NATURE AS AN ORGANISM 



numbers, may not at once be perceived by their enemies, many 

 of them feed only by night. By day they all assemble and take 

 refuge, packed together, in a rolled-up leaf This, for example, is 

 how the caterpillars of the Brassolis, which feed on the coconut-palm, 

 pass the day. The caterpillars of the blue Morpho Hercules, on 

 the other hand, crawl down the trunk of their tree, or down the 

 nearest liana, and huddle together at the foot of the stem. The 

 smooth, dark, moist mass of caterpillars constitutes a repulsive- 

 looking object, unless indeed it is mistaken for a mere outgrowth 

 of the tree-trunk. 



Not only the insects, of course, must perforce adapt themselves 

 to the ordered scheme of Nature, but also slugs, snails, worms, 

 fishes, birds and mammals. And not only the leaves of the plants, 



but the flowers and fruits are 



edible, and for all of them the *'=^u . ~^ " 



appropriate creatures are ap- '''^^~ 



pointed. We can tell the diet 

 of the birds from the form of 

 the beak ; the grain-eaters have 

 short, strong beaks, which en- 

 able them to crack the husks 

 of the grain; the insect-eaters 

 have long, slender bills, which 

 can extract a caterpillar from 

 the crevices in the bark of a tree as well as a pair of tweezers, 

 or snap up flies when the bird is on the wing. The powerful 

 beak of the parrots, of which not only the lower but also the upper 

 mandible is movable, helps the bird not merely to climb, but also 

 to crack the hardest nutshells, and a rasp-like roughening of the 

 beak prevents the shell from slipping between the mandibles. In the 

 Macaws or Araras the root of the beak is reinforced, so that they 

 are able to crush even the stone-hard shells of various palm-nuts. 



Even the aquatic plants have their devotees. Since the Hippo- 

 potamus is not found in the great Brazilian rivers, its place is taken 

 by a pecuHar creature which seems a cross between a sea-lion and 

 a whale, and which grazes on the aquatic plants with such assiduity 

 that its stomach and intestines are constantly full of them. This 

 great animal has a wide horizontal tail, and two flippers in the 

 place of arms, and since its head, when it thrusts it out of the water, 

 bears a remote resemblance to that of a hornless cow, the BraziHans 

 caU this aquatic animal the "Ox-fish," Peixe boi; English sailors 



N 193 



Fig. 12. — Manatee or Peixe boi. Natural 

 length, ic to 16 feet. 



