The wonderful contrivances by which animals manage to do beautiful work without tools, to walk without feet, to fly without wings, to talk without a voice, and to make their wants known not only to each other but to their human friends, without understanding or speaking human words, would fill a large book. No creature boasts of a hand like our own; even that of the monkey, though his fingers resemble man's, has a thumb which is nearly useless. The American spider-monkeys prefer to use their long tails as hands, plucking fruits with the tips and carrying them to their mouths. The elephant uses his nose as a hand (for his trunk is nothing else but a long nose), and with this makeshift hand he can pick up either a heavy cannon or a sixpence from the ground. The horse uses his tail as a hand to drive off flies which he cannot otherwise reach. On board ship a hen was once seen to use her neck as a hand. She and the other fowls used to quarrel over the laying-boxes, and though the nests looked all alike to a human eye, this hen coveted one special box, and would lay nowhere else. One day her master took the china nest-egg out of the box and put it into another one, to see what she would do. He watched her through the chink of a door, and saw her hunt till she found the egg, curl her neck round it like a big finger, lift it thus, and carry it back to the old box, where she sat on it in triumph.

Stories of rats who have been seen to carry off eggs, embracing them by their tails, are common enough, and everybody has watched animals of different kinds using their mouths to carry things from place to place. Not only lions, tigers, wolves, and bears carry their young in this way, but rabbits, squirrels, mice, and many other creatures. The mother-whale tucks her little one under her huge fin, using it as a hand and arm in one; in time of danger she carries him off thus at the risk of her own life from under the very harpoons of the whalers.

All young animals have an instinct which prompts them to run to their parents for protection when frightened, trusting not only in the older and wiser heads, but in the faithful hearts which have never failed them. Though sheep, cattle, deer, and such-like, have no notion of using their jaws as hands, or of lifting their little ones, many of the young will use their limbs to cling to those who are stronger and swifter than themselves. The four-footed elders will perish rather than desert the youngsters, and will, if possible, contrive to beat a retreat, helping along the weaker ones as best they can.

A very touching story of the devotion of deer to their fawns comes from America. While two men were riding along a creek in California, they saw, some distance ahead, a doe and her fawn drinking from the river. The bank was very steep, and the river deep at that point. When the deer saw the hunters they were startled, and in trying to turn, the little one lost its balance and fell into the creek. The water was running very swiftly, and of course the fawn was carried down-stream. At this the poor mother seemed to lose all fear of the men, and ran wildly along the bank, trying to reach her little one with her head, but in vain. She next ran forward for a short distance, plunged in, steadied herself by planting her feet firmly among some rocks, and waited. Presently the fawn was washed against her, and, as it was being swept by, caught hold of its mother, stretching out its forelegs and clasping her neck, much as a little child uses his arms in clinging to his nurse. The doe then carefully stepped ashore with her precious burden. She lay down beside the baby deer, and, although the hunters were not thirty yards away, she licked and fondled the little thing till it rose to run, when she too sprang up, and the pair trotted off unharmed to the woods.

Many birds use their wings as arms and hands when flight will not serve their turn. A partridge was seen to hustle and drive her little troop of chicks into the shelter of a rabbit-hole with her wings, out of the way of a hawk whose shadow had fallen on the grass at their side. Here she kept them prisoners till all was safe.

The lesson to be drawn from such stories is that even wild, untaught creatures do not use their limbs in a senseless way as parts of a machine, without thinking, but are able to turn them to a variety of uses in times of difficulty. We shall, of course, find that tame animals such as the horse, dog, and cat act more wisely in such ways than their wild relations. The dog, for instance, turns his rough idea of using his mouth for carrying food or young ones, to fetching and carrying for his own benefit or his master's. A handsome brown spaniel lately noticed that his mistress, in carrying a bowl of water, upset some of the contents on the floor. Off dashed Master Jack, intent on 'making himself generally useful,' and quickly returned with the house flannel from the kitchen. This he laid beside the pool, with an intelligent, uplifted look which said, 'There! wipe it up.' Did not this sensible fellow's mouth become a splendid makeshift hand, and his glance an excellent speech?

Edith Carrington.