70 FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



in the monkeys, in the opossum, and in the 

 parrot. 



Indeed, all round, it may be safely said that the 

 spiders as a group stand at the head of the animals 

 with jointed bodies ; and that the geometrical tribe 

 in particular stand at the head of all the spiders. 

 Nor must we consider that their cruelty and ferocity 

 put them out of court in this connection ; for man 

 himself, taking him in the mass, is one of the most 

 ruthless of animals ; and the bees, which by uni- 

 versal consent rank among the highest insects, are 

 the group which most universally slaughter their 

 own brothers, the drones, as soon as the community 

 has no further use for them. The fact is that 

 Nature as a whole is intensely utilitarian ; each 

 kind fights for its own hand alone, and regards as 

 little the feelings of other kinds as the fisherman 

 regards the feelings of herrings, or as the fish- 

 monger minds the objection of lobsters to be 

 boiled alive for our human convenience. A race 

 that skins living eels at Billingsgate, and decks its 

 hats with egrets in Hyde Park, has no just ground 

 of complaint, after all, against my poor, misguided, 

 husband-eating Rosalind. 



