Part 11 (1/2)

Bees have so much sense that we ought almost to beg their pardon when we speak of their instinct. Most of us have read what Huber and others have told us of their plans, inventions, laws, and regular habits. It is astonis.h.i.+ng to read of a bee-supervisor, going the round of the cells where the larvae are lying, to see if each of them has enough food. He never stops until he has finished his review, and then he makes another circuit, depositing in each cell just enough food--a little in this one, a great deal in the next, and so on.

There were once some bees who were very much disturbed by a number of great moths who made a practice of coming into their hives and stealing their honey. Do what they could, the bees could not drive these strong creatures out.

But they soon hit upon a plan to save their honey. They blocked up all the doors of the hive with wax, leaving only a little hole, just big enough for one bee to enter at a time. Then the moths were completely dumbfounded, and gave up the honey business in despair.

But the insect to which the epithet of cunning may be best ascribed, is, I think, the flea. If you doubt this, try to catch one. What double backsprings he will turn, what fancy dodges he will execute, and how, at last, you will have to give up the game and acknowledge yourself beaten by this little gymnast!

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But fleas have been taught to perform their tricks of strength and activity in an orderly and highly proper manner. They have been trained to go through military exercises, carrying little sticks for guns; to work and pull about small cannon, although the accounts say nothing about their firing them off; and, what seems the most wonderful of all, two fleas have been harnessed to a little coach while another one sat on the box and drove! The whole of this wonderful exhibition was so small that a microscope had to be used in order to properly observe it.

The last instance of the intelligence of insects which I will give is something almost too wonderful to believe, and yet the statement is made by a Dr. Lincec.u.m, who studied the habits of the insect in question for twelve years, and his investigations were published in the _Journal of the Linnaean Society_. Dr. Lincec.u.m says, that in Texas there is an ant called by him the Agricultural Ant, which not only lays up stores of grain, but prepares the soil for the crop; plants the seed (of a certain plant called ant-rice); keeps the ground free from weeds; and finally reaps the harvest, and separating the chaff from the grain, packs away the latter, and throws the chaff outside of the plantation. In ”Wood's Bible Animals” you can read a full account of this ant, and I think that after hearing of its exploits, we can believe almost anything that we hear about the intelligence of insects.

A FIRST SIGHT OF THE SEA.

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If you have ever seen the ocean, you will understand what a grand thing it is to look for the first time upon its mighty waters, stretching away into the distance, and losing themselves in the clouds and sky. We know it is thousands of miles over to the other sh.o.r.e, but for all that we have a pretty good idea of that sh.o.r.e. We know its name, and have read about the people who live there.

But when, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Vasco Nunez de Balboa stood upon the sh.o.r.e of the Pacific, and gazed over its boundless waters, the sight to him was both grand and mysterious. He saw that a vast sea lay beneath and before him--but that was all he knew. Europeans had not visited it before, and the Indians, who had acted as his guides, knew but little about it. If he had desired to sail across those vast blue waters, Balboa would have had no idea upon what sh.o.r.es he would land or what wonderful countries and continents he would discover.

Now-a-days, any school-boy could tell that proud, brave soldier, what lay beyond those billows. Supposing little Johnny Green (we all know him, don't we?) had been there, how quickly he would have settled matters for the Spanish chieftain.

”Ah, Mr. Balboa,” Johnny would have said, ”you want to know what lies off in that direction--straight across? Well, I can tell you, sir. If you are standing, as I think you are, on a point of the Isthmus of Darien, where you can look directly westward, you may cast your eyes, as far as they will go, over a body of water, which, at this point, is about eleven thousand miles wide. No wonder you jump, sir, but such is the fact. If you were to sail directly west upon this ocean you would have a very long pa.s.sage before you came upon any land at all, and the first place which you would reach, if you kept straight on your westward course, would be the Mulgrave Islands. But you would have pa.s.sed about seven or eight hundred miles to the southward of the Sandwich Islands, which are a very important group, where there is an enormous volcano, and where Captain Cook will be killed in about two hundred and fifty years. If you then keep on, you will pa.s.s among the Caroline Islands, which your countrymen will claim some day; and if you are not eaten up by the natives, who will no doubt coax you to land on some of their islands and will then have you for supper, you will at last reach the Philippine Islands, and will probably land, for a time, at Mindanao, to get water and things. Then, if you still keep on, you will pa.s.s to the north of a big island, which is Borneo, and will sail right up to the first land to the west, which will be part of a continent; or else you will go down around a peninsula, which lies directly in your course, and sail upon the other side of it, into a great gulf, and land anywhere you please. Do you know where you will be then, Mr. Balboa? Don't, eh? Well, sir, you would be just where Columbus hoped he would be, when he reached the end of his great voyage across the Atlantic--in the Indies! Yes, sir, all among the gold, and ivory, and spices, and elephants and other things!

”If you can get any s.h.i.+ps here and will start off and steer carefully among the islands, you won't find anything in your way until you get there. But, it was different with Columbus, you see, sir. He had a whole continent blocking up his road to the Indies; but, for my part, I'm very glad, for various reasons, that it happened so.”

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It is probable that if Johnny Green could have delivered this little speech, that Vasco Nunez de Balboa would have been one of the most astonished men in the world!

Whether he and his fellow-adventurers would ever have set out to sail over those blue waters, in search of the treasures of the East, is more than I can say, but it is certain that if he had started off on such an expedition, he would have found things pretty much as Johnny Green had told him.

THE LARGEST CHURCH IN THE WORLD.

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This is St. Peter's at Rome. Is it possible to look upon such a magnificent edifice without acknowledging it as the grandest of all churches? There are some others in the world more beautiful, and some more architecturally perfect; but there is none so vast, so impressive, so grand!

This great building was commenced in 1506, but it was a century and a half before it was finished. Among other great architects, Michael Angelo a.s.sisted in its construction. The building is estimated to have cost, simply for its erection, about fifty millions of dollars, and it has cost a great deal in addition in later years.

Its dimensions are enormous. You cannot understand what a great building it is unless you could see it side by side with some house or church with which you are familiar. Several of the largest churches in this country could be stood up inside of St. Peter's without touching walls or roof, or crowding each other in the least.

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