chap, i The Wealth of Life 15 



family of insects is credited with including as many different 

 species as there are stars to count on a clear night. But far 

 better than any literary attempt to estimate the numerical 

 wealth of life is some practical observation, some attempted 

 enumeration of the inmates of your aquarium, of the tenants 

 of some pool, or of the visitors to some meadow. The 

 naturalist as well as the poet spoke when Goethe celebrated 

 Nature's- wealth : " In floods of life, in a storm of activity, 

 she moves and works above and beneath, working and 

 weaving, an endless motion, birth and death, an infinite 

 ocean, a changeful web, a glowing life ; she plies at the 

 roaring loom of time and weaves a living garment for God." 



S. Wealth of Beauty. — To many, however, animal life 

 is impressive not so much because of its amazing variety 

 and numerical greatness, nor because of its intellectual 

 suggestiveness and practical utility, but chiefly on account 

 of its beauty. This is to be seen and felt rather than 

 described or talked about. 



The beauty of animals, in which we all delight, is usually 

 in form, or in colour, or in movement. Especially in the 

 simplest animals, the beauty of form is often comparable to 

 that of crystals ; witness the marvellous architecture in flint 

 and lime exhibited by the marine Protozoa, whose empty 

 shells form the ooze of the great depths. In higher animals 

 also an almost crystalline exactness of symmetry is often 

 apparent, but we find more frequent illustration of graceful 

 curves in form and feature, resulting in part from strenuous 

 and healthful exercise, which moulds the body into beauty. 



Not a little of the colour of animals is due to the 

 physical nature of the skin, which is often iridescent ; 

 much, on the other hand, is due to the possession of pig- 

 ments, which may either be of the nature of reserve-products, 

 and then equivalent, let us say, to jewels, or of the nature of 

 waste-products, and thus a literal "beauty for ashes." It 

 is often supposed that plants excel animals in colour, but 

 alike in the number and variety of pigments the reverse is 

 true. Then as to movement, how much there is to admire ; 

 the birds soaring, hovering, gliding, and diving; the monkey's 

 gymnastics ; the bat's arbitrary evolutions ; the grace of the 



