THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 523 
ing to all the rules of architecture; * still others know how to 
steal all the secrets of the makers of paper, of pasteboard,+ of 
cloth or lace, { and their products have generally nothing to fear 
in comparison with the point lace of Malines or Brussels. Who 
has not admired the ingenious and cunning construction of the 
nests of bees and of ants, the delicate and marvellous structure 
of the webs of the spider? 
The perfection of the tissues of some of these fabrics is even 
so highly appreciated that when, for his telescope, the astronomer 
wants a fine and delicate thread, it is not to Paris or London 
he sends, but to a living manufacturer, to a lowly spider! When 
the naturalist needs to compare the degree of perfection of his 
microscope, or of a micrometric measure for infinitely small beings, 
he consults, what? a millimetre cut and divided into a hundred or 
a thousand parts? No! simply a shell of a diatom,§ so small 
and indistinct that it has to be magnified several million times in 
order to be visible to the naked eye, and the best microscopes do 
not yet always reveal all the delicacy of designs which adorn 
these wonderful organisms; it is with difficulty that the instru- 
ments of the first masters suffice to observe the infinitesimal fan- 
tasies which decorate these liliputian shells. 
Finally to whom do the manufacturers of Verviers or of Lyons, 
of Gand or of Manchester go for their first designs? To an ani- 
mal, a flower ; and even to the present day we have been unwilling 
to imitate their example. These workshops are in operation every 
day under our eyes, their gates are largely open to all the world, 
Rice ee 
Mollusc: Sea, as the Pholades and Teredo, which make a ae ar in wood, 
Whether stati tionary, or peste about. There are in like ma pa mammals; 
the Chinchilla of Pern tl Cc f Good Ho 
< marmot, the e Sphermophilus and the badger, as also the small mammal known to 
every one, the 
we © tho i l boats which the waves never submerge 
2 a z fresh water the shicklobacks; and pi his ert VOT AES L. Agassiz has eee 
weed. 
a fish 
diver Says the illustrions naturalist of Camb ies s been that of a nest uit 
sip and floating on the broad ocean, with its Toigh living in the middle o 
n bees and white ants, which build houses thirty feet ma wasps, € 
ic terent species of wasps, especially Chartergus chartarius of South “America, 
s tepida, Vespa rulg $ 
ł Several spiders, Epeira diadema, A ecta aquatica and especially Tinea 
aon the cocoon of which sea as the admiration of a ie The Argyronecta con- 
ad's even a diving bell. ong the sponges, Euplectella aspergillum, Hyalonema 
$ tenia itiwe Ne re palaces of lace. 
sigma angulatum; Amphipleura pellucida, etc., etc. 
