SOME THINGS WE MIGHT LEARN FROM THE LOWER 



ANIMALS. • 



Man has been instructed in many 

 things^ by lower animals, but there is yet 

 much to be 1 learned. It is said that the 

 first suspension bridge across the Ni- 

 agara was constructed after the plainest 

 sort of hint from a spider. Yet we have 

 never found the name of Mr. Spider cut 

 upon the buttresses of a bridge. Who 

 knows but that the builders of the pyra- 

 mids of ancient Egypt copied their engi- 

 neering plans from the ants who for gen- 

 erations had pursued similar methods in 

 the architecture of their cities? Spiders 

 had been ballooning for many centuries 

 before man swung his first parachute to 

 the breeze. In fact, there is a species of 

 spider, which, although they have no 

 wings, are able to spin for themselves a 

 sort of apparatus by means of which they 

 navigate the air ; yet man, with all his 

 boasted intelligence, has not accom- 

 plished this, even with the most compli- 

 cated machinery. So I might go on to 

 suggest many mechanical and economic 

 contrivances used by lower animals, some 

 of which man has copied but many of 

 which he has as yet been unable to equal. 



Before the first potter of old had fash- 

 ioned a vase or a jug the Eumenes fra- 

 terna had constructed his dainty little 

 jugs of mud. But the making of jugs is 

 not the only art man might learn from 

 this little wasp. Upon examination we 

 find the jug filled with small green cater- 

 pillars. After depositing her egg Mrs. 

 Wasp thus provides for her baby when it 

 shall appear upon the field of action. Now 

 the peculiar part of this proceeding to 

 which I wish to call attention is that the 

 worm is not dead, but is merely in a com- 

 atose state. If it had been killed it would 

 have putrified and entirely disappeared 

 before the young wasp was hatched. 

 Furthermore, the young wasp is fond of 

 fresh caterpillar steak, preferably from 

 the living animal. So Mrs. Wasp must 

 have a method of preserving the fresh liv- 



ing victim for her rapacious progeny next 

 spring, while he is too young to hunt for 

 himself, and while the caterpillars are still 

 securely hiding in their mummy cases, 

 Mrs. Wasp finds the venturesome young 

 caterpillar crawling somewhere, and 

 pouncing upon him, carefully inserts her 

 sting into the nerve ganglia that are lo- 

 cated in a line along his dorsal surface. 

 We don't know how she learned the ex- 

 act location of the ganglia and that a few 

 well-directed stabs will produce more ef- 

 fect than hundreds of misdirected thrusts 

 in other parts of the body, but it is cer- 

 tainly true that she selects the very seg- 

 ments in which the ganglia are located to 

 inflict the wound. And she had the loca- 

 tion of these nerve centers for a long time 

 before biologists made the discovery. 

 What a fine thing it would be for the 

 biologist if he could learn the secret of 

 thus preserving living animals instead of 

 the stiff, discolored and uninteresting al- 

 coholic specimens. Then think of the 

 economic value of such a discovery. Ani- 

 mals could be fattened in summer at 

 much smaller expense and then injected 

 and set away until needed. We would 

 have no more difficulty in providing our 

 armies with beef on the hoof, and fresh 

 meat could be shipped at much less ex- 

 pense over long distances, as no ice 

 would be necessary. We would have no 

 more complaint of embalmed beef and 

 putrid canned goods. 



The common mud wasp that builds in 

 old garrets fills his nest with a species of 

 spider much relished by the young wasp 

 and exhibits much judgment in supplying 

 exactly the right number to provide for 

 the growing wasp until he is able to sally 

 forth and seize prey for himself. These 

 spiders — often seventeen or eighteen of 

 them — are stupefied in the same manner 

 as in the case of the potter wasp, and are 

 living when the young wasp begins his 

 repast. This habit is peculiar to many 



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