16 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
and had eaten up what, in consequence of putrefaction, 
would soon, as on a former occasion, have sent forth an 
offensive odour. 
How little do we think of the constant care of God for 
the comfort and happiness of his creatures. He gives even 
the minutest of them their food in due season, and very 
often, in furnishing a table for them, he is, through their 
instrumentality, removing what would not only have led 
to the discomfort, but would have proved injurious to the 
health of his rational creatures. Were the millions of 
animals that are constantly dying allowed to lie till they 
were utterly decomposed, they would pollute the waters and 
spread infection in the air. There are, however, on land, 
beetles that are grave-diggers, and worms that drag into 
their holes in the earth dead animal and vegetable matter. 
If a naturalist wishes to have a well-cleaned skeleton of 
bird or fish, he has only to place it in a pond filled with 
tadpoles; or if he be in Eastern lands, let him expose it 
for a night to a colony of white ants, and every particle of 
flesh or fish will be eaten away, and the beautifully-cleaned 
skeleton alone will remaim. How delightfully refreshing is 
it to walk on the sea-shore, where a person feels as if he 
were drinking in health to both body and mind ;—and yet 
