All About Animals
William Wilson
Table of Contents
How God Protects the Animals
Everything has enemies. Animals fight each other. Fish kill one another. Insects prey on other insects. Birds chase bugs around streetlights at night. Spiders try to catch prey in their webs. Because sin is in the world, there is hatred everywhere. But God has equipped living things with some marvelous means of defending themselves.
No matter what color the top of a fish may be, the underside is white or nearly white. This keeps its enemies below it from seeing it easily in the water. The backs of some fish are so colored as to harmonize with the surroundings. I once watched a flounder as it swam around in the water. When it gradually sank to the bottom, where there was lots of sand, I could hardly tell which was sand and which was fish. Another fish, when attacked, throws out a black, inky substance like a smoke screen. While its enemies are trying to find it in the midst of the dark, murky water, it gets away.
A very peculiar little fish gave me a good laugh one day at the seashore. The tide was going out, and I was slowly following the water down, looking for odd fish. I spied a queer-looking one, something like a littleneck clam. I hurried over to get it. But that little fellow bored his way down into the sand so fast that he was out of sight when I reached the spot. I stooped over to put my hand down into the hole and up came a squirt of water and sand right in my face. Of course, by that time the little rascal had escaped. Wasn’t he clever! He knew Uncle Walter couldn’t see with his eyes full of sand and water.
The wasp, the spider, and the bee defend themselves by their bite and sting. Snakes are defended by their ugliness, by their strength, and also by their terribly poisonous bite.
Brilliantly-colored birds are very easily seen in trees and bushes. So the Lord protects them by giving them swift flight. Some of the large, brightly-colored birds, like the parrot, have such very strong beaks and sharp claws that their enemies are afraid to attack them. Eagles fly so high and so swiftly that other birds can’t follow them and the hunter can’t reach them.
Lions defend themselves by their strength and so do elephants. They also have speed and can hurry away quickly. The Lord made alligators so that they could not run very fast, but He gave them a coat of armor, thick, hard, and stiff, to protect them in their slow progress. He also gave them many sharp teeth and tremendously strong jaws and tail.
The turtle is a strange little animal. Every day it lives, it grows a little larger. It has a house made of a very hard substance, almost as hard as stone. When danger is near, it crawls into its house, closes all the doors and windows, and waits to see what will happen. If a dog barks, it does not open the door to see what is going on. It knows better. The dog would try to pick it up. As long as it stays in its shell, the dog cannot find a place to get hold. There is no taste to the shell; so nothing wants to eat it.
So, you see, all living things have some means of protection—even children like you. The heavenly Father knows that boys and girls are not very wise or strong. So He gives them fathers and mothers in homes to look after them and give them food and clothes.
And He provided the Lord Jesus Christ to protect them from sin and Satan, the worst enemies of all. God’s Word says, “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” That means that Jesus died on the cross so that God wouldn’t ever have to punish you for your sins. Wasn’t it good and wonderful of Him to do that for you?
No one is safe from sin and Satan unless he belongs to the Saviour. But all who trust Him are safe. Boys and girls, have you put your trust in Jesus? If you haven’t, won’t you do it right now. Accept Him as your Saviour. Then He will always defend you against all enemies.
Just as the turtle has its shell and the alligator its thick, hard hide, so boys and girls who trust the Lord Jesus are given armor for defense. Read about it in Ephesians 6. Every part of it represents the Lord in His protecting care. He keeps the thoughts and minds of those who believe His Word. He guards the heart against evil affections. He guides the feet in paths of obedience as taught in the Bible. He will protect you through life, through death, and through eternity.
The Octopus
Not many people have seen a live octopus. Octopuses are hard to find. Most of them live around the southern coast of England and off the two coasts of France. Sometimes circuses have one in a tank of water and will let you see it for a dime, but often it is a dead one which has been preserved in some way.
No one but the God of heaven would ever have thought of making an octopus. It has no legs; so it cannot run or walk. It has no wings; so it cannot fly. It has no fins; so it cannot swim. The poor thing is surely in a sorry predicament, isn’t it? It just has to crawl around on the bottom of the ocean by pulling itself with its eight arms. It goes up over the rocks in the same way.
I have never seen a live octopus, but I have seen live starfish. They have five arms instead of eight. I have sat on the seashore and watched a starfish try to get back into the water when the tide was going out. He turned all five of his arms in the same direction toward the water and pulled himself along like a measuring worm. Then he stretched them out again and pulled himself some more. That is the way the octopus does, too.
Sometimes the octopus is called the devil fish. It must be because it acts so much like the devil. He likes to get boys and girls in his grasp. He puts one arm around them and gets them to do one sinful thing. Then he gets another arm around them, pretending to love them, and gets them to do some worse thing, and he continues until he has caught them away into a lost eternity. Let me remind you, children, that sin and Satan are like the octopus. They take everything out of you that they can get—your money, your health, your good name, your honor, and your peace. They give nothing in return except a few passing moments of pleasure. The Lord Jesus only is a good Giver. He keeps giving you the best in this life and the finest of the next life, when you trust Him as your Lord and Saviour.
The octopus has many enemies, but most of its enemies are afraid of it. You see, when the octopus is full grown, it has eight arms, each one about three feet long. That makes 24 feet of arms to wrap themselves around anything that attacks it. So if an enemy is caught, it has small chance of getting away. On each of these arms there are two rows of suckers. They are about the size of a quarter and look something like a rubber cup that is used on the windshield of an automobile. They can surely cling to anything they touch.
This is true of Satan and sin, too. They fasten themselves in the heart and mind of boys and girls who play with them. Then when the boys or girls want to get free from sin, they find they are fastened so securely that they cannot break away.
The best way to do, children, is to let the Lord Jesus keep you by His power from Satan’s clutches and from sin’s charms. If you go to Him in prayer, trusting Him fully to help you, He will guard and keep you each day from the wicked and cruel enemy of your souls. He said, “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.” In another place, He said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me...” He knows that Satan will want you, and so He asks you to hide from sin and Satan by looking to Him for His loving care.
Animals have enemies, and people—even boys and girls—have enemies. Isn’t it blessed that God has provided a wonderful Friend who will never hurt or harm, if we love Him and put our trust in Him. He is a loving Saviour and loves to give eternal life and love, joy, peace, kindness, and mercy to everyone who accepts Him, God’s blessed Son, the Lord Jesus.
Many Lessons From the Bears
Bears are found in many parts of the world. There are brown bears and black bears, grizzly bears and polar bears. Wherever they are, though they have different colors, they have very similar habits. They are good swimmers and they can climb trees. They are very strong and fierce; yet they move very quietly. In fact, they hardly ever make a noise with either their mouths or their feet.
Nearly all bears are vegetarians. A few eat meat, but most of them eat roots and berries, little twigs, tender leaves, and honey. Usually they do not eat their enemies, because as I have just said, very few bears eat meat. If they meet an enemy, they fight him with their two strong front legs and paws, striking so hard and tearing so fiercely with their claws that they kill him.
God made bears quite different from lions or cows. He speaks of bears in the Bible to discourage people who are cunning, sly, stealthy, and cruel. I hope that none of my young friends will be like that. You let the Lord Jesus make you a sweet, devoted Christian who loves the Lord, loves His Word—the Bible—and loves to be good. If Christ dwells in your heart by faith, then you will be a new creature in Christ Jesus, saved by His grace. The Scripture says: “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John 1:12). Again the Bible says: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature...” (2 Cor. 5:7).
Baby bears love to play. They run and tumble like puppy dogs. They box each other’s ears with their paws. They bite each other—but not very hard. They have such a good time! I have a picture at home of three baby bears who had been playing together when two dogs got after them. My! how they ran for a tree and went right up to the very top of it. And there they sat on three little limbs while the dogs looked so disappointed.
The tree was the bears’ salvation. I remember reading in the Bible about a man named Simeon, who picked up the baby Jesus and said to God, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace... for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” Jesus on the throne is our salvation, boys and girls. Be sure you run to Him when sin and Satan come after you.
Bears can be trained to do many tricks. I have another picture of a bear riding on a bicycle. They can be taught to roller skate and to box and to turn somersaults. Of course, they do not do these things naturally when they are alone, but only when they are made to do them. We would not be good, naturally, either; so the Lord Jesus changes us when we trust Him. He said, “A new heart will I put within you.” When He does that, then we will naturally and easily live Christian lives which will bring glory to God.
Bears have a peculiar way of sleeping. They do not stretch out like a dog or a cow; neither do they sleep on their knees as camels do. They lie down on their side and put all four feet together in a bunch. Along in the late fall, the bear will go down into a cave and lie down with all four feet firmly pressed together. He will go to sleep and not wake up until about April. He doesn’t get up to eat or drink or for any purpose. He just sleeps.
No doubt many of you wish you could get a good long sleep like that. But the alarm clock spoils it all or else Mother calls or maybe somebody comes in with a little cold water and sprinkles it on your face or on your feet. And doesn’t it feel terrible early in the morning?
The Lord says, “Awake, thou that sleepest and arise from among the dead and Christ will give you light.”
This means that the Lord Jesus wants you to be a praying boy or girl; He wants you to read your Bible, go to Sunday school, and learn to know God as the teacher and the preacher tell you about Him. You will be busy learning arithmetic and geography. The Lord wants you also to be busy learning to know Him and His will through His Word.
I do hope that each one will do this.
Alligators Are Different
The alligator and the turtle are different in many respects from other animals. For one thing, they never stop growing as long as they live. Each year of their lives adds to their size.
Isn’t it good that God has not made all animals that way! Nobody cares how big an alligator gets, but we certainly wouldn’t want our dogs to grow as big as cows and run in and out of the house. God does everything wisely and well.
The alligator lays its eggs in a wedge in the sand near the bank of a stream or a lake, up a little way from the water. She never goes back to see them. She never mothers her young. She just places the eggs where the warm sun can reach them and then goes away down the river and leaves the babies to hustle for themselves. The eggs hatch in 42 days or six weeks.
One time a missionary found an alligator’s nest with two eggs in it about the size and shape of an ostrich egg. He noticed that one of them was cracked as if the baby alligator was about to be hatched. So he lay down beside the nest to watch the little thing come out of the shell.
In a short time the crack in the egg widened. Presently the shell broke open. Then a little alligator about 12 inches long, crawled out. It seemed quite surprised at its new surroundings. But it spread itself out comfortably on the warm sand to get dry and become accustomed to this great new world into which it had come.
The missionary watched it closely to see what it would do. It happened that as it emerged from the shell, it headed up towards the woods, with its tail toward the river. After perhaps an hour of resting in the sunshine, the alligator slowly turned around and started down toward the river. It had never seen water. It had never been swimming. It had never used its little jaws for food. It had never seen an enemy.
My friend wanted to see whether the alligator was tame or wild. So he put his finger down toward its mouth, thinking he would turn its head around facing the woods again and see whether it would go in that direction. As soon as the little animal noticed the finger, he jumped at it and snapped as if he would bite it off with those sharp new teeth. The finger was pulled back just in time. Then the alligator hurried down the bank toward the water.
How did this little thing, just out of the shell, know which way to go to find water? How did it know there were enemies? It knew because of the animal nature given it by God. No amount of teaching or training could change the alligator. The only way it could be changed would be for God to give it a new nature.
So it is with us, boys and girls. As soon as we are born, we begin to find ways of doing wrong things. Sinful and wicked things attract us early in life. Unless the Lord Jesus changes us and we are born again, we shall continue with that sinful nature. Christ, however, would like to save each one of you. If you trust Him with your soul, He will make you a new person in Him.
Some Interesting Things About Eels
How many of you children have ever seen an eel? Raise your hands. Oh, my! not many have. An eel looks very much like a snake. When the fisherman pulls one out of the water, it wiggles and twists and crawls around on the ground just like a snake.
Baby eels are born way down deep in the Caribbean Sea. The mamma and daddy eels go down there from Canada, the United States, Norway, Sweden, France, and Africa. After the babies are born, the daddies and mothers go back home and leave them there. At birth the babies are wee little things, so thin you can almost see through them. But they have tremendous appetites. They eat all day long and most of the night. As they grow, they get round like a pencil, When they are grown, the daddy eel is about three feet long and the mother is about six feet long. I do not know why the mother is so much larger than the daddy unless it is that she chases him and makes him behave.
Though the babies are born in salt water, they love to live and swim in fresh water. When they are large enough, they start for home. They go back to the same place where their fathers and mothers came from. You see, children follow in the footsteps of their parents. Do you have a daddy and mother who pray and read the Bible and go to Sunday school? If so, be sure to follow them. The Lord Jesus wants to save you, too, as He saved your daddy and mother.
One day the Lord Jesus said to some men, “Follow Me....” He wants you to do that, children. Learn to trust the Lord Jesus as your own Lord and Saviour. Then let Him guide you into the place where He can use you for His glory.
No one knows how the eels know the way back home. They have no chart or compass. Their parents have already been gone a long time. But the God who made eels gave them an instinct which tells them how to find their way down in the dark sea water, and so they start back to the country from which their parents came. This same God will give you the gift of eternal life if you will accept the Lord Jesus and let Him be your Saviour to keep you from the dark ways of sin.
Eels can travel very fast through water. They never seem to get tired. Sometimes they will swim as far as 10 miles in one day. This is a long way to swim through the water amid so many enemies. Sometimes it takes them three years to reach their homes, for it is a long, long way from the Caribbean Sea to the fjords of Norway. Sea gulls attack eels, some kinds of fish eat them, and fishermen catch them; so usually only about one-third to one-fourth ever reach their home.
The eel’s skin is smooth, but down in the skin there are lots of tiny little scales so small they can hardly be seen. In among the scales there are mucous glands which cover the eel with slimy, slippery, slick mucous. No doubt you have heard the expression, “slippery as an eel.” This slick covering enables the eel to get away from its enemies and also to swim quickly in the water.
Sin is slippery, too, boys and girls. It can slip its way into your life when you least expect it. Only the Lord Jesus and His Bible can keep you from sin. Be sure to read your Bible every day.
Eels are found in many of our rivers and lakes. When winter comes and ice fills the streams, the eels go way down to the bottom of the deep waters and bury themselves in the mud. There they stay for a long time until the nice, warm spring sunshine and the warm rains cause the ice to melt. I have been told that eels are much disturbed by noises and especially by thunder. It seems that when they hear thunder, they think rain is coming and with it lots of bugs, worms, and other living creatures will be washed down into the stream for them to eat. So they come up looking for food.
Some fishermen, knowing this about eels, play tricks on them. They go down to the stream with drums or anything that will make a deep roaring sound. They beat on them to attract the eels’ attention and get them to come up from the bottom of the stream because they think they hear thunder. Then the fishermen use their nets or fishing poles and catch a fine lot of eels by this trick.
This reminds me of the clever schemes Satan uses to get boys and girls to go astray into sinful paths and wicked ways. He, too, will put on all kinds of performances to make little folks and big folks, too, think that they will reap a harvest of goodness, happiness, and blessing by obeying his call. But he has his evil helpers ready to trick and trap those who follow him. He gets them wound up in bad habits which hold them fast and trip them in such a way that their lives are ruined. I do hope that you who are reading this story will not listen to Satan when he calls. You listen to the Lord Jesus instead and trust Him, because He died to save you and lives to keep you from Satan’s harmful and evil tricks.
Turtledoves
The dove has always been used as a symbol of tenderness and love. Maybe you have heard your big brother call some beautiful, brown-eyed girl with lovely, dark curly hair his “turtledove.” Of course, he was just trying to tell you how much he loved her. Wouldn’t you be surprised if he called her his buzzard or his crow! You know very well that would not fit at all. Nobody thinks of a buzzard or a crow as a type of love or a symbol of affection. But the turtledove speaks of sweetness, kindness, beauty, and grace. I have been told that the turtledove is the only one of all the birds that does not have any gall. Gall is very bitter. There is no bitterness about the turtledove. Among the animals, I have been told, the deer has no gall.
Let me remind you that if you trust the Saviour, He will take the bitterness out of your heart. He will make you a lovely Christian. He will take away your sins because He died for you at Calvary. He will make you a joy to your parents and you will be a blessing to all who know you.
One time I was a guest in the home of an old Swedish gentleman. He said to me, “I like the turtledove the best of all the birds.” This was interesting to me; so I asked him why. He said, “The turtledove always says, ‘God is good, is good, is good. God is good, is good, is good,’ and I like that.” Of course I had to agree with him, for surely the cooing of the dove sounds just like that.
If that is what the dove is saying, it certainly is the truth; for we do have a good God who gives us our daily food, the blessings of flowers and sweet perfumes, the rich provision of delicious fruits, precious friends, and many delightful comforts. We should love Him for that. Then, He gave us the Lord Jesus to save us, and we should love Him for that and trust the Saviour He has given us.
When I was a boy, I decided to gather a collection of birds’ eggs. What a time I had looking for nests? One day I found a hummingbird’s nest with two tiny eggs in it. I found a wren’s nest, and it had beautiful tiny eggs, also. One afternoon I went looking for a turtledove’s nest. I knew they liked to stay around the orchards, where there are lots of bugs and all kinds of insects to feed their babies. So I went to an apple orchard and, sure enough, found a turtledove’s nest. I climbed the tree, but found the nest empty. Finally, as I looked about among the trees, I saw a nest with a mother turtledove sitting on it. I did not intend to take both eggs but only one of them. Just before I reached the nest, the turtledove flew off. The poor thing seemed to have a broken wing. She flopped through the air so helplessly and then dropped down into the grass about 75 feet away from the tree.
I thought, “My! I’d rather catch the bird than have the eggs”; so I quickly came down from the tree and ran over to catch the bird. Just before I reached her, she flew up into the air, flopped around on one wing, flew through the air a little way, and then fell again into the grass. Of course I kept on running after her. Each time, just before I reached her, she flew up and limped off through the air to fall again a short distance away.
Finally, she led me out to the road. Then she made a face at me, so to speak, and flew off just as fine as could be. There was nothing wrong with her wing. She was just fooling me and leading me away from her nest. And she certainly succeeded. I went back and tried to find the nest. I was determined to get both eggs, but I did not find the nest. The orchard was large and there were many trees in it. I simply could not find the tree with that nest in it. Of course that is just what the mother turtledove wanted. That was her scheme to protect her nest, and it surely did work.
I have found some people to be like that when I tried to help them about their souls. They wanted to talk about something else, and would talk about all kinds of things rather than let me talk to them about the lovely Lord Jesus, who came to save them. I trust that none of Uncle Walter’s big family of boys and girls will be like the turtledove in this respect. When your Sunday school teacher wants to tell you about the Lord Jesus, listen attentively, because she wants to help you to know that blessed one who alone is able to save the soul and enrich the heart. Jesus will bring you to God the Father. He will make you fit for heaven and will bring you to heaven. Do not let anybody lead you astray or take you away from trusting this wonderful Saviour.