Earthenware.
The advent of real civilisation seems to depend largely upon the construction, not of weapons, but utensils, and the most useful of these are intended either for the preparation or the preservation of food. That such vessels should be made of earth is evident enough, and it is worthy of remark that the rude earthenware pot of the naked savage and the delicate china of Sèvres should both be products of the earth, and yet be examples of the opposite ends of civilisation.
The most primitive earthenware vessels were simply baked in the rays of the sun, the use of fire for hardening them being of later date. Rude and simple as they are, some of these vessels possess tolerable strength, and can answer every purpose for which they are intended. I possess several pots made by the aborigines of the Essequibo district. They are very thick and heavy in proportion to their dimensions, and are still so fragile that I have been obliged to bind them with string whenever they are moved.
Simple as they are, however, they are pleasing to the eye, chiefly, I presume, because they are made for a definite office, and fulfil it, and have no pretence about them. Then, as they are moulded by hand alone, without any assistance from machinery of any kind, even a wheel, the individuality of the maker is stamped upon them, and no two are exactly alike either in form, colour, or ornament. A couple of these rude vases are to be seen on the right hand of the accompanying illustration.
On the left hand of the same illustration are shown two examples of earthenware vessels made by birds, which are nearly, if not quite, as good as those made by the hands of civilised man.
The upper figure represents the nest of the Pied Grallina (Grallina Australis), a bird which, as its specific name implies, is a native of Australia.
This nest is formed chiefly of clay, but a quantity of dried grass is always mixed with it, and serves to bind it together. If one of these nests be broken up, and compared with the bricks of which ancient Babylon was built, it will be found that they are almost identical in material, and that both are merely baked in the sun. In form it so closely resembles an Essequibo jar in my possession, that if it were removed from the branch, and similarly coloured, it would not be easy to distinguish the one from the other.
Below this is the nest of the Oven-bird of South America (Furnarius fuliginosus), a bird allied to our common creeper. The drawing was taken from a specimen in the British Museum.
Like the nest of the Grallina, it is placed upon some horizontal bough, and fixed so firmly that it cannot fall except by being broken to pieces. Not being afraid of man, the Oven-bird often chooses a beam in some outhouse for a resting-place, and has been known to build even on the top of palings. As may be seen by reference to the illustration, the nest is a very conspicuous one, and concealment is almost impossible.
As in the Grallina nest, the material is remarkably hard and firm, as indeed is necessary, to allow it to withstand the effects of the rain-torrents which fall during the wet seasons of the year.
There is a curious analogy in this nest with many articles of earthenware. Not only among ourselves, but among uncivilised races, earthenware vessels are constructed with partitions, so as to divide one portion from another. If one of these nests be cut open, it will be found to have a sort of partition wall across the interior, rising nearly to the top of the dome, and so dividing it into two parts. The wall also answers another purpose—i.e. that of strengthening the entire structure. Within the inner chamber is the real nest, which is lined with a thick layer of feathers, the outer chamber being bare, and, as it is thought, being occupied by the male.
We now come to pottery of a more elaborate shape. Both in the Grallina nest and the earthen pot of the Essequibo Indian we have a vessel with a mouth nearly as wide as its greatest diameter, and with a lip which is very slightly turned over. There are, however, many varieties of pottery in which the neck is narrow and long, and the lip is boldly formed. Some examples of this form are given on the right hand of the accompanying illustration.
On the left hand are shown some nests of a solitary wasp belonging to the genus Eumenes. It is a British insect, but seems to have been little noticed, except by professed entomologists.
It especially haunts heather, and affixes to the stems of the plant its little globular nests, which are made of mud, and shaped as seen in the illustration. Perhaps some of my readers may have seen the “Napier Coffee Machine,” which draws the coffee into a glass globe furnished with a short neck. The globe is shaped exactly like the nest of our Eumenes, and, when I first saw one, I could not remember why its shape was so familiar to me.
As is the case with the birds’ nests which have been mentioned, the mud of which the walls are built is of a most tenacious character, and, when dried in the sun, can resist the heaviest rain. The cells are intended as rearing-places for the young, only a single egg being placed in each cell, which is then stocked with small caterpillars by way of food.
There is a South American insect also belonging to the solitary wasps, and remarkable for building a round nest exactly similar in material, and nearly identical in shape, with that of the Eumenes. Its scientific title is Trypoxylon aurifrons. The nest of this insect has a much wider mouth than that of the Eumenes, and exactly resembles the upper left-hand jar in the illustration.
Another South American solitary wasp, belonging to the genus Pelopœus, makes nests of similar material, but nearly cylindrical in shape instead of globular. The nest is built up of successive rings of moistened and well-kneaded clay, exactly as human houses are built by bricklayers. Indeed, the process of making a Pelopœus’ nest has been happily compared to that of building a circular chimney.
I may as well mention here that the name Pelopœus is formed from a Greek word signifying mud, and that the entire word may be translated as “mud-worker.”
As a proof that these insects possess reason as well as instinct, Mr. Gosse mentions that one of them, instead of making her nest for herself, utilised an empty bottle, and, after storing it with spiders, stopped up the mouth with clay. Finding, after an absence of a few days, that the nest had been disturbed, she removed the spiders, inserted a fresh supply, and then closed the mouth as before.