake, to find the rest of life all too short to 

 enjoy the stupendous novelty ? 



ANIMAL POWEES OF OFFENSE AND DEFENSE. 



THERE can hardly be any greater diversity observed in the animal 

 series than that exemplified in the various means whereby ani- 

 mals are enabled to assume an offensive or defensive aspect. From 

 the lowest to the highest grades of animal life excepting, perhaps, 

 man himself we find ample provision made for the exigencies of ani- 

 mal existence, in so far as these exigencies demand the use of appara- 

 tus which gives its possessors some advantage or other in the " strug- 

 gle for existence." Undoubtedly, in his superior intellectual organi- 

 zation, which enables man even in his rudest state to avail himself of 

 almost every feature in his surroundings for advantage and defense, 

 the human subject has been endowed above all other forms ; and he 

 therefore compensates himself by varied arts and stratagems for the 

 want of the more rigid and natural appliances of lower forms. But 

 if it be true that art is most to be admired when it closely imitates 

 Nature, then the policy of man in his imitation, conscious or uncon- 

 scious, of the many offensive arts of his humbler neighbors, must 

 claim from us a fair share of favorable criticism. 



Thus, it is a striking fact that very many human means of defense 

 or offense find their prototypes, or at least strangely analogous feat- 

 ures, in the extensive armory of the animal world at large. The lasso 

 may be found in the apparatus whereby such a simple form as the 

 Hydra, that tiny fresh-water polyp, secures its prey. Or, when hu- 

 man sharp-shooters think to conceal their whereabouts most effectually 

 from the foes they purpose to annoy, and clothe themselves in gar- 

 ments of neutral tint, the hue of which shall most nearly resemble 

 that of the objects amid which they are located, this principle of 

 imitation of natural objects again finds a strict parallelism in the ani- 

 mal world. For it is a familiar fact to all observers of Nature that 

 the color of most animals resembles more or less that of their natural 

 surroundings. The color of the sand-grouse, for instance, and other 

 species of grouse, of partridges and other birds inhabiting heaths, or 

 of flounders and other fishes inhabiting the sand, strictly approximates 

 in character to that of their dwelling-places, and serves to conceal and 

 protect such beings. And, when we further discover that, in not a few 

 cases, this principle of similarity to their surroundings is carried in 



