30 Musings by Camp-Fire and Wayside 



I took it in my hand and it lay perfectly motionless. 

 It knew that resistance would be vain. Then I 

 took out a pocket-lens to look at its suit of clothes. 

 There is no use for any one to say, or to try to 

 explain, that that coat of feathers, which looked so 

 much like rotten wood that you could not distin- 

 guish it two feet from your eyes, and which also 

 was a perfect invention for lightness, dryness, and 

 warmth — no use to say that that coat of feathers 

 was not made on purpose, and with wonderful in- 

 genuity and skill. What the young bird needed 

 was a coat that should be light, dry, warm, and of 

 the color of the driftwood that floated in and 

 decayed upon the shore. The color was not diffi- 

 cult, but the texture was a triumph, of inventive 

 genius. A tiny feather-stem was made to grow 

 straight out from the broodling's skin. At the 

 height of a sixteenth of an inch it threw out a top 

 of branches like the top of a little pine. These 

 were closely woven and intertwined with the tops 

 of other feather-stems, making a surface impervious 

 to air or water, enclosing between it and the skin a 

 stratum of air, the best non-conductor of heat (or 

 cold) in existence. Who invented and made this 

 admirable robe for the little chick-snipe? Did God? 

 I do not think he did. 



Creative work is the most delightful occupation 

 for mind or hands. The child shows it by the 

 avidity with which it seizes upon and tries to employ 

 tools. Every one longs for skill, and for leisure to 



