Concerning Animals and Other Matters | Page 8

it got there, will class it with
them, for its idea of life is just theirs turned topsy-turvy. The nails of
the sloth, instead of being hammered into hoofs on the hard ground,
have grown long and curved, like those of a caged bird, and become
hooks by which it can hang, without effort, in the midst of the leaves on
which it feeds. A minimum of intellect is required for such an existence,
and the sloth has lost any superfluous brain that it may have had, as
well as two, or even three, of its five toes.
To return to those birds and beasts with standard feet, I find that the
first outside purpose for which they find them serviceable is to scratch
themselves. This is a universal need. But a foot is handy in many other
ways. A hen and chickens, getting into my garden, transferred a whole
flower-bed to the walk in half an hour. Yet a bird trying to do anything
with its foot is like a man putting on his socks standing, and birds as a

race have turned their feet to very little account outside of their original
purpose. Such a simple thing as holding down its food with one foot
scarcely occurs to an ordinary bird. A hen will pull about a cabbage
leaf and shake it in the hope that a small piece may come away, but it
never enters her head to put her foot on it. In this and other matters the
parrot stands apart, and also the hawk, eagle, and owl; but these are not
ordinary birds.
Beasts, having twice as many feet as birds, have learned to apply them
to many uses. They dig with them, hold down their food with them,
fondle their children with them, paw their friends, and scratch their
enemies. One does more of one thing and another of another, and the
feet soon show the effects of the occupation, the claws first, then the
muscles, and even the bones dwindling by disuse, or waxing stout and
strong. Then the joy of doing what it can do well impels the beast
further on the same path, and its offspring after it.
[Illustration: THE NOSE OF THE ELEPHANT BECOMING A
HAND HAS REDEEMED ITS MIND]
And this leads at last to specialism. The Indian black bear is a "handy
man," like the British Tar--good all round. Its great soft paw is a very
serviceable tool and weapon, armed with claws which will take the face
off a man or grub up a root with equal ease. When a black bear has
found an ant-hill it takes but a few minutes to tear up the hard,
cemented clay and lay the deep galleries bare; then, putting its
gutta-percha muzzle to the mouth of each, it draws such a blast of air
through them that the industrious labourers are sucked into its gullet in
drifts. Afterwards it digs right down to the royal chamber, licks up the
bloated queen, and goes its way.
But there is another worker in the same mine which does not go to
work this way. The ant-eater found fat termites so satisfying that it left
all other things and devoted its life to the exploiting of anthills, and
now it has no rival at that business, but it is fit for nothing else. Its
awkward digging tools will not allow it to put the sole of its foot to the
ground, so it has to double them under and hobble about like a Chinese
lady. It has no teeth, and stupidity is the most prominent feature of its

character. It has become that poor thing, a man of one idea.
But the bear is like a sign-post at a parting of the ways. If you compare
a brown bear with the black Indian, or sloth bear, as it is sometimes
called, you may detect a small but pregnant difference. When the
former walks, its claws are lifted, so that their points do not touch the
ground. Why? I have no information, but I know that it is not content
with a vegetarian diet, like its black relative, but hankers after sheep
and goats, and I guess that its murderous thoughts flow down its nerves
to those keen claws. It reminds me of a man clenching his fist
unconsciously when he thinks of the liar who has slandered him.
[Illustration: IT HAS TO DOUBLE THEM UNDER AND HOBBLE
ABOUT LIKE A CHINESE LADY.]
But what ages of concentration on the thought and practice of
assassination must have been required to perfect that most awful
weapon in Nature, the paw of a tiger, or, indeed, of any cat, for they are
all of one pattern. The sharpened flint of the savage has become the
scimitar of