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Title: A Child's Primer of Natural History

Author: Oliver Herford

Release date: August 16, 2008 [eBook #26331]

Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Jessica Rupp

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILD'S PRIMER OF NATURAL HISTORY ***

A Child's Primer

Of Natural History

By Oliver Herford

with Pictures by

the Author

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1899

Copyright 1899, by

Oliver Herford

CONTENTS

A Seal

The Giraffe

The Yak

A Whale

The Leopard

The Sloth

The Elephant

The Pig-Pen

Some Geese

The Ant

An Arctic Hare

The Wolf

An Ostrich

The Hippopotamus

The Fly

The Mongoos

The Platypus

The Chimpanzee

A Mole

The Rhinoceros

A Penguin

The Cat

The Dog

A Chameleon

A Seal.

SEE, chil-dren, the Fur-bear-ing Seal;

Ob-serve his mis-di-rect-ed zeal:

He dines with most ab-ste-mi-ous care

On Fish, Ice Water and Fresh Air

A-void-ing cond-i-ments or spice,

For fear his fur should not be nice

And fine and smooth and soft and meet

For Broad-way or for Re-gent Street

And yet some-how I of-ten feel

(Though for the kind Fur-bear-ing Seal

I har-bor a Re-spect Pro-found)

The Giraffe.

SEE the Gi-raffe; he is so tall

There is not room to get him all

U-pon the page. His head is high-er—

The pic-ture proves it—than the Spire.

That's why the na-tives, when they race

To catch him, call it stee-ple-chase.

His chief de-light it is to set

A good example: shine or wet

He rises ere the break of day,

And starts his break-fast right away.

His food has such a way to go,—

His throat's so very long,—and so

An early break-fast he must munch

To get it down ere time for lunch.

The Yak.

THIS is the Yak, so neg-li-gée:

His coif-fure's like a stack of hay;

He lives so far from Any-where,

I fear the Yak neg-lects his hair,

And thinks, since there is none to see,

What mat-ter how un-kempt he be.

How would he feel if he but knew

That in this Pic-ture-book I drew

His Phys-i-og-no-my un-shorn,

For chil-dren to de-ride and scorn?

A Whale.

THE con-sci-en-tious art-ist tries

On-ly to draw what meets his eyes.

This is the Whale; he seems to be

A spout of wa-ter in the sea.

Now, Hux-ley from one bone could make

An un-known beast; so if I take

This spout of wa-ter, and from thence

Con-struct a Whale by in-fer-ence,

A Whale, I ven-ture to as-sert,

Must be an an-i-mat-ed squirt!

Thus, chil-dren, we the truth may sift

By use of Log-ic's Price-less Gift.

The Leopard.

THIS is the Le-o-pard, my child;

His tem-per's any-thing but mild.

The Le-o-pard can't change his spots,

And that—so say the Hot-ten-tots—

Is why he is so wild.

Year in, year out, he may not change,

No mat-ter how the wea-ther range,

From cold to hot. No won-der, child,

We hear the Le-o-pard is wild.

The Sloth.

THE Sloth en-joys a life of Ease;

He hangs in-vert-ed from the trees,

And views life up-side down.

If you, my child, are noth-ing loath

To live in In-dol-ence and Sloth,

Un-heed-ing the World's frown,

You, too, un-vexed by Toil and Strife,

May take a hu-mor-ous view of life.

The Elephant.

THIS is the El-e-phant, who lives

With but one aim—to please.

His i-vo-ry tusk he free-ly gives

To make pi-a-no keys.

One grief he has—how-e'er he tries,

He nev-er can for-get

That one of his e-nor-mous size

Can't be a house-hold pet.

Then does he to his grief give way,

Or sink 'neath sor-row's ban?

Oh, no; in-stead he spends each day

Con-tri-ving some un-sel-fish way

To be of use to Man.

The Pig-Pen.

OH, turn not from the hum-ble Pig,

My child, or think him in-fra dig.

We oft hear lit-er-a-ry men

Boast of the in-flu-ence of the Pen;

Yet when we read in His-to-ry's Page

Of Hu-man Pigs in ev-er-y age,

From Cr[oe]sus to the pres-ent day,

Is it, my child, so hard to say

(De-spite the Scribes' vain-glo-ri-ous boast)

What Pen has in-flu-enced Man the most?

Some Geese.

EV-ER-Y child who has the use

Of his sen-ses knows a goose.

See them un-der-neath the tree

Gath-er round the goose-girl's knee,

While she reads them by the hour

From the works of Scho-pen-hau-er.

How pa-tient-ly the geese at-tend!

But do they re-al-ly com-pre-hend

What Scho-pen-hau-er's driv-ing at?

Oh, not at all; but what of that?

Nei-ther do I; nei-ther does she;

And, for that mat-ter, nor does he.

The Ant.

MY child, ob-serve the use-ful Ant,

How hard she works each day.

She works as hard as ad-a-mant

(That's very hard, they say).

She has no time to gal-li-vant;

She has no time to play.

Let Fido chase his tail all day;

Let Kitty play at tag:

She has no time to throw a-way,

She has no tail to wag.

She scurries round from morn till night;

She ne-ver, ne-ver sleeps;

She seiz-es ev-ery-thing in sight,

And drags it home with all her might,

And all she takes she keeps.

An Arctic Hare.

AN Arc-tic Hare we now be-hold.

The hair, you will ob-serve, is white;

But if you think the Hare is old,

You will be ver-y far from right.

The Hare is young, and yet the hair

Grew white in but a sin-gle night.

Why, then it must have been a scare

That turned this Hare. No; 't was not fright

(Al-though such cases are well known);

I fear that once a-gain you're wrong.

Know then, that in the Arc-tic Zone

A sin-gle night is six months long.

The Wolf.

OH, yes, the Wolf is bad, it's true;

But how with-out him could we do?

If there were not a wolf, what good

Would be the tale of RID-ING-HOOD?

The Lit-tle Child from sin will fly

When told the wick-ed Wolf is nigh;

And when, ar-rived at Man's es-tate,

He hears the Wolf out-side his gate,

He knows it's time to put a-way

I-dle fri-vol-i-ty and play.

That's how (but do not men-tion it)

This prim-er hap-pened to be writ.

An Ostrich.

THIS is an Os-trich. See him stand:

His head is bur-ied in the sand.

It is not that he seeks for food,

Nor is he shy, nor is he rude;

But he is sen-si-tive, and shrinks

And hides his head when-e'er he thinks

How, on the Gains-bor-ough hat some day

Of some fine la-dy at the play,

His fea-thers may ob-struct the view

Of all the stage from me or you.

The Hippopotamus.

"OH, say, what is this fearful, wild

In-cor-ri-gible cuss?"

"This _crea-ture_ (don't say 'cuss,' my child;

'T is slang)—this crea-ture fierce is styled The Hip-po-pot-am-us.

His curious name de-rives its source

From two Greek words: _hippos_—a horse,

_Potamos_—river. See?

The river's plain e-nough, of course;

But why they called that thing a horse,

That's what is Greek to me."

The Fly.

OB-SERVE, my child, the House-hold Fly,

With his ex-traor-di-na-ry eye:

What-ev-er thing he may be-hold

Is mul-ti-plied a thou-sand-fold.

_We_ do not need a com-plex eye

When we ob-serve the Household Fly:

He is so vol-a-tile that he

In _ev-ery_ place at once can be;

He is the buzz-ing in-car-na-tion

Of an-i-mate mul-ti-pli-ca-tion.

Ah! chil-dren, who can tell the Why

And Where-fore of the House-hold Fly?

The Mongoos.

THIS, Chil-dren, is the famed Mon-goos.

He has an ap-pe-tite ab-struse;

Strange to re-late, this crea-ture takes

A cu-ri-ous joy in eat-ing snakes—

All kinds, though, it must be con-fessed,

He likes the poi-son-ous ones the best.

From him we learn how ve-ry small

A thing can bring a-bout a Fall.

Oh, Mon-goos, where were you that day

When Mis-tress Eve was led a-stray?

If you'd but seen the ser-pent first,

Our Parents would not have been cursed,

And so there would be no ex-cuse

For MIL-TON, but for you—Mon-goos!

The Platypus.

MY child, the Duck-billed Plat-y-pus

A sad ex-am-ple sets for us:

From him we learn how In-de-ci-sion

Of char-ac-ter pro-vokes De-ri-sion.

This vac-il-lat-ing Thing, you see,

Could not de-cide which he would be,

Fish, Flesh, or Fowl, and chose all three.

The sci-en-tists were sore-ly vexed

To clas-si-fy him; so per-plexed

Their brains that they, with Rage at bay,

Called him a hor-rid name one day,—

A name that baf-fles, frights, and shocks us,—

Or-ni-tho-rhyn-chus Par-a-dox-us.

The Chimpanzee.

CHIL-DREN, be-hold the Chim-pan-zee:

He sits on the an-ces-tral tree

From which we sprang in ag-es gone.

I'm glad we sprang: had we held on,

We might, for aught that I can say,

Be hor-rid Chim-pan-zees to-day.

A Mole.

SEE, chil-dren, the mis-guid-ed Mole.

He lives down in a deep, dark hole;

Sweet-ness, and Light, and good Fresh Air

Are things for which he does not care.

He has not e-ven that make-shift

Of fee-ble minds—the _so-cial gift_.

But say not that he has no soul,

Lest hap-ly we misjudge the Mole;

Nay, if we mea-sure him by Men,

No doubt he sits in his dark den

In-struct-ing oth-ers blind as he

Ex-act-ly how the world _should_ be.

The Rhinoceros.

SO this is the Rhi-no-ce-ros!

I won-der why he looks so cross.

Per-haps he is an-noyed a bit

Be-cause his cloth-ing does not fit.

(They say he got it read-y made!)

It is not that, I am a-fraid.

He looks so cross be-cause I drew

Him with one horn in-stead of two.

Well, since he cares so much for style,

Let's give him two and see him smile.

A Penguin.

THE Pen-guin sits up-on the shore

And loves the lit-tle fish to bore;

He has one en-er-vat-ing joke

That would a very Saint pro-voke:

"The Pen-guin's might-i-er than the Sword-fish";

He tells this dai-ly to the bored fish,

Un-til they are so weak, they float

With-out re-sis-tance down his throat.

The Cat.

OB-SERVE the Cat up-on this page.

Phil-os-o-phers in ev-er-y age,

The ver-y _wis-est_ of the wise,

Have tried her mind to an-a-lyze

In vain, for noth-ing can they learn.

She baf-fles them at ev-er-y turn

Like Mis-ter Ham-let in the play.

She leads their rea-son-ing a-stray;

She feigns an in-ter-est in string

Or yarn or any roll-ing thing.

Un-like the Dog, she does not care

With com-mon Man her thoughts to share.

She teach-es us that in life's walk

'T is bet-ter to let oth-ers talk,

And lis-ten while _they_ say in-stead

The fool-ish things we might have said.

The Dog.

HERE is the Dog. Since time be-gan,

The Dog has been the friend of MAN,

The Dog loves MAN be-cause he shears

His coat and clips his tail and ears.

MAN loves the Dog be-cause he'll stay

And lis-ten to his talk all day,

And wag his tail and show de-light

At all his jokes, how-ev-er trite.

His bark is far worse than his bite,

So peo-ple say. They may be right;

Yet if to make a choice I had,

I'd choose his bark, how-ev-er bad.

A Chameleon.

A USE-FUL les-son you may con,

My Child, from the Cha-me-le-on:

He has the gift, ex-treme-ly rare

In an-i-mals, of sav-oir-faire.

And if the se-cret you would guess

Of the Cha-me-le-on's suc-cess,

[Transcriber's Note: In this file, the ligatured oe character is represented by "[oe]".]

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Table of Contents

A Child's Primer Of Natural History

with Pictures by the Author

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1899

CONTENTS

A Seal.

The Giraffe.

The Yak.

A Whale.

The Leopard.

The Sloth.

The Elephant.

The Pig-Pen.

Some Geese.

The Ant.

An Arctic Hare.

The Wolf.

An Ostrich.

The Hippopotamus.

The Fly.

The Mongoos.

The Platypus.

The Chimpanzee.

A Mole.

The Rhinoceros.

A Penguin.

The Cat.

The Dog.

A Chameleon.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE