Various - Birds and all Nature, Vol. IV, No. 2, August 1898

We have a general notion that whatever Nature does is just right. It has become an article of popular faith that the ways of Nature are not to be improved upon. We feel that he who proposes something better than what is offered by the forces of the material world is by far too presumptious. We look upon the man who would improve upon what is natural much as the old farmer did upon the lightning rod man. "No, sir; I'd never put a rod up over my house or barn to keep off the lightnin'. 'Twould be defyin' the Almighty. If he wants to strike me, do you suppose I'm goin' to appear before Him and say I put that up to stop him?"

When the qualities of the soil and conditions of the atmosphere have been propitious for the production of husk fiber, we look at the husk upon the corn or the beard of the wheat head and declare solemnly to our friends that the coming winter will be a severe one. We say that Nature knows what is about to occur and has provided for the protection of the grain. We infer that she has thought it all out beforehand and we can see but a small portion of her plans. It seems never to have occurred to us that grain left to shift for itself through the winter is just as well off and little likely to sustain injury when the husk is thin as when it is thick.

We examine the fur of the Squirrel in the fall and say winter will not be severe because there is not a heavy coat on the specimen examined. We think Nature tells the Squirrel in some mysterious way that there is to be a light winter and that it will not be worth while for him to put much of his summer energy into hair growing, or that he may as well count on frisking through the winter in scant garments because he will not suffer greatly so attired.

We are oblivious of the fact that the fur on the Squirrel depends as to its profusion upon the general health of the subject and the condition of the fluids of his system, and that these are much more influenced by the winter he last experienced and the food he has recently had than by the weather that is to be some months hence.

We frequently speak rapturously of the mimicry of Nature. The Giraffe escapes his enemy by appearing to be a part of a clump of tree trunks, the Butterfly felicitously reposes upon a limb with his gaudy colors folded away and an exterior presented which makes him appear a veritable dead leaf with no tempting juices for the destroying Bird. But the same Providence which gave these marvelous powers of mimicry also gave the other parties the eyes to see and apparent judgment to penetrate the mask and secure the needed meal. And so the ravening Beast sometimes fastens himself upon the Giraffe in spite of the disguise and the Bird finds the Butterfly in his curious garb.

Those who know least about Nature are loudest in their praise of her remarkable adaptations for special ends. Those who know most about her are obliged to confess that while her ways are marvelous indeed and her adaptations strangely effective and various yet she does not provide accurately and certainly for all contingencies.

In fact there is no such thing in Nature as a perfect adaptation. No living thing is perfectly protected from its enemies. No part is accurately adjusted to the part to which it is to be applied. The beak and talons of the Eagle are not perfectly adapted to flesh tearing. The hoof of the Arabian Horse is not perfectly adapted to carrying him over the sands of the the desert, but the very preservation of the horse upon the sands requires that he shall be peculiarly shod to protect his hoof. No animal that Flies attack has a tail capable of whisking them from every part of its body. A Dog's teeth are beautifully adapted to many purposes, but he cannot remove a Tick from his skin. The Cat has particularly keen sight, adjustable to all degrees of light. But when the Ocelot was being photographed for the July number of Birds and All Nature the old Cat that purrs about the studio was not keen enough to see that it was a mounted animal. He came forward in a most belligerent attitude with glaring eyes and distended tail. When the artist gave the stuffed beast a slight motion the affrighted cat sped down the stairway and out of the building with the celerity hitherto entirely unsuspected in him.

There is no eye in Nature that sees perfectly and no ear that hears all that is going on. One animal is superior to others in certain ways, but none is perfect. All wings are not for flight. Some are better than others for sweeping through the air, but perfection is found in none.

In most animals are found organs which are not of use. They frequently resemble organs that are of the highest utility to some other form of life, but for the animal in question they are apparently waste material. When the Horse uses but one toe of each foot there seems to be little reason for his having the rudimentary forms of more. There are claws on the legs of many Dogs that have never been called into action. They are so far from the ground and so weak and immovable that the Dog himself does not know they are there.

In every man there are muscles beneath the scalp for moving the ear. We have no such need for ear motion as have many of the lower animals, but it is the despair of many a school boy to discover how few of the race are able to contract these muscles ever so slightly.

The Lammergeier, or Bearded Vulture, is instinctively instructed to carry marrow bones and Tortoises high into the air and drop them upon stones so as to obtain their contents. Yet he is not beyond making serious mistakes, for one of them is said to have taken the bald head of the great poet Aeschylus for a smooth stone, dropped a Tortoise upon it, and secured in lieu of a luscious meal the lamentable demise of one of the greatest of men.

A true view of Nature leads us to regard whatever we find in an organism not as a perfect instrument to a given end, but as a remnant of what may have been produced by desire on the part of ancestors more or less remote. Indeed, it has well been said that our whole body is but a museum of antiquity of no practical interest, but of great historical importance. What we find in ourselves and elsewhere among living things is not to be regarded as creations perfectly adapted to given ends, for there is no perfect adaptation. Plants and animals are continually striving for it, but conditions change more rapidly than they and the chase is unsuccessful. Perfect adaptation would be stagnation.

A manifest design of Nature is that things may live. But death is the rule and life the exception. Out of a million seeds but one can grow. All may make something of a struggle; a few fortunate individuals thrive. Not the fittest, but usually some among those most fit. The whole range of life from the Bathybius Haeckelii to the tailless Ape exhibits a grand struggle for perfect adaptation with a greater or less failure in store for every individual. The human race is carrying on the same enterprise with the same results. The instant we seem to be fitted for our environment there comes a change of affairs that leaves us confronted with a problem just as interesting and urgent as the old one we flattered ourselves we were able to solve.

THERE is something very remarkable in the almost reasoning powers manifested occasionally by birds in eluding pursuit or in turning attention from their nests and young, but in few is this more noticeable than in the Duck tribes. In Capt. Black's narrative of his Arctic land expedition the following instance of this is given:

"One of his companions, Mr. King, having shot a female Duck, fired again, and, as he thought, disabled its male companion. Accordingly, leaving the dead bird, which he had the mortification of seeing shortly afterward carried off by one of the white-headed Eagles, he waded into the water after the drake, which, far from being fluttered or alarmed, remained motionless, as if waiting to be taken up. Still, as he neared it, it glided easily away through innumerable little nooks and windings. Several times he reached out his hand to seize it, and having at last with great patience managed to coop it up in a corner, from which there appeared to be no escape, he was triumphantly bending down to take it, when, to his utter astonishment, it looked around at him, cried 'Quack!' and then flew away so strongly that he was convinced he had never hit it at all. The bird's object clearly was to draw the gunner away from its companion."