December 



manity, and increasingly barbarous and crimi- 

 nal, in proportion as intelligence and refine- 

 ment increase, that mankind, for the pleasure 

 of cruel sport in the one sex, and for the grati- 

 fication of vanity by personal adornment in the 

 other sex, should be conspicuous among the 

 destroyers of one of the most useful, as well as 

 most beautiful, of the creations of nature. 



^ 



What a storehouse Nature is for ideas in the 

 useful and fine arts ! Man's inventions and ar- 

 tistic products are largely only ingenious copy- 

 ings — legitimate plagiarisms. It is said that 

 the invention of the sewing-machine was long 

 delayed, because it did not occur to the inven- 

 tor to put the eye of the needle next to the 

 point. If he had gone to the woods in June 

 and watched the birds carrying in the points of 

 their bill-needles the threads of hair, roots, and 

 twigs in and out in circumferential interlacings, 

 weaving a structure that human skill cannot 

 approach unto, the problem would have been 

 solved easier and earlier. 



A most important appliance in mechanics, 

 and a great discovery in its day, is the knee- 



325 



