The vulture and the lamb.
Here is a very rapacious bird, the vulture. He is on a rock, and has under his feet a lamb which he found in the valley below. It had perhaps wandered from the flock, and, as it was feeding, not thinking of danger, the vulture espied it. Swiftly diving down, he caught it with his strong claws and brought it up here. You see what a beak he has to tear the lamb in pieces, that he may devour it.
The bill of the toucan.
How it trims its tail.
The toucan, which you see here, has a larger bill than most other birds. It uses it in crushing and tearing its food, which consists of fruits, mice, and small birds. You see that its edges are toothed somewhat like a saw, adapting it to tear in pieces the little animals which this bird feeds on. But it can use its bill also for another purpose. It is a powerful instrument of defense in fighting off the animals that attack it. The toucan makes its nest in a hole of a tree, which it digs out with its bill, if it does not readily find one already made; and there it sits, keeping off all intruders with its big beak. The mischievous monkeys are its worst enemies; but, if they get a blow from that beak, they are very careful to keep out of the way of it afterward. When the toucan sleeps, it manages to cover up this large bill with its feathers, and so it looks as if it was nothing but a great ball of feathers. There is one curious use which it makes of its bill: it uses it to trim its tail, cutting its feathers as precisely as a pair of scissors would. It takes great care in doing this, evidently thinking that it is important to its beauty. It waits till its tail is full grown before it begins to trim it.
The cat’s paw and its cushions.
The claws of the cat hold the rat very fast, while her long, sharp teeth tear its flesh, and pull even its bones apart. If you see a cat do this, you will get some idea of the way in which a lion or tiger tears in pieces any animal. As your cat lies quietly purring in your lap, look at her paws. The claws are all concealed, and the paw, with its cushions, seems a very gentle, peaceable thing; but wake her up and let her play with a string, and as she tries to catch it with her paw, the claws now thrust out make it look like a powerful weapon, as it really is in the eyes of rats and mice. There are muscles that work those claws when the cat’s mind tells them to do it. When the claws are not thrust out these muscles are quiet, but they are ever ready to act when a message comes to them from the brain.