Man can now fly in the air like a bird, swim under the ocean like a fish, he can burrow into the ground like a mole. Now if only he could walk the earth like a man, this would be paradise.
Hunters and trackers learn not only to understand intellectually a bunch of facts about the animal they follow, but to feel their way into the very being of the animal.
PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
It turns out that there are swaths of habitat in the north of Siberia and Yukon that actually could house a mammoth. Remember, this was a highly plastic animal that lived over tremendous climate variation.
You won't find one fish in a million that has enough sense to come in when it rains.
I am supposed to take the bullets and absorb them. Like a bear, a polar bear.
The frog does not drink in the pond in which he lives.
Every animal is providentially directed to the use of its proper weapon.
The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, has of all animals the nimblest tongue.
These are the animals that are the reason why you don't see old animals in the wild. You don't see sick animals in the wild. You don't see lame animals in the wild, and its all because of the predator: the lion, the tiger, the leopard, all the cats.
I am not a fan of rats or pigeons. In New York City, they have become very confident. When I was a child, you went on the subways, and the rats would stay down on the tracks, but now they hang out on the platform.
Five per cent vision is better than no vision at all. Five per cent hearing is better than no hearing at all. Five per cent flight efficiency is better than no flight at all. It is thoroughly believable that every organ or apparatus that we actually see is the product of a smooth trajectory through animal space, a trajectory in which every intermediate stage assisted survival and reproduction.
I don't use machines - animals don't use machines.
The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda-these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs.
Practically all animals which move fast in a homogeneous medium have found means of giving their body a streamlined shape, thereby reducing friction to a minimum.
The Zebra is striped all over so that the Lion can see him and eat him. Some people say he is striped so that the Lion can not see him. These people believe that the stripes of the Zebra simulate the bars of sunlight falling through the tall jungle grasses and that therefore the Zebra is invisible and that the earth is flat.
Moreover, it thus follows that not a great deal of time was needed for the large animals of the three major parts of the world to become known to the people who spent time on the coasts of those regions.
The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs Not to be changed at this date; A life subdued to its instrument.
When you have to react to a lizard that's a tennis ball, it's a really, really difficult, tricky piece of craft.
You don't see sick animals in the wild. You don't see lame animals in the wild, and its all because of the predator: the lion, the tiger, the leopard, all the cats.
There are some four million different kinds of animals and plants in the world. Four million different solutions to the problems of staying alive.
I'm not over-fond of animals. I am merely astounded by them.
Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
Climate affects bipeds in the same way it does quadrupeds.
We are the only animals that let our kids come back home.
