THE TWO PRODUCTS OF THE FIFTH DAY. CETACEANS. FISH. CRUSTACEANS. MOLLUSCA. ANIMALCULES. THE AQUATIC WORLD. THE WORLD OF FOWL. THE INSECT WORLD.

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OUR discussion of God's creative works now brings us to the work of the fifth day, which was the bringing of aquatic and winged life into existence. The creative work had advanced, so far as our earth is concerned, through the stages of making light shine on the earth, of making an atmosphere, of separating land and sea, of producing grass, plants and trees, and of causing the light of the sun, moon and stars to shine with much increased light upon the earth. The next stage of the creative process was the production of aquatic life in the oceans, seas, bays, lakes and streams of water. The wording of the creative act shows that such life would be most abundant, as can be recognized in the rendering of the A.V.—"Let the waters bring forth abundantly." More literally, as Dr. Young gives it: "Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature [nephesh, soul]." This was a command given by God to the Logos, God's Executive in creation (John 1:3; Col. 1:16, 17); and the Logos with the assistance of the cooperating angels executed it. In vs. 20-23 the creation of animal life, using the word animal in its widest significance, is given in its start, the tiny shell fish of preceding periods being here ignored. In every case we find that blood [or its equivalent], whether cold, as in the case of most reptiles, or warm, is the medium through which the life-principle is connected with the body and thereby is produced sentient being,

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soul. It is quite logical that water should be the first sphere of sentient beings, since the absence of the poisonous gases that yet abounded in the atmosphere made water a fit abode for its denizens, while the gaseous air was yet unfit for the usual breathing animals. Moreover, fossil remains prove that the waters were the abode of the first animal life. Thus we see that the Mosaic record properly locates the production of water life in the creative work. Later in the same day as came the charge to create water-souls came the charge to create fowl-souls (v. 20), whose sphere of life was the earth and air, the latter in the meantime becoming free enough from gases to allow of their existence.

In v. 21 the A. V. states that God created great whales. The Hebrew word tanninim, here translated whales, is a broader term yet than the Hebrew word for whales. It should have been rendered sea-monsters. It includes the cetaceans (the whale, dolphin, porpoise, grampus, norwhale, etc.), and saurians (lizards, crocodiles, alligators, huge turtles, which yet persist, and the extinct pterosauria [flying lizards with wing stretch of 20 feet]), plestosauria [of fish-like body, very long neck and small head], and ichthyosauria [fish-lizards, with enormous fish-like body, short neck and long head], aquatic dinosauria, etc., etc. It is such creatures that are meant by the term tanninim, which word occurs in the following passages: Ex. 7:9; Deut. 32:33; Job 7:12; Ps. 74:14; 91:13; 148:7; Is. 27:1; 51:9; Jer.

51:34; Ezek. 29:3. The word bara is the word properly translated create in v. 21. The living creeping (mistranslated moveth) souls of v. 21 doubtless are the crustaceans, including crabs, lobsters and the like. Their great numbers are indicated in the words brought forth abundantly, literally teemed. The fixedness of their species is indicated in the words after his kind. The mention of fowl last each time this day's product is described proves what geology corroborates: that

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fowl were brought into existence at the end of the fifth creative day. Certainly, if of the inanimate and vegetable world the Lord could say it was good, it can truthfully be said of the creation of the aquatic world that it was good. God's blessing these (v. 22) shows that existence even to the lower orders of creation is a blessing. Of the previous creations God spoke, but did not speak to them. It is only to the animal creation that God is said to speak (v. 22), saying to the aquatic animals, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas," and to the birds, "Let fowl multiply in the earth." Thus there was an evening and there was a morning of the fifth day, wherein God made aquatic and aerial souls. It will be noted that the A. V. suggests (v. 20) that the creations of this day were made out of water. This notion is imported into the text by the mistranslation of the word that Dr. Young very properly renders by the word teem, though we believe that water did furnish a part of their bodies' constituents. The Bible says nothing one way or the other on the water bringing these forth. It will be noted that, except the cetaceans, all of the creatures of this day were oviparious, hatched from eggs.

So far we have given generalities on the fifth day's creations. We will now proceed to particulars on certain of the creations of this day, and will begin with the cetaceans—whales, grampuses, dolphins, porpoises, norwhales, etc. These stand midway between fish and land animals, being a connecting link between them. They are like fish in bodily form, place of abode, manner of movement and habits. Unlike them, but like beasts, they have lungs, hearts with partitions driving warm and red blood through the body. They breathe the air, carry the fetus and suckle the young, like most land animals, i.e., mammals. Let us now limit our attention to the greatest of the cetaceans—whales. At present they are the largest of earth's inhabitants, some examples of the sperm whale having been found to be

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60 to 70 feet long, while some common whales have been found to measure over 100 feet. Their spinal column is the size of the trunk of a large tree. Their main artery is the size of a pipe into which a man can crawl; their enormous heart throws out 15 gallons of blood at each pulsation. A whale's mouth has contained a boat with its whole crew; its tongue is many feet long and broad; its tail has the surface of a hundred square feet and has more than once dashed a large boat into fragments and scattered as so many flies its sailor occupants. It moves powerfully and rapidly, churning shallow water into foam, and when wounded it plunges with one leap 5,000 feet deep, where it endures the pressure of 200,000 tons. It plays with the storm tossed waves as negligible forces. Its hide and the oil encased in it, covering it to a depth of three feet, keeps it warm in coldest arctic weather. This blubber helps it to swim, enables it to float while asleep and protects it against the great pressure of deep water. Whales sometimes live in pairs, sometimes in schools; some are herbivorous, feeding on seaweeds; others are carnivorous, feeding on fish, of which sometimes they swallow a whole school at one gulp and still desire more.

Whales have the same senses as land animals. Their smelling and hearing are acute, even when deeply submerged. Their eyes are so located that they can see ahead, above and behind, and that at great distances. As indicated above, they sleep and they often indulge in play, showing great pleasure therein. They mate for life and are remarkable for their conjugal fidelity and affection for their mates. They are equally marked with parental love. The mother whale is tenderly affectioned toward her young; and they are often seen playing together with great zest. When danger threatens, the mother whale bears her young to a place of safety; and when this cannot be done, she defends her young with utmost perseverance, bravery and self- denial.

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She prefers to perish with her young rather than give it up undefended to unconquerable enemies. In playfulness and fidelity to mate and offspring the porpoise is like the whale. We recall an experience that we had with them near Galveston, Tex. We were in a small boat with a number of friends; and surrounding us on all sides, some less than, others not much over 100 feet away, were numerous porpoises playing and seeming not to mind our presence at all. Rather they seemed to be putting on a show for our entertainment! Whales have many enemies, chiefly humans, who seek to catch them to get their blubber, whale bone, etc. Surely it is a pathetic sight to see one of these giants of the sea wounded and dying at the hands of whalers. Their main enemies in the fish world are sharks and swordfish. Frequently, a hungry shark and a swordfish as companion marauders pursue a whale, and on overtaking it attack it, one on one side and the other on the other side, attempting to force its mouth open in order to eat its tongue. The fight lasts for hours and almost always ends in the overpowering of the whale, which in the fight suffers much from the thrusts of the sword of the swordfish. When the whale is weakened unto non-resistance, its mouth is forced open and its tongue eaten before it is yet dead. Then the shark and the swordfish leave it to death, which finally overtakes it. The sight of a whale from the decks of a ship is one of the most coveted opportunities of ocean travel and one frequently boasted of.

We now take up a brief discussion of fish, another product of the fifth creative epoch. There are several hundred thousand species of these that have already been classified and who knows how many of such are yet undiscovered; for new species of them are of frequent discovery. They range from the huge white shark, examples of which have been found that are 70 feet long and 10,000 pounds heavy, down to the little minnow. Their shapes and structure are much varied.

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Admittedly, fish are more varied, monstrous and grotesque than land animals. On the other hand, some of them are most beautiful in color and graceful in form. Some of them are silvery, some golden and some reflect all the colors of the rainbow. Moreover, they are in form and structure admirably adapted to the localities that they inhabit. All about them, their form, structure, color, size, characteristics, conspire to give them a happy existence. Their not having much of a nervous system spares them suffering when they fall into the power of those preying upon them. If we knew only of land and aerial life, we would be tempted to think water to be an impossible sphere of life. But the multiform wisdom and power of God has so ordered the constitution of fish that they are well adapted to their aqueous environment. Some details as to fish which we will now set forth, will show this.

Their form is well adapted to their needs. In most cases the head is a sharp oval, the flanks gradually broader to their middle, and from there on to the tail there is a gradual tapering of the girth of the fish. This form has been mathematically proven to be best adapted to swift and easy movement in water. Their fins, air bladder and tails enable them easily to rise, sink, float, swim quickly or slowly as they may wish, or as need dictates. The covering of fish is also well adapted to their needs. The covering of land animals, hair, feathers, bristles, wool, etc., however well adapted to their needs, would be unsuitable to water animals. Instead, horny scales or heavy skins give the fish excellent coverings. Their scales, if joined at the edges, look like the finest mosaic work; if the edges cover one another like tiles on a roof and have a slimy surface, they present the appearance of the finest coat of mail, enabling them to move with least obstruction through the waters. This covering keeps them from becoming wet to the skin or cold through the skin. Thus their covering is well adapted to their needs. How wonderful

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their provision for breathing! Gills serve them instead of lungs, their tissue being many blood vessels. By these gills they extract the oxygen from the water as easily as we extract it from the air. Sometimes fish are caught and  drawn so rapidly through the water by a fast launch as to prevent their extracting the oxygen from the water. The result is their death by drowning! Thus fish can and sometimes do drown. But their natural endowment prevents their voluntarily swimming so rapidly as to drown. Their eyes are another marvelous example of adaptation to surroundings. They are so constituted that contact with water, even of the saltiest kind, is no more troublesome to them than contact with air is to our eyes. Those of us who swim under water with open eyes know how our vision is by the water dimmed. But convex spectacles enable one to see clearly under water. God has given just such a form to the fishes' eyes, whereby they see clearly under water. Usually fish eyes have no lids, but such of them as bury their heads in the mud, like mud-fish, eels, etc., have a Divinely provided covering over their eyes that shield them better than eyelids would do. The analeps fish of Eastern Asiatic rivers has a most remarkable eye, divided horizontally into two hemispheres by a band of membrane, each half being an eye, the lower halves being near-sighted and the upper halves being far-sighted, the former enabling it to see the nearby worms on which it feeds, and the latter the far-off approaching enemies. The lens in the eye of a cod-fish has been found to consist of 5,000,000 fibers, united by 62,000,000,000 teeth.

Fish have the five senses of land animals, though those of touch and taste are supposed to be weak in most of them. Some have flexible feelers or organs of touch. Acute are their smelling and hearing, which have no external organs as in the case of land animals, doubtless because of the ruinous effect of water on such organs; yet they have pertinent large membrane

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and nerves especially for smelling, e.g., they cover 12 to 13 square feet in a large shark. Thus fish can discover their prey or enemies at a great distance, despite turbulent water or darkness. Such sense perception gives them some wisdom; they can be trained to come at call of voice or bell and answer to their names. They are long lived. Carp have been known to live over 100 years. A pike was caught at Kaiserslauten in 1754 which had a ring fastened to its gill covers marked as put into the pond of that castle by order of Frederick II in 1487—267 years before. Fish are very strong, not wearying from much swimming. The shark can travel farther and longer than an eagle. The salmon can swim faster than the swallow can fly. Sharks are known to follow a fast steamer across the ocean, often encircling it as a comparatively slow traveler. They have been known, when harpooned, to draw a heavy vessel at high speed against wind and tide. Some of them are carnivorous. At Dublin, Ireland, the skeleton of a frog fish two and one-half feet long was exhibited, having a cod-fish skeleton two feet long in its stomach. Within the cod were two whitings of ordinary size, while in the stomachs of the whitings were numerous partly digested fish too broken to be recognized.

Some fish can utter sound, e.g., the gurnards when drawn out of the water croak peculiarly. Some, the flying- fish, can fly several hundred yards through the air, their fins acting like wings and sails. Others are very tenuous of life, like the carp, which can be kept alive several weeks in wet moss. Some, like eels, leave the water and wander about  the land in search of worms. In China there is a fish that crosses meadows a quarter of a mile to another stream. The flat-head hassar, an Essequibo fish, when their pools dry up, march in droves over dry land in search of others, traveling as fast as man walks and taking a direct course to the nearest water, even if it be out of sight. A fish found in Tranquebar climbs the fair-palm, seeking

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insect food thereon. These facts prove that God gave those the instincts that impel them to self-preservation in their environment. The fruitfulness of fish as indicated in v. 22 is most marvelous. The blessing of the verse implies the implantation of the necessary powers to the fish. The number of the eggs in the roes of various fish gives a faint idea of the great fecundity of fish. The following are the number given by standard authorities: The roe of the cod contains 3,686,000 eggs; of the flounder, 225,000; of the carp, 203,000; of the roach, 100,000; of the mackerel, 500,000; of the sole, almost 100,000; of the tench, 350,000; of the herring, 30,000; of the pike, 50,000; of the perch, 25,000; of the smelt, 20,000. These are only samples of other kinds equally prolific. It is fortunate that many fish roes are destroyed unhatched by other fish, birds, reptiles, etc., for food, and that untold billions of those hatched are devoured by other fish—otherwise the seas would be packed solid with fish and would become one mass of corruption and disease. But the number that mature is enormous, as can be fairly inferred from the immense numbers of those that are migratory.

It is a familiar fact that many of them migrate in great numbers in search of safe places for reproducing their kind. These occur often from the ocean up rivers. The salmon is a familiar example. Almost all salmon that are caught are caught in traps, tons of them in each trap, over night in rivers as they migrate up stream. When they leave the sea their flesh is blood-red; but it rapidly corrupts after they come into fresh water. When the corruption is about half complete their flesh has turned pink, and when it is complete it is an ugly white. People ought not to eat the white canned salmon; for it is literally rotten and is often treated with chemicals to destroy the stench of corruption. Nor ought they to eat the pink salmon. This explains why the red salmon is the dearest, the pink a

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medium price and the white the cheapest. The cod is another migratory fish that for spawning travels northward to ocean shallows. The haddock does the same. Shoals of them at spawning time are known to have been 20 miles long and 3 miles broad, and nobody knows how deep. The mackerel at spawning time (spring) leaves the Arctic and the Antarctic oceans for warmer waters in innumerable millions. The same remark applies to the tunny. The  herring is the most remarkable of all in this respect. In summer they travel from northern seas at different times to warmer waters for food and spawning. Years ago when the fishing business was less well organized than now, no less than 20,000,000 of them were captured in a single night's fishing off the coast of Norway, and the average catch for the season was more than 400,000,000. At Goteburg, Sweden, the season's catch aggregated 700,000,000 annually. These are but a fraction of the numbers caught by the English, Dutch, Belgians, French, Spanish, etc., combined. Despite these numbers, the ocean literally teems with them. One authority says that tens of billions of them in a constant stream, many leagues in width, many fathoms deep and so dense as to crowd one another, pass by a given point nearly all summer long. But these are only a few samples among many fish, whose total number the mind of man is unable to grasp, proving that the sea is inhabited by a million to one creature that inhabits the land, and that fish have been fruitful.

To prevent the extermination of fish species by one another, the Lord has provided them with means of defense, usually in the form of great speed, sometimes with the ability to fly, sometimes with the ability to hide themselves, either by burying themselves in the mud, diving much deeper than their enemies can go, or by emitting black or blue offensive fluids from their bodies, thus darkening and bestenching the water about

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them. Again, to prevent their becoming too numerous, God has given others weapons of assault by which they destroy and devour many fish. Some of these attackers use remarkable stratagems to decoy their intended victims, e.g., the sea-devil, not gifted with strength or speed, covers itself with seaweeds, etc., the extremities of the filaments that fringe its body being the only parts not concealed, which, agitated to make them look like worms, attract little fish which are then devoured. The norwhale and the swordfish are armed with terrible weapons of aggression. They are the special enemies of the whale; and sometimes supposing the hulls of ships to be whales they attack them with tremendous blows. A case is on record according to which a swordfish, mistaking a ship's hull for a whale, attacked it with such force as to drive its sword completely through the bottom of the vessel, which would doubtless have sunk had not the fatal struggles of the fish to loosen itself broken its sword, leaving it embedded in the hull, thus stopping up the hole that it made. A fragment of this ship with the sword still embedded in it is in the British Museum. The hag fastens itself by vacuums created by its lips to the sides of other fish, sucking their juices and blood, like a leech, until they die, while when it is attacked it hides itself by darkening the waters about it, as described above. Numerous fish emit a bright light, which when they travel in companies hides them from attackers and the attacked. Another species, armed with snouts like a gun, shoot a deadly liquid at their prey, seldom missing it. Several species called the torpedo are armed with an electrical battery, by which they strike deadly blows. Another, the electric eel, strikes with tenfold more force, killing even horses and mules adventuring into their waters. Surely, when we consider these features in the fish world, we are struck with wonder at the Creator's power, justice, wisdom and love, exemplified from various standpoints in the world of fish.

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In our study of the inhabitants of the waters we now come to the crustaceans, which mainly inhabit the "great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable" (Ps. 104:25). By the term crustaceans naturalists embrace sea animals encased in hard jointed shells, e.g., lobsters, crabs, prawns, shrimps, sea-spiders, etc. There are thousands of species of these, into which, of course, we cannot go in detail. Their forms are peculiar; their structure is remarkable; their covering is neither skin nor scale, but a hard crust. They have three or four pairs of legs curiously jointed and hinged. Some of them have powerful claws for seizing and bringing food to their mouths. Many have long, slender feelers keen to feel, smell and see; and almost all of them are pop-eyed. Remarkable is their system of nerves, breathing, circulation and digestion. The lobster is the most marked example of these species under study. His hind legs have small claws at their ends. His two front claws are large and powerful and never relax their hold in a fight unless they are broken. Its antennae or feelers are as long as its body and are slender and remarkably jointed. He can swim better than he can walk. His tail by folding and unfolding propels as well as pilots him, but always backwards. One stroke often suffices to carry it 30 feet. It often lives for 20 years. It produces no less than 12,000 eggs, which it conceals under its broad tail. These are hatched in midsummer about the size of an ant, clinging to the mother's fibres until all the eggs are hatched. Detached they cling to the marine plants on which they feed until developed enough to betake themselves to the waves. The case of the lobster does not allow it to grow much; but when its growth crowds the shell it is shed, and a larger one grows in its place. Its struggles for more room burst the shell and it must do much struggling until it is entirely relieved of it, the process beginning with drawing its claws out of their case, then its feet. The head and antennae next rid

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themselves of their cases, then the eyes, then the jaws and finally the tail. After the shell is cast off the lobster expands suddenly to about a fifth larger than before. It is very weak, but crawls to some retreat. While, and before shedding it has been secreting materials which in three days it converts into a hard and perfect shell like, but larger than, its former one, all of which shows the Creator's care for even so lowly a creature as the lobster.

As the final set of animals that we will consider in this connection, we will study the Mollusca. This word is derived from the Latin word mollis, soft; and the Mollusca consist to a great number of soft bodied animals encased in hard shells. These are some of the things with which the water was made to teem during the fifth creative period. There have been classified probably 50,000 species of these. Doubtless there are many more than these, because the bottom of the ocean is literally covered with them; and to its depths no man can come. They are of most diverse sizes and forms, all displaying God's manifold wisdom, power, justice and love. Marvelous are their shells in size, forms, colors, structure, variety and embellishment, often rivaling in beauty the products of the vegetable world. Some of them look like works of art; and some of them have the five lines and dotted notes, and they constantly sound forth accordant music. They sometimes are formed as cups or tubes, sometimes as cones, spires and columns. Others have graceful convolutions and complicated joints. These shell fish are called univalve, bivalve and multivalve, dependent on the number of pieces that constitute their shells. In some species the shell contains male or female, in others both sexes are in one shell, and in others both sexes are united in one individual. Some hatch; others bear. Some are herbivorous, others carnivorous. Some have locomotion; others are stationary. The univalves are the most numerous of shell fish and have the most diverse

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forms, usually spiral. The murex was the source of the ancient's purple dye. Some of these, the cowries, have been used in many parts of Africa and Asiatic Islands as money. The carinaria vitrea is the most beautiful and rarest of these fish, and is very fragile. Its inhabitant is a sailor often skimming along the ocean's surface. Other species, e.g., the violet snails and the hyaloea also skim as boats sailing on the ocean's surface. They have sails which they expand to the breeze. The most celebrated in this respect is the nautilus. The shell of this animal is lined with a pearly gloss, and in the East is often used as a drinking cup. The nautilus (little sailor, in Latin) has eight arms. Two of these have a thin oval membrane, which it holds up to the wind as sails, and the other six it uses as oars. When sailing it looks like a sailing vessel in the distance. Let danger come, down come its sails, in come its oars and, turning its mouth to the water, it catches enough of it to make it sink deep below the surface out of the reach of harm.

Bivalves are headless, lack sight, hearing and smell, but have gills, heart and nerves. They have a soft fleshy foot by which they perform their external tasks. The most beautiful of bivalves are escallop shells. The best known and used are the oyster and the clam, widely dispersed among earth's six continents. Oysters are very prolific, a single one containing 1,200,000 eggs. The pearl oyster is the most prized of all, and it reaches its greatest perfection along the coasts of Ceylon and the Gulf of Persia. Its pearls, of course, are highly valued. They are produced by the oyster seeking relief from discomfort by exuding a substance about a grain of sand that has lodged as an unwelcome, irritating guest within its shell. Sometimes these pearls are so numerous as to prevent the closing of the shells, which results in the oyster's death. The internal lining of the shells is beautiful and is called mother-of-pearl. The singing mussel is also a bivalve. Its music is

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melancholy and soft, later becoming sweet and louder, then dies down. This is repeated over and over again, and doubtless gave rise to the thought of the existence of the mythological sea nymphs. In size bivalves vary from the giant clam shell of 500 pounds, containing a full meal for 125 men, to those too small for ocular inspection. One of the remarkable features about the shells of univalves, bivalves and multivalves is the sizes and distances of the whorls. These "follow a geometrical progression and the spiral formed is logarithmic, of which it is a property that it has everywhere the same geometric curvature and is the only curve, except the circle, that has this property." Whence came this mathematical precision, if not from God, the Master Mathematician? It builds its shell in a uniform direction about its axis, in a geometric curve.

With the Mollusca are usually classed the loligo, cuttle- fish, octopus, squid, etc., whose appearance is as remarkable as it is ugly. The cuttle-fish and the octopus are marvelous works of God. They have perfect breathing organs, faculties for sight, sound and smell, parrot-like jaws and a triturating gizzard. Their circulation is produced by three hearts, not one. Their mouths are surrounded by eight arms, bending strongly in every direction, having suckers by which they can fix themselves firmly to any object desired, thus overpowering their prey. Their jaws are of great power. Their eyes are large and fierce. In Indian waters the natives rarely betake themselves to the sea, unless armed with axes with which they can chop off the arms of these monsters, which there grow to great sizes.

In the preceding part of this chapter we have treated on only part of the product of the fifth creative epoch, whales, fishes, crustaceans and molluscans, leaving for further discussion other interesting features of that period's work— animalcules, birds and insects. We will

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consider these three classes of that epoch's work in the order just cited. Our discussion of them can be merely fragmentary, inasmuch as many volumes have been written on each one of them. As previous to the invention of the telescope men thought that the only planets, moons and stars in existence were those visible to the naked eye, so previous to the invention of the microscope the only denizens of earth's waters were supposed to be those visible to the eye. But as the invention and use of the telescope came, new stars were brought to man's knowledge, and as these telescopes became very large, even new universes were brought to man's ken; so with the invention and use of the microscope the existence of new denizens in earth's waters came to man's view. Thus there opened up to man the world of animalcules, tiny creatures too minute for even the best of human eyes to see. They have been found in waters, in the air and in earth, yea, even in the bodies of larger beings, as they have been found to be one of the main causes of disease in man and beast. They confront us in all sorts of shapes—some ribbon shaped, some circular, some globular, some like wheels turning on axes, some double-headed, some hairlike, some cylindrical, some wormlike, etc. Some of them are almost large enough to be visible to human sight and some are so small that millions of them are contained in a drop of water.

One of the species of animalcules, called the polypi, lives at the bottom of the oceans in certain, especially tropical, localities, where through the millennia of their existence they have built reefs, promontories and islands, not a few of the last named being now inhabited by man. Often the waters of the Arctic Ocean are discolored by the presence of animalcules called medusae, which are usually found to the number of 100,000 in a cubic foot of water taken up at random. And the minutest, as well as the largest, of the animalcules have vital organs similar to those of larger water

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animals. They give evidence of feeling, will, intelligence, love, hatred, fear, suffering and pleasure. The species called the proteus, as their name indicates, can assume at will different forms—extension like a long hair, contraction to a minute point, expansion to a sphere, flattening into a pancake shape and roughening its surface as with horns. Examples of the species called rotifers have been taken from their native habitat, the water, and have been put in a dry place, where for six months they have lain all dried up but when placed into water have revived and lived on, as though they had always remained in the water. The freshwater species called the hydra seem to be nothing but stomachs with hairlike tentacles with which they seize their food, and true to their form they live almost only to eat, which they do most voraciously, and yet they can fast for several months without starving. Turned inside out they go right on functioning as though nothing had happened to them. Cut lengthwise into several strips each strip within 24 hours lives on as a separate individual, as though it had not been violently divided. Many of them have together been cut up into many parts, which then have been mingled together, and presently new ones develop through the union of parts that were once in different hydras. The hairlike animalcules form armies, marching sometimes in solid bodies, sometimes as different bodies, officered and keeping perfect order. One of the smallest of the animalcules are the infusoria, which a scientist has studied and found to be of over 1,000 varieties, which he claims are 1/40,000th of an inch in diameter, and which he found to be so small as to be present in a drop of water 500,000,000 in number. Some animalcules are herbivorous; others are carnivorous; some are shelled; others not. Yet as minute as they are, they have mouths, teeth, stomachs, muscles, nerves, veins, glands, eyes, etc. Their membrane is 1/50,000,000th of an inch thick.

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They are for their size very lively; their motions are various: some move like serpents, some dart, some move rotarily, some have seemingly a wheel on each side, moving like a side-wheel steamer, and some drag their bodies onward. And the blessing of fruitfulness that God pronounced on all animal life these enjoy in great fulness. A member of the species hydantina septa is said to increase at the rate of 1,000,000 in ten days, 4,000,000 in eleven days and 16,000,000 in twelve days. Great as these figures seem to be, a member of another species is claimed to be capable of increasing in four days to 170,000,000,000. Some of them multiply by eggs and spawning; some develop on their surface buds which grow into the form of the parent and then separate from it as independent souls; some divide into two, four, six, eight, or sixteen parts, each of which then leads an independent existence, making it impossible to distinguish between parent and offspring; some gradually distend, then burst, but as they thus perish as an individual, thousands of infant animalcules crawl out of them; some individuals reproduce in different from the above-mentioned ways. When the animalcules are thus seen to exist and do, we wonder at the wisdom and power of the Creator. It is truly wonderful to think of the visible organisms that He has made in whale, fish, crustacean, moluscan, insects, birds, reptiles, wild beasts, domestic animals and man, with all their marvelous mechanism, functions, characteristics and abilities, but in certain respects, especially in that of size, number and modes of reproduction, the wisdom and power of the Creator shine out in the world of animalcules even more astonishingly than in His larger creations in the animal world. To illustrate the wonders that the telescope and microscope have brought to our knowledge we will quote the following:

"The one led me to see a system in every star; the other leads me to see a world in every atom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden

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of its people and countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity; the other teaches me that every grain of sand may harbor within it the tribes and families of a busy population. The one told me the insignificance of the world I tread upon; the other redeems it from all its insignificance, for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to me that above and beyond and all that is visible to man there may be fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the Creator's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe; the other suggests to me that within and beyond all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles, and that could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all His attributes, where He can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them with the evidence of His glory."

While treating of the inhabitants of the aquatic world, we must not overlook the wonders of the world that they inhabit. There are beauties under the waters of our earth that well rival those of the dry land. There are there mountains and hills that in beauty, height and grandeur compare well with such as rear their heads at varying heights above the earth. There we find sunken gardens like those off Santa Catalina Island, whose flowery bowers, secret retreats and gorgeous vegetation, where gambol playful fish and other denizens of the deep, are more marvelous than any garden that can be seen on the dry land. There are valleys there that

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show us sights that well compare with the beauties of Yosemite. There are present in its wide spaces canyons that in height and depth, length and breadth, in variety of colors and different rocks, may well make the sublime Grand Canyon of Arizona look with envious eye toward them. There are in its great expanse plains and plateaus richly bejeweled with the beautiful shells of the seas. Surely the aquatic world beneath its surface has scenic beauties and sublimities at least equal to those of the dry land. And these as well as those of the dry land, join in ascriptions of praise to the wisdom and power of the great Creator.

The fifth creative day brought into existence beings other than these of the aquatic world, viz., the winged creatures consisting of fowl and insect (Gen. 1:20-23). On the basis of a mistranslation some have thought that the creations of the fifth day had their bodies made of the highly chemicalized and mineralized waters of that period. In this they include all the creations of that creative epoch. The A. V. of Gen. 1:20, 21 suggests the thought that the bodies of the aquatic and the fowl and insect worlds were formed out of water. While such may have been the case, the Hebrew of Gen. 1:20, 21 does not contain that thought. The literal translation of Gen. 1:20, 21, as Dr. Young gives it on the pertinent subject, is as follows: "Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature; and let fowl fly on the earth and on the face of the expanse of the heavens … every living creature … which the waters have teemed with." Since the Bible does not teach that the creations of the fifth day were made of the substances of and in the water, we should not teach it as a matter of revelation. It is one of the secret things that are unrevealed, on which therefore we will do well not to speculate as a matter of doctrine; but the fact that the aquatic fowl and insect worlds derive their sustenance and replace their depleted cells from both water and earth elements may well satisfy us that

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the Lord originally used both spheres as storehouses for the constituents of the bodies of the fifth day's creations. We will now turn our attention briefly to the world of fowl, by which we understand the winged, warm-blooded creation to be meant. These consist of the winged creatures that fly and that do not fly. The latter are mainly what we call domestic fowl, like chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, peacocks, guinea-fowl, etc. Ostriches are examples of fowl that do not fly and that are not domestic fowl. The fowl that fly we call birds, which are a fine part of the Creator's work.

Birds by their power of flying prove that a body heavier than air can overcome gravity to the extent that it can remain for long intervals above the earth in the air. It took man over 6,000 years before he could learn so to overcome gravity. There are perhaps 15,000 species of birds so far discovered and classified; and as man presses on in exploring hitherto unexplored or but scantily explored parts of the earth he still finds new species of the winged tribes. They range in size from the giant condor to the tiny humming bird. Design is shown in their bodily formation, adapting them to aerial flight—beginning at their middle they are wedge-shape, ending forward in a sharp bill and backward in a fanlike tail, whereby they glide through the air with a minimum of resistance. Their lightness, increased by their bones and certain other parts being filled with warm air, conduces to flight. Their flight is accomplished by the downward stroke of their outspread wings on the air, while they fold their wings as they raise them preparatory for another downward stroke, thus diminishing the resistance of the air. Those birds that get their food by diving into the water for it have a set of muscles that contract with great rapidity, expelling the air, which permits them to sink into the water, while those birds that do not have such an apparatus can no more sink than can a cork. The feathery covering given birds is adaptable to their purposes.

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This is light, smooth, warm, beautiful and oiled. The oil preserves the other four qualities and keeps birds from becoming wet through and through. In birds we find the greatest diversity. All colors of the rainbow are represented in them as a whole, and usually several colors are seen in each representative of the feathered tribe. Many different forms are represented in this tribe, which we can readily recognize as we mentally run through them from the  condor to the humming bird. Here, as well as in the domestic fowl, we see diversity and unity combined. They differ in their habits, habitats, food and social instincts. Each, however, is adapted to his own way of living. E.g., the beak is modified accordingly as to whether the bird is a swimmer, wader, runner, climber, percher, preyer or scratcher. So, too, their feet are adapted to their habits: those that swim are web-footed, those that walk are not web-footed but gifted with widespread and divided toes. Those that perch have feet-muscles that contract automatically so that they hold them steadily on their perches even while they sleep. Those that prey have long, sharp, rough and strong claws suitable to their mode of gaining their food. In these things we recognize the Creator's wisdom and power.

The principle of adaptation in birds is manifest in their internal organs. Grain-eating birds have crops and gizzards adapted to the digestive process working on grains, while birds of prey have a membranous stomach and strong gastric juices adapted to digesting their kind of food. Since their food need not be chewed, moistened or ground, they have no teeth, crops or gizzards. The muscles of birds in wing and tail are proportionately exceptionally strong, evidenced by their much flying. The ostrich can outrun the fastest of beasts. The condor and the eagle can fly higher than Mt. Everest. A falcon has been known to fly 1350 miles in a day. The swift can speed at the rate of 180 miles an hour. The frigate-bird is the fastest

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of all. It can cross from North Africa to the U. S. in twelve hours. It has been mathematically demonstrated that a body falls fastest not in a perpendicular line, but in a curve called the cycloid, which is the mode of an eagle's descent from great heights to the earth. So, too, birds in sight, hearing and smelling excel all other animals. It is the eagle's keenness and length of sight that occasioned God to use it as a symbol of His wisdom. Birds of carrion can see and scent their food many miles away. The organs of hearing in birds are proportionately much larger and keener than those of any other animal.

In intelligence they are remarkable, as can be seen from their building their nests in the best and safest places, from their adapting their nests to the needs, comfort and development of their young, from their varying habits of migration, from their ability to learn tricks, such as canaries can do, from their habits of imitation of almost every sound of the human voice, such as mocking birds can do and from their habits of imitating human speech, such as the parrot can do, and that often in a way as to show considerable reason. One could say the Lord's prayer in Dutch. An authentic story is told of a gander that acted as a guide to a blind old lady in Germany by pulling her skirts with his bill in the required direction, habitually leading her from her home to the church Sundays, ushering her to her pew, then retiring from the church during the service, to feed on the church lawn, and returning at the conclusion of the service, would lead his charge from her pew to her home. The memory of birds is vivid. They will return to their former abodes left at the beginning of their migration, when it is ended, as they always migrate to the same locality. So, too, they excel in voice. Their vocal organs are remarkably organized to sing their varied songs. How the nightingale, the mocking bird, the canary and the lark have delighted human ears that rejoice in harmonious

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and sweet songs! Who has not felt invigorated in body and mind by the choruses of the meadows and woods intoned by these happy songsters? Each variety of birds has its own peculiar song, which by variety lends all the more delight to the woodlands. And their evident joy in singing indicates that they have pleasure in one another's songs. Their voices have remarkable power for carrying, both in height and distance. The lark ascending in its spiral course can be heard long after it has disappeared from sight, and on the level its voice carries easily over half a mile, which means that they communicate circular waves to the air a mile in diameter! Where is the beast, not even the lion, that can make himself heard farther than this? It proves that perfect balance between the explosive power and nerve force issues from their throats, inasmuch as voice is the balanced proportion of air and nerve force exploding on the surface of the throat. Thus the Creator has worked out wonderfully the principle of design and adaptation in the various endowments of the feathered races. In this the creative wisdom and power of God is seen.

One of the most remarkable things in bird experience is their mating. Early in the spring those not yet mated choose their mates. We say that those not yet mated choose their mates early in the spring; for in almost all species of birds they pair for life; and certainly their courtships are most noteworthy and interesting. They go about it in dead earnest, and give an example of courtship experience that outrivals that of the ordinary human male and female in their courtship. In their married life they are certainly examples of faithfulness, mutual love and kindness. From the eagle to the pigeon, from the condor to the humming bird, with rare exceptions, such conditions prevail. This can daily be observed, e.g., from pigeon couples. They mourn each other's death; and often the dove refuses to mate again, though sometimes she does after

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a long period of mourning. A case is on record of a canary that fell dead while singing to his incubating mate, which flying to him and finding him dead refused to eat and starved at his side. If a female pelican proves unfaithful to her mate, the other females of the neighborhood gather, hold a council over it; and after discussion, if they decide on the death of the faithless one, they fly to her and peck her to death. But sometimes they declare her guilty with mitigating circumstances, in which case they banish her from their neighborhood. Accordingly, with rare exceptions, birds are neither polygamous, polyandrous, unfaithful, nor promiscuous; and in this they certainly preach a wholesome and needed lesson to humans. Thus God has creatively endowed the winged tribes with a high sexual and conjugal morality.

Once paired, birds go about the work of building nests for themselves and more particularly for their expected offsprings. It is remarkable how they choose the location for their nests. Here a great variety in kind of the location of their nests prevails, and that according to the varying conditions of climate, comfort and safety adaptable to each variety. The main thing sought is evenness of warmth for incubation. The strong and predatory birds are not so particular as to climate, comfort or safety for their fledglings as the weaker and preyed-upon birds are. Hence the eagle, the hawk, the emeu and the osprey build rough, exposed and uncouth nests, they depending on the size of their bodies to communicate enough warmth for incubation and on the strength of their young to endure the hardness of their nests; but the goldfinch, the thrush and the wren, whose little bodies can communicate but little warmth take much care in the construction of their nests to insure comfort and safety against cold. And their nests are architectural wonders, considering their builders. The ostrich makes a hole in the tropical sands and there deposits

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her eggs; but the eider duck, in the colds of the polar regions, tears out the down of her own body to make the nests of her young warm. Great skill is used by birds in constructing their "home, sweet home." The woodpecker after examining many trees selects the best for his purpose, cuts out a well measured and symmetrical hole, inclined for six inches, and then straight downward for ten inches more. The entrance is no larger than will admit snugly the body of these birds; inside, however, the den is much more capacious, and is as to its surface, smooth as though cut out by a machine. Woodpeckers usually carry the "chips" quite a distance away from the tree so as not to betray the whereabouts of their home. The South American woodpecker goes about his nest-building in another way, because he must guard his young against snakes and monkeys. He uses Spanish moss as his main building material, then chooses the most distant and weakest branch obtainable and builds at its end, upon which a monkey or snake would not venture for fear of its breaking and plunging him to the earth. It builds strands of rope out of the Spanish moss and mucilages this rope to the end of the chosen branch with a sticky substance that it finds in the forest. Then at the end of this rope it builds a pouch that serves as a nest. Here the eggs are laid and hatched; and if a wind blows this nest back and forth—well, it is a "rock-a- bye baby on the tree top," however, with ne'er a fall; and if snakes and monkeys seek prey thereon, they seek it in vain, for they dare not go out so far on so fragile and swaying a branch. The tailor-bird beats them all in skill and caution. It sews with its bill and fine fibers a dead leaf to a live one and out of this makes a pocket-like nest capable of bearing its less than a quarter-ounce weight and its young!

As all know, birds are oviparous—breed by eggs. The predatory birds lay few and thus propagate sparsely, while those that are preyed upon lay many.

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Thus the Creator has arranged for a balance to be preserved among the feathered tribes. The work of incubation is carried on wondrously. The mother bird usually sits on the eggs, while her mate stands by encouraging her with his songs and antics. Then he flies away in search of food for the brooding mother and brings it to her to her delectation. If she desires a change or exercise or a hunt for food, her mate takes her place on the eggs and remains there until she returns. At night they sleep side by side in the nest and thus neutralize by more warmth the comparative coolness of the night. The mother instinct in the female bird makes her willingly give up the pleasures, songs and pranks of courtship and nest building days in the long, patient self- denials of incubation. She covers the eggs well, equalizes the heat by turning them at regular intervals, until her pains receive as her gains the little ones. And with what joy do the parent birds greet their young! With what tender affection do they treat them! And with what busy and self- denying labor do they seek and give food to their young, whose large open mouths are ever ready to receive the grub, the worm, the berry, the cherry, or other succulent morsel that parental love and care have secured for them! And when the fledglings leave the nest, with what care the parent birds teach them to fly, to be on their guard against predatory enemies and to learn to secure their necessary food! And if danger approach, what care and stratagems do the parent birds exercise to protect their young! On one occasion we saw parent robins seeking to give one of their offsprings a start in life. Unknown to the parents a cat watched them, especially the young. The cat stealthily approached; the parents were not aware of any danger; we sought to intervene to protect the fledgling. In a second the mother bird flung herself between the little one and us, very near to us, but so as to avoid being caught and then retreated

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from us in a direction away from her young, pretending that one of her wings and one of her legs were broken, and seeking to draw us on after her and away from her precious charge; but we made for the young bird and got it just in time to save it from the cat, which felt the impact of a vigorous kick administered by a foot that had in adolescence been strong in football playing. Instantly the birds recognized in us a savior of their young. Their attitude of fear and strategy quickly changed into joyous gratitude and expectant faith, which were, as soon as the danger no more threatened, rewarded by the release of their young robin. Their rushing to it in strong affection and wholesome joy showed in another form their parental love. When the parental labors and responsibilities of the bird mates are over, by the easing up of life's labors and cares they remind us of the easing up of life that we observe in human parents who have successfully launched on the sea of life the fruit of their wedded love. In the many families and tribes of bird life we recognize the fulfillment of some of the words of our text: "And God blessed them, saying … let fowl multiply in the earth" (v. 22). We could write more on birds as God's creative works, but this will suffice for our present purpose. Surely in the fowl world God's wisdom and power are displayed.

And now we will turn briefly to a consideration of the insect world as a part of God's creative works. Since most of these fly their creation may be considered as included in the word fowl, if used in the widest sense, of things with wings; otherwise we would have to conclude that the record of their creation is omitted entirely from the history of creation as contained in Gen. 1:1—2:4. The thought of such an omission is, we think, not to be entertained, especially when we call to mind two of the most interesting members of the insect world—ants and bees. It has been suggested that there are from 2,000,000 to

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3,000,000 species of insects. Be this as it may, there certainly are many of these. Every one of them is susceptible of thorough study, such as would require volumes to describe to exhaustion. Herein again we see the marvels of Divine wisdom and power illustrated. Some insects are exceedingly numerous, e.g., locusts, which at times have increased to untold numbers, as witness the pertinent plague upon Egypt. A case on record of an army of them in Southern Africa covering an area of 2,000 square miles; part of these were drowned in a broad river, which was so fully covered by them as to make the water invisible. Then a strong wind blew the rest into the sea, whose billows washed them back to the shore, where they were piled three feet high along many miles of the coast. The kingdom of ants, in great variety, is also very numerous. Insects have many habits like large animals and live and act in all essential matters very much like them. They can swim, dive, walk, run, leap, jump, creep and fly, like other animals. Yet they have movements peculiar to themselves. So complicated is their structure that years of study of but one of them do not exhaust the subjects presented to a scientist for investigation. A scientist in the body of one insect found 306 plates in the outer envelope of its structure, 494 muscles putting these plates into action, 24 pairs of nerves and 48 pairs of breathing organs. The finest thread of a spider's web is said to be composed of 4,000 strands. On the wing of one butterfly 100,000 scales were counted and 400,000 on that of a silkworm moth. These are certainly wondrous products of Divine wisdom and power. Their bodies are remarkably formed. Usually they have six legs and four wings; most of them have antennae-feelers, an awl, a proboscis and in some cases a sting. Their mouths have various members: some have biting jaws, some have a piercing proboscis, some have suckers, some have licking tongues, some have cutting lancets, some

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have sharp saws and some have stings. The microscope reveals many wonders in these. They have no mouths, but breathe through spiral holes in their sides, these holes differing in number in different species.

In discussing insects it must be said that they have the same senses as other animals. Usually they feel by antennae. The bee illustrates their power to smell, since he scents the honey from afar; so does the fly that smells corruption at a great distance, thousands of times his length. They hear distinctly and their possession of taste is evident from their choosing delicacies and rejecting nauseous things. Their sight is powerful and many of them have multiple eyes, as illustrated by the multitude of lenses in the great eyes of flies, all of which are so many eyes, ranging from 4,000 in the house-fly to 13,500 in the dragon fly and to 25,000 in the queen bee. Insects, like bees and ants, have ways of talking to one another, both by sound and by signs. E.g., when the queen bee dies or is stolen, those who know it give by sound and touch the alarm to others and soon the greatest agitation sets in. The ants communicate even more with one another than bees. Both ants and bees have sentinels and police. When the ant sentinels see an enemy approach they communicate this by bumping the corselet of every ant they meet, with their heads. Each one in turn does the same to others. Soon some rush to repel the invader, while the others hide the eggs and larvae. Most insects manifest love, hatred, sorrow, happiness, fear, anger, sympathy, appreciation, secretiveness, etc. For their size they are strong indeed, often bearing or pushing objects many times heavier than themselves. The speed of movement in some of them is often faster than the fleetest racehorse. Some of them can stop at once, no matter how fast they are flying. Thousands of bees hang upon one another without tearing out the feet of the upper ones. Their strength is seen in the many times

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greater than their size they are able to leap. If a horse could leap in proportion to the size and leap of a flea, he could at one bound leap higher than Mt. Everest and across our continent. They are mainly oviparous and usually pass through four stages of being: (1) in eggs, (2) as grubs, maggots or caterpillars, (3) as a chrysalis and (4) as adult insects. The butterfly is a well-known illustration of this fourth state of being. They are fertile beyond comprehension, as can be seen in the case of the queen bee and the queen ant, the former laying in one season 40,000 to 50,000 eggs, and the queen white ant laying 86,400 eggs a day and 2,592,000 in a month, the record of any animal above animalcules.

The bee and the ant are decidedly the most interesting of insects and of these two the ant leads the more complicated and developed life. Hence Solomon's advice to the sluggard: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." (Prov. 6:6) Both of them live a highly developed social life. E.g., certain of the ants have what is called a marriage flight, during which there is a courting. Then the marriage takes place; and thereafter copulation. In the meantime the soldier and worker ants of the colony are divided into as many equally numbered groups as there are females in the marriage flight. Each group is assigned to one of these females after the copulation takes place. These eat off her wings, then make ready a home for her, ever enlarging it as the eggs that the queen ant lays increase, as the larvae come forth and as the ants in four groups are developed. The workers receive the least nourishment and consequently are the smallest members of the ant colony. Next come the soldiers, which are given more nourishment. Next come the males that are destined for marriage and that by more nourishment are grown larger than the soldiers. Finally come the females that are destined to become queen ants and that by the

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most nourishment are grown four times the size of the workers. The workers gather food, build the apartments and corridors of the home and take care of it and the young ants. The soldiers do sentinel work and fight the battles with intruders and other ants, often taking ants captives, which are enslaved, but treated so well as to love their masters and new homes. The breeding males are drones, whose end comes after copulation with the prospective queen ants. They have funerals, the burials always occurring away from their abodes, games, dances, banquets, courts, prisons, executions. In fact, they have an elaborate social life. The bee is only a little below the ant in the social life that they lead. Many details could be given on other features of insect existence, but enough has been given to show the glory of God's creative wisdom and power in their creation and preservation.

Thus we come to the end of the fifth creative day's work. Surely the facts given above prove that what God then created was good—useful, ornamental and diversified. Yea, all God's works, even those that are the lowest of His animal creation, praise Him and enhance Him in our gratitude, appreciation, love, worship and adoration!

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