December 
manity, and increasingly barbarous and crimi- 
nal, in proportion as intelligence and refine- 
ment increase, that mankind, for the pleasure 
of cruel sport in the one sex, and for the grati- 
fication of vanity by personal adornment in the 
other sex, should be conspicuous among the 
destroyers of one of the most useful, as well as 
most beautiful, of the creations of nature. 
9 
What a storehouse Nature is for ideas in the 
useful and fine arts! Man’s inventions and ar- 
tistic products are largely only ingenious copy- 
ings—legitimate plagiarisms. It is said that 
the invention of the sewing-machine was long 
delayed, because it did not occur to the inven- 
tor to put the eye of the needle next to the 
point. If he had gone to the woods in June 
and watched the birds carrying in the points of 
their bill-needles the threads of hair, roots, and 
twigs in and out in circumferential interlacings, 
weaving a structure that human skill cannot 
approach unto, the problem would have been 
solved easier and earlier. 
A most important appliance in mechanics, 
and a great discovery in its day, is the knee- 
325 
