NATURE AS AN ORGANISM 



saw a Sebito pull these fibres from a palm-tree while on the wing, 

 and fly with them to its nest. For lining the nests the finest wadding 

 is available; the birds have only to pull it from the ripe capsules 

 of the cotton-plant. I once saw a Humming-bird adopt an even 

 easier method, pulling the cotton for his nest — which was no bigger 

 than a walnut — from the nest of a Wagtail, hovering motionless 

 before it with humming wings. 



There are several Brazilian birds which even seek refuge with 

 man. The Brazilian Canary rears its brood under the tiles of the 

 roof, as our sparrows do in Europe, and swallows too build their 

 nests in stables and vestibules. These nests, however, are not built 

 of clay, but are woven of a sort of felt ; they are spherical in form, 

 and have a long bottle-neck entrance underneath. The Vira bosta 

 (literally, cow-dung turner) lays its eggs, like our cuckoo, in the 

 nests of other birds. It is a black bird, fond of frequenting cattle 

 and picking the ticks from their backs. 



Just as the dwelling is by no means a matter of chance, so with the 

 domicile ; every locality has its special inhabitant, which is compelled 

 to remain there by the fact that its body is so constructed that it 

 cannot be comfortable elsewhere. Thus, lizards prefer the sun- 

 light, and toads the shade ; and similarly there are sun- and shade- 

 loving insects ; and some which prefer the upper surfaces of leaves, 

 while others prefer the under side, or the boughs. Monkeys, sloths, 

 raccoons and opossums live in the trees ; deer, foxes, pumas and 

 agoutis on the ground. The forest and the plain have each their own 

 forms of life, and very often quite closely related species are found 

 in each; it is thus with many of the rodents, and the larger and 

 smaller deer, and the carnivora, and the gallinaceous birds, and 

 other species. The mountains, too, have a different fauna at different 

 altitudes. 



As in a school whose classrooms are not large enough to contain 

 all the pupils different classes and different subjects may be taught 

 in succession at different hours of the day, so birds and animals 

 and insects, in a state of Nature, may apportion between them 

 the hours of the day. There are creatures which seek their food by 

 day : as do most of the birds, the monkeys, and the squirrels ; and 

 others which profit by the hours of the night, as do the majority 

 of the mammals, the owls, and the goatsuckers. The venomous 

 snakes do not go abroad until it is dark, since their victims — for the 



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