26 WILD TRAITS IN TA^IE ANIMALS. 



Self-contradictory as the statement may appear, 

 what is common and obvious is often much more 

 mysterious and wonderful than what is rare. We 

 are so in the habit of takinsf circumstances in our 

 everyday surroundings for granted, that a very 

 great deal entirely escapes notice which offers 

 most fruitful ground for research. Do we not 

 constantly see, when some great invention or 

 discovery is announced, that the thing has all 

 the time been almost before our eyes, and that 

 it is of the most ridiculously simple character ! 

 Within the last few years many of us learned 

 with astonishment that air contained a new ele- 

 ment in addition to nitrogen and oxygen. Yet 

 for generations hundreds of able chemists have 

 not only been breathing air but have been con- 

 tinually working upon it in their laboratories. 

 And furthermore, when the facts and methods 

 which led to the discovery of argon were an- 

 nounced, it seemed astonishing to every student 

 of chemistry that since the time when Cavendish 

 first drew attention to "residual nitrogen" not 

 one of these experimenters has apprehended a 

 truth which was all but naked before their ej^es. 

 Although in the year 1777 Gilbert White drew 

 attention to the remarkable influence of earth- 



