The child's book of nature for the use of families and schools : intended to aid mothers and teachers in training children in the observation of nature . rves, and a sort of brain. Look, now, at another animal that has less contrivances in himthan the oyster. Look at the is a very little animal which is foundin ponds, sticking to a straw or stick by asort of sucker. Here is a representationof it. The small figure shows it of itsnatural size. The larger figure shows itas magnified by the microscope. Thisanimal is little else than a stomach withlung arms. We can turn the body ofit—tha
The child's book of nature for the use of families and schools : intended to aid mothers and teachers in training children in the observation of nature . rves, and a sort of brain. Look, now, at another animal that has less contrivances in himthan the oyster. Look at the is a very little animal which is foundin ponds, sticking to a straw or stick by asort of sucker. Here is a representationof it. The small figure shows it of itsnatural size. The larger figure shows itas magnified by the microscope. Thisanimal is little else than a stomach withlung arms. We can turn the body ofit—that is, the stomach, inside out, andthe animal will do as well as before. Thearms are merely to catch things, as wormsand insects, which they put into the mouthof the stomach, marked a. One of thearms is represented as having caught something, which it is aboutto put into this mouth. When the little creature is alarmed, hegathers up all his arms around his stomach, and looks like a lit-tle ball. No brain has ever been discovered in him, but it is plainthat he thinks some in catching his food, and in gathering him-self into a ball to escape THE VARIETY OF MACHINERY IN ANIMALS. 97 One of the arms of the hydra magnified. Contrivances in animals almost endles Here is one of the arms of this animal as seen with apowerful microscope. It is made up of little cells orbladder-like things. How it is that these make the dif-ferent motions of this arm we do not know. The two animals that I have just told you about arevery unlike to man, but they are not more so than amultitude of others. The variety in the shapes of ani-mals and in the arrangements of their different parts isalmost endless; but, with all this variety, all are alike insome things. The variety in the contrivances in animals is so great,that when one undertakes to study them, he continuallyfinds something new. And one thing is always true ofthe machinery in animals—it is perfect. It is alwaysexactly fitted to do ju
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Keywords: ., bookauthorho, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectscience
