The greater part of these live peaceably on the fruit of their labour, and carry on a trade by which they gain their livelihood; but by the side of these honest workers we find also some miserable wretches who cannot do without the assistance of their neighbours, and who establish themselves, some as parasites in their organs, others as uninvited guests, by the side of the booty which they have gained.
Some years ago, one of our learned and ingenious colleagues at the University of Utrecht, Professor Harting, wrote a charming book on the industry of animals, and demonstrated that almost every trade is known in the animal kingdom. We find among them miners, masons, carpenters, paper manufacturers, weavers, and we may even say lace-makers, all of whom work first for themselves, and afterwards for their progeny. Some dig the earth, construct and support vaults, clear away useless earth, and consolidate their works, like miners; others build huts or palaces according to all the rules of architecture; others know intuitively all the secrets of the manufacturers of paper, cardboard, woollen stuffs or lace; and their productions need not fear comparison with
the point-lace of Mechlin or of Brussels. Who has not admired the ingenious construction of the beehive or of the ant-hill, or the delicate and marvellous structure of the spider’s web? The perfection of some of these works is so great and so generally appreciated, that when the astronomer requires for his telescope a slender and delicate thread, he applies to a living shop, to a simple spider. When the naturalist wishes to test the comparative excellence of his microscope, or requires a micrometer for infinitely little objects, he consults, not a millimetre, divided and subdivided into a hundred or a thousand parts, but the simple carapace of a diatom, so small and indistinct that it is necessary to place a hundred of them side by side to render them visible to the naked eye: and still more, the best microscopes do not always reveal all the delicacy of the designs which decorate these Lilliputian frustules. Mons. H. Ph. Adan has lately shown, with an artist’s talent, the infinite beauties which the microscope reveals in this invisible world.
To whom do the manufacturers of Verviers or of Lyons, of Ghent or of Manchester, apply for their raw materials? Either to an animal or a plant; and even up to the present time we have had sufficient modesty not to have sought to imitate either wool or cotton. Yet these animal manufacturers carry on their operations every day under our eyes, the doors wide open to everybody, and none of them is as yet marked with the trite expression, “No admittance.”
“The beau-ideal which we place before us in the arts of spinning and weaving,” said an inhabitant of the South to Michelet, “is the beautiful
hair of a woman: the softest wool, the finest cotton, is very far from realizing it.” The Southerner seemed to forget that this soft wool, as well as this fine cotton, was not the product of our manufacturers any more than the woman’s hair.
Were these animal machines to sustain injury, or even to be idle for a certain time, we should be reduced to have nothing wherewith to cover our shoulders: the fine lady would have neither Cashmere shawl, silk, nor velvet in her wardrobe; we should have neither flannel nor cloth to make our clothes; the herdsman even would not have his goat’s skin to protect him from the inclemency of the season. Thanks to the animal which gives us his flesh and his fleece, we are able to leave the southern regions, to brave the rigour of other climes, and establish ourselves side by side with the reindeer and the narwhal, in the midst of eternal snow.
We have our science and our steam-engines, of which we are justly proud; the animals have only their simple instinct to enable them to fabricate their marvellous tissues, and yet they succeed better than ourselves. The so-called blind forces of nature produce thread, the use of which the genius of man seeks in vain to supersede; and we do not even dream of entering into competition with these living machines which we daily crush under our feet.
All these occupations are openly carried on; and if there are some which are honest, it may be said that there are others which deserve another character. In the ancient as well as the new world, more than one animal resembles somewhat the sharper leading the life of a great
nobleman; and it is not rare to find, by the side of the humble pickpocket, the audacious brigand of the high road, who lives solely on blood and carnage. A great proportion of these creatures always escape, either by cunning, by audacity, or by superior villainy, from social retribution.