But some animals have certain muscles of expression in the face that we have not. They are the snarling muscles, as they are called. They draw up the upper lip on each side of the mouth in such a way as to show the long, tearing teeth. In this wolf, about to devour a lamb that he has caught, you see what a fierce and horrid expression these muscles give to the face. Now the reason that we have no such muscles is that we ought never to have snarling feelings. I have seen both men and children look very bad when they were angry; but they would have looked a great deal worse if they had snarling machinery in their faces, as wolves, and cats, and dogs have in theirs.
Why animals can not talk.
There is some machinery that animals have just as we do, which they can not use to do as many things as we can, because they do not know how. I will give you an example, and then you will see what I mean. Did you ever think why it is that animals can not talk? It is not because they have not the machinery for talking. Many of them have tongues, teeth, lips, etc. These are the things that we use to talk with, and yet, though they have them, and have a voice that comes out from their throats as ours does, they can not talk. Why is this? It is because they do not know how to use these parts in talking, though they do know how to use them in other things, as eating. The cow knows how to use her teeth, and lips, and tongue in eating; but if she had a mind like yours, she would use them in talking, and would not merely low.
The parrot, you know, does know how to talk, after a fashion. This particular faculty is given to it, though it is rather a stupid bird about other things. And, after all, its talking is a very awkward imitation of the speech of man; it only says what it hears people say, and that in a very bungling manner.
Some things done better by some animals than by man.
Though man has more machinery and can do more things than any other animal, there are some things that some animals can do better than he can. Man can climb, but he can not do it as well as a cat or a monkey. He can swim, but not as well as a fish. The frog and the grasshopper are better jumpers. The horse and the dog can run faster than he can. He can not see as far as some birds. He has but two eyes, but the fly has thousands of eyes, so that it can see in almost all directions at once. He can not smell as well as the dog, who can follow the track of his master by the scent left in his footsteps. He can mimic different sounds, but the mocking-bird can beat him at this.
Some animals can do things which man can not.
But, besides all this, there are some things done by some animals that man can not do at all. He can not fly like the birds and insects. He can not go to roost like the birds. He can not walk along on the wall over his head, as the fly does with the suckers on its feet.
Each animal is fitted to do just those things that it needs to do. For example, the monkey needs to climb to get his living, and the Creator has therefore made him so that he can climb very easily. For this purpose, instead of having two hands and two feet, as we have, he has four things shaped somewhat like hands, with which he can grasp the limbs of trees. I might give you other examples, but you can find many in the chapters on what animals use for hands, the tools of animals, and their instruments of defense and attack.
Questions.—What is said about the hand? In what is man superior to animals? What is said about the machinery that God gives to different animals? Tell about the man that had no hands, and about the girl that had her arm cut off. What is said about the machinery in the face? What about the variety of work that this machinery does? Why do not animals have the same muscles of expression that man has? What muscles of expression do some animals have that man has not? Why does not man have them? Why can not animals talk? What is said about the parrot? Mention some things that some animals can do better than man. Mention some things done by animals that he can not do at all. What is every animal fitted to do?