KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



95 



the little leaves slowly and very carefully begin to 

 turn upon their stems. At the end of a few hours 

 every leaf will have brought round its polished 

 surface to the light, and be holding its open 

 mouths again over the ground for drink. 



Is the plant stupid ? It knows what it wants 

 and likes, and if that be within reach will get it. 

 Put the rose-tree into soil with dry bad earth on 

 its right hand, and rich soil upon his left. _ You 

 will not find it suffering its roots to be long in the 

 dark about the trick that has been played them. 

 They start out of course as usual, and as the 

 mail-coaches used to do, in all directions; but 

 those that begin their journey through poor dust, 

 receive in a mysterious way some information of 

 the better land that is to be found by travel in a 

 contrary direction. Accordingly they all turn 

 back to follow their companions who have gone 

 into the richer pasturage. Propose to put those 

 roots into jail, by digging a trench round the tree, 

 or sinking a stone wall into the earth around it. 

 The rootlets dive into the ground until they have 

 reached the bottom of the obstacle, then pass it, 

 and run up again until they find the level that 

 best pleases them. 



Who will now undertake to say that a plant is 

 not sensible ? Go into the fields, and yon will 

 tread upon a multitude of flowers that know better 

 than you do which way the wind blows, what 

 o'clock it is, and what is to be thought about the 

 weather. The calendula arvensis opens in fine 

 weather, and shuts up when rain is coming. The 

 sonchus sibiricus shuts at the end of each day's 

 business, but only remains tranquilly asleep when 

 she has no doubts at all about the morrow, when 

 she knows it will be fine. Let a^ traveller seek 

 shelter from the sun under an acacia with thorns 

 white as ivory, called by Linnaeus the mimosa 

 eburnia. The dark shade on the sand, perhaps, 

 becomes suddenly dotted with light ; he looks up, 

 and observes thai his parasolis shutting itself up ; 

 that every leaf is putting itself to bed. If he 

 will look closely he may observe, too, that the 

 leaves sleep by the dozen in a bed, nestling to- 

 gether in small heaps. The traveller has nothing 

 to complain about ; he does not need the shade ; 

 there is a cloud over the sun. 



The tree thinks — one is almost obliged to say, 

 the tree thinks — that perhaps it will come on to 

 rain. There is no reason why its whole roots 

 should not be watered in the arid soil, and there 

 is no reason why its leaves, delicately set on 

 slender stems, should be beaten from their hold- 

 ings. The leaves, therefore, are shut up and 

 drawn together in small bundles, that they may 

 find in union the strength which in isolation they 

 do not possess. While, at the same time, room is 

 left for the rain to pass between them to water the 

 roots. 



There is not an hour of the day that is not the 

 beloved hour of some blossom, which to it alone 

 opens her heart. Linnaeus conceived the pleasant 

 notion of a flower clock. Instead of a rude metal 

 bell to thump the hour, there is a little flower bell 

 ready to break out at three o'clock ; a flower star 

 that will shine forth at four ; and a cup, perhaps, 

 will appear at five o'clock, to remind old-fashioned 

 folk that it is tea-time. Claude Lorraine, although 

 he did not make a clock of four-and-twenty flowers 

 in his garden, was a landscape-painter most 



familiar with nature ; and when he was abroad 

 he could at any time know what o'clock it was 

 by asking the time of the flowers of the field. It 

 would have been of no use for him to ask a cat. 

 The peasants of Auvergne and Languedoc all have 

 at their doors beautiful barometers, in which there 

 is no glass, quicksilver, or joiner's work. They 

 were furnished by the flowers. 



Now, put a spider into any lady's hand. She 

 is aghast. She shrieks. The nasty ugly thing ! 

 Madam, the spider is perhaps shocked at your 

 Brussels laces ; and, although you may be the 

 most exquisite miniature-painter living, the spider 

 has a right to laugh at your coarse daubs as she 

 runs over them. Just show her your crochet 

 work when you shriek at her. " Have you spent 

 half your days," the spider, if she be spiteful, may 

 remark, — " have you spent half your days upon 

 the clumsy anti-macassars and these ottoman 

 covers ? My dear lady, is that your web ? If I 

 were big enough, I might with reason drop you 

 and cry out at you. Let me spend a day with 

 you and bring my work. I have four little bags 

 of thread, such little bags ! In every bag there 

 are more than a thousand holes, such tiny, tiny 

 boles ! Out of each hole thread runs, and all the 

 threads — more than four thousand threads — I spin 

 together as they run, and when they are all spun, 

 they make but one thread of the web I weave. I 

 have a member of my family who is herself no 

 bigger than a grain of sand. Imagine what a 

 slender web she makes, and of that too, each 

 thread is made of four or five thousand threads 

 that have passed out of her four bags through four 

 or five thousand little holes. W T ould you drop 

 her too, crying out about your delicacy? A 

 pretty thing indeed, for you to plume yourselves 

 on delicacy and scream at us!" Having made 

 such a speech, we may suppose that the indignant 

 creature fastens a rope round one of the rough 

 points in the lady's hand and lets herself down 

 lightly to the floor. Coming down stairs is noisy, 

 clumsy work, compared with such a way of loco- 

 motion. 



The creeping things we scorn, are miracles of 

 beauty. They are more delicate than any ormolu 

 clock or any lady's watch made, for pleasure's 

 sake, no bigger than a shilling. Lyonnet counted 

 four thousand and forty-one muscles in a single 

 caterpillar ; and these are a small part only of its 

 works. Hooke found fourteen thousand mirrors 

 in the eye of a bluebottle ; and there are thirteen 

 thousand three hundred separate bits, that go to 

 provide for nothing but the act of breathing, in a 

 carp. 



Then there are wonders of locomotion in the 

 world greater than any steam-engine can furnish. 

 When the hart seeks the water-brooks, how many 

 things are set in action ! Eyes to see where the 

 water is, muscles to move the feet, nerves to 6tir 

 the muscles, and a will— no man knows how — to 

 stir the nerves. There are swift creatures who 

 depend for self protection on their legs, as hares 

 and horses. Others less quick of movement 

 commonly have weapons, as the bull or the 

 rhinoceros. Birds living in marshes have long 

 legs, as Frenchmen living in marshes, in the 

 department of the Landes, make for themselves 

 long legs by using stilts. Marsh birds have stilts 

 born with them. The legs of animals are pro- 



