How Nature Encourages the Humorists To Make You Smile

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 862, 4 January 1930, Page 15

How Nature Encourages the Humorists To Make You Smile

Explaining Some of the Amusing Neu) Freaks Found Among Plants,

Flowers, Fishes

and Animals.

WHEN Nature speaks, sometimes it is with a wide grin,

She can be very harsh and terrible. Particularly during earthquakes, electrical storms, hurricanes, indigestion, toothaches and other phenomena. she has a vicious hand in all ox these.

But, fortunately, Nature also has less sinister moods now and then. She knows that human beings ought to snnle once in a while. So she insinuates her humor into living and inanimate matter. She scatters jests among the animals, the fishes, vegetation and rock formations.

Not all of us find these natural jests a -first hand. Either we have not a sufficiently keen sense of humor or else we don’t get around enough. But Nature has her emissaries for this particular job. She picks on the humorists, and when the humorists run out of material Nature, herself, provides more inspiration to encourage them. And the humorists, whether they be cartoonists, writers or photographers, translate these things into laughter. And laughter, any doctor will tell you, is good for the system. It’s much, much better than weeping, sneering or Viewing With Alarm.

On this page are gathered a few representative examples of the methods Nature adopts to make you laugh. Consider the potato that resembles a bull pup, the onion that looks like a chick, the “elephant” sitting on top of a mountain, the ducks arrested for fighting—these and others have their natural humor. Glance through a book of natural history and you will find many things that might well come under the heading of ‘Believe It or Not.” You will read, for instance, about the hanging parrots. They are so called because of their habit of sleeping with their heads downward, suspended by their claws from a bough. It isn’t that these parrots feel particularly athletic. They simply are uncomfortable in any other position. Put a couple of them in a cage and they will hang that way for hours at a time. In fact, you can always tell when such a parrot is bored. It simply yawns in its own way. Then, with an odd squeak, it gives a sudden flip and its body swings down and the head rests on the air. The rest is silence. In New York City there is a remarkable parrot of the ordinary species you see frequently in windows. This is called “the hawking parrot.” It was bought recently by Michael Cartigiano, the so-called “Banana King,” of the American metropolis, because of its unusual clarity of voice. Cartigiano, it seems, wanted an assistant to shout his wares to the passersby in front of his establishment. So he taught the parrot, after many painstaking days, to say: “Bananas' Quarter a bunch! Quarter! Quarter!” For a while the parrot brought in many customers. But one day a

competitor of Cartigiano’3 down the street decided to sell bananas for 20 cents a bun&h. Cartigiano likewise cut his price. But the parrot was not interested in pricecutting. In spite of signs in the window, proclaiming bananas at 20 cents a bunch, the parrot kept screaming: “Bananas! Quarter a bunch! Quarter! Quarter!” Cartigiano became frantic. He rushed to the front of the store and shouted: “No! No! Bananas are 20 cents a bunch!” “Quarter! Quarter!”screamed back the parrot. And, while an amused crowd looked on, the enraged Cartigiano carried the parrot into the back of the store. P. S.—The parrot lost the job. Then there’s the flying frog of Borneo. It is four inches long, and is a cross between a bat and a frog. It has web feet, which serve as wings. This sort of a frog is a very unusual individual. It defies all kinds of laws. It goes hopping along merrily and, all of a sudden, when it get 3 the proper urge, soars into the air. Thus it provides a startling sight— also nervous

indigestion—to sensitive onlookers. Those grammatically meticulous persons who say the word “hop” is incorrect and slangy when applied to avia-

tion, ought to watch a flying frog. He hops—and one of his hops is a flight. In the aviation group of animals there also are to be found the flying squirrels. They’re plentiful in North America. They possess a parachutelike membrane extending from the •ides of the body to the toes. They look like ordinary, normal, nutcracking squirrels until they decide to fly. Then their bodies seem to open up, and, like the frog, they somewhat resemble a bat. Whether this spectacle is intended by Nature to cause a laugh or consternation is something for the naturalists to figure out. Certain butterflies are almost as wise as the birds they attempt, to imitate. These butterflies, when going to sleep, open their wings. In the night they look like the eyes of an owl, and those nocturnal creatures that aren’t afriad of butterflies, but are disconcerted by owls.

leave these butterflies alone. The sea provides many strange and amusing sights. Richard Lydekker, in his series of nature studies, told how a fisherman saw a long strip in the water. It appeared to be a beautifully

r colored ribbon, more than twenty feet long and about a foot deep. The fisherman had visions of picking up this bit of beauty and offering it to his lady fair. But he found to his surprise, when he caught it in his net, that the ribbon was a fish. The ribbon fish usually is about twenty feet long and less than an inch thick. The head is so small and insignificant that the fish does, indeed, look like a long and multicolored strip of ribbon. Only a close glance at the pugnacious-looking head reveals that the ribbon is another strange species of fish. The fluke fish is remarkable, too. Its upper side is black and the under side white. This color scheme is its protection. For when it sleeps it lies in the mud with the black side up. It merges into the mud, and passing fish, seeking prey, never notice it until it moves. If the fish should reveal its white side the resulting de- jM velopments would be Mg anything but funny. Did you ever see a MM devil’s walking stick? « It is an insect. The JHj four legs are so fine they hardly can be discerned. When the in- Mi sect, about three inches flg long, moves over the |||l ground,, it appears as gll though a stick were ||| being propelled by some I|| mysterious method. The “devil” has a very small head.

' Even in her more sinister moments Nature has done some rather capricious things. There have been many stories of the unusual tricks performed by lightning. On more than one occasion lightning has struck near a man, tearing off part of his clothing, but leaving him physically intact, except for slight bums. In plants the light touch of Nature again is seen. For instance, there are some plants which travel by actually walking Currant bushes, wishing to multiply, do not wait for such a slow process as dropping their seeds to the ground and letting them, little by little, sprout and develop into new bushes. They know a quicker way. They walk and, as they walk, they develop new plants.

The mother bush selects a healthy branch, she reaches out and bends it down to the earth; down into the ground she sends little roots from the branch. The roots collect the nourishment, send it up into the branch. The branch itself is soon a flourishing currant bush, ready to take another step in its walk by sending out a branch of its own—which will develop into still another bush.

and even large moths. One of the most remarkable of the insect-eating plants is the Venus’s fly-trap, to be found in the North Carolina swamps. The plant is so sensitive that the slightest touch on one of the nerve-hairs causes the leaf to close instantly, like a mousetrap. And when the leaf is closed it forms a trap from which no marauder can escape. This plant spreads its leaves out along the ground. Each leaf is tipped

In the same way, white clover, strawberries, sweet potatoes, Wandering Jew, and many other forms of grasses, walk by planting others like themselves. Plants also set traps, catch and eat flies, bees, butterflies, gnats, ants, fish,

with a tempting bit of honey. The unsuspecting insect comes eagerly to drink of the nectar. It steps on one of the sensitive nerve-hairs; the leaftrap snaps shut. Then the plant devours the insect, first soaking it with a sticky digestive fluid. When the insect has been entirely absorbed into the plant, the leaf opens again and carefully resets its trap. There are many carnivorous sea plants, which live entirely on small forms of life. The bladderwort is one of the most strikingly ingenious of fishing plants. The bladders of the plant are devised especially to trap animal life. Little fish swim into a mouth or opening at one end of the oval bladders. Then it closes. The fish die in the trap. Their decayed bodies are slowly fed upon by the voracious plant. Plants can be athletic, too. Take, for instance, the Rose of Jericho, another traveling plant. It grows on the dry deserts of Arabia, and near Jerusalem. When all the moisture goes out of the soil the plant becomes hard and dry. Its delicate branches roll up into a ball shape, its seed-pots tightly close, and it draws up its small roots from the hot sands. Then, all “packed up” and clad in its traveling suit, it is ready to start on a wild frolic. When the wind comes the Rose of Jericho rolls and tumbles. It bounces in the air and does a lot of gymnastics. It keeps this up, while it travels along, until it finds a damp spot. Then it stops, unpacks, shakes its seeds out on the damp sands and begins life over again. These things are Nature’s jests, her "gags,” her amusing mysteries. Behind her antics Nature laughs—and the sensitive among mankind echo her laughter.