Chapter I: Preface

No small part of our fundamental knowledge concerning the world of nature has been put into shape for comprehension by children, time out of mind. “The Swiss Family Robinson” is half natural history, even if not always of an especially convincing kind; and science of all sorts, good and bad together, makes up no small portion of Jules Verne’s uncounted tales. “Cousin Cramchild’s Conversations,” if there had been such a book, would have embodied the Victorian idea of what every child should know about his universe; while of actual books, we elders recall at once Abbott’s “Science for the Young,” and the half dozen contributions to juvenile knowledge of John Trowbridge and “Arabella Buckley.” Even the great Ostwald, within the decade, has made a child’s book on chemistry after the old conversational form.

In school, moreover, between his geography and his nature study, the modern child becomes acquainted with not a little modern science, while in most of our states a detailed acquaintance, by no means always scientific, with his own physiology is required by law of every public school pupil. One thing with another, today’s child of eight or ten is supposed to know a little of physics and of biology, together with a good deal in a general way of earth science and the elements of human physiology.

Naturally, there are excellent texts and reading books in all these fields. So far as I am aware, however, the present work is the first attempt to set before young readers some knowledge of certain loosely related but very modern topics, commonly grouped together under the name, General Physiology. It is, in short, an attempt to lead children of eight or ten, first to ask and then to answer, the question: What have I in common with other living things, and how do I differ from them? Incidentally, in addition, I have attempted to provide a foundation on which a perplexed but serious-minded parent can himself base an answer to several puzzling questions which all children ask—most especially to that most difficult of them all: By what process of becoming did I myself finally appear in this world?

How far I have succeeded with either task, I leave to the mothers who shall read this book aloud.

E. T. B.

Andover, Massachusetts

NATURAL WONDERS

CONTENTS

Chap. I — How The Chicken Gets Inside The Egg
Chap. II — Some Other Sorts of Eggs
Chap. III — Little Fishes in The Brook
Chap. IV — Of Plants’ Eggs
Chap. V — What Little Boys And Girls Are Made Of
Chap. VI — More About Living Bricks
Chap. VII — How Much Of Us Is Alive
Chap. VIII — How We Grow
Chap. IX — How We Grow Up
Chap. X — How We Grow Old
Chap. XI — Why We Grow At All
Chap. XII — Things That Do Not Have To Be Learned
Chap. XIII — Why We Like Certain Things
Chap. XIV — Animals’ Games
Chap. XV — Some Instincts Of Chicks And Kittens
Chap. XVI — Certain Stupidities Of Animals
Chap. XVII — How We Differ From The Animals
Chap. XVIII — Something More About Speech And Thinking
Chap. XIX — Why Most Of Us Are Right-Handed
Chap. XX — Where We Do Our Thinking
Chap. XXI — Where Some Of The Animals Do Their Thinking
Chap. XXII — What Plants Know
Chap. XXIII — What Plants Can Do
Chap. XXIV — Some Plant-Like Doings Of Animals
Chap. XXV — The Five Senses And The Other Five
Chap. XXVI — Eyes
Chap. XXVII — Seeing And Believing
Chap. XXVIII — Some Other Senses
Chap. XXIX — The Sight And Hearing Of Ants
Chap. XXX — Ants’ Noses
Chap. XXXI — Some Other Eyes And Ears
Chap. XXXII — Having Senses And Using Them
Chap. XXXIII — Seeing In The Mind’s Eye
Chap. XXXIV — Ear Minds And Others
Chap. XXXV — Living Automobiles
Chap. XXXVI — Air And Fuel
Chap. XXXVII — Men In Glass Boxes
Chap. XXXVIII — Of Sugar And Other Poisons
Chap. XXXIX — Snake Venoms And Others
Chap. XL — Of Measles And Rusty Nails
Chap. XLI — The Great War
Chap. XLII — More About The Great War
Chap. XLIII — Living Apothecary Shops
Chap. XLIV — What Becomes Of The Tadpoles
Chap. XLV — Nature’s Repair Shop
Chap. XLVI — Little Monsters
Chap. XLVII — How The Animals Keep Their Tools Sharp
Chap. XLVIII — Why The Blood Is Salt
Chap. XLIX — Horses’ Fingers
Chap. L — How The Elephant Got His Trunk
Chap. LI — Something Nobody Understands

ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece

The Robin Moth

Full Page Illustrations

How the Chicken Gets Inside the Egg

Seeds That Have Plumes and Wings

The Star-fish Has Eyes on His Arms; The Slug Also Has Eyes on His
Horns; The Snail Has Eyes on His Two Longer Horns

Lymph Cells or White Blood Corpuscles

Extinct Reptiles Which Look Like a Mixture of Alligator, Rhinoceros
and Kangaroo but Their Bones Were More Like the Bones of Birds

In the Text

A Sea-Urchin

Eggs of Perch After Egg Laying

Salmon with Yolk Sac

The Bean Egg Changes to a Bean Plant

Living Bricks Which Make the Skin of a Leaf

Cells of the Inner Tree Pulp

Cells of the Outer Skin of a Leaf

Cells of a Pond Scum Much Enlarged

Three Sorts of Infusoria Much Enlarged

Some Jelly-fish Grown on Stalks and Some Swim About in the Sea

The Cob Is the Mother of the Corn

Pollen Grains Much Enlarged

A Right-handed Person Has All His Thinking Spots on the Left Side of
His Brain

A Sea-anemone

More Common Infusorians, Much Enlarged

The Leaf Has a Spiral Joint on Which to Turn

Optical Illusions

Optical Illusions

Optical Illusions

Optical Illusions

Optical Illusions

Ear of a Mole Cricket on the Front Leg

Back of the Frog’s Eyes Are the Ear Drums

A Newt

The Leaves Take in Air Through Breathing Holes

In Place of Lungs, Insects Have Breathing Holes

The Minute Animal Which Causes the “Sleeping Sickness”

The Caterpillar Changes into a Moth

Accidents to Growing Fish Eggs

A Two-headed Turtle, a Crab with an Eye on One Side and a Feeler on
the Other, and a Child With Two Great Toes on Each Foot

The Fangs of a Rattlesnake

Early Man Scratched Pictures of the Mammoth on Pieces of Its Own
Bones

The Elephant Has Lost the Front of His Face

Our Single-toed Horse Has Been Made Over from a Four-toed One