Terns and shearwaters also fly astonishing distances over water, but as they are flying and swimming birds, the whole ocean is for them a stopover. They can plop down on the water when they get tired and have some Fish Delight. Blackpoll warblers cannot swim, for they have tiny grippy bone-toes that do not serve in the water (try swimming across th

It seems strange for memories to run out of nowhere and circumgallop you like this. It seems strange for there to be memories; strange for there not to be memories; strange for time and space to have dissevered you from anything so radiant and pounding; strange for your mind now to disregard time and space so completely.

(for caterpillars have only six real legs—the rest are fake: mere stumps to keep their hind parts from dragging and getting scuffed),

One little bird, however, performs a migratory feat reminiscent of birds’ wintering-on-the-moon days: starting out from Alaska, the blackpoll warbler flies three thousand miles east to Nova Scotia. There he gorges himself on webworms and sawflies and gets fat while waiting for a strong northwest wind to blow him off his twig out over the Atlantic O

But the Jackson’s chameleon also confronts itself with its horns. Sometimes as it is roving the tree branches, gaping and hissing and swaying and surprising wasps with its projectile-tongue, it will by mistake grab onto its own forehead-horns and then panic, wrestling itself, frantic to escape its own frantic grasp, a one-reptile bedlam in the padd

For an idea of how long your light takes to reach Earth, sing one line from a song, such as “Sail on, my little honeybee” and that is how long moonlight takes. The Earth can sing the same line back to you, to represent earthlight. “Sail on, my little honeybee.” As for the Sun, he should sing as lustily as sunlight; have him discharge the song “I Ga

The Earth is not gigantic and the Moon is not slight, but the Earth has a core and the Moon does not. Or rather, if the Moon has a core, it is undetectably small and inert, like a frozen mouse. How do we know that the Moon has a mousy core? Whoever really has been a Lunar Interiorist? Here we shall invent a philosophy and call it Imaginative Exte-r

Jellyfish do pulse their bells, but this pulsing influence is minor compared to the influence of the ocean. For instance, the by-the-wind sailor jellyfish is born in the middle of the Pacific Ocean either with its sail tilting to the right or its sail tilting to the left. All the right-sailed ones blow to California, and all the left-sailed jellyfi

But goats are generalists: the world is their meadow. Leave them on an island—they will not spend all their energy on refusal and regret but will experiment until they find something new to eat, life sufficient condiment for the scraggliest fare. Put them in a barn with frocks and cigars and political pamphlets and toy blocks and banjos and yo-yos