Dr. Moffat, the well-known missionary, saw one tree in which there were no less than twenty huts. They were conical, and made of sticks and grass, the base resting upon a platform or scaffold laid upon the fork of a horizontal branch. The only mode of approach to these huts was by notches cut in the trunk of the tree. How needful were these precautions was shown by the fact that the missionary himself spent a night in one of these aërial huts, and had the pleasure of hearing a number of lions snarl and growl all night over a rhinoceros hump which he had placed in an oven made of a deserted ant-hill. The oven, however, was too hot for the lions, and they had to retreat at daylight. * * * * * PASSING from the tropics to the polar regions, we now take an instance where man has acknowledgedly copied an animal in the construction of his dwelling. In Esquimaux-land, where no trees can grow, where for months together the sun never rises above the horizon, where the temperature is many degrees below zero, and where the land and ice are alike covered with a mantle of snow so thick that every landmark is abolished, it would seem that no human beings could support life for one week. There is neither timber for house-building nor wood for fuel, so that shelter, warmth, and cookery seem to be equally impossible, and as these are among the prime necessities of human life, it is not easy to see how mankind could exist. [Illustration: SNOW-HOUSE OF SEAL IN ESQUIMAUX-LAND.] [Illustration: SNOW-HOUSE OF ESQUIMAUX.] Yet these very regions are inhabited by sundry animals, and it is by copying them that Man can keep his place. We have already seen how the Esquimaux hunter copies the Polar Bear, and we have now to see how he copies the Seal in the material and form of his dwelling-house, and not only contrives to live, but to enjoy life all the more for the singular conditions in which he is placed. Captain Hall mentions, in his “Life with the Esquimaux,” that one of the natives, named Kudlago, who was returning to his native country after visiting the United States, died while on board the ship. Towards the end of his life he was yearning for ice, and his last intelligible words were, “Do you see ice? Do you see ice?” On the vast plains of ice that are formed in the winter-time the snow lies thickly, and yet upon such an inhospitable spot the mother seal has to make a home for her tender young. This she does in the following manner:-- She has already preserved a “breathing hole” in the ice, through which she can inhale air. How she finds so small a hole under the surface of the ice, where there are no landmarks to guide her, is a marvel to every swimmer. She has to chase fish and follow them in all their winding courses, and yet, when she is in want of air, is able to go straight to her breathing hole, and there take in a fresh supply of oxygen.