Nature's Teachings: Human Invention Anticipated by NatureWood, J. G. (John George)
History
Nature's Teachings: Human Invention Anticipated by Nature
Wood, J. G. (John George)
Inventions; Natural history
In those which are made for the capture of the giraffe, the pit is very
deep, and the place of the stake is occupied by a transverse wall, which
prevents the feet of the captive from touching the ground, and keeps it
suspended until the hunters can come and kill it at leisure.
Even in Belgium and our own country the pitfall is in use. When the
field-mice were devastating the districts about Liege some years ago,
their ravages were effectually checked by pitfalls, in which they were
caught by bushels, the pitfalls being simple holes some two feet deep,
and made wider below than above.
The late Mr. Waterton contrived to rid his garden of field-mice by
pitfalls constructed on the same principle, though more permanent.
Finding that the little animals made great havoc among his peas just as
they were starting out of the ground, he buried between the rows a
number of earthen pickle-jars, sinking them to the level of the ground.
He then rubbed the inside of the neck with bacon, and left them. The
mice stooped down to lick off the bacon, fell into the jars, and, the
neck being narrow and the sides slippery, they could not get out again.
* * * * *
ON the left hand of the illustration is the section of a pitfall made by
the well-known Ant-lion (_Myrmeleo_), of which there are several
species. The history of this wonderful insect is so familiar to us that
it need not be repeated at length. Suffice it to say that it digs
conical pitfalls in loose sandy soil, and that it places itself at the
bottom of the pit, securing the insect victims with its jaws just as the
larger animals are secured by the stake of the human hunter.
It makes no false cover, as does the human hunter, but it always chooses
soil so loose that if an insect approach the edge, the sand gives way,
and it goes sliding down into the pit, whence its chance of escape is
very small, even were there no deadly jaws at the bottom ready to
receive it.
THE CLUB.
The simplest of all offensive weapons is necessarily the CLUB. At first,
this was but a simple stick, such as any savage might form from a branch
of a tree by knocking off the small boughs with a stone or another
stick. Such clubs are still used in Australia, and I have several in my
collection.
Then the inventive genius of man improved their destructive power by
various means. The most obvious plan was to add to the force of its blow
by simply making one end much thicker and heavier than the other. This
is done in the “Knob-kerry” of Southern Africa, and it is worthy of
remark that in Fiji a weapon exists so exactly like the short knob-kerry
of Africa, that an inexperienced eye would scarcely be able to
distinguish between them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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