ANIMAL TRADES AND PROFESSIONS.
DID you ever read about the different kinds of
trades the many outside dwellers are plying?
They get about their work by daybreak, when most of the children are sleeping sweetly and soundly on their snowy pillows. Wilson Flagg, in his book of birds, speaks of them as musicians. He calls the robin the clarinet player, the blue-bird the flageolet, the hair-bird the octave flute, and the golden-robin the bugle. He says the serious part of the music begins very early--as if the musicians began the morning with "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." At sunrise the bobolink begins
his comic melody. He is the merriest of the
birds, and there is never a plaintive strain in his music. He is a very jolly sort of a musician.
Wilson Flagg also tells us if a discordant sound
occurs in the musical performance, it disturbs the equanimity of the singers, and they all suddenly stop, and some minutes elapse before they start again. You might listen to their morning concerts, and find out for yourselves about this statement he has made.
The birds are the musical characters. What
are the wasps? They are paper-makers. They
make paper out of the materials the paper mills could not use at all. Their nests are made of paper. If you examine one you will see how they are made; but look out for the wasp inside. The caterpillar is a silk-spinner. The mole is an engineer; he can form a tunnel quite as well as if he had taken an engineering course in one of our colleges. The bee, we are told, is a professor of geometry. He constructs his cells scientifically;all the great mathematicians in the world could not make them as the bee does. The nautilus is a navigator, hoisting and taking in his sails as he floats along the water, and casting anchor at pleasure.
The kingfisher and heron are fishermen.
When you go to the ocean beach, watch them, and see how skillfully they fish. They don't often go away without any fish, as I have many times seen the boys and girls do, with disappointed faces.
One secret of success may be that they keep very still, and do not chatter to each other.
The beetle is a grave digger. He goes about his work very solemnly, and it would be well worth while for you to watch him at his work.
In the evening the lamp lighters come out, and
light up the woods and gardens. They are the
fire-flies and glow-worms. The beavers are carpenters and masons. We might keep on enumerating the different trades of these busy little workers, but every boy and girl who has an opportunity of watching the busy life in the outside world of nature will be surprised to find how much there is of importance going on, how much these little creatures God has made, are capable of doing.
Evangelist.
