12 BOMBAY DUCKS 



few living creatures understand. Lizards, crocodiles, 

 paddy birds, and chaprassis are the greatest authorities 

 on the subject. Animals have acquired the knack of 

 making much ado about nothing ; they have learned to 

 be very busy without doing anything. This accom- 

 plishment obviously differs from that of loafing. It is 

 one which animals have brought to perfection, and of 

 which many human beings — chiefly women — are very 

 able exponents. 



There is overhead a wasp busy exploring the holes 

 in the trunk of a tree. Why he does this he probably 

 does not know; he has no time to stop and think. He 

 is quite content to explore away as though his life 

 depended upon it. Five times within the last six 

 minutes he has minutely inspected every portion of the 

 same hole. All this labour is useless in a sense ; with- 

 out it, however, the wasp would in all probability die of 

 ennui. The wasp is not an isolated case. 



Most animals are experts at frittering away time ; 

 they spend much of their lives in actively doing nothing. 

 Watch a canary in a cage. He hops backwards and 

 forwards, between two perches, as though he was paid 

 by the distance for doing so. 



Look at a butterfly. It leads an aimless existence, 

 nevertheless it is always busy. A bee probably visits 

 twenty times as many flowers in the day as a butterfly ; 

 for all that the butterfly is always on the move. 



When speaking of the swift in my volume, " Animals 

 of no Importance," I noticed how long that bird took 

 to find the materials for its nest, how it went afar to 

 seek that which was at hand. This, although the result 



