104 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



discerned in every organism we usually hear no 

 sound. Matter and energy are continually passing 

 in and passing out a turmoil of molecules, yet all 

 to us seems quietness ! There are combustions and 

 explosions, solutions and hydrations, reductions 

 and fermentations; the living body, Sir Michael 

 Foster used to say, is " a vortex of chemical and 

 molecular change " ; and yet our ears hear nothing 

 of the bustle. In all these growing creatures round 

 about us in the woods and meadows there is in every 

 dividing cell an extraordinary manceuvering and 

 meticulous splitting of muclear rods, yet all is 

 quieter than a dumb-show. Walt Whitman has 

 spoken, we think, of the bustle of growing wheat, 

 but the striking feature about vital processes is their 

 silence. How quietly are the houses broken down 

 and built up again in the streets of the living body; 

 how silently, like ghosts, do the molecules of these 

 colloid crowds rush past one another! Lucky, 

 indeed, this is for us; in the midst of the crowded 

 life of the country we enjoy quietness, and one 

 panting locomotive in the distance makes more 

 to-do than all the millions of animals and plants, 

 except in the season of the singing of birds (some 

 golfers complain of the larks on the links putting 

 them off their game), and on such unusual, rather 

 artificial, occasions as the separation of the lambs 

 from their mothers. Then the whole night is full 

 of clamor. 



In temperate countries, where violent changes 

 are rare, most of the sounds of the inorganic world 



