76 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
is one of rapine and bloodshed. The Phasma is a vegeta- 
rian, his meek extended arms are emblems of submission, 
and he seeks safety by instinct in the practice of dis- 
similation. Each is happy, I doubt not, in his own way, 
widely different as those ways are. 
I know that the word “happy” in this sense will be 
objected to by a certain school of men of science. Professor 
Huxley, for example, says it is quite an open question 
whether a crayfish possesses consciousness or not, and 
that nothing short of being a crayfish would give us 
positive assurance on the point. The more thorough- 
going Brahmin maintains that the crayfish itself is maya , 
an illusion, existing only in the mind of the professor 
who thinks he is dissecting it. I cannot upset either 
argument, as I cannot upset a billiard ball, and perhaps 
for the same reason, viz., that it stands on no base ; so 
I let them roll on, and for myself elect to believe that 
all the living things I see about me, each in its own 
measure and according to its own capacity, are happy, 
enjoying their powers in the exercise of them and their 
wants in the satisfying of them, filling each its own niche 
in the great temple and desiring nothing beyond, like 
Hamlet bounded in a nutshell and counting himself a king 
