Why Flowers Bloom and Birds Sing

1901

The old comfortable belief of our forefathers that the flowers and fruits and all the good things of the earth were created for their benefit has been completely shattered by science. The shining gold of April celandine, the scent of white violets, are not for us at all, says science, not even for the insects that come to them for honey but just for the sake of the flowers themselves, which must get cross fertilized or die out. Self, self only, is the bedrock of it all. So the violets are not fragrant for us, and the thrush was not made to sing on our account but to charm his mate, and the stars do not shine so as to light our way through the wood and across the wild on moonless nights.

Fortunately this discovery need not take away our appetite for the feast which is spread out. We need have no more compunction in coming to it uninvited than has the bee or the moth in sipping the nectar of the blossom. It may even be that we, like they, do render unconsciously some return for benefits received. — Saturday Review.

Animals Board Ship, Seasick

1903

They Get Seasick, Though Not Just the Way Human Beings Do

"Speaking of animals getting sick at sea," said a man who has had some experience with the dumb brutes on the briny deep, "I can tell you that they do get sick, and sometimes they get very sick too. Of course, they do not manifest the sickness in the way that human beings show it and for reasons which will suggest themselves on a moment's reflection. But they nevertheless get quite as sick as members of the human family. Seasickness in human beings will manifest itself in violent vomiting. A seasick person cannot retain anything in the stomach. The old rule that whatever goes up must come down is in the case of pronounced seasickness reversed. Whatever goes down must come up. But when we come to reckon with horses and cows we find a different condition to deal with. Horses and cows never vomit. They cannot. So here right at the beginning of the matter we find a reason for difference in the way this peculiar sickness shows itself in man and beast.

"I have had more experience with horses than with any other kind of dumb animal and consequently know more about the way the horse suffers during seasickness. It is a rather curious and rather interesting fact that the horse is more violently attacked in the feet than in any other portion of the body. I have seen the feet of horses at sea swell until they could scarcely stand on them. Of course, the stomach of the animal is affected to some extent, but this is not so serious a matter as the attack in the feet. The effect of these attacks is sometimes of a lasting kind, and the usefulness of horses is seriously impaired.

"The fact that seasickness attacks the horse in the feet is mainly due to the peculiar influence a vessel's motion has on the kidneys of the animal. At any rate, this is the generally accepted view of the matter. We cannot say definitely just why horses get knotty feet at sea, but the popular view of horsemen who have studied the matter is as stated. As to cows, I do not know a great deal about them, but I understand the chief trouble with them at sea is that they lose their taste for food and quit eating." — New Orleans Times-Democrat.