ong-tailed, fluttering birds
appeared, with lizard-like claws at the bend of their wings and with jaws
filled with teeth. These creatures were certainly arboreal, spending most
of their time among the branches of trees. So large were certain great
sloth-like creatures that they uprooted the trees bodily, in order to feed
on their succulent leaves, sometimes bending their trunks down until their
branches were within reach.

On a walk through the woods and fields to-day, how seldom do we find a
dead insect! When sick and dying, nine out of ten are snapped up by frog,
lizard, or bird; the few which die a natural death seeming to disintegrate
into mould within a very short space of time. There is, however, one way
in which, through the long, long thousands of centuries, insects have been
preserved. The spicy resin which flowed from the ancient pines attracted
hosts of insects, which, tempted by their hope of food, met their
death--caught and slowly but surely enclosed by the viscid sap, each
antenna and hair as perfect as when the insect was alive. Thus, in this
strangely fortunate way, we may know and study the insects which, millions
of years ago, fed on the flowers or bored into the bark of trees. We have
found no way to improve on Nature in this respect, for to-day when we
desire to mount a specimen permanently for microscopical work, we imbed it
in Canada balsam.

If suddenly the earth should be bereft of all trees, there would indeed be
consternation and despair among many classes of animals. Although in the
sea there are thousands of creatures, which, by their manner of life, are
prohibited from ever passing the boundary line between land and water, yet
many sea-worms, as for example the teredo, or ship-worm, are especially
fashioned for living in and perhaps feeding on wood, in the shape of stray
floating trees and branches, the bottoms of ships, and piles of wharves.
Of course the two latter are supplied by man, but even before his time,
floating trees at sea must have been plentiful enough to supply homes for
the whole tribe of these creatures, unless they made their burrows in
coral or shells.

The insects whose very existence, in some cases, depends upon trees, are
innumerable. What, for example, would become of the larvae of the cicada,
or locust, which, in the cold and darkness of their subterranean life, for
seventeen years suck the juicy roots of trees; or the caterpillars of the
moths, spinning high their