NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



and fro all day long, and day after day, at work in sur- 

 roundings that would befoul the most careful human 

 worker — yet do not show the least trace of their occu- 

 pation. 



Of course there is much in temperament and training. 

 There are women who remind us of insects in their 

 faculty of moving immarred amid the current defile- 

 ments of daily duty. They will pass to the parlor from 

 kitchen, nursery, or sewing-room with no adjustment of 

 toilet but a discarded apron or turned-down sleeves, yet 

 quite sweet and presentable. But there are women, 

 high and low, and men innumerable, of a different pat- 

 tern. With insects, however, the type of dainty tidiness 

 is the absolute rule. There are no exceptions; no de- 

 generates of uncleanness, as with men. Temperament 

 is wholly and always on the side of cleanliness; and 

 training is not a factor therein, for it is inborn, and as 

 strong in adolescents as in veterans. How has nature 

 secured this admirable result? 



If the reader were told that ants possess brushes, fine 

 and coarse tooth combs, and other toilet articles quite 

 after the pattern of our own, he would probably think 

 he was being gulled. Yet it is even so. Let us take an 

 inventory of these. To begin with, the body is covered 

 more or less closely with fine pubescence, corresponding 

 somewhat with the fur of beasts. This is interspersed 

 with bristles and spines, which are sometimes jointed, 

 and are so arranged as to aid materially in keeping the 

 body clean. Particles of soil cling to this hairy covering, 

 but it is a protective medium, holding the dirt aloof and 

 isolated from the skin surfaces, so that it can be readily 

 ahaken off or taken off. The brushing, washing, and 



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