The Way of the Wild (Hawkes)/The First Balloonist

Man is very apt to get puffed up and full of vanity when he considers his discoveries and his achievements in many ways. But there is very little that he knows or has discovered but what was used by either animals, birds or insects, even before man appeared in the world. All of the secrets of nature are as old as the world itself, and the wonder is that man has not discovered more of them sooner.
Man considers himself a great builder. He is proud of his houses, his dams, his bridges and tunnels. Yet the animals, birds, insects and some fishes have in a degree known the art of house-building. The beaver is a better dam builder than man when we consider his size. The spider is a better bridge builder, and the mole can make a more scientific tunnel. So why should man be puffed up? ​Did you ever go out on a summer morning, when there had been a heavy dew the night before and see an entire field literally covered with a wonderful fine mesh, that sparkled and glistened in the sunlight until it looked like fairy-land? Many of the tops of the taller grasses were bound together, ever so delicately, by a wonderful shimmering something, which you children called cobwebs. In the summer-time yo

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