BY D. S. JORDAN
David Starr Jordan (1851-): An American scientist. Among his works are a "Manual of Vertebrates" and a" Synopsis of the Fishes of North America," besides a great number of scientific papers. This selection is from "Science Sketches,"a volume for young people.
Ⅰ
Once on a time, a great many years ago, in those old days when the great Northwest consisted of a few ragged and treeless hills full of copper and quartz; in the days when it would have been fun to study geography, for there were no capitals nor any products, and all the towns were seaports; in fact, an immensely long time ago, there lived in the northeastern part of Wisconsin, not far from the city of Oconto1, a little jellyfish.
It was a curious little fellow, about the shape of half an appleand the size of a pin"s head; and it floated around in the water and ate little things, and opened and shut its umbrella pretty much as the jellyfishes do now on a sunny day off Nahant Beach, when the tide is coming in. It had a great many little feelers that hung down all around, like so many little snakes,1 Oconto: a city in Wisconsin.
and so it was named Medusa, after a queer woman who lived a long while ago, according to an old story. She wore snakes instead of hair, and used to turn people into stone images if they dared to make faces at her.
So this little Medusa floated around and opened and shut her umbrella for some time. Then one morning, down among the seaweeds, she laid a whole lot of tiny eggs, transparent as crab-apple jelly, and smaller than the dewdrop on the end of a pine leaf. That was the last thing she did; so she died, and our story henceforth concerns only one of those little eggs.
One day the sun shone down into the water and touched these eggs with life, and a little fellow whom we will call Favosites1, because that was his name, woke up inside of the egg and came out into the world. He was only a little piece of floating jelly, shaped like a cartridge pointed at both ends, or like a grain of barley, although very much smaller.
He had a great number of little paddles on his sides. These kept flapping all the time, so that he was constantly in motion. And at night all these little paddles shone with a rich green light, to show him the way through the water. It would have done you good to see them some night when all the little fellows had their lamps burning at once, and every wave as it rose and fell was all aglow with Nature"s fireworks, which do not burn the fingers and leave no smell of sulphur.
So the little Favosites kept scudding along in the water, dodging from one side to the other to avoid the ugly creatures1 Favosites: a kind of fossil coral.
that tried to eat him. There were crabs and clams of a fashion neither you nor I shall ever see alive. There were huge animals with great eyes, savage jaws like the beak of a snapping turtle and surrounded by long feelers. They sat in the end of a long round shell, shaped like a length of stovepipe, and glowered like an owl In a hollow log, and there were smaller ones that looked like lobsters in a dinner-horn.
But none of these caught the little fellow, else I should not have had this story to tell. At last, having paddled about long enough, Favosites thought of settling in life. So he looked around till he found a flat bit of shell that just suited him. Then he sat down upon it and grew fast.
He did not go to sleep, however, but proceeded to make himself a home. He had no head, but between his shoulders he made an opening which would serve him for mouth and stomach. Then he put a whole row of feelers out, and commenced catching little worms and floating eggs and bits of jelly and bits 5 of lime-everything he could get-and cramming them into his mouth.
He had a great many curious ways, but the funniest of them all was what he did with the bits of lime. He kept taking them in, and tried to wall himself up inside with them, as a person would stone a well, or as though a man should swallow pebbles and stow them away in his feet and all around under his skin, till he had filled himself all full.
Little Favosites became lonesome there on the bottom ofthat old ocean, among so many outlandish1 neighbors. So one night, when he was fast asleep and dreaming as only a coral animal can dream, there sprouted out from his side somewhere near where his sixth rib might have been if he had had any ribs, another little Favosites; and this one very soon began to eat worms and to wall himself up, as if for dear life.
Then from these two another and another little bud came out, and other little Favosites were formed. They all kept growing up higher and cramming themselves fuller and fuller of stone, till at last there were so many and they were so crowded together that there was not room for them to grow round, and so they had to become six-sided, like the cells of a honeycomb.
Once in a while some one in the company would feel jealous because the others got more of the lime, or would feel uneasy at sitting still so long and swallowing stones. Such a one would secede2 from the little union without even saying "good-bye," and would put on the airs of the grandmother Medusa, and would sail around in the water opening and shutting its umbrella, and at last would lay more eggs which in time hatched out into more Favosites.