the back, shoulders, and hips, and examining it closely with my lens,
I shouted: "Well done for wildness! Wild wool is finer than tame!"

My companions stooped down and examined the fleeces for themselves,
pulling out tufts and ringlets, spinning them between their fingers,
and measuring the length of the staple, each in turn paying tribute to
wildness. It WAS finer, and no mistake; finer than Spanish Merino.
Wild wool IS finer than tame.

"Here," said I, "is an argument for fine wildness that needs no
explanation. Not that such arguments are by any means rare, for all
wildness is finer than tameness, but because fine wool is appreciable
by everybody alike--from the most speculative president of national
wool-growers' associations all the way down to the gude-wife spinning
by her ingleside."

Nature is a good mother, and sees well to the clothing of her many
bairns--birds with smoothly imbricated feathers, beetles with shining
jackets, and bears with shaggy furs. In the tropical south, where the
sun warms like a fire, they are allowed to go thinly clad; but in the
snowy northland she takes care to clothe warmly. The squirrel has
socks and mittens, and a tail broad enough for a blanket; the grouse
is densely feathered down to the ends of his toes; and the wild sheep,
besides his undergarment of fine wool, has a thick overcoat of hair
that sheds off both the snow and the rain. Other provisions and
adaptations in the dresses of animals, relating less to climate than
to the more mechanical circumstances of life, are made with the same
consummate skill that characterizes all the love work of Nature.
Land, water, and air, jagged rocks, muddy ground, sand beds, forests,
underbrush, grassy plains, etc., are considered in all their possible