Madam How and Lady Why; or, First lessons in earth lore for children . everlasting calm. Ah! it is worth thinking over, for it shows howshrewd a giant Analysis is, and how fast he works inthese days, now that he has got free and weU. fed;—worth thinking over, I say, how our notions about theselittle atomies have changed during the last fortyyears. We used to find them sometimes washed up amongthe sea-sand on the wild Atlantic coast; and we weretaught, in the days when old Dr. Turton was writinghis book on British shells at Bideford, to call themNautili, because their shells were like Nautilus
Madam How and Lady Why; or, First lessons in earth lore for children . everlasting calm. Ah! it is worth thinking over, for it shows howshrewd a giant Analysis is, and how fast he works inthese days, now that he has got free and weU. fed;—worth thinking over, I say, how our notions about theselittle atomies have changed during the last fortyyears. We used to find them sometimes washed up amongthe sea-sand on the wild Atlantic coast; and we weretaught, in the days when old Dr. Turton was writinghis book on British shells at Bideford, to call themNautili, because their shells were like Nautilus did not know then that the animal which lives 148 MADAM HOW AND LADY WHY in them is no more like a NautUus animal than it islike a cow. For a Nautilus, you must know, is made like acuttle-fish, with eyes, and strong jaws for biting, andarms round them; and has a heart, and gills, and astomach ; and is altogether a very well-made beast, and,I suspect, a terrible tyrant to little fish and sea-slugs,just as the cuttle-fish is. But the creatures which live. GLOBIQERINA. in these little shells are about the least finished ofMadam Hows works. They have neither mouth norstomach, eyes nor limbs. They are mere live bags fullof jelly, which can take almost any shape they like,and thrust out arms—or what serve for arms—throughthe holes in their shells, and then contract them intothemselves again, as this Globigerina does. What theyfeed on, how they grow, how they make their exquisitely-formed shells, whether, indeed, they are, strictly speak-ing, animals or vegetables, Analysis has not yet found vm MADAM HOWS TWO GRANDSONS 149 out. But when you come to read about them, you willfind that they, in their own way, are just as wonderfuland mysterious as a butterfly or a rose; and just asnecessary, likewise, to Madam Hows work; for out ofthem, as I told you, she makes whole sheets of down,whole ranges of hills. No one knew anything, I believe, about them, savethat two or three
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