312 LITTLE FOLKS 
HOW THEY ALL GET ON. 
How do all these creatures get on ? Why, on their feet, did 
you say ? Well, to be sure some of them do. There's your cat ! 
She goes on her feet, and has twice as many as you, besides. 
But how about the fishes ? They have no feet, but you needn't 
pity them ; they can get on ever so much faster than you can. 
Then there's the snake family ! They have no feet to walk, 
and no fins to swim. They don't lie still, though; they walk on 
their ribs. That's funny, but true for all that. 
And there's the grasshopper ! He neither walks, nor swims, 
nor crawls, but he's a prince of hoppers. 
I can't tell you how many ways there are in which living crea- 
tures get about in the world. 
I've already toid you about the kangaroo, and her fearful leaps. 
But the kangaroo isn't the only creature that jumps. There are 
our little friends in green, the grasshoppers and frogs, and our little 
enemy in black, the flea, who is the best jumper in the world. And 
then there's the jerboa, a droll little fellow about the size of a rat, 
who lives in Africa. He jumps like a kangaroo, with his hind legs 
and tail. 
Perhaps you'd hardly like to put your canary-bird among these 
hoppers ; but if you let him out of his cage on the floor, you'll see 
he doesn't walk or run, as many birds do, but hops along with both 
feet at a time. Little short hops they are, and very cunning to see, 
but still hops. 
I said snakes walk with their ribs, and so they do ; but there are 
the soft little worms you turn up when you dig in your garden, and 
who are in such a desperate hurry to get back, that they slip into 
the ground before your very eyes. They have no ribs, yet they get 
on, — fast enough, too, so you can hardly catch them, if you want 
to. The way they do so is very curious, and we should never have 
known anything about it but for fhe microscope. First, they stick 
their sharp nose into the soft ground as far they can, and then 
draw up the rest of the body as close as possible. All down the 
i 
