Badger

'I am writing a treatise just now,' said the badger, coughing diffidently to show that he was absolutely set upon explaining it, 'which is to point out why Man has become the master of all animals. Perhaps you would like to hear that?'

...

'People often ask as an idle question whether the process of evolution began with the chicken or the egg. Was there an egg out of which the first chicken came, or did a chicken lay the first egg? I am in a position to state that the first thing created was the egg.'
'When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even that duck-billed platypus would eventually emerge, he called the embryos before him, and saw that they were good.'
'Perhaps I ought to explain,' added the badger, lowering his papers nervously and looking at the Wart over the top of them, 'that all embryos look very much the same. They are what you are before you are born, and, whether you are going to be a tadpole or a peacock or a camelopard or a man, when you are an embryo you look just like a perculiarly repulsive and helpless human being. I continue as follows:
'The embryos stood up in front of God, with their feeble hands clasped politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down respectfully, and God adressed them.
'He said: Now, you embryos, here you are, all looking exactly the same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you are going to be. When you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to grant you another gift as well. You may alter any parts of yourselves into anything which you think would be useful to you in after life. For instance, at the moment you can't dig. Anybody who would like to turn his hands into a pair of spades or garden forks is allowed to do so. Or, to put it another way, at present you can only use your mouths for eating with. Anybody who would like to use his mouth as an offensive weapon, can change it by asking, and be a corkindrill or a saber-toothed tiger. Now then, step up and choose your tools, but remember that what you choose you will grow into, and will have to stick to.'
'All the embryos thought the matter over politely, and then, one by one, they stepped up before the eternal throne. They were allowed two or three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as flying machines and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers, or spoons, while others selected to use their bodies as boats and their hands as oars. We badgers thought very hard and decided to ask for three boons. We wanted to change our skins for shields, our mouths for weapons, and our arms for garden forks. These boons were granted to us. Everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of us in very queer ones. For instance, one of the lizards decided to swap his whole body for blotting-paper, and one of the toads who lived in the antipodes decided to simply be a water-bottle.
'The asking and granting took up two long days - they were the fifth and sixth, so far as I remember - and at the very end of the sixth day, just before it was time to knock off for Sunday, they had got through all the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man.
' "Well, Our little man," said God. 'You have waited till the last, and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking hard all the time. What can we do for you?'
' "Please, God," said the embryo, 'I think that You made me in the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves, and that it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay just as I am. I will not alter any of the parts which You gave to me, for other and doubtless inferior tools, and I will stay a defenseless embryo all my life, doing my best to make unto myself a few feeble implements out of the wood, iron and other materials which you have seen fit to put before me. If I want a boat I will endeavour to construct it out of trees, and if I want to fly I will put together a chariot to do it for me. Probably I have been very silling in refusing to take advantage of Your kind offer, but I have done my best to think it over carefully, and now hope that the feeble decision of this small innocent will find favour with Yourselves."
' "Well done," exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones. 'Here all you embryos, come here with your beaks and what-nots to look upon Our first Man. He is the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of you, and We have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of Dominion over the Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and the Fishes of the Sea. Now let the rest of you get along, and love and multiply, for it is time to knock off for the week-end. As for you, Man, you will be a naked tool all your life, though a user of tools: you will look like an embryo till they bury you, but all others will be embryos before your might; eternally undeveloped, you will always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our sorrys and feels some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, and partly happym but always proud. Run along then, Man, and do your best. And listen, Man, before you go...'
' "Well?" asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal.
' "We were only going to say," said God shyly, twisting Their hands together. "Well, We were just going going to say, God bless you." '

- The Sword in the Stone.

On an entirely seperate note, am I the only one who doesn't know the existence of badgerbadgerbadger.com?