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A S : t es ts, res wy neon i heh seit ae ge i ot i { 4 ivewene f hi } bin tt i Be 5 ‘ nant BA y ( q , sr 2d A 1) i ay } p {e Me (~ re Gi y aaah { ‘ i i 1 ‘ e A “ eye j ? i i { My x te! aL \ i Hi i ih x: si: H ets Z f ‘. ae) Nal y 2 ; 1 € ey vy ho y fr x t igh N 1y§ f 4 iy rt i y i) Bynes ; i ye is, 4 A hae] mi iy } Wy t t \ ’ ? ryt } { ; Vite ea | t i bs | Ua h { 4 | ? \ ni f a Ye" THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES ON THE POWER, WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD, AS MANIFESTED IN THE CREATION. TREATISE VII. ON THE HISTORY, HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. BY 'THE REV. WILLIAM KIRBY, M.A. ; — “C’est, la Bible a la main, que nous devons entrer dans le temple auguste de la Nature, pour bien comprendre la voix du Créateur,”’ Gaede. hs F Tuite aia Sa ae A cm remem ieee =. wy; TAAL : . Se 4 3 rs oy Fh i Api bef oe ON THE , Le ieeagihd Pg ol ae Sea POWER, WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD, AS MANIFESTED IN THE * CREATION OF ANIMALS, AND IN THEIR HISTORY, HABITS AND INSTINCTS. BY THE REV. WILLIAM KIRBY, M.A. F.R.S. ere. RECTOR OF BARHAM. PHILADELPHIA: CAREY, LEA & BLANCHARD. 1836. i Bi a Si Ei i ti faba dp Le ey \ > a q tt 4 4 ‘ \ { , 4 - = : 4 A 1 i ‘ ( f / i A , ‘ ‘ 1% Uy . } ‘ . . 4 ( ‘ yi { + 1 1 o wns x ‘ ie ‘ .e ‘ ; 7 - ‘ Pad 4 f 1 hate *i } * (x a. . ‘ Ny See} Ate wi} vas ¢ "y a uy f ' ; ‘ ‘Beh hi 0s a2 . i Oy ae v + weit ‘ i Ls j ‘ , ; A, f f y y Be . , ’ 4s 3 aya 4 ‘\ ‘ ’ ; 4 Vv. : Aa ; 4 ? ’ | i t bn Pe Ly We iy ; a 8 sie ay ae DL ; ; . ae nye Ait ) ; ? Ly, ¥ . ‘ , vite : ik ¥ NK ah bn ; T Oh i; i i ayy a) 2 t va » y » \ S ) } \ Lil ‘ ‘ if ; ‘ 4 ; P ‘ i \ Wa prs mh ue hry a Lo , i} ‘ i * 7 x ’ 4 : ih Je ) he. nl L b ’ T a ‘ y i ‘ y ' , ‘A " i . i% i ‘ : : l - * wry id » ‘ * 4% ‘ . 4, _ ’ ’ ‘ ‘ uy Vee Vena ia fe) eae ere Pye wrayer TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE \ CHARLES, ae : ae ) KNIGHT GRAND CROSS OF THE ORDER OF THE BATH, A MEMBER OF HISMAJESTY’S ke re | MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, AND ONE OF THE TRUSTEES i ae _ OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, . ‘3 ; 43 THE FOLLOWING TREATISE, i BY HIS PERMISSION, ts IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, | BY HIS LORDSHIP’S OBLIGED AND OBEDIENT SERVANT, ee ge eee THE AUTHOR. ‘3 " Ae : « , . ‘ a a s d ts. ¢ = 4 ' : 7 ‘ . i r fi r é ‘ ‘ e \ if i ws as Ly, See NOTICE. Tue series of Treatises, of which the present is one, is pub- lished under the following circumstances : The Rignt Honourasie and Reverend Francis HENry, Earw of BringewatTer, died in the month of February 1829; and by his last Will and Testament, bearing date the 25th of February 1825, he dirccted certain Trustees therein named to invest in the public funds the sum of Eight thousand pounds sterling; this sum, with the accruing dividends thereon, to be held at the disposal of the President, for the time being, of the Royal Society of London, to be paid to the person or persons nominated by him. The Testator further directed, that the person or persons selected by the said President should be ap- pointed to write, print, and publish one thousand copies of a work On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation; illustrating such work by all reasonable arguments, as for instance the variety and formation of God’s creatures in the aninal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms ; the effect of digestion, and thereby of conversion ; the construction of the hand of man, and an infinite variety of other arguments ; as also by discoveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and the whole extent of literature. He desired, moreover, that the profits arising from the sale of the works so published should be paid to the authors of the works. The late President of the Royal Society, Davies Gilbert, Esq. requested the assistance of his Grace the Archbishop of Canter- Vill bury and of the Bishop of London, in determining upon the best mode of carrying into effect the intentions of the Testator. Acting with their advice, and with the concurrence of a noble- man immediately connected with the deceased, Mr Davies Gilbert appointed the following eight gentlemen to write sepa- rate Treatises on the different branches of the subject as here stated : THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, ON THE POWER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OF GOD AS MANIFESTED IN THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. JOHN KIDD, M.D. F. R.S. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF MAN. ———. THE REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M. A. F. R. 8. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS CONSIDERED WITH ' REFERENCE TO NATURAL THEOLOGY. SIR CHARLES BELL, K. G. H. F. R.S. L. & E. THE HAND: ITS MECHANISM AND VITAL ENDOWMENTS AS EVINCING DESIGN. PETER MARK ROGET, M. D. FELLOW OF AND SECRETARY TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. iX THE REV. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D. D. F. B.S. CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. ON GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. THE REV. WILLIAM KIRBY, M. A. F. R.S. ON THE HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. ee WILLIAM PROUT, M. D. F. R. S. CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE FUNCTION OF DIGESTION, CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO NATURAL THEOLOGY. His Royat Hieuness tHE DuKE or Sussex, President of the Royal Society, having desired that no unneccessary delay should take place in the publication of the above mentioned treatises, they will appear at short intervals, as they are ready for publication. Q* mer Ns ds (ich sae 7 CONTENTS. EXPLANATION OF PLATES - INTRODUCTION . ~ Cuap. I. i. Creation of animals Geographical Distribution of Ditto - - Migrations of Ditto Local Distribution of Ditto - 2 a 1. Rotatory organs . Tentacles - . Suckers - . Bristles - . Natatory organs Wings : . Steering organs . Legs - Oar r af WW . General Functions and Instincts of Ditto - . Functions and Instincts. Infusories - - Polypes - - Radiaries - - Tunicaries - - Bivalve Molluscans Univalve Molluscans_ - Cephalopods - Worms - - Annelidans - Cirripedes and Crinoi- deans - - Entomostracan Condy- lopes - - Crustacean Condylopes Myriapod Condylopes . Motive, locomotive and prehensory organs - f Xi CONTENTS. XVIII. Instinct in general - - XIX. Functions and Instincts. Arachnidans, Pseuda- rachnidans, and Alcaridan Condylopes - Insect Condylopes XxX. XxI.§ ———_———_———____ Fishes - XXII. —————_————______ Reptiles XXII. ——_——_—__—___ Birds XxIV. —_—_— i um _—_ XXV. —————. Man CoNCLUSION - - e - APPENDIX “ - - Nores AND ILLUSTRATIONS - " Mammalians 306 338 353 386 406 420 441 464 468 469 477 EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. PLATE I. INFUSORIES. Fie. 1. a. Enchelis Pupa - . 6. Alimentary canal and stomach - . Eosphora Naias - - . . ab. c. d. Rotifera vulgaris - - . Bacillaria multipunctata - Cleopatra - : - . Discocephalus Rotator - : Oo on mw © PLATE I. B. INFUSORIES. Fic. 1. Vorticella cothurnata - = z 2. a. b. Zoobotryon pellucidum : - Worms. 3. Botryocephalus bicolor - : 4. Diplozoon paradoxum - - a. Ditto, natural size. b. 6. Mouths and oral suckers. c. c. Caudal plates and suckers. 5. Diplostomum volvens - - 6. Eye of a perch infested by Diplostoma. 82 - 469 469 469, 241 177 XIV EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. PLATE II. PoLyPEs. Fic. 1. D/adrepora muricata - - - - 86 2. Sertularia volubilis” - - . - 90 a. a. Ovaries. 3. Cellaria cirrata - - - - 90 4, a. Fungia patellaris, under side. b. Ditto, upper side. PLATE III. | RapDIARIES. Fie. 1. Cephea mosaica - - - - 106 . Echinus esculenius, portion of the oy a. a. Arms of ditto. shown externally. a. a. a. Groves. 6. 6. Alleys. ce. ¢. The lateral groves. d. The intermediate one. . Inside of the same shell. a. a. The dentated suture. b. The middle ridge marked out on each side into transverse pieces. c.¢ Thealleys, with pores for the suckers. d. One of the frames to which the jaws $199—112 are fixed. . Spines of Lchinus cidaris. a. Muscular fibres inserted in the base of the spine, and surrounding the ball and socket joint. b. The muscular capsule laid open, and the muscles attached to the base of the spine turned back. ec. ‘The origins of the museles surrounding the ball or tubercle. d. One of the tubercles. Fie. 5. fre. 7. 10. ft. 13. 13. 14. Fig. 1. . Portion of ditto, exhibiting the suckers on the under . Suture of the intermediate grove divided at . A circular space round the mouth, covered EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. XV One of the suckers of £. esculentus. a. The sucker ; the pore in the centre is supposed to be a spiracle connected with the respiration of the animal. ; b. The stalk of the sucker. ¢-109—112 lateral grove, in which the transverse pieces are convex. J The suture of a portion of the lateral grove} uniting with the above, in which the | transverse pieces are concave. . The suture of a portion of the alleys at the | the ridge (Fic. 3. 6.). ‘Teeth obtusan- gular. with little oblong scales. In the cen- { tre is the mouth with its five converg- ing teeth. Outside of one of the five pyramidal jaws, in which the teeth are planted, elll—113 a. The jaw. 0. The tooth. | Inside of ditto: a. the jaw, consisting in- ternally of two triangular transversely furrowed, and probably molary plates. A little bristle, terminating in a knob with three awns, planted amongst the spines on the shell, and, according to Cuvier,’ a species of Polype (Pedicellaria). Another Pedicellaria? expanded like a | iripetalous blossom. One of the spines of Echinus esculentus. j PLATE III. B. CRINOIDEANS. Pentacrinus Asteria - - - - 195 side of the fingers - - - - 195 1 Regn. An. ii, 297, XV1 Fic. Fic. EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. PLATE IV. TUNICARIES. . Cinthia Momus - - £ . - . Salpa cyanogastra- - . t . Cephalitis Bowdichit - ‘ 4 . Clavellina borealis - . - 1 2 -3. Pyrysoma giganteum — - - - - 4 5 PLATE V. BivaLvE Mo.uuscans. 1. Solen Sthqua - a. The foot. 6. The shell. N.B. The two figures in outline show varia- tions in shape assumed by the foot, under differ- ent circumstances. 2. Anomia Cepa - - - - : a. Thetendon. 6. ‘The aperture of the upper valve through which it passes. 3. Anomia Ephippium. a. Aperture. 4, Terebratula - - - - a. Aperture of the lower valve through which the tendon passes. 5 Trigonia margaritacea - - - - a. Foot formed for leaping. b. 6. 6. Valves of the shell. PtTrRopop anp Herseropop Mo.Luuscans. 6. Chodites fusiformis - - : 7 Polycera capensis - ‘ 8. Pterotrachea rufa : - . 123 120 121 119 123 130 141 14] 142 he EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. . PLATE VI. UnivaLvE Mo.uuscans. Fic. 1. Voluta xthiopica, to show the animal - - a. The eye, showing iris and pupil. 6. The right hand tentacle: c. The proboscis exserted. d. The frontal margin of the head. e. The respiratory tube or siphuncle. f. Appendage at its base. Analogous to the crus in- fundibuli in Nautilus?* Owen. : g. g. The two gills, of which the right hand one has but one series of laminz. h. Termination of the alimentary canal. z. 7 The right hand margin of the mantle. | k. The male organ. fle The foot. 2. Ianthina - - » : - a. The mouth, composed of two vertical cartilagin- ous lips, minutely toothed at the margin. b. The shell. | c. The air-vesicles forming an out-rigger. PLATE VII. CEPHALOPODS. Fic. 1. Loligo cardioptera. 2. Spirulea prototypus - - . : a. The shell. 3. Ocypus unguiculatus.* - - - a. The suckers. b. The arms. 1 Owen’s Mem. on Naut. Pompil. t. v. h. 2 Referred to by mistake as an Octopus, 165. 3% XVil 152 157 170 165 XV EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. PLATE. VIII. ANNELIDANS. Fic. 1. Peripatus Juliformis . - - - 187 | 2. Anterior extremity of do. | a. Mouth. Hi b. b. Eyes. | c. c. First pair of legs. 3. Bdella nilotica - - - - 181 a. Anterior sucker. 6. Posterior do. . c. Reproductive organs. 4. Lycoris egyptia - - - - 187 M PLATE IX. ENTOMOSTRACANS. Fic. 1—5. States of Actheres Percarum : - 201 1. Fetus in Egg. 2. further developed. 3. Larve. ° 4. Pupe? a. Antenne. b. Unguiculate thoracic legs. c. Natatory, sub-abdominal ditto. d. e. Cast skin. 5. Imago. a. a. Maxillary legs. b. b. Antenne. c. c. Two posterior pair of thoracic legs confluent, so as to form one organ, and to each of which the sucker (@) is hooked, by which the animal fixes itself immovably. e. Abdomen, showing the eggs in the ovaries. f.f- Egg pouches. 5. a. Natural size of the animal. EXPLANATION ON THE PLATES. xix PLATE xX. CRUSTACEANS. Fie. 1. Birgus Latro~ - - - - - 214 2. Pagurus elibanarius - - - - 212 a. a. a. Adhesive organs at the tail. b. b. c. c. Two last pairs of thoracic legs, by which it also adheres to the shell it inhabits. . d. d. Egg bearers. e. e. Forceps, in this species both of the same size. 3. Phyllosoma brevicorne - - - - 220 PLATE XI. ARACHNIDAN AND InsEcT CoNDYLOPES. Fie. 1. Mormolyce phyllodes a - - 379 2. Aranea notacantha = - - ae 17 | 3. Portion of an honey-comb, to show that every cell stands, as it were, upon three. . - 367 PLATE XI. B. ARACHNIDAN CONDYLOPES. Fie 1. Cteniza fodiens -— = - - - 341 2. Nest and tube of do. a. Lid or trap-door. 6. Tube. 3. Cteniza nidulans - “ - - — 343 4. Nest of do. a. Trap-door. 6. Tube. PLATE AI. C. Insect CoNDYLOPEs. Fie, 1—3. Myrmica Kirbii - - . - 868 4. Nestofdo. - - - . - 369 XVII EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. ; PLATE VIII. ANNELIDANS. Fic. 1. Peripatus Juliformis - - - - 187 2. Anterior extremity of do. } a. Mouth. il b. b. Eyes. c. c. First pair of legs. 3. Bdella nilotica - - - - 181 a. Anterior sucker. b. Posterior do. y c. Reproductive organs. 4. Lycoris 2gyptia - - . - 4167 ! PLATE IX. ENTOMOSTRACANS. Fic. 1—5. States of Actheres Percarum - : 201 1. Fetus in Egg. 2. further developed. 3. Larve. i 4. Pupe? a. Antenne. b. Unguiculate thoracic legs. c. Natatory, sub-abdominal ditto. d. e. Cast skin. 5. Imago. a. a. Maxillary legs. b. b. Antenne. c. c. Two posterior pair of thoracic legs confluent, so as to form one organ, and to each of which the sucker (@) is hooked, by which the animal fixes itself immovably. e. Abdomen, showing the eggs in the ovaries. f. f. Egg pouches. 5. a. Natural size of the animal. EXPLANATION ON THE PLATES. xix PLATE X. CRUSTACEANS. Fie. 1. Birgus Latro - - - - - 214 2. Pagurus elibanarius - - - - 212 a. a. a. Adhesive organs at the tail. b. b. c. c. Two last pairs of thoracic legs, by which it also adheres to the shell it inhabits. ’ d. d. Egg bearers. e. e. Forceps, in this species both of the same size. 3. Phyllosoma brevicorne” - : - - 220 PLATE XI. ARACHNIDAN AND InsEcT CoNDYLOPEs. Fie. 1. Mormolyce phyllodes eT - - 379 2. Aranea notacantha = - - - 347 3. Portion of an honey-comb, to show that every cell stands, as it were, upon three. : - 367 PLATE XI. B. ARACHNIDAN CONDYLOPES. Fie 1. Cteniza fodiens -— - - - - 341 2. Nest and tube of do. | a. Lid or trap-door. 6. ‘Tube. 3. Cteniza nidulans - - - - 343 4. Nest of do. a. Trap-door. 6. Tube. PLATE XI. C. Insect CoNnDYLOPEs. Fie. 1—3. Myrmica Kirbii . - - - 368 4. Nestofdo. - - - 2 - 369 7 - Mt EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. XX PLATE XII. FisHEs. Fie. 1. Callicthys - - : - - 265 2. Pectoral bony ray of a Silurus, found in digging at Blakenham parva Rectory, in Suffolk - - 26 . PLATE XIII. Fisues (continued). Fic. 1. Malthe Vespertilio : - - 262 2. Lateral view of the head of do. 3. A species of fishing frog from China - - 262 PLATE XIV. REPTILES. Fie. 1. Proteus anguinus, - - - - 19,411 a. Gills. 2. Anterior leg of the Chameleon - - 3. Posterior do. - - - - ‘ ie PLATE XV. Birps. Fie. 1. Sylvia cisticola ; - : - 437 2. Nest of do. | 3. Portion of do. to show the stitching of the leaves. PLATE XVI. QUADRUPEDS. Chlamyphorus truncatus ; . a ‘ 298 INTRODUCTION. i Tue Works of God and the Word of God may be’ called the two doors which open into the temple of Truth * and, as both proceed from the same Almighty and Omniscient Author, they cannot, if rightly interpreted, contradict each other, but must mutually illustrate and confirm, “though each in different sort and manner,” the same truths. Doubtless it was with this conviction upon his mind, that the learned Professor,* from whom I have borrowed my motto, expresses his opinion—that in order rightly to understand the voice of God in nature, we ought to enter her temple with the Bible in our hands. The prescribed object of the several treatises, of which the present forms one, is the illustration of the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of the Deity, as manifested in the Works of Creation ; but it is not only directed that these primary attri- butes should be proved by all reasonable arguments derived from physical objects, but also by discoveries ancient and modern, and the whole extent of literature. As the Holy Scrip- tures form the most interesting portion, in every respect, of ancient literature; and it has always been the habit of the author of the present treatise to unite the study of the word of God with that of his works ;? he trusts he shall not be deemed to have stepped out of the record, where he has copiously 1 The pious Heinrich Moritz Gaede, Professor of Natural History in the University of Liege. 2 See Monographia Apum Anglia, i.2, and Introd. to Ent.i. Pref. xiii. &c. Xxil INTRODUCTION. drawn from the sacred fountains, provided the main tenor of his argument is in accordance with the brief put into his hands. Those who are disposed to unite the study of Scripture with that of nature, should always bear in mind the caution before alluded to, that all depends upon the right interpretation, either of the written word or created substance. They who study the i) word of God, and they who study his works, are equally liable to.error; nor will talents, even of the highest order, always “secure a man. from falling into it. The love of truth, and of its Almighty Author, is the only sure guide that will conduct the aspirant to its purest fountains. High intellectual powers are a glorious gift of God, which, when associated with the qualities just named, lead to results as glorious, and to the light of real unsophisticated knowledge. But knowledge puffeth up, and if it stands alone, there is great danger of its leading its possessor into a kind of self-worship, and from thence to self-delusion, and the love of hypothesis. It is much to be lamented that many bright lights in science, some from leaning too much to their own understanding, and others, probably from having Religion shown to them, not with her own winning features, nor in her own simple dress, but with a distorted aspect, and decked meretriciously, so that she appears what she is not, without further inquiry and with- out consulting her genuine records, have rejected her and fallen into grievous errors. To them might be applied our Saviour’s words, Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures. These observations apply particularly to two of the most eminent philosophers of the present age, one for the depth of his know- ledge in astronomy and general physics ; and the othér in zoo- logy. It will be easily seen that I allude to La Place and Lamarck, both of whom, from their disregard of the word of God, and from seeking too exclusively their own glory, have ) fallen into errors of no small magnitude. It is singular, and INTRODUCTION. XXlil worthy of observation, that both have based their hypothesis upon a similar foundation. La Place says, “An attentive in- spection of the solar system evinces the necessity of some cen- tral paramount force, in order to maintain the entire system together, and secure the regularity of its motions.”* One would expect from these remarks, that he was about to enforce the necessity of acknowledging the necessary existence of an intelligent paramount central Being, whose goings forth were co-extensive with the universe of systems, to create them at first, and then maintain their several motions and revolutions, so as to prevent them from becoming eccentric and interfering with each other,? thus—Upholding all things by the word of his power. But no—when he asks the question, What is the primitive cause ? instead of answering it immediately, he refers the reader for his hypothesis to a concluding note, in which we find that this primitive cause, instead of the Deity, is a ne- bulosity originally so diffuse, that its existence can with diffi- culty be conceived.* To produce a system like ours, one of these wandering masses of nebulous matter distributed through the immensity of the heavens,® is converted into a brilliant nucleus, with an atmosphere originally extending beyond the orbits of all its planets, and then gradually contracting itself, but at its successive limits leaving zones of vapours, which, by their condensation, formed the several planets and, their satellites, including the rings of Saturn !!° - It is grievous to see talents of the very highest order, and to which Natural Philosophy, in other respects, is so deeply in- debted, forsaking the Ens Entium, the God of Gods, and ascrib- ing the creation of the universe of worlds to acause which, ac- cording to his own confession, is all but anon-entity. Hespeaks, System of the World, K. Tr. ii. 330. Ibid. Appendix, concluding note. System of the World, E. Tr. ii. 328. 4 Ibid. 357. Ihid, 332. 6 Ibid. 358. nw we XXIV INTRODUCTION. indeed, of a Supreme Intelligence, but it is as Newton’s god,— whom he blames for attributing the admirable arrangement of the sun, of the planets, and of the comets, to an Intelligent and Almighty Being,*—and of an Author of Nature, not, however, as the preserver and upholder of the universe,* but as perpetu- ally receding, according as the boundaries of our knowledge are extended ;* thus expelling, as it were, the Deity from all care or concern about his own world. While the philosopher thus became vain in his imaginations, the naturalist attempted to account for the production of all the various forms and structures of plants and animals upon similar principles. “Lamarck, distinguished by the variety of his talents and-attainments, by the acuteness of his intellect, by the clearness of his conceptions, and remarkable for his inti- mate acquaintance with his subject, thus expresses his opinion as to the origin of the present system of organized beings. ‘** We know, by observation, that the most simple organizations, whether vegetable or animal, are never met with but in minute gelatinous bodies, very supple and delicate ; in a word, only in frail bodies almost without consistence and mostly transparent.” These minute bodies he supposes nature forms, in the waters, by the power of attraction ; and that next, subtle and expan- sive fluids, such as caloric and electricity, penetrate these bodies, and enlarge the interstices of their agglutinated mole- cules, so as to form utricular cavities, and so produce irritability and life, followed by a power of absorption, by which they de- rive nutriment from without.* The production of a new organ in one of these, so formed, animal bodies, he ascribes to a new want, which continues to stimulate ; and of a new movement which that want produces and cherishes.° He next relates how this can be effected. 1 System of the World, E. Tr. ii. 331. 2 Ibid. 3382. 3 Ibid. 333. 4 Anim, sans Vertébr. 1. 174. 5 Ibid. 181. & INTRODUCTION, XXV Body, he observes, being essentially constituted of cellular tissue, this tissue is in some sort the matrix, from the modifica- tion of which by the fluids put in motion by the stimulus of desire, membranes, fibres, vascular canals, and divers organs, gradually appear ; parts are strengthened and solidified ;* and thus progressively new parts and organs are formed, and more and more perfect organizations produced ; and thus, by conse- quence, in the lapse of ages a monad becomes a man!!! The great object both of La Place and Lamarck seems to be to ascribe all the works of creation to second causes; and to account for the production of all the visible universe, and the furniture of our own globe, without the intervention of a first. Both begin the work by introducing nebulosities or masses of matter scarcely amounting to real entities, and proceed as if they had agreed together upon the modus operandi. As Lamarck’s hypothesis relates particularly to the animal kingdom, I shall make a few observations upon it, calculated to prove its utter irrationality. When, indeed, one reads the above account of the mode by which, according to our author’s hypothesis, the first vegetable and animal forms were produced, we can scarcely help think- ing that we have before us a receipt for making the organized beings at the foot of the scale in either class—a mass of irri- table matter formed by attraction, and a repulsive principle to introduce into it and form a cellular tissue, are the only ingre- dients necessary. Mix them, and you have an animal which begins to absorb fluid, and move about as a monad or a vibrio, multiplies itself by scissions or germs, one of which being stimulated by a want to take its food by a mouth, its fluids move obediently towards its anterior extremity, and in time a mouth is obtained; in another generation, a more talented individual discovering that one or more stomachs and other 1 Anim. sans Vertibr. i. 184, 4* XXvi INTRODUCTION. intestines would be a convenient addition to a mouth, the fluids immediately take a contrary direction, and at length this wish is accomplished; next a nervous collar round the gullet is acquired, and this centre of sensation being gained, the usual organs of the senses of course follow. But enough of this. Let any one examine the whole organization and structure, both internal and external, of any animal, and he will find that it forms a whole, in which the different organs and members have a mutual relation and dependence, and that if one is sup- posed to be abstracted, the whole is put out of order and can- not fulfil its evident functions. If we select, as a well known instance, the Hive-bee for an example. Its long tongue is es- pecially formed to collect honey ; its honey stomach to receive and elaborate it either for regurgitation, or for the formation of wax ; and other organs or pores are added, by which the latter can be transmitted to the wax pockets under its abdomen; connected with these, are its means and instruments to build its cells, either for store cells to contain its honey and bee-bread, or its young brood, such as the form of its jaws, and the struc- ture and furniture of its hind legs.. Now here are a number of organs and parts that must have been contemporary, since one is evidently constructed with a view to the other: and the whole organization and structure of the whole body forming the societies of these wonder-working beings, that I mean, of the males, females, and workers, is so nicely adjusted, as to concur exactly in producing the end that an intelligent Creator intended, and directing each to that function and office which he devolved upon them, and to exercise which he adapted them. Were we to go through the whole animal kingdom the same mutual relation and dependence between the different parts and organs of the structure and their functions would be found. Can any One in his rational senses believe for a moment that all these adaptations of one organ to another, and of the whole INTRODUCTION. XXxvii structure to a particular function, resulted originally from the wants of a senseless animal living by absorption, and whose body consisted merely of cellular tissue, which in the lapse of ages, and in an infinity of successive generations by the mo- tions of its fluids, directed here and there, produced this beauti- ful and harmonious system of organs all subservient to one purpose ; and which in numerous instances vary their functions and organs, but still preserving their mutual dependence, by passing through three different states of existence. Lamarck’s great error, and that of many others of his com- patriots, is materialism; he seems to have no faith in any thing but body, aitributing every thing to a physical, and scarcely any thing to a metaphysical cause. Even when, in words, he admits the being of a God, he employs the whole strength of his intellect to prove that he had nothing to do with the works of creation. Thus he excludes the Deity from the government of the world that-he has created, putting nature in his place; and with respect to the noblest and last formed of his creatures into whom he himself breathed the breath of life; he cer- tainly admits him to be the most perfect of animals, but instead of a son of God, the root of his genealogical tree, according to him, is an animalcule, a creature without sense or voluntary motion, or internal or external organs, at least in his idea—no wonder therefore that he considers his intellectual powers, not as indicating a spiritual substance derived from heaven though resident in his body, but merely as the result of his organiza- tion, and ascribes to him in the place of a soul, a certain interior sentiment, upon the discovery of which he prides him- self.* In one of his latest descriptions of it, he thus describes the office of this internal sentiment: ‘‘ Every action of an intelligent individual, whether it be a movement or a thought, 1 WN. Dict. D’ Hist. Nat. xvi. Artic. Intelligence, 344. comp. Ibid. Artic. Idée, 78, 80. 2 Ibid. 332. a XXVIIL INTRODUCTION. or ap act amongst the thoughts, is necessarily preceded by a want of that which has power to excite such action. This want felt immediately moves the internal sentiment, and in the same instant, that sentiment directs the disposable portion of the nervous fluid, either upon the muscles of that part of the body which is to act, or upon the part of the organ of intelli- gence, where are impressed the ideas which should be rendered present to the mind, for the execution of the intellectual act which the want demands.” In fact Lamarck sees nothing iff the universe but bodies, whence he confounds sensation with intellect. Our eyes certainly show us nothing but bodies— their actions and motions, their structure, their form and colour; our ears the sounds they produce; our touch their degree of resistance, or comparative softness or hardness ; our smell their scent; our taste their flavour ; but though our senses can con- duct us no further, we find a very active substance in full power within us that can. At a very early period of life we feel a wish to know something further concerning the objects to which our senses introduce us, which often generates a restless desire in the mind to gain information concerning the causes and origin of those things perceived by them; now this is the result of thought, and thought is no body, and though the thinking essence inhabits a body, yet we cannot help feeling that our thoughts are an attribute of an immaterial substance. Thought, discursive and excursive thought, that is not confined to the contemplation of the things of earth, things that are immediately about us, but can elevate itself to heaven, and the heavenly bodies, not only to those of our own system, but can take flights beyond the bounds of time and space, and enter into the Holy of Holies, and contemplate Him who sitteth upon the cherubim, the throne of his Deity. Thought, that not only beholds things present, however distant and removed from 1 WN. Doct. D’ Mist. Nat. xvi. Artic. Intelligence, 350. INTRODUCTION. XxXIX sense, but can contemplate the days of old and the years of many generations, can carry us back to hail with the angelic choirs, the birth-day of nature and of the world that we in- habit ; or looking into the abyss of futurity, can anticipate the termination of our present mixed scene—chequered with light and darkness, good and evil—and the beginning of that eternal sabbath which remaineth for the people of God in the heavenly kingdom of Christ: thought that can not only take these flights, and exercise herself in these heavenly musings ; but accompanied as she is, in our favoured race, with the gift of speech can reason upon them with a fellow mind, and by such discussion often elicit sparks of truth, that may be useful to enlighten mankind. Who can believe that such a faculty, so divine and god-like and spiritual, can be the, mere result of organization? That any juxta-position of material molecules, of whatever nature, from whatever source derived, in whatever order and form arranged, and wherever placed, could generate thought, and reflection, and reasoning powers; could acquire and store up ideas and notions as well concerning metaphysical as physical essences may as safely be pronounced impossible, as that matter and spirit should be homogeneous. Though the intellectual part acts by the brain and nerves, yet the brain and nerves, however ample, however developed, are not the intellect, nor an intellectual substance, but only its instrument, fitted for the passage of the prime messenger of the soul, the nervous fluid or power, to every motive organ. It is a sub- stance calculated to convey instantaneously that subtile agent, by which spirit can act upon body, wherever the soul bids it to go and enables it to act. When death separates the intellec- tual and spiritual from the material part, the introduction of a fluid homogeneous with the nervous, or related to it by a gal- vanic baitery can put the nerves in action, lift the eye-lids, move the limbs, but though the action of the intellectual part may thus be imitated, in newly deceased persons, still there XXX INTRODUCTION. are no signs of returning intelligence ; there is no life, no vol- untary action, not a trace of the spiritual agent that has been summoned from itsdwelling. Whence it follows, that though the organization is that by which the intellectual and govern- ing power manifests its presence and inhabitation, still it is evidently something distinct from and independent of it. Mr Lyell has so fully considered that part of Lamarck’s hy- pothesis which relates particularly to the transmutation of spe- cies, and so satisfactorily proved their general stability, that it is unnecessary for me to enter more particularly into that sub- ject, I must therefore refer the reader to that portion of his work.* Let us lastly enquire, to whom or what, according to our author, God has given up the reins; whom he has appointed his viceroy in the government of the universe. Nature is the second power who sits on this viceregal throne, governing the physical universe, whom we should expect to be superior in intellect and power to angel and archangel—but no—he defines her to be—“ An order of things composed of objects in- dependent of matter, which are determined by the observation of bodies, and the whole amount of which constitutes a power unalterable in its essence, governed in all its acts, and con- stantly acting upon all parts of the physical universe.”® And again, Nature he affirms consists of non-physical objects, which are neither beings, nor bodies, nor matter. It is composed of motion ; of laws of every description ; and has perpetually at its disposal space and time.® With respect to the agency of this vicegerent of Deity, he observes that, Nature is a blind power without intelligence which acts necessarily.* That matter is her sole domain, of which however she can neither create nor destroy a single 1 Principles of Geology, ii. c. 1, 2. 2 N. Dict. D’ Hist. Nat. xxii. Art. Nature, 377. 3 Tbh. 4 Ibid. 364: INTRODUCTION. Xxxi atom, though she modifies it continually in every way and under every form,—and causes the existence of all bodies of which matter is essentially the base ;—and that in our globe it is she that has immediately given existence to vegetables, to animals, as well as to other bodies that are there to be met with.” : | From these statements, though he appears to admit the ex- istence of a Deity, and that he is the primary author of all things, yet he considers him as having delegated his power to nature as his vicegerent, to whose disposal he has left all ma- terial subsistences, and who, according to him, is the real crea- tor of all the forms and beings that exist, and who maintains the physical universe in its present state. It is not quite clear what opinion he held with respect to the creation of matter, as he no where expressly ascribes it to God; though, since he excludes nature from it, we may infer, unless he thought it to be eternal, that he meant it should be ascribed to the Deity ; but, if such was his opinion, he ought to have stated it dis- tinctly and broadly ; which he certainly would have done had he felt any anxiety to prevent misrepresentation. As it is, his God is an exact counterpart of the God of Epicurus, who leav- ing all to nature or chance, takes no further care or thought for the worlds to which he had given being. But what is this mighty and next to omnipotent power, This great-grandmother of all creatures bred, Great Nature ever young, but full of eld; Still moving, yet immoved from her sted ; Unseen of any, yet of all beheld ; Thus sitting in her throne as quaintly sings our great bard of allegory.* Now this great-grandmother of the whole creation, who, 1 WN. Dict. D’ Hist. Nat. xxii. Art. Nature, 369, 376. 4 Faérie Queene, B, vu. c. vii. st. 13. eae Sa Wh | XXXI1 INTRODUCTION. according to our author, takes all trouble off the hands of the God of Gods, sitting as it were in his throne, and directing and upholding all things by the word of her power,—what is she? Is she not at least a secondary spirit, co-extensive with the physical universe which she forms, and the limits of which alone terminate her action? This the various and wonderful operations attributed to her by this her worshipper would pro- claim her to be. How then are we surprised and astonished when studying and weighing every scruple of his definitions of this his great Diana of Ephesus, and casting them up, we find at the foot of the account that she literally amounts to noTHine. That she is a compound of attributes without any subsistence to hang them upon. His primary character of her, on which he insists in every part of his works, declares her to be an Order of Things. What idea does this phrase convey to the mind? That of things arranged and acting in a certain order. But no—this is not his meaning. She is an order of things composed of objects independent of matter. These ob- jects are all metaphysical, and are neither beings, nor bodies, nor matter. But if she is not a being, she can have no exist- ence. Yes, says our author, she is composed of motion. But what is motion considered abstractedly, without reference to the mover or the moved? Like its negative rest, it is nothing. He, Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting, is the First Mover, and the motion which he hath generated in his physical universe, was communicated by Him to existences, which he had created and formed to execute his will, and by them to others, and so propagated, as it were, from hand to hand, according to his laws, till the universe was in motion generally, and in all its systems and their several members. The Deity, at once the centre and circumference of creation, going forth incessantly, all the sys- tems that form the physical universe, severally concatenated into one great system, responding to his action, and revolving >. INTRODUCTION. XXXUi round and contained in that central and circumferential foun- tain of ever-flowing light and glory,* that Spiritual Sun of the whole universe of systems, of which every sun of every system is a type and symbol. To Him be ascribed the Glory, and the Power, and the Kingdom, in secula seculorum, Amen. _ Another object which Lamarck considers as constituting na- ture, is Law. But law considered abstractedly is also nothing. It may exist in the Divine counsels, but till it is promulgated, and powers appointed and empowered who can enforce it; as likewise other objects brought into existence upon which it can act, or that can obey it; it is a word without power or effect. As in order to motion there must be a mover and something to be moved, so in order to a potential law, as well as a pro- mulgator, there must be a being to enforce it and another to obey it. With regard to his third ingredient, space and time, the thea- tre and limit of Nature’s operations; they give her no subsist- ence, she still remains a nonentity ; therefore, as defined by our author, she is nothing, and can do nothing. But although nature, as defined by Lamarck, consists merely of abstract qualities, independent of any essence or being, and therefore can neither form any thing, nor operate upon what is already formed ; yet would I by no means be understood as contending that there are no inter-agents between God and the visible material world by which he acts upon it, and as it were takes hold of it; by which he has commenced and still main- tains motion in it and its parts; causing it to observe certain general and local laws; and upholds, in the whole and every part, those several powers and operations that have been thus produced ; that action and counteraction every where observa- ble, by which all things are maintained in their places ; observe 1 Deus omnium capax, Herm. Pastor, |. ii. Mand. 1. Iren. Adv. Heres. 1. ii, c. 55. 5* if XXXIV INTRODUCTION. their regular motions and revolutions; and exhibit all those phenomena that are produced under certain circumstances. Whatever names philosophers have used to designate such powers, they have a real substance and being, and are a some- thing that can act and operate, and impart a momentum. Lord Verulam’s two hands of nature, whereby she chiefly worketh,* heat and cold, synonymous, according to some, with positive and negative electricity ;? the plastic nature of Cud- worth, and some of the ancients; the spirit of nature of Dr Henry More ;* and the ether of Sir Isaac Newton, all seem to express or imply an agency between the Deity and the visible world, directed by him. Attraction and repulsion; centripetal and cen- trifugal forces, or universal gravitation, all imply a power or powers in action, that are something more than names and nonentities, that are moving in two directions, and consist of antagonist forces. If we consult Holy Scripture with the view of ascertaining whether any or what terms are therein employed to express the same powers, we shall find that generally speaking, the word heaven, or the heavens, and symbolically the cherubim, are used for that’ purpose. But upon this subject, which has con- siderable bearing upon the doctrine of instinct, I shall enlarge in a subsequent part of this introduction. Having stated Lamarck’s hypothesis with respect to nature, the Goddess which he worshipped, and which he decked with divine attributes and divine power, I shall, as briefly as possible, give some account of his theory of life. Life indeed is a sub- ject that hath puzzled, doth puzzle, and will puzzle philoso- phers and physiologists, probably till time shall be no more. ‘Thus much, however, may be predicated of it, that both in the vegetable and animal, like heat, it is a radiant principle, show- 1 Bacon’s Works, iii. Vat. Hist. Cent. i. p. 69. 2 See Lit. Gaz. January 7, 1885, p. 43, 3 See above, p. 328. INTRODUCTION. XXXV ing itself by successive developments for a limited period, varying according to the species, when it begins to decline and finally is extinguished: that sometimes also, like heat, as in the seed of the vegetable and egg of the animal, it is latent, not manifesting itself by development, till it is submitted to the action of imponderable fluids, conveyed by moisture or incubation. But to return to our author. ‘“‘We have seen,” says he, “that the life which we remark in certain bodies, in some sort resembled nature, insomuch that it is not a being, but an order of things animated by movements; which has also its power, its faculties, and which exercises them necessarily while it exists.t He also ascribes these vital movements to an existing cause. Speaking of the imponderable incoercible fluids, and specifying heat, electricity, the magnetic finid, &c. to which he is inclined to add light, he says, it is certain that without them, or certain of them, the phenomenon of life could not be produced in any body.* Now, though heat, electricity, &c. are necessary to put the principle of life in motion, they evi- dently do not impart it. The seed of a vegetable, or the ege of a bird have each of them, if I may so speak, a punctum saliens, a radiating principle, which, under certain circumstances, they can retain in a latent state, for a considerable time; but if once that principle is extinct, no application of heat, or electricity, under any form, can revive it, so as to commence any devel- opment of the germ it animated. Experiments have been made upon human bodies; and those of other animals, which, by the application of galvanism, after death, have exhibited various muscular movements, such as lifting the eye-lids, mov- ing the arms and legs, &c. but though motions usually pro- duced by the will acting by the nerves upon the muscles have thus been generated by a species of the electric fluid, proving 1 Anim. sans Vertebr. i. 321. - 2 Ibid. i. 43. XXXvi INTRODUCTION. its affinity with the nervous power or fluid, yet the subjects of the experiment, when the action was intermitted, continued still without life; no return of that power or essence which was fled for ever, being effected by it, which seems to render it clear that neither caloric nor electricity, though essential concomitants of life, form its essence. I trust I may render some service to the cause of truth and science, if I again revert to the subject which I mentioned at the beginning of this introduction, 1 mean the study of the word of God, together with that of his works, with the view to illustrate one by the other. The great and wonderful genius before alluded to, Lord Verulam, who laid the foundation upon which the proud struc- ture of modern philosophy is erected, who banished from science the visionary theories of the speculator,* and the unfounded dogmas of the bigot, and made experiment, and, as it were, the anatomy of nature, the root of true physical knowledge ; warns the philosopher against making holy scripture his text book, for a system of philosophy, which he says, is like seeking the dead amongst the living.? I am disposed, however, to think that this illustrious philosopher, by this observation, did not mean to exclude all study of the word of God, with a view to discover what is therein delivered concerning physical sub- jects, for he himself speaks of the bool of Job, as pregnant with the mysteries of natural philosophy;* but his object was to point out the evil effects of a superstitious and bigotted ad- herence to the letter of scripture, concerning which men were very liable to be mistaken, and of inattention to its spirit, which is averse to all persecution, so that persons of a philosophic mind might not be interrupted in their investigations of nature, by the clamours or menaces of mistaken men. In the dark ages, anterior to the Reformation, superstition 1 Idola Spectis. 2 De Augment. Sc. 1. ix. ¢. 1, § 3. 3 Ubi Supr. |. ix. c.1, § 47, ed. 1740. INTRODUCTION. XXXVI occupied the seat of true and rational religion. Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures, was an observation almost universally applicable. ‘The armed hand of authority was lifted up against all such as endeavoured to interpret either Scripture or nature upon just and rational principles. Every such effort was re- jected, was reprobated ex cathedra, and persecuted as a danger- ous and pestilent heresy: thus every avenue to the discovery of truth, either in religion or science, was attempted to be closed. This evil spirit it was that proscribed the system of Copernicus, and, because it appeared contrary to the leiter of Scripture, persecuted Galileo for affirming that the earth moved round the sun. Lord Verulam clearly saw the evil conse- quences that would result to the cause of true philosophy, if the sober study of nature, and all experimental research into the works of creation, were to be denounced as impious, be- cause of some seeming discordance with the letter of Scripture, or because a narrow-minded theologian could not discern where the writers of the Bible adopted popular phraseology, in condescension to the innocent prejudices and uninformed un- derstandings of those to whom they addressed themselves ; and he therefore employed all the energy of his powerful mind to persuade the learned theologian, that for the discovery of physical truth we must have recourse to induction from expe- riment and soberly conducted investigation of physical phe- nomena, while for spiritual we should seek to draw living waters from the fountain of life contained in Scripture. The Bible was not intended to make us philosophers, but to make ‘us wise unto salvation. ’ But it does not follow, because we are to seek for religious truth principally in the Bible, that we can derive none from the study of natural objects ; nor, on the contrary, because we _are not to go to the Bible for a system of philosophy, that no philosophical truths are contained in it. The Scripture ex- pressly declares that the invisible things of God may be under- | XXXVIil INTRODUCTION. stood by the things that are made—and if we may have recourse to the works of creation as well as to revelation to lead us to the knowledge of the Creator, we may, on the other hand, by parity of reason, without meriting any reprehension, inquire into what God has revealed in Scripture concerning the physical world and its phenomena. Lord Bacon himself observes, that Philosophy is given to Religion as a most faith- ful handmaid; since Religion declares the will of God, and Philosophy manifests his power,—and he applies to this our Saviour’s reproof of the Jews. Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. That is, ye have not endea- voured to know him by a right mode of studying either his word or his works. The study of both is necessary to the right understanding of either—we cannot rightly understand God’s word without a knowledge of his works, and perpetual appeal is made to his works in his word; neither can we perfectly understand his works without the knowledge of his word. The penetrating mind of Bacon clearly perceived, that if supposed statements of Scripture were made the sole test by which philosophical systems were to be tried, there was an end of all progress in science, no use in making experiments, or pursuing a course of inductive reasoning. And this was the temper of the age in which he lived; light was beginning to spring up, and because it was novel, it was thought to be heretical and subversive of Scripture. But men’s minds are now much altered in this respect, and there is no danger of persecution on account of heterodoxy either in religion or phi- losophy. In fact the tide seems turned the other way, and a clamour is sometimes raised against persons who consult the revealed word of God on points connected with philosophy and science. But surely if the Scriptures are, as we believe, a revelation from the Creator of that world concerning which we , philosophize, and if some parts of them do contain mysteries of natural philosophy, as Bacon himself contends they do, some INTRODUCTION. XXXIX respect and deference are due to the word of God, and some allowance may be claimed by those who appeal to it on any | point of science, even if their appeal originates in a miscon- ception and misinterpretation of any part of it; the same allowance as is made for those, and they are many, who mis- interpret nature. | . In the observations here made upon some dicta of the illus- trious sage, who, unless we admit his venerable namesake, Friar Bacon, to a share in that distinction, may be termed the first founder of modern philosophy, I have not the most distant thought of detracting from the splendour of his merits, or of deducting any thing from the amount of the vast debt which science owes him; but, as I have before observed, mankind, from the earliest ages, have been prone almost to idolize those to whom they were indebted for any weighty benefits, or ‘to whom they looked up as inventors of useful arts, or masters of hitherto occult sciences. Gratitude, indeed, demands that great and original geniuses, whom God has enriched with ex- | traordinary talents, by the due exercise of which they have become benefactors of the human race, should be loved and valued highly for their services ; but when we look only at the instrument, and see not the hand of Supreme Benevolence that employs it for our benefit, we then overvalue man and under- value Ged ; putting the former into the place of the latter, and making an idol of him: and if any will not worship this idol, a clamour is raised against them, and they are almost perse- cuted. Our great philosopher himself complains of this ten- dency to overvalue individuals as the cause and source of great evils to science: he considers it asa kind of fascination that bewitches mankind. 1 Rursus vero homines a progressu in scientiis detinuit, et fere incantavit reverentia antiquitatis, et virorum, qui in philosophia magni habiti sunt, au- thoritas. Itaque mirum non est, si fascina ista antiquitatis, et authorum, et consensus, hominum virtutem ita ligaverint, ut cum rebus ipsis consuescere (tanquam maleficiati) non potuerint. Vov. Organ. |. i. aphor. 84. : "= Sin Bl tee xl INTRODUCTION. Since the time of Bacon, philosophers and inquirers into na- ture have for the most strictly adhered to his rule, if such it may be deemed ; and, with the exception of a single sect, who perhaps have gone too far in an opposite direction,t have made little or no inquiry as to what is delivered in Scripture on phy- sical subjects, or with respect to the causes of the various phe- nomena exhibited in our system, or in the physical universe : but surely it is a most interesting, as well as novel field of study, for the philosopher to ascertain what has really been revealed in Scripture on these great subjects. The opinions of the ancients upon this head have been investigated and can- vassed, and an approximation traced between them, in some respects, to those of modern philosophers :? if the same diligence was exercised upon the Scriptures, we might arrive at inform- ation with regard to the great powers that, under God, rule the physical universe, which it is hopeless to gain by the usual means of investigation. But the great difficulty lies in the interpretation of those passages of Scripture that relate to physical Phenomena. Bacon often repeats these words of Solomon,—lIt is the glory of God to conceal athing. As Moses, when he descended from the mount, was obliged to veil his face, because the Israelites could not bear its effulgence ;* so the Deity was pleased to conceal many both spiritual and physical truths under a veil of figures and allegory, because the prejudices, ignorance, and grossness of the bulk of the people could not bear them, but they were written for the instruction and admonition of those in every age whose minds are liberated from the misrule of prejudice, and less darkened by the clouds of ignorance ; but still it requires, and always will require, much study and com- parison of one part of Scripture with another, to discover the 1 The Hutchinsonians. 2 See Prof. Daubeny’s Inirod. to the Atomic Theory, 13. 3 Exod. xxxiv. 29, &c. INTRODUCTION. xli meaning of many of those passages of Scripture which relate to physical objects. The Apostle to the Hebrews observes that the manner in which God revealed himself to the ancient world and the Jew- ish nation, was by dividing bis communications into many parcels, delivered at different times;* and by clothing them in a variety of figures, and imparting them under different cir- cumstances,? so that in order to get a correct notion of them it is necessary to compare one part of Scripture with another, and to weigh well the various figures under which they are con- cealed, and the use of them on other occasions; and also to consider the modes in which they were communicated to the mind of the prophet, whether in a vision exhibited to him when entranced; in a dream when asleep; or under certain acts, which he was commanded, or by immediate inspiration excited, to perform. So that if we wish to ascertain the meaning of any particular symbol, or of the terms in which any commu- nication is made from God in Holy Scripture; we must not be satisfied by studying merely the passage under our eye, but, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, hunt out the meaning, as it were, by considering all those passages where the same thing is alluded to. It is to be observed, that in all the communications which it has pleased the Deity to make of his will-to mankind, respect is had to the then state of society, and the progress of know- ledge, arts, and civilization—light was imparted to them as they were able to bear it; they were fed with milk when they could not digest strong meat. Prejudices take usually so firm a hold upon the bulk of any people, that to attack them di- rectly, instead of opening, closes all the avenues to the heart. Even the most enlightened in some respects, in others aré often under their dominion; and, therefore, it is only by imparting 1 TMoaupeepac. 2 Tloaurporas. 6* F \ fe | ‘| r 4 o xlii INTRODUCTION. truth Here a litile and there a litile, as circumstances admit, and embroidering the veil, under which we are obliged to soften the effulgence of her light, with varied imagery, darkly shadowing out her mysteries, that a way is prepared for her final triumph and universal reception. She is often A light shining in a dark place, gradually expelling prejudice and error, and shining more and more unto the perfect day. It was not so much necessary for the conversion and reform- ation of mankind to make them philosophers as to make them believers. ‘The great bulk of mankind were ignorant and unin- structed persons, whence in order to win their attention, it was necessary to address them ina language which they under- stood, and in a phraseology, with respect to physical objects, to which they were accustomed, and as those objects appear to the senses. Thus the moon is called a great light, because she appears so and is so to us, though really less than the planets and fixed stars; the sun is said to rise, and other parallel ex- pressions, which are true with respect to us, and to the appear- ance of the thing, though not with respect to the fact physi- cally considered. When the sacred writers speak of the Deity in. terms borrowed from the human figure, as if he had hands, eyes, feet, and the like, and as if he was agitated by human passions, it is for the sake of illustrating the Divine attributes and proceedings by those passions, faculties, senses, and organs in man, by which alone we can gain any idea of what may be analogous to them in the Divine Nature. But though such condescension is shown by the Holy Spirit to the ignorance and imperfections of his people, by adopting, as it were, a phraseology founded upon their innocent errors, and those misapprehensions of things into which they were led by their senses: it is not thence to be concluded that this popular language pervades the whole of the Holy Word; or that it is impossible, or even difficult, to distinguish things spoken ad caplwm, from statements relating to the physical INTRODUCTION. xliit constitution of nature which are to be received as spoken ex cathedra, and as dictated by the Holy Spirit. It should not be lost sight of, that the great object of Revelation was to reclaim mankind from the debasing worship of those that were not gods by nature; of those powers in nature, or their symbols, select- ed from natural objects, which God employed and directed as his agents insthe formation and government of the globe we inhabit, and of the whole universe. ‘ But we,” says Bacon, “dedicate or erect no capital or pyramid to the pride of men; but, in the human intellect, lay the foundations of a holy tem- ple, an exemplar of the world.”* ‘This passage is capable of an application that may lead us into an avenue terminating in such a temple, which, though not erected in the human intel- lect, may enlighten it in several points relating to physical truths concerning which it is now in darkness. The Mosaical tabernacle and the Solomonian temple were both erected not after the imaginings of the spirit of man; but the former after a pattern which was shown to Moses in the mount ;? and the latter after another given by David to Solomon, which it is ex- pressly stated he had by the Spirit, and which Jehovah made him understand in writing (or commit to writing) by his hand upon him.* Now, if these holy places were erected after a pat- tern divinely furnished, that pattern doubtless was significant, and intended to answer some important purpose. The great end which the Deity had in view by the selection of the Israelitish nation, was to prevent all knowledge of himself, as the Creator and Governor of the world, from being totally ob- literated from the minds of men, and to keep alive the expec- tation of the promised seed, who was to effect the great deliver- ance of mankind from the yoke and consequences of sin, and the dominion of Satan. Had it not been for this step, the 1 WNov. Org, aphorism. 120. 2 Exod. xxv. 40, xxvi. 30. 3 1 Chron. xxviii. 12, 19. xliv INTRODUCTION. worship of those powers and intermediate agents by which God acts upon the earth and the world at large, and produces all the phenomena observable in the physical universe; of their symbols; or of deified men and women, would have en- tirely superseded the worship of their Almighty Author, and the whole earth would have been so covered by this palpable darkness, that no glimpse of light would have heen left to fos- ter the hope and prove the germ of a future day of glory. The great object, therefore, of the Godhead being the. assertion of his own supremacy, and to proclaim his own agency by the powers that are known to govern in nature, it was to be expect- ed that a tabernacle or temple erected after a pattern furnished by the Deity would conspicuously do this. But before I enter further into this mysterious subject, it will be proper to obviate an objection that may be alleged, viz. that it is incongruous and out of place to introduce, into a work like the present, any inquiry into the nature and contents of the Jewish temple, especially the meaning of those symbolical images placed in the Holy of Holies and called the Cherubim, but when it is further considered that these symbols are rep- resented as winged animals with four faces, and that these faces are those of the kings and rulers, as it were, of the ani- mal kingdom.:—namely, the ox, the chief amongst cattle ; the lion, the king of wild beasts; and the eagle, the ruler of the “birds ; and lastly, Man, who has all things put under his feet,— there seems ‘to be no slight connection between the cherubim and the animal creation. If we regard the antitypes of these images as exclusively metaphysical, this argument will not hold; but if, as I hope to prove from Scripture, they consist of physical, as well as metaphysical objects, by which the Deity acts upon the whole animal kingdom, and particularly in all instinctive operations, I trust I shall be justified in entering so fully into this interesting subject. In this inquiry I have en- deavoured to guide myself entirely by the word of God com- INTRODUCTION. xlv paring spiritual things with spiritual ; at the same time taking into consideration those arguments, where the case seemed to require it, that his works supply. The Jewish tabernacle, which, as Philo calls it,t was a port- able temple, every reader of Scripture knows was divided into two principal parts, or, according to the apostle to the Hebrews, tabernacles ; the first of which was called the Holy Place ; and the second, the Most Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies. This Jast tabernacle is expressly stated in Scripture to be a figure of heaven. ‘“ For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”? Where allusion is evidently made to the annual entry of the Jewish high priest into the second tabernacle, as representing Christ’s entry into heaven itseif, where the presence of God wasmanifested. Now if the second tabernacle represented the Heaven of Heavens, the first we may conclude, in which the ordinary service and worship of God were transacted, was a symbol of this world or our solar system.? | If we consider the furniture of the two tabernacles, we gain further instruction on the subject we are considering. In the first was the golden candlestick with its seven lights, the table, and the show-bread. Amongst the Jews, the candlestick seems to have been regarded asa kind of planetarium, repre- senting the solar system, at least those parts of it that were visible to the unassisted eye.* It is worthy of remark that the | central lamp, which appears to be four times the size of the rest, is stated by Philo torepresent the sun. The table and the show-bread, in a physical sense, may perhaps be regarded as symbolizing the earth and its productions, the table which 1 ‘Ispov gopurov. De Vita Mosis, 1. iii. 2 Heb. ix. 24. ef 3 “Aytoy xoopexoy. 4 Joseph. Antig. 1. iii. c.7, comp. Philo. De Vita Mosis, |. iii. 518, B. C. Ed. Col. All. 1613. xlvi INTRODUCTION. God spreads and sets before us. But as well asa physical, these things have a metaphysical or spiritual meaning. The candlestick symbolizing the church and its ministers, who are characterized as “ Lights in the world,’’*—the churches as candlesticks, and the principal ministers of Christ as stars.? The contents of the second Tabernacle, or Most Holy Place, are now to be considered ; these were an ark or chest contain- ing the two tables of the decalogue, over which was placed a propitiatory or mercy-seat of pure gold, at each end of which, and forming part of the same plate, was fixed a Cherub, or sculptured image so called. The directions for the fabrication of these images are not accompanied by any description of them. They are spoken of as objects well known to the Jews; but in the prophecy of Ezekiel, they are described as each having four faces and four wings; the faces were those of a man and a lion on the right side ; the face of an ox on the left side ; and the face of an eagle; with regard to their wings, two were stretched upwards, and two covered their bodies. Many other particulars are mentioned by the prophet, which I shall not here enlarge upon.° A great variety of opinions have been held, both in ancient and modern times, concerning the meaning of these symbols, and what they are designed to represent, some of which I shall mention in another place. By most modern theologians they seem to be regarded as angels of the highest rank. The first mention of them in Holy Scriptures is upon the occasion of the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. ‘‘ nd he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”* The word which in our translation is rendered placed, means properly caused to dwell, or placed in a tabernacle,’ 1 Philip. ii. 15. acnpes ey xoreea. 2 Revel. i. 20. 3 Ezek. i. 6. 10, 11. 4 Genes. iii. 24, 5 Heb, yaw INTRODUCTION. xl vii and it was on this account probably that in the Septuagint translation, the expression is referred to Adam. ‘nd he cast out Adam, and caused him to dwell opposite the garden of Eden. And he placed in order the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned io keep ihe way of the tree of life.”* The word in question is used by Jeremiah to denote God’s presence in his tabernacle in Shiloh.? It may be remarked also that, in the original, the phrase is not simply that God placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, but, as is evident from the particles pre- fixed to it, that he placed there éhe cherubim, namely such objects as were generally called by that name, and were familiar to the Jews. Had God given it in commission to angelic beings to keep watch and ward at the gate of Paradise, it would surely have been said upon this, as upon other occasions, that he sent them. When we reflect that these mystic beings, when only sculptured images, were symbols of the divine presence, and that God manifested himself in his tabernacle and in his tem- ple by a cloud and glory when the work was finished according to the pattern, and the cherubim with the ark and mercy-seat were in their places,* surely some suspicion must enter our minds that these cherubim, before the gates of Paradise, might be stationed there for purposes connected with the worship of God after the fall. Indications of this are discoverable in other passages, as where it is said of Cain and Abel, that they brought an offering unto the Lord; a term implying that sacrifices were not offered in any place, according to the fancy of the worship- per. Again, after the murder and martyrdom of righteous Abel by his brother’s hand, and the divine sentence passed upon the latter, he says, “ Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face shall I be hid.”* 1 Gr. Kas e£eBare tov Aday, nat xetaxicey avrov arevavTt Te Mapadecs as Tpugns. nas eTale Ta Hepsi, eat THY PAOYLWUY pompasav, THY SpEpoeevAY guaarcesv tnv cdov re Evas rus Cons. 2 Jerem. vii- 12. 3 Exod. xl. 18—38. 2 Chron. v.'7—14- 4 Genes. iv. 14. xviii INTRODUCTION. And it is subsequently stated, “And Cain went out from the pre- sence of the Lord.”* From these passages it seems to follow evidently that God was present, in some restricted sense, in one particular place, by departing from which Cain was hid from his face, whatever was intended by that expression. In this local sense, a temple or tabernacle dedicated to his worship, as prescribed by himself, might be called his presence; or ina still more peculiar sense, it might be so denominated, if in its sanctuary it contained any symbolical representation of God’s universal dominion, and of his action every where ; or if any cloud or irradiation of his glory was there manifested to his worshippers.? With regard to the flaming sword, which our translation seems to put into the hands of the cherubic watch, and which Milton has so finely paraphrased : And on the east side of the garden place, Where entrance up from Eden easiest climbs, Cherubic watch, and of a sword the flame Wide-waving, all approach far off to fright And guard all passage to the tree of life. And again, They looking back all the eastern side beheld] Of Paradise so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms. The words in the original may either be understood meta- phorically of a flame like a sword, or it may be translated a consuming flame, a flame of burning heat ; the original word® often signifying an exhausting and violent heat. The word which we translate turned every way,* is in Hithpael, and sig- nifies an action upon itself; it is used in the same conjugation 1 Genes. iv. 16. 2 Exod. xl. 34—38. 3 Heb. san 4 Heb. noprnon INTRODUCTION. xlix in other passages, where the sense seems to be that of revolv- ing or rolling. Ezekiel in his vision of the cherubim, describ- ing the fire that preceded their appearance, says that it in- folded itself.? The last words of the passage in question, to keep the way of the tree of life, admit of two opposite interpretations—either to shut it up from all access, or to prevent it from being wholly closed. Perhaps the following interpretation—that the end for which the cherubim and flaming sword were placed at the east of the garden of Eden, was to close for ever the way to the old tree of life, and also to open the way to one better suited to man’s altered circumstances and situation—will re- concile both interpretations. As soon as man was expelled from Paradise, the original covenant was ended, and he was cut off from all the means of grace and spiritual life that it held forth ; and therefore it might be expected that his merci- ful and beneficent Creator would, in pursuance of the great scheme of salvation, through the promised seed of the woman, which he had thrown out to him as an anchor of hope, would supply him with other means suited to his fallen state, by which he might be renewed unto holiness, and gradually nourished in grace, so as at last to be prepared to undergo the sentence passed upon him with a prospect before him of enter- ing into that rest that remaineth for the people of God. Having, I trust, not upon slight grounds, made it appear probable, that the cherubim, by the Deity himself, were placed in the original temple or tabernacle, and were intimately con- nected with that form of worship which was instituted by him in consequence of that sad event, the fall of man from his primeval state of holiness and happiness; I shall next endea- vour to ascertain what these multiform images represented. 1 Judges vii. 13. Job. xxxvii. 12. 2 Ezek.i.4. Heb. nnobno wx "* INTRODUCTION. But I must first premise a few observations upon the legitimate mode of collecting truths of this description from Holy Scrip- ture, and I must here recall to the reader’s recollection the observation of Solomon before quoted—Zi is the glory of God to conceal a thing. A number of important truths are delivered in Holy Writ, which are veiled truths, which we shall never discover if we adhere to the letter, and content ourselves with admiring the richness and beauty of the setting, without pay- ing any attention to the gem it encircles or conceals. Some writers require a clear, distinct, and explicit statement, before they will admit any thing as revealed in Scripture, be the cir- cumstantial evidence of the fact ever so strong. For instance some eminent theologians deny the Divine origin of sacrifices, because no command of God to Adam or Noah to offer them is recorded to have been given ; yet one should think the prac- tice of righteous Abel, and of Noah, perfect in his generations, and God’s acceptance of their respective sacrifices,t was a sufficient proof that this was no act of will-worship, but one of obedience to a Divine institution. The circumstance that God clothed Adam and Eve in the skins of beasts, proves that beasts had been slain, which were most probably offered up as victims representing the great atonement, the promised seed—and the clothing of them in their skins was an indication that they wanted garments, in the place of their own innocency and righteousness, to cover their nakedness, and that they now stood as clothed in the righteousness of Him whose heel was to be bruised for them. The distinction also of clean and unclean beasts directly sanctioned by the Deity, and which alone might be offered in sacrifice,? is another circumstance confirmative of the common opinion. God, both in his word and in his works, for the exercise and improvement of the intellectual powers of his servants, and 1 Genes. iv. 4. viii. 20, 21. 2 Ibid. and vii, 2, 3. INTRODUCTION. li that—** By reason of use they may have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil ;”* has rendered it indispensable that those who would understand them, and gain a correct idea of his plan in them, should collect and place in one point of view things that in Nature and Scripture are scattered over the whole surface, so that by comparing one part with another they may arrive at a sound conclusion. Hence it happens that, in Scripture, when any truth is first to be brought for- ward, it is not by directly and fully enunciating and defining it, so that he who runs may read and comprehend it, but it is only incidentally alluded to, or some circumstance narrated which, if duly weighed and traced to its legitimate conse- quences, puts the attentive student in possession of it. Such notices are often resumed, and further expanded, in subsequent parts of the sacred volume, and sometimes we are left to col- lect that an event has happened, or an institution delivered to the patriarchal race, without its being distinctly recorded, from circumstances which necessarily or strongly imply it. In a trial in a court of justice it very commonly happens that no direct proof of an event can be produced, and yet the body of circumstantial evidence is so concatenated and satisfactory as to leave no doubt upon the minds of the jury as to the nature of the verdict they ought to deliver. It would be a great and irreparable loss to the devout and sober student of Holy Scrip- ture, if in his endeavours to become acquainted with the differ- ent parts of it, he is to be precluded from forming an opinion as to certain events and doctrines, because it has pleased the Wis- dom of God to record and reveal them not directly and_at once, but indirectly, in many parcels, and under various forms. | To apply this reasoning to the subject I am discussing. Having rendered it probable that the cherubim placed in a tabernacle at the east of the Garden of Eden, represented the 1 Heb. v. 14. lit INTRODUCTION. same objects, and were so far synonymous, with those after- wards placed in the Jewish Tabernacle in the most holy place overshadowing the mercy-seat, and that the Divine Presence was more particularly to be regarded as taking there its con- stant station, and there occasionally manifesting itself by a cloud and a fiery splendour, I shall next endeavour to show what the cherubic images really symbolized. The word Cherub, in the Hebrew language, has no root ; for the derivation of it from a particle of similitude and a word signifying the mighty or strong ones, which is proposed. by Parkhurst and the followers of Mr Hutchinson, seems to me not satisfactory. Archbishop Newcome? and others derive it from a Chaldee root, which signifies to plough, and the radi- cal idea seems to be that of strength and power, which will agree with the nature of the derivative, as indicating the pow- ers, whether physical or metaphysical, that rule under God. Other divines, as God is said to ride upon the cherubim, and they are called his chariot, would derive the word, by transpo- sition, from a root which signifies to ride ;* but if a transposi- tion of the letters of the word may be admitted, I should pre- fer deriving it from a root which signifies to bless or to curse,® since, as we shall see, the cherubim are instruments of good or evil, according as God. sees fit to employ them; fruitful seasons and every earthly blessing being brought about by their ministry. The word Cherub, pl. cherubim, considered as derived from any of the roots last mentioned, conveys therefore the idea of strength and power ; of God’s action upon and by them, expressed by his riding or sitting upon them, and inhabiting them; as likewise by his employing them as instruments both of good or evil, of blessing and cursing. That the cherubim are powers or rulers in nature is evident, 1 Newe. Ezek. c. i. 10, note. 2 a 3 2 INTRODUCTION. liti as was before observed, from their symbols—the man, the lion, the ox, and the eagle. It is singular that amongst the de- scendants of the three sons of Noah, the three last animals should be adopted into their religion,—the oa, the Egyptian Apis, by the descendants of Ham ;* the lion, as a symbol of light, by the Persians,’ derived from Shem; and the eagle by the Greeks and other nations descended from Japhet.® These powers, be they what they may, are described in Scripture as forming a chariot on which the Deity is represented as riding, and sometimes in such terms as bring to our mind, to compare great things with small, the chariots and chari- oteering of mortals. Thus we are told of The chariot of the cherubim that spread out their wings, and covered the ark. of the covenant of the Lord.* And in Ezekiel’s mystic visions, the glory of Jehovah sometimes went up from the clerubic chariot to the temple, when The house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord’s glory.6 And again, the glory of the Lord departs from the house, and stands over the cherubim, when mounting on high from the earth, The glory of the God of Israel was over them above. A common epithet of God, as king of Israel, was that of Insessor of the cherubim,’? Whose name is called by the name of the Lord God of Hosts that dwelleth between the cherubim; or he that sitteth upon, above, or between the cherubim; or, as it may be ren- dered, Inhabiteth the cherubim. These expressions allude, not 1 Other descendants of Ham, as the Phenicians, regarded the ox or heifer as a sacred animal. Baal was worshipped as an ox as wellas a fly. (Tobit, i. 5.) 2 Mithras is to be seen with the head of a lion and the body of a man, having four wings, two of which are extended towards the sky, and the other two towards the ground. Montfaucon, i. 232. Comp. Ezek. i. 11. 3 Every one knows that the eagle was sacred to the Grecian Jupiter. 4 1 Chron. xxviii. 18. 5 Ezek. x. 4. 6 Ibid. 19. 7 1 Sam. xiv. 4. 2 Sam. vi.2. 2 Kings, xix.15. Ps, lxxx. 1, xcix. 1, &e. liv INTRODUCTION. only to the presence of God in his tabernacle and temple between or above the sculptured and symbolical cherubim, but to his riding upon, sitting upon, or inhabiting, that is ruling and directing those powers of whatever description, which are symbolized by those images, or signified by that name. When the Lord came to deliver David from his enemies, it is stated that he rode upon a cherub ;* and the prophet Habak- kuk, alluding probably to the delivery of the Israelites by the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, exclaims, Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters ;* and again, with a prospective view before him, perhaps, of some still mightier deliverance of the church from her enemies, “ Was the Lord displeased against the rivers ? was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thy horses and upon thy chariots of sal- vation??? He uses the same instruments when his will is to inflict a curse and execute judgments. The Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury and to rebuke with flames of fire.* In Ezekiel’s vision, coals of fire were taken from between the cherubim to scatter over Jerusalem.® Having noticed theideal meaning of these mystic symbols, and their connection with and subservience to Jehovah of Hosts, as the God of Israel, of Israel both according to the flesh and the spirit ;° our next inquiry must be whether there are no physical or metaphysical beings or objects, concerning which the same things are predicated in Holy Scripture, as concerning the cherubim; for if there are, as equals of the same are equal to one another, it follows that these things must be synonymous. Every student of Holy Writ, when he turns his attention to this observation, will immediately recollect passages in which 1 2 Sam. xxii. 11. Ps. xviii. 10. 2 Habak. iii. 15. 3. fbid.8. 4 Isai. |xvi. 16. 5 Ezek. x. 2. 6 1 Cor. x. 18. INTRODUCTION. lv the same things are predicated of the heavens; thus it is said of God, as the God of Israel—Who rideth upon the heavens in thy help, and in his excellency upon the sky.* And again, Extol him that rideth upon the heavens.? Him that rideth upon the heaven of heavens that were of old. Every one knows that, in Holy Scripture, God is also perpetually described'as he who sitteth upon the heavens ;* that the heaven is God’s throne, and the earth his footstool ;° that The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens,° that he dwelleth in the heavens, though they cannot contain him ;’ that he filleth heaven and earth. With regard to Blessings and Curses, that the Heavens are the primary instruments by which God bestows the one and inflicts the other, is evident from many passages of Holy Writ. Thus it is said in Deuteronomy,’ The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure the heavens," to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand. The prophet Hosea has a passage, in which the hands by which blessings and fertility are transmitted to man step by step are strikingly described. Andit shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn and the wine and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.** Thus the blessing descends from God by the heavens to the earth, producing abundance for the sup- port and comfort of man. And with respect to curses it is said, The heaven that is over thee shall be brass.” Ye are cursed with a curse, saith Malachi for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. The curse alluded, was the shutting of the windows of heaven.* From all these passages, it is evident that the same things 1 Deut. xxxiii. 26. 2 Ps. ixviii. 4. 3 Ibid. 33. 4 Ibid. ii. 4. 5 Matth. v. 34, 35. 6 Ps. ciii. 19. 7 Ibid. exxui.1. 1 Kings, viii. 27. 8 Jerem. xxiii. 24. 9 Deut. xxviii. 12. 10 Heb. oynpwn mx aA WIN OS 11 Hos. ii..21, 22. 12 Ibid. xxvii. 23. 13 Malach. iii. 9, 10. lvi INTRODUCTION. are predicated both of the Heavens and the Cherubim, and that, therefore, they are synonymous terms, and signify the same powers. But this leads to another inquiry. What are the heavens? This isa query which at first every one thinks he can answer, but yet when the term comes to be sifted, it will be found that few have any definite idea of its real meaning. Generally speaking, the expanse over our heads, and the bodies it contains, are understood by the word Heavens; but when analysed, it will be found chiefly to indicate powers in action contained in that expanse, and which act upon these bodies ; powers that in the various systems of the universe have vari- ous centres dispersed throughout space, each having a local or partial action upon its own system, and all derived originally, and still maintained, from and by one parent fountain, the centre of all irradiation, of all light, of all life and energy. In order to ascertain what the word heaven, or heavens, really means, the most satisfactory way is to submit it to ana- lysis. In the Bible there are three terms employed to signify the heavens and heavenly powers, one of which* is usually rendered the Heavens; another,? the Sky; and a third,* the Firmament. I shall consider each of these terms. 1. Heaven, or the heavens.—This word, in the Hebrew lan- guage, is derived from a root,* which signifies to dispose or place, with skill, care, and order, as say the lexicographers ; so that literally the common plural term would be the disposers or placers. It is singular, and worthy of particular notice, that the Pelasgians, according to Herodotus, gave no other names to their deities than that of gods,° so calling them because they were the placers® of all things in the world, and had the uni- versal distribution of them.” We see here that the Grecian 1 pw 2 pipnw 3 opps 4 pe 5 Osos. 6 Sar7se. 7 Gsse ds mporwvomacay ogpeae avo TH ToOLOUTS, OTs noomm Fares Te WarTa P saty ‘ sy is) WprywaTa nat Waves vous ayov, WMuterp. c. ov. ® INTRODUCTION. lvil gods—which, as has been proved in another place,* were sub- sequent to the original chaotic state of the heavens and the earth when the one was without light, and the other without form and void—were really synonymous with those ruling phy- sical powers which God employed as his instruments first in the formation of the heavenly bodies, and next in that of their organized appariture, whether vegetable or animal ; and lastly, in maintaining those motions or revolutions in the bodies just named, which he had produced, and other physical phenomena which were necessary for the welfare of the whole system and its several parts. These powers, whatever name we call them by,? form the disposers or placers, the heavens in action: these are the Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva of the Greeks and Romans, and the various deities of other nations: For all gods of the nations are idols, saith the Psalmist,® but Jehovah made the heavens, or the powers symbolized by the idols of the nations. These are those powers which, under God—who, as the charioteer of the universe, directs them in all their operations, whether in heaven or on earth, to answer the purposes of his providence— execute the laws that have received his sanction. These are the physical cherubim represented by the earthly rulers—the man, the lion, the ox, and the eagle—these the chariot and throne of the Deity; the hands also by which he taketh hold of material things; the feet by which he treads on the earth and other planets. Those sublime metaphors of the prophet Nahum—Jehovah hath his way in the whirlwind, and in the storm and the clouds are the dust of his feet'—though at first sight appearing only magnifi- cent figures, when analyzed will be found literally true. Knowest thou the ordinances of the heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth ?° saith God; showing that he, by his instruments 1 See Appendix, note 1. 2 See above, p. xxxiv. 3 Ps. xevi. 5. 4 Nahum, i. 3. 5 Job, xxxviii. 33. 8* lviii INTRODUCTION. the heavens, rules the earth: this is said in stronger terms, when the heaven is declared to be God’s throne, and the earth his footstool, which implies that God acts upon the earth by what are called symbolically his feet—those powers therefore that produce whirlwinds and storms in our atmosphere; that by their impact upon our planet cause evaporation, and conse- quently form the clouds, are the metaphorical feet of Jehovah, so that the clouds with strict propriety may be called the dust excited by the tread of his feet. When the Psalmist says of God, He sitteth upon the cherubim, let the earth be moved, what beauty, propriety, and force is there in the expression when it is recollected that the physical cherubim are those powers that have complete dominion over the earth, and cause its motions. 2. The Sky.—The word we render by the term sky, or skies, for it is always used in the plural, is derived from a root,* which signifies to comminute, grind, or wear by friction, imply- ing powers that come in contact from opposite directions, so as to be antagonist or conflicting powers. The cherubim placed at each end of the mercy seat had their faces inward, or look- ing towards each other,?so that they appeared to symbolize antagonist powers, as if one was a vis centrifuga, and the other a vis centripeta. The pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he hath set the world upon them;* and these two antagonist forces, that which flies from and that which seeks the centre, form that, so called, universal gravitation, which, under God, up- holds the universe, keeps all its wholes and their parts in their places, maintains their motions, and mutual actions upon each other. But though these, as moving in an opposite direction, may be called antagonist or conflicting powers, yet their oppo- sition is not enmity, but universal harmony and love. This Philo seems to intimate, when he says—a station,‘ over against 1 pnw 2 Exod. xxxvii. 8, 9. 3 1 Sam. ii. 8. 4 De Cherubim. 85. F. G. Ed. Col. Allobr. 1643. INTRODUCTION. lix Paradise, was assigned to the cherubim, and the flaming sword, not as to enemies about to struggle and fight, but as to those that were most intimate and friendly. It is said of the cherubic animals, in Ezekiel, that they ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning,* which seems to intimate a constant efflux and influx of inconceivable rapidity. Ac- cordingly the effluxes of light and heat from the solar orb in our own system are never intermitted, and their velocity, for that of light has been measured, exceeds that of any other moving substance. With respect to the fuel, if I may so ex- press myself, that maintains this constant expenditure, little seems yet to be known of it philosophically; and we can only form conjectures with respect to it derived from the general analogy of nature, as far as it is submitted to the observation of our senses. On earth we know that there can be no com- bustion or evolution of light and heat without the access of air to an ignited body; and that a constant supply of some combus- fible substance to replace the constant expenditure of fuel is alsonecessary. Therefore, reasoning from analogy, something similar must take place at the great focus of light and heat. There must be an influx of air and a supply of combustible matter. That there is such an influx is rendered further pro- bable by other analogical arguments. In man, who is calleda microcosm, or world in miniature, there is as incessant a return of the blood to the heart in a negative state by one set of ves- sels, as there is an issue of it in a positive state by another. The lungs also inspire the air in one state, and expire it in another : and by this alternate flux and reflux life is maintain- ed; but suspend it beyond a certain period and death is the result. Again, the rivers are constantly discharging their waters into the sea by one channel and receiving them back again by another. Plants likewise, and animals, derive their 1 Ezek. i. 14. lx INTRODUCTION. nutriment from the earth and from the heavens, and under other forms return it again to the sources from which it flowed. So that it seems to be a general law that where there is an efflux there must also be an influx. 3. The Firmament.—The proper translation of the word, which our version, after the septuagint, renders firmament, is— the expansion. And God said, Let there be an expansion, and let it divide the waters, &c. ‘The cause of expansion is heat, which naturally divides and separates that in which it acts; as we see in the case of evaporation and the ascent of steam: and not only this, but the expansive force consolidates that whereon its impact is, whence our translation renders the word, after the Greek, segeoue, the firmament, that which ren- ders all things firm, the action of which produces the cohesion of the atoms of bodies, and their agglomeration round a partial or general centre: in this last acceptation it is synonymous with the term attraction, and in the former with that of repul- sion. From these considerations we may readily understand why the Psalmist calls it, The Firmament of his power or strength.* The terms expansion, then, and fumament, express the mat- ter of the heavens in a state of action, going from or returning to its central fountain ; for every system, as well as its own sun and planets, has doubtless its own heavens, probably never stagnant, but incessantly issuing from a centre of irradiation, as the blood from the heart in a positive state, and returning in a negative state to that centre where it is, as it were, again oxygenated, and circulates to the flammantia menia mundi; and so , Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis evum. But though every system probably forms a distinct portion of creation, yet, reasoning from analogy, and the general plan of 4 Ps. cl, 1. INTRODUCTION. lxi the Deity, as far as we are acquainted with it, there is every reason to believe that the universe consists of systems so con- catenated as to form one great whole, the centre of which may be the Heaven of Heavens, the presence-chamber of the God of Gods and Lord of Lords; in whom and from whom is all motion, light, and expansion. What may be the links that connect the several systems can only be conjectured. It has been observed with regard to comets, that they wander from one solar system to another ;' if this be the case they evidently be- long to two systems, and their perihelion in one, will be their aphelion in another, and thus they may form connecting links between them. This concatenation of systems may also have a common motion round their glorious centre, forming the grand cycle, or year, of the Universe. Having, I trust, made it evident, or at least extremely pro- bable, that the Heavens and the Cherubim, physically con- sidered, indicate the same powers, I shall next advert to some passages of Scripture that seem to lift up the veil which covers these mysterious symbols, and show us expressly what they represent, In that sublime description of the descent of the Deity for the help and deliverance of David in the eighteenth Psalm, we have these words; He rode upon a cherub and did fly; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. Here we have one of these symbolical beings introduced and explained—as the latter hemistich of the verse is clearly exegetical of the former—by the phrase, The wings of the wind.? If we next turn to the hundred-and-fourth Psalm, in a parallel passage, we find an explanation of this latter metaphor. He maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind. Whence it appears that the wings of the wind, by an elegant metonomy, 1 La Place, System. &c. by Harte, ii. 337. 2 Parkhurst renders these words, The wings of the Spirit, but he stands alone in this. Ixii INTRODUCTION. mean the clouds, consequently the clouds are a cherub. In various parts of the Old Testament, God’s presence and glory are manifested by and inacloud. When he led his hosts from Egypt through the Red Sea, he went before them by day ina pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire ;* when he was about to descend upon Mount Sinai, he said—Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud.?, When the tabernacle was set up in the wil- derness, and the work was finished, Then a cloud covered the tent ~ of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.® When Solomon’s Temple was built, and the ark brought into the oracle, and placed under the wings of the cherubim, and the priests were come forth, then The cloud filled the house, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.* As God thus came of old in a cloud, and by it manifested his presence to his people and in his house; so likewise when he spoke to them, it was from a cloud, as in the passage above quoted—Lo, I come to thee in a thick cloud, that thy people may hear when I speak with thee. And again, And a cloud covered the mount; and the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.’ And in another place, And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.® And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders.’ And in the New Testament, at the Transfigu- ration, Behold a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud. From these passages it appears to follow, that when the Deity thought proper to address his prophets or his people by the voice of words, it was from a cloud. 1 Exod. xiii. 21. 2 Ibid. xix. 9,16. 1 Kings, viii. 12. 3 Exod. x1. 33, 34. 4 1 Kings, viii. 6—11, 5 Exod, xxiv. 15, 16. 6 Ibid. xxxiv. 5. 7 Numb. xi. 25. 8 Matth. xvii. 5. ’ INTRODUCTION. Ixiti But not only did God descend to communicate with his people, and to reside as it were amongst them in a cloud; but when our Saviour went up into Heaven, it was upon a cloud, which Athanasius calls mounting the cherubim ;* and when he comes again, it will be in the same manner, attended by his holy angels. When heis said, in the Apocalypse, to ride upon a White Horse, and the armies which were in heaven to follow him upon white horses ;* by these white horses are meant white clouds, as is evident from other passages of Holy Writ; as where it is said—Behold, he cometh with clouds.* Again, God’s going to execute judgments upon any nation is sometimes represented by his riding upon a cloud. So when the prophet pronounces the burthen of Egypt, his exordium is—Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt. So immediate is God’s action upon the clouds described to be in the Bible, that the thunder is called his voice, as in Job —Hear attentively the noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his mouth. He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth God thundereth marvel- lously with his voice :* and when he descended upon Mount Sinai, it was with mighty thunderings.* Considering the benefits and blessing that God confers upon mankind by the ministry of the Cherub-clouds, his horses and chariots of salva- tion, we need not wonder at the Psalmist’s expression—His strength is in the clouds® Acting by them, he causes it to rain upon one city and not upon another.? Are there any, says Jeremiah, among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain ? or can the Heavens give showers? Art not thou He, O Lord our God.® The Deity superintends his whole creation, not only sup- 1 Opera, ii. 3017, D. 2 Revel. xix. 11, 14. 3 Ibid,i.7,comp. Dan. vii.13. Rev. xiv.14. Acts, i. 11. 4 Job, xxxvii. 2—5. 5 Exod. ix. 28. 6 Ps. Ixviii. 34. 7 Amos, iv. 7. 8 Jerem. xiv. 22. lxiv INTRODUCTION. porting the system that he has established, and seeing that the powers to which he has given it in charge to govern under him, execute his physical laws; but himself, where he sees fit, in particular instances dispensing with these laws: restraining the clouds, in one instance, from shedding their treasures ; and in another, permitting them to descend in blessings. Acting every where upon the atmosphere, and those secondary powers that produce atmospheric phenomena, as circumstances cons nected with his moral government require. Thus it is that his strength is in the clouds; that his presence, either to bless or to curse, is manifested by them; that his voice is heard from them ; his glory irradiates from them. On this account also they are called his paths.* The Lord is said to come with fire, or rather in fire ;* to descend in fire ;* to be a consuming fire;* to speak out of the fire;5 from all which passages it seems to follow, that fire or heat form also one of the physical cherubim upon which the Deity sitteth, or which he inhabiteth, and by which he acteth. Light appears entitled to the same distinction; for God is said to dwell in the light that no man can approach unto,® and to cover himself with light as with a garment.” Lastly, air or wind, which God bringeth out of his treasury ; which is the type, and, on the day of Pentecost, was the pre- cursor of the Holy Spirit, both in Hebrew and Greek® is ex- pressed by the same word distingushed only by its adjuncts ; and is one of the main instruments by which God acts upon our globe, both in dispensing blessings and curses, and without which our life could not be sustained a moment, is evidently a re, ize. 24. 2 Isaz. ixvi. 15. Heb, wwa, the Septuagint seem to have read wxo. 3 Exod. xix. 18. 4 Deut. iv. 24. 5 Ibid. 36. 6 1 Tim.vi. 16. 7 Ps.tiv. 2 8 ny wreume. INTRODUCTION. lxv cherub, or ruling physical power, of the same rank with heat and light. The statement | have here given of the physical cherubim, is singularly confirmed in Ezekiel’s vision. J looked, says he, and behold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it.* Here we see the appearance of the symbolical animals was preceded by that of the physical agents they symbolized—the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the light. The reason why the clouds are particularly signalized as God’s chariots, appears to be because they are instinct with all those principles by which God acts upon the earth; and therefore they are described as carrying him, since they are the instruments by which his will has full accomplishment. It is singular, and worthy of particular notice, that God is also said to dwell in darkness. The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness;? and again—Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.* In the Psalms it is said —He made darkness his secret (or hiding) place.* Darkness was the state of the original heavens, before God formed the light, to which this passage seemstobeanallusion. In Isaiah, the term create is applied to darkness, and form to the production of light ;° from which it appears that it was out of darkness that light was formed; and these two opposites seem to bear the same relation to each other as positive and negative electricity, or heat and cold. Darkness was that in which the Divine Spirit operated, when by incubation motion, followed by light and expansion, was educed, and the sea brake forth from the crust of the earth as from the womb; when the cloud was the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it.® In the different visions of the appearance of the Deity, as 1 Ezek. i. 4. 2 2 Chron. vi. 1. 3 Exod. xx. 21. 4 Ps. xviii. 11. 5 Isai. xlv. 7. 6 Job, xxxviii. 8, 9. Q* Ixvi INTRODUCTION. the Insessor of the chariot of the cherubim, it is stated, that expanded over their heads was a firmament like crystal or ice; that above this firmament was a sapphire throne; that one sat on this throne, round about whom was the appearance of a rainbow.* So likewise in the vision of the apostolic prophet, St John—A throne was set in heaven, and one sat upon it, and there was a rainbow round about the throne, and before the throne was a sea of glass like unto crystal; and in the midst of the throne ‘and round ‘about the throne were four cherubic ‘animals, which proclaim the Trisagium.2 When Moses, Aaron and his sons, and the elders of Israel went up into Mount Sinai, and saw the God of Israel, He stood upon what was like ‘a pavement of sapphire and as it were the body of heaven in its clearness. In all these passages, the same idea seems to prevail with respect to the firmament—it is like ice or the teriible crystal in one—a sea of glass like crystal, or crystallizing, emitting the ‘splendour of crystal in the other— like the body of heaven in its clearness in the third. The footstool of the Deity, the pavement on which his throne is placed, is over or above the heads of the cherubim; and though we cannot comprehend exactly the precise meaning of the figures employed, yet the general idea seems to be that ‘of irradiation ; and by these representations the claim of Jéhovah the God of Israel is dicated to supremacy and ‘entire domin- ion over the ‘physical cherubim, or the heavens in a state ‘of action, and as the sole fountain and ‘centre of that ‘incessant radiation and glory, and of those constant effluxes ‘by which the whole universe of systems and woilds is mairitained. It seems probable, therefore, that one of the principal reasons why the cherubic ‘symbols were ‘placed in the adytum of the Jewish tabernacle and temple ‘was not only to represent those 1 Eaok.'i. 22, 26, 28. 2 Revel.iv. 2, 3, G,:7, 8. 3 Exod. xxiv. 10. INTRODUCTION. Ixvii powers that govern under God in nature, but likewise to indi- cate his Supreme and only Godhead, and that his people were to beware of worshipping these powers or their symbols, be- cause they derived so much benefit from their ministerial agency, but to worship Him alone who created them, employ- ed them, and operated in and by them. The ancients seem generally to have regarded the name and symbols as indicating and representing more than one ob- ject. Philo Judzus, who has written a treatise upon: those placed at the east of the garden of Eden, sometimes interprets them physically, and sometimes metaphysically. Physically, in one place, he considers one cherub as representing the sphere of the fixed stars, and the other that of the planets,* and in another he asks, whether they may not signify the two hem- ispheres,? both of which amount to the whole universe.* The flaming sword, he conjectures, either represents the general motion of the heavens and planets, or else is a symbol of the sun.* Metaphysically, he considers the two cherubim as symbolizing the Power and Goodness of the Deity, and the flaming sword the Logos or his essential Word ; and this inter- pretation he seems to think was divinely suggested to him.° Clement of Alexandria, in some degree, seems to incline to the opinions, on this subject, of his compatriot Philo, but he ex- presses himself obscurely,* and, after alluding to other inter- pretations, concludes with mentioning “ The doxologising spirits whom the cherubim symbolize.”” ITrenzeus, the learned Bishop of Lyons, who had conversed with Polycarp, St John’s disciple, regards these mystic objects as physical and ecclesiastical sym- bols, taking chiefly into consideration their number. The four quarters of the globe, the four winds, the four gospels, the four De Cherubim. 1613. 86. A. B. 2 Ibid. D. Ibid. 85. G. 4 Ibid. D. E. 5 Ibid. 86. PF. G. Clem. Alex. Stromata. 1. v. 241. ed. Sylburg. 1592. In‘allusion probably to Isaiah vi. 3, and Revel. iv. 8. IO = Ixvili INTRODUCTION. universal covenants given to man—each of these he appears to regard as figured by the cherubic animals ;t and he might have added the fow physical cherubim, spirit or wind, light, expansion, and the clouds. Justin Martyr has a singular opinion on this subject. He thinks Ezekiel’s cherubim sym- bolized Nebuchadnezzar when he was driven out from the society of man as a beast :* when, according to the Septuagint which Justin used, he eat grass like an oz, his hair was like a lion’s, and his nails like a bird’s or eagle’s. Athanasius has a remarkable passage, before alluded to, in which he says of Christ, that when he appeared upon earth, He bowed the hea- vens and came down, and that he again mounted the cherubim, and ascended into heaven,’ from whence it should seem that he had adopied the opinion, that the heavens, and the clouds Were antitypes of the symbolical cherubim: yet in another passage of his works, he expressly places the seraphim and cherubim amongst the highest of the heavenly essences. ‘“ As we know,” says he, “‘that there is a distinction of rank in the powers above, so there are also differences of station and know- ledge. The thrones, both the Seraphim and the Cherubim, learn from God immediately, as higher than all and nearest to God, and they instruct the inferior orders—but the lowest rank are the angels, which are also the instructors of men.”* It seems evident from this statement of the opinions of both ancient Jews and Christians, that the sculptured Cherubim, in their opinion, represented physical as well as metaphysical ob- jects; in fact, the most general interpretation seems to be— that those powers that rule under God, either in his physical universe, or which, with regard to our planet, have power in his church, or over his people ; and also those spiritual essences 1 Adv. Hares. |. iii. c. 11. 2 Quest. et Resp. ad Orthodox. Quest. xliv. 3 Quest. ad Antioch. cxxxvi. 4 De commun. essent. ed, Paris, 1627, i. 238. INTRODUCTION. lxix that approach nearest to him, in the purity of their natures, are the antitype of the cherubic forms. St Paul, describing the creation of all things by the Son of God, whether visible or invisible, mentions particulariy four ruling powers in nature and grace— Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers.* This may be interpreted of all rule and government both in heaven and upon earth; which is all derived from Christ, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to whom All power is given in heaven and earth:? who therefore is the Insessor of the cherubim, act- ing by all the powers that he hath created, whether physical or metaphysical, whether civil, ecclesiastical, or spiritual; for He upholdeth all things by the word of his power.’ In the prophecy of Isaiah, and in the Apocalypse,* the six- winged beings called by the former The seraphim,*® and by St John living-creatures*—which by most ancient writers are thought to be synonymous with the cherubim—are represented as repeating the Trisagium; the latter says—They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. This triple ascription of Holiness is thought by many to intimate a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, and that the physical che- rubim or seraphim symbolically represent that mystery. Arch- deacon Sharp, and after him Archbishop Newcome,’ have ob- served, that this opinion is inconsistent with these symbolical animals falling down and worshipping the Lamb, and ascribing their redemption to him; an objection which appears to me not 1 Coloss. i. 16. 2 Matth. xxvii. 18. 3 jddeb..i 3. 4 Isat. vi. 3.. Rev. iv. 8. 5 Heb.'p:pxw This name, which literally may be rendered burners, phy- sically would signify the heavens in the most intense state of action ; they are stated to have siz wings, the upper pair veiling their faces, the lower pair cover- ing their feet, the intermediate pair being used for flight. See Isaz. vi.2. When our Saviour says of the wind—Thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth ; may not the same thing be meant as by Isaiah’s Description of the Seraphim ? 6 Gr. Zoz. 7 Sharp On the Cherubim, 305. Newcome’s Ezekiel, i. 10, note. Ixx INTRODUCTION. to have been satisfactorily answered. It should, however, be taken into consideration that the cherubim are symbols not solely of physical, but of all governing powers; and that, there- fore, in order to interpret rightly any act of theirs, the circum- stances attending upon it should be carefully examined. If we consider the passages in the Apocalypse here alluded to, we shall find that when praise is to be rendered to God as Creator and Upholder of the universe, they then are stated to proclaim his Triune Deity, by saying—Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.t . This they do as the physical powers, under God, upholding the universe, especially as fire, light, and air; all of which, in passages of Scripture above noticed,” appear to represent the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. But when they are introduced as repre- senting the governing Powers of the universal Church, as they are when they fall down and worship the Lamb, the case is altered ; for those they then represent are amongst the re- deemed. | One of my objects in treating so much at large upon this mysterious subject, was to counteract that tendency, often ob- servable in the writings of philosophers, to ascribe too much to the action of second causes, and the mechanism of the heavenly powers; as if they were sufficient of themselves, and without the intervention of the First Cause, to do all in all, and keep the whole machine and all its parts together and at work. Instead of regarding Him as receding further and further from our observation,® my desire is to bring Him nearer and nearer to us, that we may see and acknowledge Him every where, as the main-spring of the universe, which animates, as it were, and upholds it in all its parts and motions— Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent. 1 Revel. uli supr. 2 See above, p. lxiv. 3 See above, p. xxiv. y INTRODUCTION. Ixx1 . Maintaining his own laws by his own universal action upon and by his cherubim of glory. Wirsour Him THEY can po NOTHING. I cannot conclude this Introduction without returning my grateful acknowledgements to the Board of Curators of the Hunterian Museum, for their kind permission to have drawings taken of such subjects in that superb collection as might an- swer my purpose; and to Messrs. Clift and Owen, the conser- vator and assistant-conservator of the museum, for their readi- ness, on all occasions, to show and explain to me such articles under their care as I had occasion to inspect; to the friendly attentions of the latter gentleman I am particularly indebted, not only for his exertions to serve me in the museum, but for _his valuable information on numerous scientific subjects, on which I had occasion to consult him, which his deep knowledge of comparative anatomy, and familiar acquaintance with the classification of the animal kingdom, enabled him to give me. To the gentlemen connected with the British Museum and that of the Zoological Society, I have to make similar acknow- ledgments for the kindness and information with which my inquiries on several subjects have uniformly been answered. As one half of this work was printed before the publica- tion of Dr Roget’s admirable Treatise, it will not be deemed wonderful that, in some instances, we have treated of the same subject. The history, habits, and instincts of ani- mals, are so intimately connected with their physiological structure, especially their external anatomy, that it is scarcely possible, in order to prove the adaptation of means to an end, to treat satisfactorily of the former without occasional illustra- tions from the latter. After the doctor’s work appeared, I removed many things of this kind from my MS., upon which Lise i Ixxil INTRODUCTION. uit | he hadenlarged. The moult of Crustaceans, however, seemed , i! i | to me, and to every friend whom I consulted, so necessary to h make the history of that Class complete, that, though mostly i derived from the same source as that of my learned Co-nomi- fit nee, I did not expunge it. } ey @ THE e HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAPTER I. Creation of Animals. In no part of creation are the POWER, WISDOM, and GooDNEss, of its beneficent and almighty Author more signally conspicu- ous than in the various animals that inhabit and enliven our globe. The infinite diversity of their forms and organs; the nice adaptation of these to their several functions ; the beauty and elegance of a large number of them; the singularity of others; the variety of their motions; their geographical distri- bution; but, above all, their pre-eminent utility to mankind, in every state and stage of life, render them objects of the deepest interest both to rich and poor, high and low, wise and unlearned, so that arguments in proof of these primary attri- butes of the Godhead, drawn from the habits, instincts, and other adjuncts of the animal creation, are likely to meet with more universal attention, to be more generally comprehended, to make a deeper and more lasting impression upon the mind, to direct the heart more fervently and devotedly to the maker and giver of these interesting beings, than those which are drawn from more abstruse sources, though really more elevated and sublime. The history of the animal kingdom naturally commences with the creation of animals, and the great events preparatory to it, for when the Atmiguty Creator, in his wisdom, and by the word of his power, had first brought into being, and after- A 2 CREATION OF ANIMALS. wards set in order, the heavens and the earth ; had caused the latter to bring forth grass, and herb, and tree, and then had placed his sun in the former, that by constant irradiations of light and heat from that central fountain, the life,t and motion, . which the First MovER had begun by the incubation of his Spirit, and which now manifested itself in the vegetable king- dom, might be maintained till it had run its destined course. When al! things were thus prepared, his next care was to people and enliven the earth with a different and higher class of beings, in whom—to organization, and life, and growth, and reproductive powers,—might be added sensation and vol- untary motion. Uupeopled by animals, the verdant earth in all its primitive and untarnished beauty, though inlaid with flowers exhibiting, in endless variety, every mixture and shade of colour that can glad the sight; though fanned by gales breathing Sabean odours, to gratify the scent; though tempt- ing the appetite by delicious fruits of every flavour, still would be a scene without the breath of life. No motions would be seen but of the passing clouds, of the fluctuating waters, and the waving boughs; no voice heard but of the elements. Was a single pair placed in this paradise, though at first it would seem that there was gratification for every sense, and joy would possess the heart, and admiration fill the soul with pleasure; yet after the novelty of the spectacle had ceased, and the effect of its first impression was obliterated,'a void would soon be felt, something more would seem wanting to animate the otherwise lovely scene; a longing would arise in the mind for some beings, varying in form and magnitude, furnished with organs that would enable them to traverse and enliven the lower regions of the atmosphere, others that might course over the earth’s surface, and others that could win their easy way through its waters, so that all, by their numbers, and the variety of their motions, might exhibit a striking and interesting con- trast to the fixed and unconscious vitality of the vegetable kingdom. But it was not the will of the beneficent Creator to leave such a blank and blot in his creation; before he created man in his own image, and enthroned him king of the new-made world, he decreed that his dominion also should ‘be an image of his own, over innumerable creatures of every form and grade, each in its place entrusted with a peculiar office and function, and furnished with organs adapted to its work, con- tributing to its own and the general welfare; so that all should 1 See Appendix, note 1. CREATION OF ANIMALS. 3 operate, “though each in different sort and manner,” to accom- plish the great plan of an All-wise Providence. What was the precise order of creation in the animal king- dom is no where clearly revealed in Holy Scripture; and we can only conjecture, since the most perfect animal, and he who alone belonged to the spiritual and invisible world by his soul, as well as by his body to the visible, was created the last, that the progress was from those that were at the foot of the scale to those that were at the summit. We are told, indeed, in general terms, that on the fifth day, at the divine bidding, the waters, hitherto barren and untenanted, produced abun- dantly “the moving creature that hath life,” and fowl to traverse the firmament. In an instant, in obedience to that quicken- ing word, by the operation of Almighty Power, and under the guidance of infinite Wisdom and Goodness, the boundless ocean with all its tributary streams became prolific, and brought. forth by myriads, in endless and strange diversity, its destined offspring, beginning, perhaps, with the viewless animalcule or the senseless polype, half animal and half plant, and ending with the half fish and half quadruped, cetaceans, and their kindred monsters.t. Nor was the Ocean prolific of aquatic animals alone, and those whose habitation was the restless world of waters, with all its streams, its caves, and its abysses, it also gave birth to all the winged and feathered tripes—from the brilliant humming bird to the mighty eagle and the giant vulture—that people and enliven the atmospheric sea, and make it the field of their excursions. The animals created on this day were destined to dwell or move, independent of the earth, in a fluid medium of greater or less tenuity, and for that purpose were fitted with appropriate and peculiar organs, in one case both for respiration and locomotion, in the other for locomotion only. Again the word of power was spoken,—“ Let the earth bring forth,” and instantly the various tribes of quadrupeds issued from her teeming womb, varying infinitely in size, from the minute harvest-mouse” to the giant bulk of the elephant and hippopotamus; then also the earth-born reptiles, whether four- footed, six-footed, eight-footed, or many-footed, started into life, and connected the terrestrial tribes with those produced from the waters. In the majority of these, the fins of the fishes and cetaceans, and the wings of the birds, were replaced by legs best fitted for motion on the theatre on which they were to act their part, and to fulfil the will of their Creator. .1 See Appendix, note 2. 2 Mus messorms. 4 CREATION OF ANIMALS. The earth was now completely furnished and decorated to receive her destined king and master. The sun, the moon, and the stars were shedding their kindly influences upon her; she and her fellow planets had commenced their annual and diurnal revolutions; the plants and flowers, her first born pro- geny, had sprung out of her bosom, and covered her with ver- dure and beauty; and the fruit, and forest trees flourishing in all their glory of leaf, blossom, and fruit, were ready to minister to the support, comfort, and enjoyment of their future lord: the sea, the air, the earth, were each filled with their appro- priate inhabitants, and throughout the whole creation was beauty, and grace, and life, and motion, and joy, and jubilee. But still, in the midst of all this apparent glory and activity of vegetable and animal life in the new created world, there was not a single being endued with reason and understand- ing; one that could elevate its thought above the glorious and wonderful spectacle to the great Author of it, or acknowledge and adore its Creator. Amidst this infinite variety of beings there was not a single one which to a material body added an immaterial immortal soul ; so that there was still a great blank in creation. A wonderful and magnificent temple was reared, and shone in glory and beauty, but there was as yet no priest therein to offer up incense to the Deity to whom it was dedi- cated. We are now, therefore, to consider the creation of him for whom this high office was reserved, who, as king and priest, was to render to the common Creator the praises due from all created things, and be the spokesman for all the inhabitants of this terrestrial globe. The vast distance, on this account, intervening between man and the highest animals in the scale of being, appears evident from the different circumstances attending their crea- tion. When they were brought into existence, the word was — Let the waters bring forth—Let the earth bring forth,” from which it should seem that God did not act immediately in their creation, except by his agency on those powers that he had established as rulers in nature, and by which he ordinarily taketh hold, as it were, of the material universe. But when a being, combining the spiritual with the material world, is to be created, all the persons of the Godhead unite immediately in the work, and without the intervention of any other agent, “Let us make man.” He was therefore neither sea-born nor earth-born, as some ancient nations claimed to be, but born of God ; though, as Christ moistened clay when he was about to CREATION OF ANIMALS. 5 exercise his creative power, in the re-forming of an eye ;* so was the humid earth used in the creation of the body of man by his Maker, and when that wonderful machine, with its complex apparatus of organs, both external and internal, was finished ; when a throne and presence chamber were prepared for the intellectual and spiritual, and governing part of his na- ture, and that wonder-working pulp the brain, with its silver spinal cord and infinitely divaricated threads, already fitted for the mastery of every motive organ, was in a state to transmit with- out obstruction, each flux and reflux of that subtile fluid, in- termediate, as it were, between matter and spirit,? which so instantaneously conveys and causes the execution of the com- mands of the will by every external bodily organ; when the heart wag ready to beat; the lungs to play; the blood to cir- culate; and every other system to start for the fulfilment of its prescribederrand. ‘ Then the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, and man became a living soul.” He was now installed into his kingdom over the globe which he inhabited, and dominion was given him over the inhabitants of the water, of the air, and of the earth; and the divine image, in which he was to be created, was rendered complete. Now, the generations of the world were perfect and health- ful, and God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. That is,—every individual essence, whether inanimate or animate, was fitted in every respect to answer the end of its creation, and perform its allotted part in contri- buting to the general welfare. The entire machine was now in action, every separate wheel was revolving, and the will of Him who contrived and fabricated it had full and uninterrupted accomplishment. The instincts of the whole circle of animals urged them, by an irresistible impulse, to fulfil their several functions ; I mean those that were necessary to the then state of things: for if the instinct of the predaceous ones was not restrained, they would soon have annihilated the herbivorous ones, even if, as Lightfoot supposes, they were at. first created by sevens.? They must, therefore, originally have eaten grass or straw like the ox, and neither injured nor destroyed their fellow-beasts of a more harmless character; this, indeed, ap- pears clearly from the terms of the original grant, “ To every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat.” And to this vegetable diet, before 1 John, ix. 6. 2 See Appendix, note 3. 3 See Appendix, note 4. ne | 6 CREATION OF ANIMALS. | the close of the present scene, we are assured they shall again tt i return so as to render the last age of the world as happy as i | the original state of man in Paradise.t This harmony of the ay animal creation, continued, probably long enough, after the a fall, to allow sufficient time for such a multiplication of the em | flocks and herds, and flights and shoals of the gregarious ani- ih mals, as would secure them from extinction—but then, as the poet sings: if —_—_ Discord first ‘i Daughter of sin, among th’ irrational “ Death introduced through fierce antipathy: Hi Beast now with beast ’gan war, and fowl with fowl, va And fish with fish; to graze the herd all leaving, iy Devoured each other; nor stood much in awe ig Of man but fled him, or with countenance grim Glared on him passing. 'These were from without The growing miseries which Adam saw. ) Had Adam not fallen, this sad change would, probably, never have taken place, for as the author of the book of wisdom argues :— God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For he created all things that they might | have their being ; and the generations of the world were healthful : H and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of \ death upon the earth.” When we consider the relative position | of man and the animal kingdom, by the divine decree, sub- jected to his dominion, the harmony and good will thatsubsisted between them, it appears improbable that immortal man would | have been afflicted by the appearance of death and destruction ig amongst his subjects from any cause, especially by the strong, and those armed with deadly weapons, attacking and devour- F ing the weak and helpless. Even now, fallen as we are from our original dignity, there is no creature so fell and savage D that we have not more or less the power to subdue and tame ; no natures so averse, that we are not skilled to reconcile; we a can counteract even instinct itself, and make a treaty of peace a and mutual good will between animals, whom nature, by a i law, has placed in the fiercest enmity and opposition to each P| other.? The Creator, indeed, foreseeing the fatal apostacy that M plunged our race in ruin, and providing for the circumstances ‘ in which our globe would eventually be placed from the too ‘ rapid increase of various animals most given to multiply, fur- ' i 1 Isaiah, Ixv. 25. 2 See Appendix, note 5. CREATION OF ANIMALS. 7 nished the predatory tribes with organs and offensive arms, which, when he gave the word and let loose the reins, would urge them to the work of destruction, and impel them to at- tack and devour without pity, those amongst the weaker ani- mals, that were likely to increase in a degree hurtful to the general welfare, thus fulfilling his great purpose of generally maintaining those relative proportions, as to number, of indi- vidual species, that would be most conducive to the héalth and mutual advantage of all parts of the system of our globe. This too is the place to consider another circumstance con- nected with the appointment by Providence of certain animals _tocertain ends. ‘There are, as must be evident to every one who thinks or observes at all, large numbers of the animal kingdom, which, considered in their individual capacities, may be regarded as positively injurious to man; and seem to have been created with a view to his punishment, either in his person or property. Of this description are those predatory tribes of which I have just spoken: but I here mean, more particularly, to advert to those personal pests, that not only attempt to derive their nutriment from him by occasionally sucking his blood when he comes in their way, as the flea, the horse-fly, and others, but those that make a settlement upon him or within him, selecting his body for their dwelling as well as their food, and thus infesting him with a double torment. Besides those insects of a disreputable name* which, under more than one form, inhabit his person externally ; and those that, burying themselves in his flesh, annoy him and _ produce cutaneous diseases,” a whole host of others attack him inter- nally, and sometimes fatally. Can we believe that man, in his pristine state of glory, and beauty, and dignity, could be the receptacle and the prey of these unclean and disgusting creatures? This is surely altogether incredible, I had almost said impossible. And we must either believe, with Le Clere and Bonnet, that all those worms now infesting our intestines existed in Adam before his fall, only under the form of eggs, which did not hatch till after that sad event: or that these eggs were dispersed in the air, in the water, and in various aliments, and so were ready to hatch when they met with their destined habitation: or, as some parasites are found in the earth,’ or the water,* as well as in the human species, that 1 Pediculz. 2 Sarcoptes Scabier, Pulex penetrans, §c. 3 Lumbricus. 4 Gordius aquaticus. 8 CREATION OF ANIMALS. they are in general formed for living in different stations :* or, lastly, that they were created subsequently to the fall of Adam, not immediately or all at once, but when occasions called for such expressions of the divine displeasure. With respect to the. first of these hypotheses, it seems to me very improbable for this reason, that it supposes the first pair to have in them the germs of all these animal pests, which although, before the fall, they were restrained from germina- tion, after that event, were left to the ordinary action of phy- sical laws, so that then every one of these scourges must have inhabited them and preyed upon them. Fallen indeed they were from glory and grace, but who can think that all the accumulated evils that their sin introduced into the world fell with concentrated violence upon their own heads, that all the various ills that flesh is heir to were experienced by them in their own persons before they were divided, some to one and some to another, amongst their posterity? It is scarcely to be supposed that any single individual, from that time to this, was subject to the annoyance of every one of these animals, and it seems incredible that Adam and Eve had experience of them all. That they had their existence originally either as germs or as perfect animals in the air, the earth, or the waters, and were taken in by man with his food, with respect to some species may, perhaps, be true. The earth-worm is often voided by children, and some other that infest animals are found in the water, but of those that are appropriated to man internally, none have as yet been found, except that just mentioned, in any other habitation. Linné indeed assigns an aquatic origin to the fluke, the ascarides, and the tape-worm, but he seems to have adopted this opinion upon very slight grounds. Bon- net very justly asks, with respect to the last of these animals, which Linné states he found once in a kind of ochre. ‘ M. Linné is the only one that has made this discovery, now it is certain that if tape-worms existed out of the body of man and other animals, would it be possible, after the numerous re- searches that naturalists of every country have made in a va- riety of places, both in the earth and the water, none should ever meet with that insect?’® All Helminthologists seem now to be of opinion that the sole natural habitation of these animals is that in which they are usually found, the human viscera. We now come to the last hypothesis, that these animals 1 See Introd. to Ent. iv. 229. 2 Curr. iii. 138. CREATION OF ANIMALS. g were created subsequently to the fall: a single instance from Scripture of such a creation will be sufficient to render it pro- bable that others may have taken place when occasions called for such expressions of Divine displeasure. Every one is aware that God by the wonder-working rod of Moses converted all the dust of Egypt into some punitive animal or genus of ani- mals, for they attacked man and beast, concerning the kind of which interpreters differ ;t but this does not affect the question, it is evident that here is an instance of the creation of an ani- mal in great numbers, and what is worthy of particular obser- vation, that this animal was not afterwards again annihilated as the frogs, and others were. What has evidently been done once under circumstances that required it, though not recorded, may have been repeated, and thus all the punitive species in question may have been produced. This is given merely as an hypothesis, to account for the existence of these animals, without doing violence to proba bility; and rather in accordance with the word of God, than controverting any thing delivered therein—and if it excites a discussion that may throw new light upon the subject, which ever way the question is deterthined, I shall be well pleased— my object being rather to elicit truth, than to uphold opinion. Another inquiry also suggests itself with respect to the ori- ginal animal creation. Are any of those animals with which God peopled the earth, air, and waters, preparatory to the creation of man, now extinct? The answer to this question will principally depend upon that to another. Did any altera- tion take place in the climate and productions of our globe in consequence of the fall of man from his original state? We learn from the inspired penman, that God, induced by that sad event, pronounced a curse upon the ground, and predicted that it should produce in abundance noxious plants for the annoyance of the offending race of man, and that whereas the primeval earth brought forth spontaneously her fruits and flowers, and afforded man a pleasant and delightful recreation and employment, without subjecting him to toil and weari- ness ; this state of things should cease, and man, for the future, should earn his bread with difficulty by the labour of his hands and the sweat of his brows. From hence it seems to follow that at this time some great change took place, both with re- spect to climate, and to that blessing from atmospheric influ- ences which produces plenty and fertility with the lowest 1 See Appendix, note 6. 1! i if i ie Lye « Bio Ss eadeaghageliepsuapeeidl a 10 CREATION OF ANIMALS. amount of Jabour. Geologists have observed, from the remains of plants and animals embedded in the strata of this and other northern countries, that the climate must formerly have been warmer than it now is.t Some change or changes of this kind therefore would sooner or later produce the extinction of such animals and plants, inhabitants of northen countries, as could not bear such a change of temperature, and at the same time could not escape from it; and admitting this—it would enable us to answer in the affirmative to the query above stated —namely, that there were species of animals originally created which have since ceased to exist. Being no longer necessary to bear a part in carrying on the general plan of Divine Provi- dence with regard to our globe, they were permitted or caused to perish. One circumstance, which I have not seen adverted to seems to confirm this hypothesis: that so few fossil remains, if any, of tropical birds have hitherto been discovered in cold countries, while such numbers of the quadrupeds of warm cli- mates, both viviparous and oviparous, are met with every day in a fossil state. Now the birds could readily shift their quar- ters southwards, when the temperature grew too cold for them, while the quadrupeds might be stopped by seas, rivers, and other obstacles. Another question may be asked with respect to the subject I am discussing ; might not the animals now become superflu- ous have been excluded from the ark at the time of the gen- eral deluge, and so left to perish? This would furnish a very easy solution of the difficulty, but the text of Scripture seems too precise and express to allow of such a supposition. For the command to Noah is—“ Of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark.” But yet the terms here employed must be limited to those animals that required such shelter to preserve them from destruction by the diluvial waters ; so that the expression—“ of all flesh”—necessarily ad- mits of some exceptions. But there are doubiless very many animals still existing upon the earth and in its waters, that have not yet been discovered. When we consider the vast tracks of terra incognita still shut out from us in the heart of Africa, that fatal country hitherto as it were hermetically sealed to our. researches, and from whose bourne so few travellers return ; how little we know of Central Asia, of China, and of some parts of North America ; we may well believe that our catalogues of animals are still 1 See Appendix, note 7, CREATION OF ANIMALS. 11 very short of their real numbers, even with respect to those of the largest dimensions. Burchell and Campbell appear to _ have met with more than one new species of rhinoceros in their journey from the Cape of Good Hope into the interior ;* the same country may conceal others of the same gigantic or other tribes, which, when it is more fully explored, may hear- after be brought to light. Again, with regard to the productions of the various seas and oceans that occupy so large a portion of our globe, we know comparatively few, especially of its molluscous inhabi- tants. What are cast up on the shores of the various countries washed by their waves, and what the net or cther means may collect in their vicinity, find their way indeed into our cabinets ; but what are these compared with such as inhabit the depths and caves and bed of the infinite ocean, which net never dragged, nor plumb-line fathomed. Who shall say what species Jurk in those unapproachable recesses never to be re- vealed to the eye of man, but in a fossil state. The giant Inocerami, the singular tribe of Ammonites, and all their cognate genera, as even Lamarck seems disposed to concede :? the Ba- . culites, Hamites, Scaphites, and numerous others there have space enough to live unknown to fame, while they are reck- oned by the geologist as expunged from the list of living ani- mals. I do not mean to assert that these creatures are not extinct, but I would only caution the student of nature from assuming this as irrefragably demonstrated ; since we certainly do not yet know enough of the vast field of creation, to say dogmatically with respect to any species of these animals that this is no longer in being. : But besides the unexplored parts of the surface of the earth, and of the bed of the ocean, are we sure that there is no re- ceptacle for animal life in its womb? Iam not going here to revive the visionary speculations of Athanasius Kircher in his Mundus subterraneus, but merely to inquire whether there are any probable grounds for thinking that some creatures may be placed by their Creator at such a depth within the earth’s crust, as to be beyond all human ken. / When Laplace says, “It is certain that the densities of its (the earth’s) strata increase from the surface to the centre,” it seems to follow that, in his opinion, there is no central cavity in our globe; but as his object was chiefly to assert the in- creasing density of the strata as they approach the centre, per- haps his words are not to be taken strictly, especially as in 1 See Appendix, note 8. 2 InN. D. D. H.N. vii. 553. 12 CREATION OF ANIMALS. another place he speaks of it merely as probable that the strata are more dense as they are nearer to the centre. Sir I. F. W. Herschel makes a similar, but less exclusive observation, using the terms, “ towards the centre,” which is not inconsistent with a cavity. But after all this is matter of conjecture built upon the at- traction of the earth, and cannot be ascertained by actual ex- amination; as far as that has been carried, it does not appear that in the present state of our globe the strata always lie exactly in the order of their densities; in the original earth probably they did. But now we tread upon the ruins of a world that has been almost destroyed and reformed. ‘ The structure of the globe,” observes an eminent geographer, ‘presents in all its parts the features of a grand ruin; the confusion and overthrow of most of its strata, the irregular succession of those which seem to remain in their original situations, the wonderful variety which the direction of the veins and the forms of the caverns display, the immense heaps of confused and broken substances, the transportation of enor- mous blocks to a great distance from the mountains of which they appear to have formed a part,”*—do not lead us as he would intimate “to periods far anterior to the existence of the human race,” but to a mighty catastrophe by which the whole structure of our globe has been dislocated, and its ancient strata broken up, and separated by the intervention of new ones formed of animal and vegetable remains. When the Almighty formed our globe from the original chaos, and projecting it into space bade it perform its diurnal and annual revolutions, he first weighed it in his balance, and moulded it so as it might answer to the action of those mighty powers by whose constant impulse or impact those re- volutions were to be maintained; and if a central void was necessary he wanted not the means to produce and maintain it. When the power called attraction tended to drive all to the centre, the repellant principle might be so stationed as to counteract it, and keep the earth’s crust at its assigned dis- tance. ‘To compare great things with small, he who made the rain-drop made also the air-bubble,—the one to fall, the other to rise. ' The word of God, in many places, speaks’ of an abyss of waters under the earth, as distinct from the ocean though in communication with it,® and also as contributing to form springs 1 Malte-Brun Syst. of Geogr. L. i. 192. 2 Comp. Job, xxviii. 14, xxxviii. 16, 17.—Genes. xlix. 26.—Deut. xxxiii, . 13.—Jonah, ii. 6, &c. CREATION OF ANIMALS. 13 and rivers. Scientific men, in the present day, appear dis- posed to question this; the Geologist, though he may regard the granitic strata as forming the base, as it were, of the crust of the earth, seems rather to view it as containing a focus of heat, than a magazine of infinite waters; from whence are partly derived the springs and rivers that water the earth’s surface, and ultimately make good to the ocean its whole loss by evaporation.? “Springs,” says the author above quoted, “are so many little reservoirs, which receive their waters from the neighbouring ground, through small lateral channels.” He allows, however, that the origin of springs cannot be re- ferred to one exclusive cause, and associates with that just mentioned, the precipitation of atmospheric vapours attracted by high lands, the dissolving of ice, the filtering of sea-waters, and the explosion of subterraneous vapours. He makes no direct mention of a store-house of waters in the bosom of the earth as in any case the source of springs and rivers, but al- lows that “the phenomena of capillary tubes may obtain in its interior. ‘The sea-waters, deprived of their salt and bitter ele- ments, may ascend through the imperceptible pores of several rocks, from which, being disengaged by the heat, they will form those subterraneous vapours to which many springs owe their origin.” A very slight alteration of this passage would make it harmonize with the Scripture account of the matter. If, for “some rocks,” we substitute through the rocky strata, and to the “sea-waters” add received into the abyss, it would amount to nearly the same thing. It was an ancient opinion, mentioned in Plato’s Phzedon, that there is a flux and reflux of the waters of our globe, a kind of systole and diastole, into and from Tartarus or the great abyss, which produce seas, lakes, rivers, and fountains.2 That all the causes mentioned above contribute to the formation of the rivers that water the earth, especially the clouds and vapours that gather round the tops of the mountains and high hills | am ready to admit, at the same time I must contend that the principle reservoir from which they are supplied has its station under the earth. Writers on this subject seem to speak as if the source of all rivers was in mountainous or hilly countries, but though the mightiest rivers of the globe originate in such situations, there is a very large number of considerable streams whose source is not particularly elevated, especially in the flat parts of Eng- land ; and there are few rivers that do not receive some supply 1 Ps. Ixxviii. 15, 16.—Prov. viii. 24. 2 See Appendix, note 9. 3 Platonis Dialogi. Ed. Forst. Phadon. § 2. 14 CREATION OF ANIMALS. from lesser ones, having their rise in low grounds, in:their course. ‘The practice, in-all countries, of digging wells indi- cates a downward source of water. In the Mosaic account of the deluge it is stated, that the waters prevailed above the tops of all the mountains fifteen cubits—now the highest mountain in the globe, Dhawalagiri, a peak of the Himmaleh range in northern India, is five miles above the level of the sea, this will make a sphere of waters, inclosing the whole globe as its nucleus, of five miles in depth above the level of the sea, but in calculating the immense ad- ditional body of water thus burying the whole globe, deductions must be made for the mountains and the lands elevated above that level, which would considerably decrease the total amount. But, even then, how vast would be the increase. If two-fifths of this body were deducted, a deluge of rain for forty days and forty nights over the whole globe, would fall infinitely short of the amount of water required to cover it to this height. The mean quantity of rain that now falls upon the earth in the course of a whole year is short of three feet; there must therefore have been an outbreak of waters from a source which could supply all that was necessary to accomplish the will of the Almighty, and make the earth itself a ruin, as well as sweep off its inhabitants ; and where shall we look for this but to the abyss that coucheth beneath the earth, whose fountains, as the sacred historian tells us, were broken up. If we consider the diameter of our globe, and that the ocean in depth is not sup- posed to exceed the highest mountains, we may conceive that in a spheroid, whose diameter is 8000 miles, allowing for the depth of the crust of the earth, there is space for a treasure- house of water, of sufficient amplitude to supply what the hea- vens could not furnish, to raise the diluvial waters to the height decreed in the Divine counsels. It seems now agreed amongst geologists and mineralogists that traces of the action of fire, as well as water, are very visible amongst the present strata of this globe: when the waters of the abyss were sent out from their hidden receptacle, it must be by the agency of some po- tent cause employed by the Deity, equal to the production of the effect he intended. In the present state of the globe, volcanoes, or their traces are visible in various regions in all climates, and in the islands of various seas, and in Iceland, near Hecla, the subterranean furnace sends vast columns of water into the air, sometimes to the height of a hundred feet, and at the base of half that dia- meter. These circumstances render it probable that fire was 1 See Hooker's Recollections of Iceland, 120. CREATION OF ANIMALS. 15 the agent, or one of the agents, employed to send out the wa- ters from the abyss ; and this isno new hypothesis. ‘It is the opinion of geologists,” says Laplace, “that, originally, there existed in the interior of the crust of the earth, a great maga- zine of fire, which according to them was the cause of the deluge.” Some writers suppose that the air was driven down- wards into the earth, being forced through those chasms which opened towards the sky, and that then by its expansion it drove out the waters.* He who willed the deluge, and the destruction of the pri- meval earth and heavens by it,? kept in his own hands the reins, and guided the whole body of means that he employed to fulfil the great purposes of his Providence, saying to every agent, “ Thus far shalt thou go, and no further.” It must al- ways be kept in mind that this was not an event in the ordi- nary course of nature, and a result of the enforcement of her established code of laws, but a miraculous deviation from it, in which their action was suspended, and in consequence of which, perhaps, some were abrogated and new ones enacted in their room. I may here further observe, that probably, the whole body of waters which before the creation of the firma- ment or expanse, with the earthly atoms suspended in it, formed the primeval chaos, were now again its masters; de- scending and ascending from every receptacle or store-house to which that powerful expansion had been the means employed to guide them. Whatever waters were suspended in the at- mosphere, or could be formed in it, whatever were contained in the ocean, or the womb of our globe, now united their forces and subdued and destroyed the primitive earth, till they re- duced it to the state, for the most part, in which we now be- hold it. J am next to inquire what has been said in Scripture on the subject of subtgrranean animals. In the second command- ment we are forbidden to “‘ make any likeness of any thing that is in the waters under the earth.” These words, however, may be merely used to indicate the animals that inhabit the ocean, considering the waters under the earth as forming a part of it. But there is a passage in the Apocalypse, where the creatures under the earth are distinguised from those in the sea. ‘* And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory and power, be unto him 1 Rev. W. Jones’s Works, x. 264. 2 Pet. iii. 6,7, and see Appendix, note 10 16 CREATION OF ANIMALS. that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.””* Some interpreters understand this passage as relating to those men that were buried under the earth, or in the sea, but ad- ritting they were meant in the spirit, the creatures in general are expressed in the letter, and therefore the outward symbol must have a real existence, as well as what it symbolized. There is another place in Scripture, which though highly metaphorical, seems to me, to point, if rightly interpreted, at subterranean animals, and even a particular description of them. The passage I allude to is in the xlivth Psalm, “ Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death.”? In these words the place of dragons and the shadow of death evidently mean the same thing ; and the object of these metaphors is to express the lowest degree of affliction, depression, and degradation ; equi- valent to being brought down to hell or hades in other pas- sages. The shadow of death, properly speaking, is in the hidden or subterranean world. This appears from the passage of Job before quoted, in which the abyss the gates of death, and the gates of the shadow of death, are used as synonymous ex- pressions.2 The place of dragons, then, according to this ex- position, will be subterranean. In another Psalm, David couples dragons and abysses.4 We must next inquire what is meant by the word dragons. The Hebrew word usually thus translated, but in some places rendered whales and sea-monsters, and in others serpents,° is derived from a root, which signifies to wail or lament; proba- bly, alluding to the noise at certain times emitted by those animals, that are more properly regarded as dragons, by which I would understand the Saurian race, without excluding the others, which are sometimes certainly intended by that word. Thus, when Jeremiah alludes, under the name dragons, to animals that give suck to their young, it is clear that he meant some of the whale or seal kind, which are mammiferous. Our translators, therefore, very properly rendered the word sea- monsters, or as in the margin, sea-calves. I may here observe, though at first sight, the crocodile and the whale seem widely separated from each other, that there are certain species, at present found only in a fossil state, and fitted with paddles in- stead of legs, which are stated to combine characters observable in the Cetaceans with those of the Saurians, particularly the 1 Revel. y. 13. 2 Ps. xliv. 19. 3 Job, xxxviil. 16, 17. 4 Ps. exlviii. 7. 5 Genes. 1.21. Lament. iv. 3. Exod. vi. 9, 10. CREATION OF ANIMALS. 17 Plesiosaurus ;t the Testudo also of the Greeks? seems to ap- proach some of the seals. The word we are considering, in the first chapter of Genesis, is rendered by our translators, whales. In the version of the seventy, a word is used,*® which the Greek writers employ to signify any aquatic monster ; thus, Theocritus, when he describes the Nile as abounding in monsters, means the crocodile. Our Saviour, when he speaks of Jonah in the belly of the fish, uses the same word, probably, for a shark, the dog Carcharias of the Greeks, which was fa- bled to have swallowed Hercules, a fable, no doubt, derived from the history of Jonah. It appears clearly that the word is also used for a serpent, for it is employed to express the animal into which the rod of Moses and those of the Egyptian magicians were transformed as related in the book of Exodus. The typical animal, however, if I may so employ that term, or the dragon proper of Scripture, is undoubtedly a Saurian, especially the amphibious ones, such as the crocodile and its affinities. In the Septuagint version the Hebrew word is some- times rendered by the term Siren, which in other places is used for the ostrich,* derived from a root which relates to its noise, but the Siren of the Greeks is very different from that of these Jews—the former being a fabulous, the latter a real animal. ‘Travellers describe the noises of crocodiles and alli- gators as horrible. Crocodiles, during the whole summer, says Bosc, but especially immediately after they emerge from the earth, that is in the spring and the epoch of their amours, frequently send forth lowings almost as loud as those of an ox. They respond to each other often by hundreds, especially in the evening, which makes in the swampy forest a frightful and thundering din. Captain Jobson says, that those of the river Gambia utter cries that may be heard from a great dis- tance, which seem as if they issued from the ground. The whale also, when it expels the water, is related to make a frightful noise, like distant thunder. Captian Cook repre- sents the walrus, when in herds, as roaring or braying very loud, and some species of seals are stated to bellow like bulls. The hissing of serpents agrees less with the radical idea of the word dragon, than the noises of either of the preceding tribes of animals. The aquatic and amphibious Saurians oc- cupying, as it were, a middle station between the Cetaceans 1 Mantell’s Age of Reptiles.—Sussex Gazette. 2 Sphargis coriacea. 3 Th RUTH TR Meyars. 4 Isai. xiii. 21.—Job, xxx. 29, &ec. . Cc 18 CREATION OF ANIMALS. and Ophidians, may be regarded, therefore, as the dragons par excellence. These, then, are the animals that I conjecture may not improbably be still in existence in the subterranean ocean; I shall now, therefore, bring forward some arguments, indepen- dent of what I have alleged from Holy Scripture, which seem to afford grounds for such an hypothesis. It has been calculated that the depth of the sea in any part does not exceed 30,000 feet, or a little more than five miles; this, compared with the diameter of our globe, about 8000 miles, may be regarded as nothing. What a vast space then, supposing it really hollow, may be contained in its womb, not only for an abundant reservoir of waters, but for sources of the volcanic action, which occasionally manifests itself in various parts, both of the ocean and terra firma. Reasoning from analogy, and from that part of the globe which falls under our inspection, it will appear not improbable that this vast space should not be altogether destitute of its peculiar inhabitants, We know that there are numerous animals, on the surface of the globe, that conceal themselves in various places in the day time, and only make their appearance in the night. It would, therefore, be perfectly consistent with the general course of God’s proceedings, and in exact harmony with the general features of creation, that he should have peopled the abyss with creatures fitted, by their organization and structure, to live there: and it would not be wonderful that some of the Saurian race, especially the marine ones, should have their station in the subterranean waters, which would sufficiently account for their never having been seen except in a fossil state. The organization of many reptiles favours the idea of their being fitted for a subterranean habitation. It has been ob- served of them, that they not only perceive objects at a great distance, but are furnished with a nictitant membrane like birds; and that the greater part can contract the pupil like cats, Which enables them to see in the dark. Their other or- gans furnish them with but few sensations ; they communicate less frequently and less perfectly with external objects ; their blood is cold, and will circulate a long time without commu- nication with the air. ‘They will bear very long fasts without injury ; and those of some tribes, the Chelonians at least, will survive for a time the loss of their brain, their heart, and even their head. These circumstances are found in those that only occasionally seek subterranean retreats, or seclusion from the light and the air ; but those whose existence is wholly subter- CREATION OF ANIMALS. 19 ranean, doubtless, like the Proteus, would be fitted by their organization for their destined abode. We see, in several of those we are acquainted with, except at certain times, a con- stant effort to escape not only from observation, but from im- mediate contact with the light and the air. This leads me further to observe, that there is one instance of a Saurian, at this time known to be in existence, that is perfectly subterranean, which never makes its appearance on the earth’s surface, but is always concealed at a considerable depth below it; and, what is worthy of particular notice, by its structure, is connected with one of the larger Saurians, now found only in a fossil state. It will immediately be perceived that I allude to that most extraordinary animal, the Proteus anguinus,* which is found in subterranean lakes and caves two or three hundred feet below the surface of the ground in Illyria, breathing both by lungs and gills, and presenting characters which connect it with the Saurian monsters before alluded to, whose remains have occasioned so much astonishment, ap- pear to have puzzled in some measure the most acute geolo- gists, and have given birth to an hypothesis I shall hereafter notice. Sir H. Davy, in his last singular work, thus expresses himself concerning the Proteus :—‘‘ My reveries became dis- cursive, I was carried, in imagination, back to the primitive state of the globe, when the great animals of the Sauri kind were created under the pressure of a heavy atmosphere ; and my notion on this subject was not destroyed, when I heard from a celebrated anatomist, to whom I sent the specimens I had collected, that the organization of the spine of the Proteus was analogous to that of one of the Sauri, the remains of which are found in the older secondary strata.” Sir Humphry pro- bably here alludes to a celebrated fossil found in the slate quarries of iningen, which Scheuchzer called an ante-diluvian man, but which Cuvier regards as a gidnt species of Proteus. All the circumstances above stated being duly weighed, and especially the discovery of a species in the depths of the earth, related to one of the fossil ones, I trust that my hypothesis of a subterranean metropolis for the Saurian, and perhaps other reptiles, will not be deemed so improbable and startling as it may at the first blush appear; at the same time, I would by no means be thought to contend that none of these animals are extinct, but solely that all may not be so, and that their never having been found in a recent state may have arisen from the peculiar circumstances of their situation. a ‘ 1 -Pratr xiv. Fie. 1. 20 CREATION OF ANIMALS. I have been led into this discussion by Mr. Mantell’s Hypo- thesis of an Age of Reptiles, which I have seen only in an ex- tract from one of the Sussex advertisers for last year, which he was so kind astosend to me; in which he supposes that the Saurians were the mighty masters, as well as monsters, of the primeval animal kingdom, and the lords of the creation before the existence of the human race. Since this hypothesis, as stated in the above extract, cannot be reconciled with the ac- count of the creation of animals as given in the first chapter of Genesis, I shall not be wandering from the purpose of the pre- sent essay if I devote a few pages to the consideration of it. The hypothesis in question is based by its learned promul- gator chiefly upon the supposed age of the beds and strata in which the remains of these fossil Saurians generally have been found, which he states as more ancient than those which con- tain the remains of viviparous animals ; and upon the myriads which appear, when they were the lords of our globe, to have existed. But it is clear from his own statement that with the fossil remains of the Megalosaurus, a giant lizard, calculated to have been forty feet in length and eight in height, those of some viviparous quadruped related to the Opossum have been found, which he acknowledges cannot be satisfactorilyexplained. A fact that militates strongly against an insulated Saurian reign. Nor is it altogether true that the remains of these mighty lizards are found solely in what are denominated an- cient deposites ; vertebral joints are not unfrequently found in other situations. I have one between three and four inches in diameter, which, from its being cupped, or deeply concave at each extremity, evidently belongs to one of these animals, which was found in a gravel-pit, at no great depth, in my own neighbourhood ; and I have seen similar ones found in other parts of the county of Suffolk. These dispersed bones seem to indicate that the individuals to which they belonged were de- posited in situations more exposed to the action of the atmos- phere, so as to decompose the ligaments that kept the skeleton entire. The interment of these “animals was therefore various, and evidently regulated by circumstances, so that no satisfac- tory hypothesis can be built upon it. When the whole globe was submerged, and the waters overtopped the highest moun- tains, the terrestrial animals would, in numberless cases, float upon the surface, and be deposited in countries far distant from those which they inhabited, while those that were aquatic, being in their native element, must have owed their death to other cir- cumstances ; they must either have been overwhelmed by some sudden force that they could not resist or escape from ; or some CREATION OF ANIMALS. 91 cause that we cannot now appreciate may have overtaken and destroyed them. With regard to the numbers of these animals, which Mr. Man- tell thinks prove their prevalence, we can only judge of it by those that are found in a fossil state, and these, certainly, are sufficiently numerous; but surely it cannot be safely affirmed that for one individual found in a fossil state thousands must have been devoured or decomposed. These mighty monsters were more likely to devour than to be devoured ; and even the herbivorous ones, such as the vast Iguanodon, supposed to be sometimes one hundred feet long and ten feet high! would have puzzled the crocodiles and alligators and other carnivorous ones to overpower and dispatch them. But, in fact, the question is concerning those that were alive upon this globe at the time when the great convulsion took place that buried them. The skeletons of all that were placed under similar circumstances would be found in a similar state of preservation ; their flesh would be decomposed but not their skeleton ; the deluge would also interrupt all attacks of one animal upon another, every individual would be seeking to se- cure its own escape. But, setting aside these arguments upon the uncertain facis on which this hypothesis is built, if we turn our attention to the reason of the thing, who can think that a Being of unbounded power, wisdom, and goodness should create a world merely for the habitation of a race of monsters, with- out a single rational being in it to glorify and serve him. The supposition that these animals were a separate creation, inde- pendent of man, and occupying his eminent station and throne upon our globe long before he was brought into existence, in- terrupts the harmony between the different members of the ani- mal kingdom, and dislocates the beautiful and entire system, recorded with so much sublimity and majestic brevity in the first chapter of Genesis. | How grand and at the same time how simple is this record, proceeding step by step from one Almighty operation ‘to an- other! each the natural consequence, as it were, of that which preceded it. When the earth was formed, and planted, and was receiving the influences of the sun and other luminaries, and thus was prepared to welcome and maintain her locomo- tive inhabitants, the perfect sphere of animals, if I may so speak, adapted to the wants of the primeval state of the globe of dry land and sea, both external and internal, and to the in- struction and uses of man, each individual form gifted and fitted to play the part assigned to it in the general plan of Providence, was brought into existence. The supposed ex- 22 CREATION OF ANIMALS. tinct animals all exhibit a relationship to those that we now find existing, and many of them evidently fill up vacant places in the general system, and therefore there,is no cause to suppose that they were originally separated from and anterior to their fellows. It is observed that those herbivorous Saurians now inhabiting the surface of our globe, as the Monitor and Iguana, though these can scarcely be called herbivorous since they live principally on insects, are pigmies compared with their affinities, the WMegalosaurus and Iguanodon; and a similar disproportion obtains between the existing Proteus and the fossilone. If any of these races are subterranean, perhaps these smaller ones may be regarded, as inhabiting the outskirts of the proper station, or metropolis of their tribe. It appears, I hope, from what has been observed, in the pre- sent chapter, on the subject of animals brought into being sub- sequent to the fall, and upon those that have since that sad event become extinct from whatever cause, that Divine Provi- dence, after the first creation of man and the animal kingdom, did not leave all things to the action of the original laws which had received his awful sanction before the fali, but altered those by which this system, especially our own globe, was guided and governed before that fatal event, to suit them to what had taken place, and to the altered and deteriorated moral state of man. We learn from the Apostle Saint Peter, that the primeval globe and its heavens or atmosphere, perished at the deluge,* by which expression less cannot be intended, than that the atmosphere and the earth were then, as it were, new mixed, so as to render the former less friendly to life and health, whence would gradually follow the shortening of hu- man, and probably animal life; and subject to raging storms and hurricanes; to the fury and fearful effects of thunder and lightning ; to the overflowing violence of torrents of rain: while the latter, from the breaking up, inversion, mixing, depression, or elevation of its original strata, and the addition of new ones from animal and vegetable deposites,? was rendered in many places utterly barren, and in others much diminished in fer- tility, so that the general productiveness of the globe must have been considerably diminished, and the permission to eat flesh must have been extremely useful in increasing the amount of food, and diminishing that of labour. Such a change hav- ing taken place, both in the heavens and the earth, and vast countries being essentially altered both in the temperature of the atmosphere, from whatever cause, and the productions of 1 Gr. ararero. 2 Pet. iii. 6. 2 See Appendix, note 11. CREATION OF ANIMALS. — 93 the soil, the extinction of many of the original animal forms, that were extra-tropical, or at least were inhabitants of high latitudes, and were incapable of bearing the changes, whether it was ante-diluvial or post-diluvial, would necessarily follow ; and again as man was become by his nature prone to sin, he as necessarily was made subject to evil. Hence he became ex- posed, from the new constitution of the earth and atmosphere, to various diseases and sundry kinds of death, the term of his existence was shortened, and it was chequered with days of darkness as well as of light: and he was infested by various animals, either newly created, or then first let loose against him and his property. Allthese things indicate a change in the mechanical as well as other original powers set and kept in action by the Creator, and a certain dependence of two distinct classes of events upon each other. If a great alteration generally takes place in the moral condition of man, a corresponding change affects his physical one; and this alternation and conflict be- tween good and evil, in this double series, after a long and arduous struggle, will finally be determined by the destruction of this diluvial earth and heavens, which we are assured will, in the end, be replaced by “New Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.” / CHAPTER IL. Geographical and Local Distribution of Animals. Havine considered the first creation of the animal kingdom, and the larger features of its history to the time of the Deluge, bringing us to that era when our globe had assumed its pre- sent general characters, and its population was in those cir- cumstances that led to their present habits and stations: the next subject to be discussed is their geographical and local dis- tribution. What had taken place in this respect before the Deluge we have no means of ascertaining. That the original tempera- ture of the earth was once more equal than it is now, seems to be the general opinion of men of science, however they may differ as to its cause.* If this was the case, as it probably was, any individual species might have been located in any coun- try, north or south, and suffer no inconvenience from unaccus- tomed heat or cold, so as to interfere with its complete natu- ralization: the only other requisite would be a kind of food suited to its nature; and it is singular and worthy of particu- ‘lar attention, that a large proportion of the plants, as well as animals, that are found in a fossil state in our northern lati- tudes are of a tropical type or character. After their creation, and perhaps the expulsion of the first pair from Paradise, we may suppose that the various animals of the ante-diluvian world were guided to those regions in which it was the will of Providence to place them, by a divine im- pulse upon them, which caused them to move in the right direction. Probably before the Deluge took place, the world was every where peopled with animals: and perhaps, as Pro- fessor Buckland has suggested, the sudden change of tempe- rature that destroyed the northern animals might be one of the predisposing causes of that event. Under the present head, the geographical distribution of our post-diluvian races of animals, the first thing to be considered L See above, p. 17, Ke. DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 95 is the means by which, after quitting the ark, they were con- veyed to the other parts of the globe. The disembarkation of the venerable patriarch and his family, followed by all the ani- mals preserved with him in the ark, a scene of universal jubilee to man and beast, such as the world till that day had never witnessed, took place on Mount Ararat: the stream of inter- preters, ancient and modern, place this mountain in Armenia ; but Shuckford, after Sir Walter Raleigh, seems to think that Ararat was further to the east, and belonged to the great range anciently called Caucasus and Imaus, which terminates in the Himmaleh mountains to the north of India. This opinion seems to receive,some confirmation from Scripture, for it is said, “As they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar.” Now the Armenian Ararat is to the north of Babylonia, whereas the Indian is to the east. Again, as the ark rested upon Ararat more than ten weeks before the tops of the mountains were seen, it seems to follow that it must have been a much higher mountain than the generality of those of the old world. The modern Ararat (Agri-Dagh) is not three miles above the level of the sea, whereas the highest peak of the Himmaleh range, Dhawalagiri, is fwe, and the highest mountain in the known world: so that the tops of a great number of mountains would have appeared previously had the. ark rested upon the former Ararat, but not so if upon the latter. The traditions also of various nations, given by Shuckford, add strength to this opinion. In addition to these, the follow- ing lines, quoted in a late article on Sanscrit poetry, in the Quarterly Review, show what was the creed in India on this subject :— In the whole world of creation None were seen but these seven sages, Menu and the fish ; Years on years, and still unwearied, drew that fish the bark along, Till at length it came where reared Himavan—its loftiest peak ; There at length they came, and, smiling, thus the fish addressed the sage :— Bind thou now thy stately vessel to the peak of Himavan— At the fishes’ mandate, quickly to the peak of Himavan: Bound the sage his bark, and even to this day that loftiest peak Bears the name of Naubandhana. Both these opinions have their difficulties, which I shall not further discuss, but leave the decision of the question to per- sons better qualified than myself to direct the public judgment: I shall only observe, that perhaps the Indian station was more central and convenient for the ready dispersion of men and animals than the Armenian one. Every naturalist is aware D SS 5 Se et ¢ eS ee ~— Se Sr 5h ie ee ee Pe Sa ee => Oe — ae Pe RE, each ai —~ = i a SE Tee SSS SS SS a i <= 26 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL that there are many animals that, in a wild state, are to be found only in particular countries and climates. Thus the Monkey and Parrot tribes usually inhabit a warm climate, the Bears and Gulls with many other Sea-birds, for the most part a cold one. The Kangaroo and Emu are only found in New Holland; the Lama in Peru; the Hippopotamus and Ostrich ~.. in Africa. Now we may ask, how were all these local animals ~~~ conveyed from the place of disembarkation to the countries and climates that they severally inhabit? In considering this question, we must never lose sight of Him, according to whose will, and by whose Almighty guidance, they were all led to the stations he had appointed for them, and with reference to which he had organized and formed them. Whatever second causes he might commission to eflect this purpose, they were fully instructed and empowered by him to accomplish the work intrusted to them. Ido not mean here to infringe the rule, Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus. Where the faculties, senses, and wants of an animal were sufficient for its guidance, there was no need for Divine interposition, but where these are insufficient guides, the animal must attain its des- tined station under some other influence. What brought the various animals to the ark previously to the deluge? Doubtless a divine impulse upon them, similar to that which caused the milch-kine to carry the ark of the cove- nant to Bethshemesh, with the offerings of the lords of the Philistines. Noah, though he probably selected the clean animals, at least those that were domesticated, could have little or no influence over the wild ones to compel them to congre- gate by pairs, at the time fixed upon for their entry into the ark. Soin the dispersion of animals, wherever man went he took his flocks and herds, and domestic poultry, and those in his employment for other purposes, with him: but the wild ones were left to follow as they would, or rather as God di- rected. Every one who looks at a map of the world, on Merecator’s projection, can easily conceive how the animal population of the greatest part of the old world made their way into the dif- ferent countries of which it consists, but when he looks at America and New Holland, he feels himself unable satisfacto- rily to explain the migration of animals thither, especially those that can live only in a warm climate, at least as far as regards the former. How, he might ask, did the Sloths, the Anteaters, and the Armadillos get to South America? If the climate of Behrings Straits, after the deluge, was as cold as it is at this day, they could never have made their way thither, 4 DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. Q" and in those latitudes the temperature of which was adapted to their organization the vast Pacific presents an insuperable barrier. The same question may be asked with respect to the indi- genous animals of New Holland ; the Kangaroo, the Cola, the Ornithorhynchus, the Emu, and several others that are found in no other country ; how did they, leaving the continent alto- gether, convey themselves to this their appointed abode? It is true difficulty is not so great in this last case, on account of the numerous islands interposed between Malacca, Cochin- china, &c. and the North Coast of New Holland, but then it is unaccountable, if the transit of these animals was gradually effected by natural causes, and following that of mankind from island to island, till they reached the country to which their range is now limited, that they should have left no remains of their race in the countries and islands which they must have traversed in their route; and those that would have accom- panied man would be a different tribe of animals, more fitted to minister to his wants, so that with respect to these the difficulty still remains—they could not have reached the country unless under the guidance of Providence, and the same power that accomplished their removal to that appointod for their resi- dence, prevented their leaving any of their race in the regions through which they passed. There is only one supposition that will enable us to account for the transport of these animals in a natural way, which is this, that immediately subsequent to the deluge, America and New Holland, and the various other islands that are inhabited by peculiar animals, were once connected with Asia and Africa, by the intervention of lands that have since been submerged. Plato, in his Timeeus, relates a tradition concerning an island called Atlantis, which he describes as bigger than Asia and Africa, situated before the pillars of Hercules, which after an earthquake was swallowed up by the sea. According to his statement, this account was given by the Egyptian priests at Sais, to Solon, the Athenian legislator. Catcott, in his history of the deluge, seems to give some credit to this tradition, and supposes that Phaleg took his name, not from the confusion of tongues at Babel, and the subsequent division of the earth amongst the families of the three sons of Noah, but from its di- vision occasioned by the subsidence of this great island, by which the occidental were separated from the oriental coun- tries of the globe. Philo Judzeus speaks of this catastrophe in terms that imply he gave credit to it, as does also Tertullian ; but it appears to me to rest on too uncertain a base, and to be i =< et ee 98 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL too much mixed with evident fably. and allegory, to claim full credit as a real fact in the history of our globe. Still that many violent convulsions have taken place since the deluge is generally supposed. Our own island is thought once to have formed part. of the continent, Sicily to have been united to Italy, with many other instances mentioned by Pliny. It is equally probable that the islands of the Indian Archipelago Were at one time joined to that part of Asia. Whether such disruptions from the coritinents were simultaneous, or took place at different periods, is uncertain ; but if such an event as the submersion of the vast island of Plato did really happen, it surely would affect the whole terraqueous globe, produce con- vulsions far and wide, and cause various disruptions in its crust, and elevations in other parts from the bed of the ocean. It throws some weight into this scale, that thus a way would be open, though certainly a circuitous one, for the migration of those animals to America, that are found in no other part of the world, and, supposing Asia to have been disrupted from it at Behrings Straits, could scarcely have ascended to so higha latitude, in search of their destined home. Malte-Brun, in his geography, after proving that the animals in question could have passed neither from Africa nor Asia, ob- serves— Nothing, therefore, remains, but the accommodating resource of a tremendous convulsion of nature, with a vast tract of country swallowed up by the waves, which formerly united America with the temperate regions of the old world. Such conjectures as these, however, being devoid of all histo- rical support, do not merit a moment's consideration; eonse- quently we cannot refrain from admitting, that the animals of America originated on the very soil, which, to this present day, they still inhabit.” That it might have been the will of the Creator to people the country in question by the immediate production of a new race of animals, suited to its climate and circumstances, I will not deny, but I would onlyask, is itconsistent with what occurred at the deluge? Surely the task of Noah would have been much less difficultand laborious, had it been merely necessary for him to construct a vessel fitted for the reception of himself and family, and of food for their sustenance during their confinement ; and a new race of animals had been created, adapted to the then state of the earth and mankind. But such was not the will of God, and, doubtless, for wise reasons. He would neither create a new race of men, nor a new race of animals, when the world might be repeopled by those already in being. This would not have harmonized with the ordinary proceedings ef his provi- DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 99 dence. Whoever examines the animals of North America, will find a vast number that correspond with European species, dis- tinguished only by characters that mark varieties. On the Rocky Mountains, and in the country westward of that range, Asiatic types are discoverable, both in the vegetable ahd ani- mal kingdoms.* Several animals, likewise, of the southern | part of that Continent belong to old world genera, and also species. J have received from Valparaiso a beetle, common in Britain,*? and Molina mentions several other European ge- nera, as natives of Chili; so part of the animal population of the New World appears to have been derived from Europe and Asia ; and if so, there is a door open, through which Providence might also have conducted those North American animals that are found in no other country. But besides the probable, or possible, modes by which the transit of animals to their respective settlements might have been accomplished, Mr Lyell, in the second volume of his Principles of Geology, has suggested one which might, amongst others, have been employed for this purpose. “Captain W. H. Smyth informs me,” says he, “ that, when cruising in the Cornwallis, amidst the Philippine islands, he has more than once seen, after those dreadful hurricanes called typhoons, floating islands of (matted) wood, with trees growing upon them; and that ships have sometimes been in imminent peril, in consequence of mistaking them for terra firma.” Mr Lyell conjectures, not improbably, that by means of such an insular raft, or wandering Delos,“ if the surface of the deep be calm, and the rafts carried along by a current, or wafted by a slight breath of air fanning the foliage of the green trees, it may arrive, after a passage of several weeks, at the bay of an island, into which its plants and animals may be poured out as from an ark ; and thus a colony of several hundred new spe- cies may at once be naturalized.” Thus he accounts for the peopling of the volcanic and coral islands in the Pacific. ‘It must be bome in mind that nothing really happens by chance, or is the result of an accidental concourse of fortui- tous events: second causes are always under the direction of the first, who ordereth all things according to the good plea- sure of his will; and therefore the elevation of a new island from the bosom of the deep, whether immediately produced by volcanic agency, or by an earthquake, or built by Zoophytes, still may be denominated his work; so likewise the same Al- mighty Guardian of the universe, whose name is Jehovah of 1 See Appendix, note 14. 2 Sphodrus Terricola. 30 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL Hosts, directs all the actions and motions of the hosts that he hath created, to the full accomplishment of every purpose that, in his wisdom, he hath formed. When we are assured that the hairs of our head are all numbered, and that not a sparrow falleth without our Heavenly Father, we are instructed to look beyond second causes for the direction and management of events that appear at first sight the most trivial, but which, in their immediate or remote consequences, may be productive of effects that are important to be attended to and provided for.* We know that when animals of any kind exceed certain limits, though beneficial in the ordinary exercise of their in- stincts, they become noxious. God alone knows when they approach these limits; it is he, therefore, that employs man or other animals to destroy a certain number of them, that they may bear a due proportion to other beings on which they act ; or if he wills to punish mankind, he suffers their numbers to increase so as to answer this intention. But to all his hosts, he says, “* Thus far shalt thou go and no further.” Therefore, when the ocean, or fires below its bed, or other causes elevate islands above its surface, it is he that conducts to them the po- pulation he intends should occupy them. The islands of Bourbon and Mauritius both appear to be of volcanic origin: amongst their aboriginal animal inhabitants was a most extraordinary gallinaceous bird, called the Dodo ;? this bird, like the ostrich and cassowary, had only rudiments of wings, and of course was unable to fly ; being unfit for food, though of the gallinaceous order, anda very ugly and disgust- ing object, it soon became extinct in those islands, and the only remains of it are a leg and foot at the British Museum, and a skeleton of the head in the Ashmolean Museum at Ox- ford. It has been contended that this bird, having never been discovered elsewhere, was peculiar to these islands, but there are reasons for believing, that it was not the only species of its genus, for Latham has included in it two others,? both stated to have been found in African islands. This affords a strong presumption that the head quarters of the genus are on the continent of Africa, and that these three species have been conveyed to ihe islands they are stated to have inhabited by some accidental cause. By the direction of Providence, a floating island, like that seen by Captain Smyth, might be ine means of conveying this and their other inhabitants to them. 1 Appendix, note 15. 2 Didus ineptus. 3 Didus solitarius and nazarenus. DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 31 I think, therefore, that there is no necessity to have recourse to a new and more recent creation, to account for the iptroduc- tion of its peculiar animals into any given country. The fact itself, that almost every country has its peculiar animals, affords a proof of design, and of the adaptation of means to an end, demonstrating the intervention and guidance of an invisible Being, of irresistible power, to whose will all things yield obedience, and whose wisdom and goodness are conspicu- ous In all the arrangements he has made. Wherever we see a peculiar class of animals we usually see peculiar circum- stances which require their presence. Thus the Elephant and Rhinoceros, the Lion and the Tiger, are found only in warm climates, where a rapid vegetation, and infinite hosts of animals, seem to require the efforts of such gigantic and fero- cious devourers to keep them in check: but on this subject 1 shall have occasion to enlarge hereafter. There is another point of view, illustrative of the Divine attributes in this partial location of various animals. If every region, or nation, contained within its limits the entire circle that constitutes the animal kingdom, and the remark may be extended to every natural object, how weak and trifling would be the incitement for man to visit his fellow-men. Were the productions of every country the samé, there would be little or no temptation for commercial speculation, therefore the mer- chant would stay at home; the animal, and plants, and mine- rals would be the same, therefore the naturalist would stay at home ; the astronomer indeed, and geographer, and the student of his own species, might be tempted sometimes to roam, but the ocean would be truly dissociable, and those ties that now connect the different nations of the globe would, for the most part, be broken. They are now linked to each other, in a bond of amity, by the intercourse which their mutual wants produce, and the body geographical, if I may use such a met- aphor, as well as the body natural, is so tempered, and so furnished in every part, that constant supplies of things, neces- sary or desirable, are uninterruptedly circulating, by certain channels, through the whole system ; and thus keep up a kind of systole and diastole, which diffuses every where a healthy temperament, and is universally beneficial. It is, moreover, calculated to generate those kindly feelings which ought to reciprocate between beings inhabiting the same globe, and sprung from the same original father. And the cultivation of these feelings of mutual good will was, no doubt, the principal object of the Deity in the distribution of various gifts to various countries, endowing some with one peculiar production and ; e : % } my) awd he : ; 82 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL some with another: so that one might not say to another, * [ have no yeed of you.” Herein is the Divine wisdom and goodness most conspicuous. Had chance, or nature, as some love to speak, directed the distribution of animals, and they were abandoned to themselves and to the circumstances in which they found themselves in their original station, without any superintending power to guide them, they would not so invariably have fixed them- selves in the climates and regions for which they were evi- dently intended. ‘Their migrations, under their own sole guidance, would have depended, for their direction, upon the season of the year, at which the desire seized them to change their quarters: in the height of summer, the tropical animals might have taken a direction further removed from the tropics ; and, in winter, those of colder climates might have journeyed towards instead of from them. Besides, taking into considera- tion other motives, from casual circumstances, that might have induced different individuals belonging to the same climates to pursue different routes, they might be misled by cupidity, or dislike, or fear. On no other principle, can we explain the adaptation of their organization to the state and productions of the country in which we find them—lI speak of local species —but that of a Supreme Power, who formed and furnished the country, organized them for it, and guided them into it. There is another question relating to local animals which here requires some notice. Are they really distinct species ? Have not the characters which separate them from their af- finities been produced, in the course of years, by peculiar cir- cumstances in which they are placed, such as climate, tempe- rature, nature of the country, food, and the like? Every per- son who knows any thing of the history of animals must admit, that great changes do take place in them from the long action of these causes. Tor instance, some varieties of the common ox are polled, having only rudiments of horns; others have very short and others very long ones; in some they are not fixed to the skull, but attached to the skin, and movable with it. The same thing, likewise, takes place with sheep; some have no horns, others have two, and one breed, the Icelandic, is distinguished by having four. How these varia- tions have been produced, and by what circumstances they are ruled, has not been ascertained, nor what differences, in other respects, obtain between the armed and unarmed varieties. Linné indeed observed, with respect to the polled sheep, which he denominates English sheep,—but whether they are strictly entitled to that name is not clear, for in the DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 33 pillars of Trajan and Antoninus, though there are no polled oxen, there are polled sheep,—that their tails and scrotum reach to the knees; but this does not appear a certain and invaria- ble fact. A young zoologist, when his attention is first arrest- ed by these facts, will probably be inclined to think that ani- mals, exhibiting such striking differences, cannot belong to the saime species; but in the progress of his experience, especially in what takes place in almost all animals that man has taken into alliance with him, he will see reason to change his senti- ments, Again, the ears of some animals also exhibit differences that might seem to indicate specific distinction. We see this both in the horse and the swine. In the wild horse the ears lie back, in the domesticated or cultivated one they are erect. The horse was not originally a native of America; but when the Spaniards and other nations obtained a footing in that country, they carried this animal with them, which is now be- come wild, and numerous herds of them are found in the Llanos, these generally, we are told, are of a chestnut bay, and have recumbent ears. Those that are found wild in the Steppes of Tartary, have the hair of the mane and tail very long and thick, and their ears also are recumbent. A writer, quoted below, has concluded from some observations of Xeno- phon and Varro, that the military horses of the Greek and Ro- man republics were much nearer those in the wild state, as just described, than in a subsequent period.* In all the war horses, however, sculptured in Trajan’s and Antoninus’s pillars, the ears are erect, as [ think also are those of the Elgin mar- bles in the British Museum—at least, none of them appear to be recumbent ; and in some figured in Hamilton’s gyptiaca,? from sculptures at Medinet Abou, in Egypt, which are still more ancient, the ears of all are erect. In England we have two breeds of swine, one with large flapping or pendent ears; of this description are those fattened in the distilleries in and near London; the other with small, erect, acute ears, common in the county of Suffolk. When it is considered, that the varities of the above animals with erect ears appear to exhibit altogether a better character, if I may so speak, than their less spirited brethren, whose ears are pendent or laid back, and that this circumstance seems to indicate some approach to civilization in them; it may, pro- bably, be deemed to result from some developement of the brain 1 Roulin. Anim. Domest. Ann. Des. Sc. Nat. xvi. 26. 2 PI. viii. ix. E 34 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL produced by education, and present some analogy to the effects of the latter in the human species. There is a certain protuberance growing on the back, be- tween the shoulders, and consisting chiefly of fat, which dis- tinguishes the Indian oxen, both the larger and smaller varie- ties, from our own, which is known sometimes to attain to the enormous weight of fifty pounds; the ox of Surat is stated to have two of these bosses, or humps. Now, Burckhardt has observed, with respect to the camel, that—‘* While the hump continues full, the animal will endure considerable fatigue on a very short allowance, feeding, as the Arabs say, on the fat of itsown hump. After a long journey the hump almost en- tirely subsides, and it is not till after three or four month’s re- pose, and a considerable time after the rest of the carcass has acquired flesh, that it resumes its natural size of one fourth of the whole body.” This conjecture of the Arabs may, very probably, be well founded, for it is known that animals which become torpid in the winter, are very fat and have several cauls abounding in that substance; but when they awake from their long repose in the spring, they have absorbed a large proportion of it, and are comparatively lean, and more fit for action. During their torpidity the fat is absorbed into the system by means of the lymphatic vessels and the ramifications of the veins. It is stated, however, that the Bear comes out of its winter-quarters as fat as it went into them, but that in a few days, it becomes very lean.* In this case it would seem as if there was little or no absorption during hybernation, and that it becomes very rapid upon the animal’s emersion from its - hiding place. Reasoning from analogy, the hump on the Zebu may have some such use, and during the dry season, when the food is scorched up, may minister to the nutriment of the animal. If | this be the case, this variation from the common type is evi- dently designed, and furnishes a proof of the care of the Crea- tor for all his creatures, and likewise of such an adaptation of means to an end, as evince both the wisdom, power, and pre- science of Him who has so arranged circumstances and agents in every climate as to fulfil his benevolent purposes. The allwise Governor of the universe, when he gave to the sheep its covering, appears to have had in view not solely the protection of the animal from the effects of cold, but more par- ticularly the benefit of him whom he had enthroned at the head of his creation, by thus placing at his disposal a material 1 Dr. Richardson, Faun. Boreali-Americ. i. 16, 20. DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 35 so inestimable, for hig use and comfort, as wool. It has been observed that all the wild sheep are clothed with long hair; but the Guinea sheep, which is found in the tropical countries, both of Africa and India, is the most truly hairy of any, evi- dently a provision of the Author of nature, suited to the cli- mate in which they are found. The fine fleeces of the culti- vated breeds appear to have been engrafted, as it were, on the long hair of the wild ones, which, doubtless, have been very much improved by the attention paid by man to his flocks. The influence of climate, the quality of pasturage, a due sup- ply of wholesome food in winter; and washing and shearing when summer approaches, have all, certainly, contributed to the improvement of this staple of our commerce. But it was God who endowed these animals with those facilities, if | may so speak, of which man availing himself, might produce by culture the valuable article, in its highest perfection, of which Iam here speaking. Whata difference between the hair of the Guinea sheep, and the beautiful fleece of the Merino, which even seems to be exceeded, in fineness and softness, by the straight wool of the Parnassian breed. No animal, if indeed all belong to one original species, varies more than onethat is most domesticated of any, the dog : some, as the water-dog,? being covered with curled hair almost as thick as the fleece of a sheep, while others, the Turkish-dog,* are absolutely naked; others again, the grey-hound,* being very slender, with long slender muzzle and legs, remarkable for their velocity and the quickness of their sight; others lastly, the hound,® more robust in form, less swift in motion, with a short obtuse muzzle, depending chiefly upon their scent in pursuit of their prey. Whoever studies all these supposed va- rieties, and the diversified functions which they exercise in our service, as our faithful and attached companions, the watchful guardians and defenders of our property, the purveyors of our table, and the ministers of our pleasures, must acknowledge the wisdom, goodness, and power of the Creator in the production of so versatile a race, applicable, in so many ways, to such a variety of purposes, many of them of the first importance. Without them some nations would have no means of convey- ance from place to place ;° and others would scarcely be able to supply themselves with a sufficiency of food.” 1 Ovis aries africana.—L. 2 Canis familiaris aquaticus. 3 Canis familiaris egyptius. 4 Canis familiaris graius. 5 Canis familiaris molossus. 6 The Kamtchadales, 7 Many of the North American Indians, Esquimaux, &c. 36 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL Amongst the birds there is one tribe peculiarly domesticated, which likewise is subject to numerous variations (it will be readily seen that I allude to our common poultry), but the differences that obtain in them are chiefly confined to their plumage; some are crowned with a tuft of feathers; others, as the Friesland-hen, have the feathers on their body recurved; another breed, as the rumplets, have no tail; the generality have their legs naked, but the bantams have them covered with feathers; and, to name no more, the silk-hens, instead of feath- ers, are clothed with a kind of silken hair. We cannot state the object of all these differences, but probably it is connected with the climate and other circum- stances of the country in which they were produced. India and its islands appears to be the metropolis of this valuable species of fowl, and the jungle fowl is supposed to be the original breed; but this is one of those animals which will live and thrive in every climate except the Polar; and when we consider the benefits we derive from them, we shall be disposed with grateful hearts to adore and glorify our Almighty bene- factor, who fitted them, as well as-so many other useful animals, to become, like ourelves, denizens of the whole earth. It is a remarkable circumstance, and worthy of particular attention, that the animals most subject to variation, are chiefly those which man has taken into alliance with him from their adaptation to his purposes. Now this tendency to vary mul- tiplies their uses, or, at least, contributes to fit them for fol- lowing him into different climates, enabling them to accommo- date themselves gradually to any change of circumstances to which they may therein be exposed, without diminishing their utility. Amongst the other races, especially the feline, this appears not to take place, at least only with respect to colour. The cat, though every where domesticated, exhibits no other differ- ences than what obtain in the colour of her fur. If we recol- lect that this favourite quadruped is principally employed to destroy those minor animals that are noxious in and about our houses, to which indeed her instinct impels her, and that she is solely led by that instinct, and adds nothing to it from in- struction, her sole savage object being, like that of her con- geners, to seize and devour her prey; that she never assists man, like the dog, as the companion of his sports in various ways, but exercises her single function always in the same way, and under the same influence: if we further recollect that these are the general habits of the genus to which she belongs, which appear subject to very trival modificatious from altered DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 37 circumstances, and that almost all animals that do not follow in the train of man are equally constant, we may hence infer that the Creator has not gifted them with the capability of improvement, and the developement of latent qualities not ap- parent in their wild state. There is one circumstance, however, in which predaceous or carnivorous animals, when domesticated, show some aberration from their instinct, they do not refuse farinaceous food. The cat and the dog will both eat bread with great eagerness and thrive upon it. It has been questioned by some whether the present races of animals have not all, in the lapse of ages, undergone some alterations from the primitive types. The only way by which this can be at all ascertained is by consulting the oldest de- scriptions of them, and the oldest sculptures ; and these, I think, will prove that no such alteration has taken place. In considering the general distribution of animals we may further remark that some are stationary, while others, at cer- tain periods, migrate or shift their quarters from one climate or region to another. In considering the former, I shall not here enlarge on the stations of the different tribes further than as they are connected with the great object, which it is my duty to illustrate. With respect to many it may be observed, that though perhaps widely dispersed, yet they have their metropolis.t_ Thus the gigantic whales, though they are sometimes found in low latitudes, not, however, within the tropics, yet their grand rendezvous is in the arctic and antarctic seas; furnishing a strong proof that in these they find the greatest supply of their appropriate food. The giant terrestrial Mammalia, on the contrary, confine them- selves to intratropical regions, where the luxuriance of vegeta- tion best corresponds with their enormous consumption of food. Amongst the birds the Vulture, though one species, the Lam- mer-Geyer,? comes as far north as the Swiss Alps, generally most abounds in hot climates, and is often of essential service in preventing the infection, likely to be produced by putrid animals; to these birds, our Saviour’s words, doubtless, al- lude, “ Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together ;” the species he had in his eye, was probably the Egyptian Vulture,’ the services of which in Egypt are strik- ingly described by Hasselquist. After noticing its disgusting appearance, he says: “Notwithstanding this, the inhabitants 1 See Introd. to-Ent. iv. Lett. xlix. 2 Vultur Barbatas 3 Vultur percnopterus, L. ie 4} iW 1 ni | ; a 38 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL of Egypt cannot be enough thankful to Providence for this bird. All the places round Cairo are filled with the dead bodies of asses and camels; and thousands of these birds fly about and devour the carcasses, before they putrify, and fill the air with noxious exhalations.” Belon observes, which proves their prevalence there, that in Palestine they devour an infinite number of mice, which would otherwise be a great pest. The cognate tribe, the eagles, though they are widely dispersed, have their metropolis i in more northern climates, and are distinguished also from the vultures, by making living animals chiefly their prey: for this they are gifted with a wonderful acuteness of sight, and indomitable strength of wing, and of legs and talons, fitting them for astonishing velocity of flight, and for resistless force, when they attack and bear off their prey. As they have no scent, their eyes are of infinite use, and enable them to dis- cern a small bird at an almost incredible distance: and often to get a clearer view and more extensive horizon, when they leave their mountain aeries, they ascend to a great height. M. Ramond, when he had ascended the highest peak of the Pyrenees, saw an eagle soaring above him, flying directly in the teeth of a violent south-wester, with inconceivable velocity. Another genus of a tropical type, but not confined to the tropics, forming a striking contrast with the gigantic forms last adverted to, consists of the numerous species of the brilliant and diminutive Humming birds, which like the butterflies, whose analogues they are, suck the nectar of the flowers. This, strictly, American genus is in great force, also without the tropics, for they abound in Mexico, and go northward as far as Canada, and southward as far as Patagonia. There is no northern metropolis for any analogous form, to these living gems, which constitute the ornament and life of the new world. But the old shares with the new, in another beautiful type in the winged creation, I mean the Psittaceous or Parrot tribes, which chiefly support themselves upon fruits, and abound in all tropical countries, these the Creator has not only invested with the gayest colours and plumage, but gifted also with the power of speech, at least of imitating the speech of man, when brought into contact with him. Their principal residence is within the tropics, but not confined to them, as many are found in New Holland. The Aras* are confined to the new world, and one of its greatest ornaments; their plumage being the most brilliant of any of the Psittaceans. An analogous tribe of mammiferous animals inhabits the 1 Macrocercus. a DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 39 same station, and feeds on the same food with the parrots, these are what Zoologists call the Quadrumanes, or Four- handed beasts, from their often using their hind as well as their fore feet as hands, and many of them even their tail. This tribe includes the Monkeys, Apes, and Baboons, and though these do not imitate man, by catching his phrases, like the birds last named, yet they mimic all his actions. I have often thought, when I have examined figures of this tribe, that their features are typical of the different kinds of face observable in the human species: as far as relates to body they approach us, but in the spiritual part of our nature, elevated by high expec- tations, and by knowledge not confined to this globe on which we tread, but traversing the heavens, and penetrating in thought to the throne of Him who sitteth upon them, we in- finitely exceed them. Those animals that are of a predaceous or carnivorous char- acter, are more widely dispersed, than many of the herbivorous ones, in fact they are co-extensive with their food, I do not mean specifically, but generically. Though the Lion and the Tiger, and the larger feline animals are generally tropical, yet the Cat is naturalized every where. Though the Hyena and the Jackal shrink from the temperature of the greater part of Europe, yet Wolves and Foxes, as well as the great majority of the canine race, are found indigenous, or have been formerly indigenous, in almost every part of it. Many more instances might be adduced proving that ani- mals have been placed originally in certain stations, adapted to the habits resulting from their organization and general structure, from which some of them have sent forth their colo- nies far and wide, while others, owing to peculiarities in these respects, requiring a given temperature and kind of food, or to local obstacles stopping their further progress, have not wan- dered beyond certain limits. Having, in the preceding pages, endeavoured to account for the dispersion and present stations of the various members of the animal kingdom at large, not to leave the subject incom- plete, I must next make a few observations relative to that of the human race. It has been a favourite theory of some modern physiologists that God “hath not made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,” but that there are different species of men as well as of animals: others, who do not go quite so far, suspect—that at the last great deluge, besides Noah and his family who were saved in the ark, some others 40 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL escaped from that sad catastrophe by taking refuge on some of the highest mountain ridges of Asia and Africa, and seem to insinuate that from these arose the three principal races, the Caucasian, the Mongol, and the Negro, that now hold posses- sion of our globe.* I shall say something in controversion of each of these theories, beginning with the last. This indeed furnishes a clue for its own refutation, since it admits three principal stems, which is in accordance with the Mosaic account, that from the families of the three sons of Noah, the nations were divided in the earth after the flood. The author of the above theory seems disposed to admit the truth of the Mosaic account, but insinuates that it may have been only intended to instruct the Israelites in the history of the race to which they belonged, while that of other races may have been passed over in silence. [t is too much the fashion, in this sceptical age, to evade the facts that are most clearly revealed in Scripture, by saying the language must not be taken strictly nor interpreted literally, even when it is concerning events in which there is no room for metaphor. One would think that the terms in which God foretold the deluge were of this de- scription. ‘nd behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.” And again—*“ And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered: fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered.” It is also stated that every living sub- stance, both man and cattle, &c., was destroyed from the earth, and that Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. Can language be more definite and express ? What can be more absurd than that an ark should be neces- sary for the saving of Noah and his family, and a world of animals, to be stored with a vast supply of provisions, when they might have escaped according to this hypothesis by tak- ing refuge on the summit of some lofty mountain to which Divine Wisdom might have directed them ? There is no occasion whatever for such a hypothesis to ac- count for the dispersion of mankind and their breaking into nations. ‘Two chapters in the book of Genesis® set the whole matter in a clear light, both as to the first cause of their separa- tion, and the various tribes into which they separated, in which we can trace the names of many nations still in existence. From Babel each in due time took the course, in that direc- 1 Outlines of Hist. Cab. Cycl. ix. 4. 2 Chap. x. xi. DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. Al tion, however led by circumstances, that Providence had de- creed. Europe became at last the head quarters of the de- scendants of Japhet, Asia of those of Shem, and Africa of those of Ham; the Shemites in the lapse of ages, passing over to America, were the progenitors of the red or copper race of that continent. Nor were there any insurmountable obstacles in the way to prevent the peopling of the globe from one com- : mon stock. Supposing Babel or Babylon to have heen, so : to speak, the centre of irradiation—how easy was the transit for Ham’s descendants into Africa by the Isthmus of Suez ; into Europe, the path was still more open for those of Japhet ; and as the stream of population spread to the East, the pass- age to America was not difficult to those who had arrived at Behrings Straits. But in all these countries mixtures with the aborigines have probably taken place, either from the ir- ruption and colonizations of great conquerors, the spread of commerce and similar causes, which naturally tend to produce variations in races-from the primitive type. Hence writers on this subject now reckon six races distinguished by their colour, viz. a white race; a tawny race; ared race; a deep brown... race; a brown-black race; and a black race. | This leads me to the other theory alluded to above, that there are different species of men as well as of other animals. The principal foundation upon which those naturalists have built their theory, that have adopted the opinion, that there are several distinct species of men originally created, is not only their colour, but likewise certain parts of their structure, which are found to vary in different races, such as the shape of the head ; the prominence, more or less, of the jaws, producing different facial angles ; the comparative length of some of the bones, and shape of the feet ; the degradation of intellect ; the peculiar acuteness of the senses; the tenacity of the memory ; and, to name no more, the appropriation of a peculiar species of parasitic animal to a peculiar race.* Various are the circumstances, which, in the progress of generations, tend to produce differences between the different races which are now found inhabiting our globe, without hav- ing recourse to a theory that boldly contradicts or nullifies the word of God ; since the Scripture expressly declares, that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the ~ face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, 1 See N. Dict. D’Hist. Nat. xv. 150, Article Homme. White’s Regular Gradation tn Man, &c. S. 2. F \ 42 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL and the bounds of their habitation.” Climate, the elevation of country, its soil, waters, woods, and other peculiarities; the food, clothing, customs, habits, way of life, and state of civili- zation, often, of its inhabitants, produce effects upon the latter that are important and durable, and contribute to impress a peculiar character upon the different races of men as well as animals, that inhabit our globe, and will account for many dis- tinctions, which indicate that such an individual belongs to such a people. But these circumstances will not explain and satisfactorily account for ali the peculiar characters that distin- guish nations from each other, without having recourse to the will of a governing and all-directing Power, influencing cir- cumstances that happen in the common course, and, according to the established laws of nature, to answer the purposes of his Providence. When he confounded the speech and lan- suage of the descendants of Noah, congregated at Babel, he first made a division of mankind into nations; “* And from thence did Jehovah scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” The same Divine Power that effected this distinction, which may be called the origin of nationality, also decreed that na- tions should be further separated by differences of form and colour, as well as speech, which differences originated not in any change operated miraculously, but produced by second causes, under the direction of the First. When we are told expressly that “‘ The hairs of our head are all numbered,” and that in God’s “ Book all our members are written,” we learn, what in common parlance we acknowledge, that it is accord- ing to God’s will that we are made so and so. That persons, who, in some one or other of their parts and organs, exhibit an approximation to races different from that to which they be- long, as thick lips, a prominent facial angle, a difference in the relative proportion of certain bones to each other, the curling of the hair, and the like, occur in all places, must be obvious to every one who uses his eyes and intellect. It is evident that all these variations are produced by circumstances that we cannot fully appreciate. Even in animals, there is as much difference in general characters between the Arabian steed of high blood,{fine form, indomitable spirit, and winged speed, and the brewer’s dray-horse, of a strikingly opposite character, as there is between the European high-bred gentleman and the African negro. The long-legged swine of France, though exhibiting such a marked difference in the relative length of some of their bones, are still the same species with the short- legged swine of England. The same argument is strength- ened by the infinite varieties of the dog, the eréct ears of the DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 43 tame, and recumbent ones of the wild horse. It is evident, therefore, from fact and from what ordinarily happens, that there are powers at work at and after conception, and while the fostus is in the womb, that can produce variations in the same people, approaching to those that distinguish the Negro, the red man, or the brown man ; which, indeed, can produce forms much more singular and extraordinary ; for instance, the mon- - sters that sometimes make their appearance in the world, as the Siamese youths, children with two heads, &c. The mysteri- ous influence that the excited imagination, or passions, or ap- .petites of the mother, have over the foetus in her womb, is well known, and produces very extraordinary consequences, and malformations, and monstrosities. When we consider that all these facilities, if | may so speak—these tendencies to produce variations in the fcetus, are at the disposal of Him, who up- holds all things by the word of his power, and turns them to the fulfilment of his own purposes,—we may imagine that thus new types may be produced, which may be continued in the ordinary way of generation; according to that observation of Humboldt, that “ The exclusion of all foreign mixtures con- tributes to perpetuate varieties, or aberrations from the com- mon standard.”? That what at first were family characters, accompany the race when grown into a nation, is evident from the case of the Jews, who, wherever dispersed, exhibit certain common characters by which they are every where known ; and, with respect to complexion, they are said to vary accord- ‘Ing to the climates in which they reside. and-an infinity of others, forming their an- gular and sometimes triangular phalanxes, each in turn tak- ing the lead and first cutting the air,® fly off, often at a great height, to seek in more southern climates, not a region devoid 1 Cycnus. 2 Anser. 3 Anas. 4 Mergus and Colymbus. 5 Fulica. 6 N. Dict. D’Hist. Nat. xx. 544. bd 56 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. of the usual concomitants of winter, frost and snow, but where their rigours are mitigated, so as to afford to these creatures: the means of life. Now, also the waders, usually distinguished by their long legs and long beaks, as the woodcock,* the cur- lew, and the snipes,? leave their native marshes and haunts to seek others whose unfrozen or partially frozen morasses afford them a supply of the worms and vermicles or similar animals that form their usual nutriment. Many a time, when a boy, I have pursued the field-fare,* which is one of our winter guests, from tree to tree, without its affording me an opportunity of taking aim at it, as if it was aware of my purpose, and could smell the contents of my musket; no sooner did I get within a couple of hundred yards, than, with all its company, it flew a little further, and thus kept tantalizing me for hours, with- out my even being able to secure one. These birds, if the weather becomes very severe here, are said to fly further south: in search of food, and to return again. : Thus, we see the change of seasons brings with it a change | in the winged inhabitants of every country; and the winter immigration of a vast variety of birds, fit for food and other useful purposes, makes up in some degree for the summer or autumnal emigration of those, which being constantly before our eyes moving in every direction, and rendering vocal every grove or‘tree and even the very heavens, entertain our senses of seeing and hearing ina most delightful manner. Thus, also, all countries partake in some degree, by this shifting scene of animal life, of the same blessings and pleasures derived from the same instruments. | Though the production and rearing of their young forms a principal feature in. most of the migrations before noticed, yet it is most prorminent and conspicuous in the animals, whose annual motions I shall next advert to. And here mankind is more conspicuously indebted to the fatherly care and bounty of a beneficent Providence for a supply of their wants, than in any of the cases above detailed ; which most of them minister to our pleasures, rather than our sustenance. When the time of the singing birds is come, and the voice of the nightingale is heard in our land ; when the swallow and the swift delight us by their rapid and varied motions, now skimming the surface of the waters, now darting, either aloft or with more humble flight over the earth ; when the carolling lark ascends towards | Rusticola vulgaris Vieill. Numenius arquatus.—Lath. 2 Scolopax Gallinugo and Gallinula. 3 Turdus pulares MIGRATIONS. 57 heaven, teaching us to look up and learn fiom her where to direct the best affections of our hearts; these all excite in us delightful sensations, and merit our grateful acknowledgment, but still they contribute little or nothing to the means of life. The locusts indeed, who headed the list of emigrators, at' the same time that they lay waste a country, supply its inhabitants with food, and thus make some recompense for their ravages ; and a considerable proportion of the winter birds mentioned under the last head, as the swimmers‘ and the waders,? furnish our tables with dainty meats; but they come not in such numbers as to add materially to the general stock of food, or to contribute to the maintenance of the poor, as well as to the enjoyments of the rich. The animals I allude to under the present head, form the sole food of some nations, and contribute a vast and cheap supply, that covers the table of the poor man with plenty. The migrating fishes are one of the greatest and most invaluable gifts of the Creator to his creature man, by which thousands and thousands support themselves, and their families ; and which, at certain periods, form the food of mil- lions. Of the proceedings of the principal of these fishes, I shall now give a brief account. . I begin with one of the cartilaginous fishes—the Sturgeon. There are two noted species of this fish, which is related to the shark, the one is called the sturgeon*® by way of eminence, and the other the huso.* The latter is found only in the Caspian and Black seas, and the Don, the Volga, and other rivers that flow into them. It is stated to be much larger than the stur- geon: Pallas describes one that weighed 2800 pounds, which it is conjectured must have been nearly forty feet long. Its ordinary length is stated to be twenty-five feet, which is the maximum of the sturgeon. The numbers of this species far exceed those of the latter, the caviar is usually made of its spawn, which equals nearly a third of the weight of the whole fish, from whence we may conjecture the infinite number of eggs that it contains. Professor Pallas gives a very interesting history of the manner in which these enormous fish are taken in the Volga, and the Saiek, which discharge their waters into the Caspian. And it seems really wonderful that so wild and illiterate a people as the Tartars, who have no acquaintance with the arts and sciences, should on this occasion, show as much genius and invention as the most enlightened nations. The huso enters the rivers to spawn earlier than the sturgeon. I Natatores. 2 Grallatores. 3 Accipenser Sturio. 4 A. Huse. H 58 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. generally about mid-winter, when they are still covered with ice. At this time the natives construct dikes across the rivers in certain parts, formed with piles, leaving no interval that the huso can pass through ; in the centre of the dike is an angle opening to the current, which consequently is an entering angle to the fish ascending the stream ; at the summit of this angle is an opening, which leads into a kind of chamber formed with cord, or osier hurdles, according to the season of the year. Above the opening is a kind of scaffold, and a little cabin, where the fishermen can retire and warm themselves or repose, when they are not wanted abroad. No sooner is the huso entered into the chamber, which is known by the motion of the water, than the fishermen on the scaffold let fall a door, which pre- vents its return to seaward, they then by means of ropes and pullies Jift the movable bottom of the chamber, and easily secure the fish. Gmelin has related, in a very lively way, the solemn fishing which takes place at the beginning of winter, in the neigh- bourhood of Astracan, when these fish have retired into vast caves under the seashore, which form their winter quarters. A great number of fishermen assemble, over whom are placed a director and inspectors, who possess considerable authority and influence ; every kind of fishing is prohibited, in the places known to be the haunt of the husos; a numerous flotilla of boats are in readiness ; every thing is prepared as it were for an important military operation ; all approach in concert and with regular manceuvres the asylum in which the fish are concealed, the slightest noise is severely interdicted, so that the most pro- found silence every where prevails. In an instant, at a given signal, a universal shout rends the heavens, which echo mul- tiplies on every side. The astonished husos, in the greatest alarm, rush from their hiding places, and are taken in nets of every kind, prepared to intercept them. The huso fishery is of great importance, principally on ac- count of the caviar prepared from the roe of these fishes, and the isinglass that is made from their air-vessel. The former is much in demand amongst many nations, as the Russians, Turks, &c.; the Greeks particularly make it almost their sole food during their long fasts, and the latter is almost universal- ly an article of commerce. The common sturgeon furnishes the same articles, as do other fishes also. The next kind of fishes that migrate for the purpose of spawn- ing, which I shall notice, is one, which though it falls far be- hind the sturgeons in size, exceeds them infinitely in numbers and dispersion, and in the vast supply of food with which it MIGRATIONS. 59 furnishes the human race; it will readily be seen that I am speaking of the Codfish.t | This valuable animal belongs to the class of fishes with a bony skeleton, and the tribe of Jugulars, or those whose ventral fins are nearer the mouth than the pec- toral, It frequents shallows and sandbanks, between the for- tieth and sixtieth degrees of North Latitude, both in the Atlan- tic and Pacific Oceans, where it is taken in infinite numbers. The fishery for it employs both European and American sea- men and vessels in abundance. The most celebrated is that on the great bank of Newfoundland, where thousands of men are employed in catching, salting, and barrelling these fish, and whence they are dispersed principally into the Catholic countries, where they form a considerable portion of the food of the people, especially during lent and other fasts. The cod-fish makes for the coast at spawning time, going northward, this takes place towards the end of winter, or the beginning of spring. Leeuwenhoek counted more than nine millions of eggs in a cod-fish of the middle size; allowing for a large consumption by other fishes which devour them, still enough are left, that when hatched produce a superabundant supply. They are deposited in the inequalities of the bottom amongst the stones. The Haddock? is another species belonging to this genus, which frequents our coast in great numbers in mid-winter ; they are stated sometimes to form a bank twenty-four miles long by three broad. They pursue and devour the herrings, and are themselves in their turn devoured by Sharks, which follow their shoals. The next tribe of migratory fishes is one which supplies our tables with a very acceptable successor, when the codfish is out of season, and which at last usually becomes so plentiful and cheap as to form a part of the poor man’s bill of fare, as well as of that of his rich neighbour. Every one will see that I here allude to the Mackarel.? This is one of the thoracic fishes, or those whose ventral fins are situated below the pectoral. It is very widely dispersed, being found in the Arctic, Antarctic, and Mediterranean Seas, as well as in the Atlantic Ocean. It hybernates in the seas first mentioned, where it is stated to se- lect certain depths of the sea called by the natives Barachouas, whichi are so land-locked, that the water is as calm at all times, as in the most sheltered pools; the depth of these asylums di- minishes in proportion to the proximity of the shore, and the 1 Gadus Morhua. 2 Gadus Egelfinus. 3 Scomber Scombrus. ' 60 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. bottom is generally muddy and covered with marine plants. It is in these muddy bottoms that the mackarel, directed by their instinct, pass the winter. They plunge their head and the an- terior part of their body in the mud, keeping their tails elevated vertically above it. In the spring they emerge, in infinite shoals from their hiding places, and proceed southward for the purposes of depositing their eggs in more genial seas; more than half a million of these have been discovered in a single female.t These fish die as soon as they are taken out of the water, and then they emit a phosphoric light. The Scomber is one of the fishes, which, according to Pliny, was used for making the celebrated Roman pickle named Garum, and he calls it a fish good for nothing else ; if he means our mackarel, it is singular that its value, as an article of food, should not ae have been discovered. The Garus or Garum derived its name a from a crustaceous animal so called, from which it was some- ne times made. Apicius is said by Pliny to have employed the Ai liver of the mullet in concocting it. ishtl What the mackarel is to the north of Europe, the Thunny is i to the south. It deposits its eggs in May and June, when it enters the Mediterranean, seeking the shores in shoals arranged Hf in the form of a parallelogram, or as some say, a triangle, and ME making a great noise and stir. They appear to have been a much in request with the Greeks and Romans, and are now hh an important article of food with the inhabitants of the coasts 4 and islands of the Mediterranean. : But no fish is so important a gift of Heaven, as affording i? employment to a large number of individuals both in the cateh- iit ing and preparing it, and as adding very largely to the general stock of food, especially in Catholic countries, as that of whose history I shall next give a brief sketch. Three thousand decked vessels, of different sizes, besides smaller boats, are stated to be annually employed in the her- ring-fishery, with a proportionable number of seamen, besides a vast number of hands that, at certain seasons, are occupied Y iv curing them. zh The herring to which I now allude belongs to the tribe called abdominal fishes, or those whose ventral fins are behind the pec- vat toral, and may be said to inhabit the arctic seas of Europe, Asia, and America, from whence they annually migrate, at different. times, in search of food and to deposit their spawn. Their shoals consist of millions of myriads, and are many leagues in width, many fathoms in thickness, and so dense \ Scomber Thynnus. iii MIGRATIONS. 61 that the fishes touch each other; they are preceded, at the in- terval of some days, by insulated males. The largest and strongest are said to lead the shoals, which seem to move in a certain order, and to divide into bands as they proceed, visiting the shores of various islands and countries, and enriching their inhabitants. Their presence and progress are usually indicated by various sea-birds, sharks, and other enemies. One of the cartilaginous fishes, the sea-ape,* is said to accompany them constantly, and is thence called the king of the herrings. They throw off also a kind of oily or slimy substance, which extends over their columns, and is easily seen in calm weather. This substance, in gloomy still nights, exhibits a phosphoric light, as if a cloth, a little luminous, was spread over the sea. Some conjecture may be formed of the infinite numbers of these invaluable fishes that are taken by European nations from what Lacepede relates—that in Norway twenty millions have been taken ata single fishing, that there are few years that they do not capture four hundred millions, and that at Gotten- burgh and its vicinity seven hundred millions are annually taken; “but what are these millions,” he remarks, “to the incredible numbers that go to the share of the English, Dutch, and other European nations.” Migrations of these fishes are stated to take place at three different times. The first when the ice begins to melt, which continues to the end of June; then succeeds that of the sum- mer, followed by the autumnal one, which lasts till the middle of September. They seek places for spawning, where stones _ and marine plants abound, against which they rub themselves altemately on each side, all the while moving their fins with great rapidity. According to Lacepede, William Deukelzoon, a fisherman of Biervliet, in Dutch Flanders, was the first per- son who salted herrings, this was before the end of the four- teenth century; others attribute this invention to William Benckels or Benkelings of Bierulin. To show his sense of the importance of this invention, the Emperor Charles V. is stated to have visited his tomb, and to have eaten a herring upon his grave. The smoking of this valuable fish, we are told, was first practised by the inhabitants of Dieppe in Normandy. Next to the herring, the pilchard? is valuable to our own country, especially to the inhabitants of Cornwall and Devon- shire, to whom this fish is as important as the herring to other parts of the kingdom; they frequent the southern coasts from the middle of summer to the end of autumn, and many thou- 1 Chimera monstrosa. 2 Clupanodon Pilcardus. §2 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. sand barrels are annually cured. Lacepede says that, in one year, a milliard* of these fishes has been taken. The sprat? and the anchovy,* are two other fishes of the present tribe, the former, at certain seasons, furnishing a con- siderable supply of food to the lower orders, and also a fertil- izing kind of manure to the farmer and hop-grower, though, it must be confessed, very annoying to the traveller passing through a country where it is so employed, by its disagreeable stench, and to those who inhabit it by its putrid effluvia, which I have known to produce fevers ; the other ministering to the enjoyment and luxury of the wealthy by its piquancy when pickled, or reduced to an essence; but on these I shall not further enlarge. The next tribe of migratory fishes is one whose several species are intermediate between marine and fresh-water fishes, roving indifferently in the sea, and rivers, and lakes, and thus is fitted by Providence tomake up to the inhabitants of inland countries their distance from the other migrators, by a supply brought, as it were, to their very doors. The fishes in question belong also to the abdominal class, and form the salmon genus, in- cluding the salmon,‘ the salmon-trout,” the trout,° the gray- ling,” the charr,® the smelt,® the hucho,??and many other species. I shall, however, confine my observations principally to the king, as it may be called, of the river migrators,—the Salmon. In our own country this noble fish is too high-priced to form a general article of food, and may be reckoned amongst the luxuries of the rich man’s table; but in others, especially amongst some of the North-western American tribes, they are gifts of Providence, which form their principal food at all sea- sons. One, which Sir George Mackenzie fell in with, in his journey from Canada to the Pacific, were perfect Ichthyopha- gites, and would touch no other animal food. These people construct, with great labour and ingenuity, across their streams, salmon weirs, which are formed with timber and gravel, and elevated nearly four feet above the level of the water; beneath machines are placed, into which the salmon fall when they attempt to leap over the weir. On either side is a large frame of timber-work, six feet above the level of the upper water, in which passages are left for the salmon, leading into the ma- 1 One thousand million, 2 Clupea Sprattus. 3. OC. encrasicolus. 4 Salmo Salar. dD SS. Trutta. 6 S. Farie. S. Thymallus. 8 S. Alpinus. 9 S. Eperlanus. 10S. Huche. MIGRATIONS. 63 chines. When they catch their salmon they string them and suspend them, at first, in the river. ‘The women are employed in preparing and curing these fish ; for this purpose they ap- pear to roast them first, and then suspend them on the poles that run along the beams of their houses, in which there are usually from three to five hearths, the heat and smoke from which contribute, no doubt, to their proper curing. The salmon, indeed, frequents every sea, the arctic as well as the equatorial ; it is found even in great lakes and inland seas, as the Caspian, into which it is even affirmed to make its way by asubterranean channel from the Persian Gulf—it goes as far south as New Holland and the Australian seas; but, it is said never to have been found in the Mediterranean, and appears to have been unknown to Aristotle. Pliny mentions it as a river fish, preferred to all marine ones by the inhabitants of Gaul. It traverses the whole length of the largest rivers. It reaches Bohemia by the Elbe, Switzerland by the Rhine, and the Cordilleras of America by the mighty Maragnon, or River of Amazons, whose course is more than three thou- sand miles. In temperate climates the salmon quits the sea early in the spring, when the waves are driven by a strong wind against the river currents. It enters the rivers of France in the beginning of the autumn, in September ; and in Kamt- schatka and North America still later. In some countries this is called the salmon wind. They rush into rivers that are freest from ice, or where they are carried by the highest tide, favoured by the wind; they prefer those streams that are most shaded. They leave the sea in numerous bands, formed with great regularity. The largest individual, which is usually a female, takes the lead, and is followed by others of the same sex, two and two, each pair being at the distance of from three to six feet from the preceding one; next come the old, and after them the young males in the same order. The noise they make in their transit, heard from a distance, sounds like a far off storm. In the heat of the sun and in tempests, they keep near the bottom ; at other times they swim a little below the surface. In fair weather they move slowly, sporting as they go at the surface, and wandering again and again from their direct route ; but when alarmed they dart forward with such rapidity that the eye can scarcely follow them. They employ only three months in ascending to the sources of the Maragnon, the current of which is remarkably rapid, which is at the rate of nearly forty miles a day; ina smooth stream or lake, their progress would increase in a four- fold ratio. Their tail is a very powerful organ, and its mus- cles have wonderful energy ; by placing it in their mouth they Mook Se Ran BS. itm - a ae So tm Am ae 5 wae 3 Lo ee > ae See SSS So eae ~ Fe oS - bd > pe Sry: > eae >> ce ea i me te ee ey RE 64 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. make of it a very elastic spring, for letting it go with violence they raise themselves in the air to the height of from twelve to fifteen feet, and so clear the cataract that impedes their course ; if they fail in their first attempt, they continue their efforts till they have accomplished it. The female is stated to hollow out a long and deep excavation in the gravelly bed of the river to receive her spawn, and when deposited to cover it up, but this admits of some doubt. Amongst the migrations of fishes, I must not neglect those that take place in consequence of the water in the ponds or pools that they inhabit being dried up: some of these are very extraordinary, and prove that when the Creator gave being to these animals, he foresaw the circumstances in which they would be placed, and mercifully provided them with means of escape from dangers to which they were necessarily exposed. In very dry summers, the fishes that inhabit the above situ- ations, are reduced often to the iast extremities, and endeavour to relieve themselves by plunging, first their heads, and after- wards their whole bodies, in the mud to a considerable depth ; and so, though many in such seasons perish, some are pre- served till a rainy one again supplies them with the element so indispensable to their life. Carp, it is known, may be kept and fed a very long time in nets in a damp cellar, a faculty which fits them for retaining their vitality when they bury themselves at such a depth as to shelter them from the heat. But others, when reduced to this extremity, desert their na- tive pool, and travel in search of another that is better supplied with water. This has long been known of eels, which wind, by night, through the grass in search of water, when so circum- stanced. Dr Hancock, in the Zoological Journal, gives an account of a species of fish, called, by the Indians, the Flat- head Hassar, and belonging to a genus‘ of the family of the Siluridans, which is instructed by its Creator, when the pools, in which they commonly reside, in very dry seasons, lose their water, to take the resolution of marching by land in search of others in which the water is not evaporated. These fish grow to about the length of a foot, and travel in large droves with this view ; they move by night, and their motion is said to be like that of the two-footed lizard.? A strong serrated arm con- stitutes the first ray of its pectoral fin.* Using this as a kind 1 Doras. 2 Bipes. 3 Prater XII. Fic. 1. is a species of Callicthys, a fish of the same habits with the Doras. Fic. 2. is the pectoral ray of another Siluridan, which was dug up in a village near Barham, but which is not a fossil bone. MIGRATIONS. 65 ef foot, it should seem, they push themselves forwards, by means of their elastic tail, moving nearly as fast as a man will leisurely walk. The strong plates which envelope their body, probably, facilitate their progress, in the same manner as those under the body of serpents, which in some degree perform the office of feet. It is affirmed by the Indians, that they are fur- nished with an internal supply of water sufficient for their jour- ney, which seems confirmed by the circumstance that their ’ bodies when taken out of the water, even if wiped dry with a cloth, become instantly moist again. Mr Campbell, a friend of Dr Hancock’s, resident in Essequibo, once fell in with a drove of these animals, which were so numerous, that the In- dians filled several baskets with them. Another migrating fish was found by thousands in the ponds and all the fresh waters of Carolina, by Bosc ; and as these pools are subject to be dry in summer, the Creator has furnished this fish, as well as one of the flying ones,* by means of a membrane which closes its mouth, with the faculty of living out of water, and of travelling by leaps, to discover other pools. Bosc often amused himself with their motions when he had placed them on the ground, and he found that they always direct themselves towards the nearest water, which they could not possibly see, and which they must have discovered by some internal index; during their migrations they furnish food to numerous birds and reptiles. They belong to a genus of abdominal fishes,? and are called swampines. It is evident from this statement that these fishes are both fitted by their Creator, not only to exist, but also move along out of the water, and are directed by the instinct implanted by him, to seek the nearest pool that contains that element; thus furnishing a streng proof of what are called compensating contrivances ; neither of these fishes have legs, yet the one can walk and the other leap without them, by other means with which the Su- preme Intelligence has endowed it. I may here observe that the serrated bone, or first ray of the pectoral fin, by the assist- ance of which the flat-head appears to move, is found in other Siluridans, which leads to a conjecture that these may some- times also move upon land. Another fish,? found by Daldorff, in Tranquebar, not only creeps upon the shore, but even climbs the Fan palm* in pur- suit of certain Crustaceans which form its food. The struc- ture of this fish peculiarly fits it for the exercise of this re- 1 Exocetus. 2 Hydrargyra. 3 Perca scandens. 4 Borassus flabelliformis. I 66 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. markable instinct. Its body is lubricated with slime which facilitates its progress over the bark, and amongst its chinks ; its gill-covers are armed with numerous spines, by which, used as hands, it appears to suspend itself; turning its tail to the left, and standing, as it were, on the little spines of its anal fin, it endeavours to push itself upwards by the expansion of its body, closing at the same time its gill-covers, that they may not prevent its progress ; then expanding them again it reaches _, a higher point; thus, and by bending the spiny rays of its dorsal fins to right and left, and fixing them in the bark, it continues its journey upwards. ‘The dorsal and anal fins can be folded up and received into a cavity of the body. How exactly does this structure fit it for this extraordinary instinct. These fins assist it in certain parts of its route, and, when not employed, can be packed up so as not to hinder its progress. The lobes of its gill-covers are so divided and armed as to be employed together, or separately, as hands, for the suspension of the animal, till, by fixing its dorsal and anal fins, it prepares itself to take another step ; all showing the Supreme Intelligence and Almighty hand that planned and fabricated its. structure, causing so many organs, each in its own way, to assist In promoting a common purpose. The fan palm, in which this animal was taken by Daldorff, grew near the pool inhabited by these fishes. He makes no mention, however, of their object in these terrestrial excursions; but Dr Virey observes that it is for the sake of small Crustaceans, on which they feed. I shall name only one more animal that migrates for the great purpose of reproduction, and this is not the least interest- ing of them ; and, though it does not furnish so large a supply of food to the countries it passes through, as the migratory fishes, still it is useful in that respect: the animal I allude to is the land-crab. Several, indeed, of the crabs forsake the waters for a time, and return to them to cast their spawn; but the most cele- brated of all is that known by the above appellation, andalluded to by Dr Paley, under the name of the violet crab, and which is called by French the tourlourou.t| These crabs are natives of the West Indies and South America. In May and June, when the rainy season takes place, their instinct impels them to seek the sea, that they may fulfil the great law of their Creator, and cast their spawn. They descend the mountains, which are their usual abode, in such numbers, that the roads and woods are covered with 1 Gecarcinus carnifer. MIGRATIONS. 67 them. They feel an impulse so to steer their course, that they may travel by the easiest descent, and arrive most readily at the sea, the great object at which they aim. They resemble a vast army marching in battle array, without breaking their ranks, following always a right line; they scale the houses, and surmount every other obstacle that lies in their way. They sometimes even get into the houses, making a noise like that of rats, and when they enter the gardens they commit great devastations, destroying all their produce with their claws. They are said to halt twice every day, and to travel chiefly in the night. Arrived at the sea-shore, they are there reported to bathe three or four different times; when retiring to the neighbouring plains, or woods, they repose for some time, and then the females return to the water, and commit their eges to the waves. This business dispatched, they en- deavour to regain, in the same order, the country they had left, and by the same route, but only the most vigorous can reach the mountains. The greater part are so weak and lean, that they are forced to stop to recruit their strength in the first country they reach. When arrived again at their habitations, they have a new labour to undergo, for now is the time of their moult. They hide themselves in their subterranean retreats for this purpose, so that not a single one can be seen: they even stop up the mouth of their burrows. Some writers, however, affirm that they change their shells immediately after their oviposition. The respiration of these land-crabs, for a long time, had puzzled comparative anatomists.—They could not explain how animals, breathing by gills, could subsist so long. out of the water without these organs becoming useless. M. M. Au- douin, however, and Milne Edwards, cleared up the mystery by the discovery of a kind of trough, formed by the folds which line and constitute the parietes of the branchial cavity, and destined to contain and preserve a certain quantity of water proper to moisten the gills. One speciest has more than one pocket, or vesicle, filled with that fluid. This trough exists in the horsemen land-crabs,? but it is smaller, and a spongy mass furnishes the requisite moisture. The gills of the land-crahs, in other respects, do not differ from those of the tribe in general. God, when he formed these animals, would not separate them from their kind by a different mode of respiration, but by this compensating. contrivance he fitted them for the circumstances in which he decreed to place them, and for a long sojourn out of the water. 1 Gecarcinus Uca. 2 Ocypode. 68 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. What is the great object of this law of the Creator, that im- pels them to seek, in many cases, a mountain retreat, at a dis- tance from the ocean, which forms the liquid atmosphere fitted to the great body of the Crustaceans, has not hitherto, for want of sufficient and accurate details of their history, been made fully obvious. When insects leave the waters to become deni- zens of the earth and air, the object appears evidently an in- crease of food, not only for terrestrial animals, whether moving on the one or in the other, but to multiply even that of the in- habitants of the waters. When the day-fliest burst in such myriads from the banks of rivers which they inhabited in their first state, the fishes are all in motion, and often jump from the water to catch the living flakes that are every moment descend- ing. When in the water, or under it, these animals and the may-flies are defended, or concealed from the fishes, and there- fore are not so easy to come at; but now is their harvest, and when they drop their eggs, they fall towards the stream, and it is deemed a shower of manna. | The same object brings the several kinds of land-crabs a stated times to sea, to deposit their eggs where their young may reach a certain maturity, if not undergo a metamorphosis ; probably at this period there is an assemblage of aquatic de- vourers of Crustaceans, to share in the expected harvest. And during the route of the myriads that thus migrate to the sea, beasts and birds, and man himself, all partake of the feast thus provided for them. If we give this subject of the migration of animals due con- sideration, and reflect what would be the consequence if no animals ever changed their quarters, we shall find abundant reason for thankfulness to the Almighty Father of the universe, for the care he has taken of his whole family, and of his crea- ture man in particular, consulting not only his sustentation and the gratification of his palate by multiplying and varying his food, but also that of his other senses, by the beauty, mo- tions, and music of the animals that are his summer or winter visiters: did the nightingale forsake our groves, the swallow our houses and gardens, the cod-fish, mackarel, salmon, and herring our seas, and all the other animals that occasionally visit us their several haunts, how vast would be the abstrae- tion from the pleasure and comfort of our lives. By means of these migrations, the profits and enjoyments derivable from the animal creation are also more equally di- vided, at one season visiting the south, and enlivening their | Ephemera. MIGRATIONS. 69 winter, and at another adding to the vernal and summer de- lights of the inhabitant of the less genial regions of the north, and making up to him for the privations of winter. Had the Creator so willed, all these animals might have been organized so as not to require a warmer or a colder climate for the breed- ing or rearing of their young: but his will was, that some of his best gifts should thus oscillate, as it were, between two points, that the benefit they conferred might be more widely distributed, and not become the sole property of the inhabitants of one climate: thus the swallow gladdens the sight both of the Briton and the African; and the herring visits the coasts, and the salmon the rivers of every region of the globe. What can more strongly mark design, and the intention of an all- powerful, all-wise, and beneficent Being, than that such a va- riety of animals should be so organized and circumstanced as to be directed annually, by some pressing want, to seek dis- tant climates, and, after a certain period, to return again to their former quarters ; and that this instinct should be produc- tive of so much good to mankind, and, at the same time, be necessary, under its present circumstances, for the preserva- tion or propagation of the species of these several animals. There is another view that may be taken of this subject, equally showing the attention of the Almighty Father to the wants of every description of his creatures. The migrating tribes of almost every kind are attended by numerous bands of predaceous animals, which, as well as man, partake in the general harvest; the bears, wolves, foxes, dogs, and, in tropi- cal countries, other beasts of prey, hang on the flanks of the bands of emigrators, and capture and devour the stragglers. The vultures, and other carnivorous birds, follow and share in the spoil: and the emigrating fishes are attended by whole tribes of predaceous birds and fishes, which thin their numbers before they are taken by the nets of the fisherman. I am next to say something on the local distribution of ani- mals. By their local distribution, I mean their station in any given country. Under this head they may be divided into ter- restrial, amphibious, and aquatic. The local distribution of terrestrial animals is very diversified. Some inhabit the loftiest mountains, here the eagle builds its aérie, and the condor’ deposits its eggs on the bare rock; and 1 Sarcorhamphus Gryphus. ~ 20 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. here the chamois? often laughs at the efforts of the hunter, as- tonishing him by the ease with which it scours over the rocks, or with which it ascends or descends the most inaccessible pre- cipices. | Some animals, that in high latitudes are found in the plains, in a warmer atmosphere seek the mountains. Of this descrip- tion is the beautiful Apollo butterfly,? which, in Sweden is very common in the country and gardens about Upsal, while in France it is found only on mountains between three and four thousand feet above the level of the sea. I received very fine specimens collected by a friend in the Pyrenees. The common viper? also, which in northern Europe is found in the plains, in southern is found only on Alpine or Subalpine mountains. It has been observed by an ingenious and learned writer, that the terrestrial globe seems to be formed of two immense moun- tains, set base to base at the equator, and that upon each of. these hemispheres the vegetables and animals are generally placed in parallel zones, according to the degree of heat or cold. The exceptions to this rule, he further observes, are easy to be appreciated, and confirms its truth, since the mountains, the various elevations and depressions of the country, which even under the same parallel modify the ordinary temperature, pro- duce vegetables, and often animals, analogous to their several degrees of heat or cold. The lofty mountains in tropical coun- tries, exhibit from their base to their snow-clad summits, the same gradation as these hemispheres present in going from the equator towards the poles. The majority, however, of animals do not ascend such heights, but seek their subsistence in the plains, and less ele- vated regions; yet here a considerable difference obtains ac- cording to the nature of the soil and country. The vast sandy desaris of Africa and Asia, the Steppes of Tartary, the Llanos and Pampas of South America have their peculiar population ; in the former the camel, and his master the Arab, whose great wealth he constitutes, are indigenous; in the latter the horse and the Tartar who rides and eats him; or the Hispano-Ame- rican, and the herds of horses and oxen, returned to their wild and primitive type, who snares them with his lasso, and re- duces them again to the yoke of man. Numerous also are the peculiar animal productions to which different soils afford sub- sistence. The-sea-shore, sandy and barren wastes, woods and forests, arable lands, pasture, meadow and marsh, all are thus 1 Antilope Rupicapra. 2 Parnassius pollo. 3 Coluber berus. LOCAL. 71 distinguished ; every plant almost is inhabited by insects ap- propriated to it, every bird has its peculiar parasite or louse ;* and not only are the living animals so infested, but their car- casses are bequeathed to a numerous and varied army of dis- secters, who soon reduce them to a naked skeleton; nay, their very excrements become the habitation of the grubs of sundry kinds of beetles and flies. But not only is the surface of the earth and its vegetable clothing, thickly peopled with animals, but many, even quad- rupeds and reptiles, as well as insects and worms, are subter- ranean, and seek for concealment in dens, caves and caverns, or make for themselves burrows and tortuous paths at various depths under the soil, or seek for safety and shelter, by lurking under stones or clods, and all the dark places of the earth. To other animals, in order to pass gradually from such as are purely terrestrial, to those that are aquatic, Providence has given the privilege to frequent both the earth and the water ; some of which may be regarded as belonging to the former, and frequenting the latter, as water fowl of various kinds, the amphibious rat,*? the architect beaver,? many reptiles, and some insects; others again as belonging to the latter, and fre- quenting the former; for instance, the sea-otter,* and the dif- ferent kinds of seal> and morse,® the turtle,? the penguin,*® several insects,? and the water-newts.'° Other amphibious animals, if they may be so called, are aquatic at one period of their life, and terrestrial at another ; this is particularly exem- plified in some insects, thus the grubs of water-beetles,** those of dragon-flies,* may-flies,** ephemeral-flies,** water-moths,** gnats or mosquitos,** and several other two-winged flies, live in the water, while the perfect insect is either amphibious as the beetle, or terrestrial as the remainder. But no part of this terraqueous globe is more fully peopled, and with a greater variety and diversity of beautiful, or strange, or monstrous forms, than the waters, from the infinite ocean to the most insignificant pool or puddle. Every part and portion of the supposed element of water; nay, almost every drop of that fluid teems with life. Thousands of aquatic species are 1 Nirmus. 2 Lemmus amphibius. 3 Castor Fiber. 4 Enhydra marina. 5 Phoca. 6 Trichechus. 7 Chelonia Mydas. 8 Aptenodytes. 9 Dyticus, Gyrinus, Ranatra, &c. 10 Salamandre aquatice. ll Dyticide, Hydrophilide, Gyrinide. 12 Libellulina. 13 Trichoptera. 14. Ephemeride. 15 Hydrocampa. 16 Culex. | a GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. known, but myriads of myriads never have been seen and never will be seen by the eye of man. | Amongst those that inhabit fluids, none are more wonderful | than those that are termed Infusories ;+ because they are usu- ally found in infusions of various substances, &c. ; when dry, these animals lose all signs of life, but upon immersion, even after the lapse of years, they immediately awake from their torpor and begin to move briskly about. Even the air, accord- ing to Spallanzani, seems to contain the germs or eggs of these infinitesimals of creation, so that we swallow them when we breathe, as well as when we drink. With respect to animals more entirely aquatic, some inhabit, as the majority of sea-fishes and animals, salt waters only, some salt at one time and fresh at another, as the species of the salmon genus, the sturgeon, &c.; and some neauent brackish waters, as some flat-fish, and shell. fish. The bed of the mighty ocean is not only planted with a | variety of herbs, which afford pasture to many of its animal a | inhabitants, but it has other productions which represent a forest | of trees and shrubs, and are, strictly speaking, the first mem- bers of the zoological world, connecting it with the vegetable ; these are denominated Zoophytes or animal plants, and Poly- : pes (Polypus). 'This last name has been adopted from Aris- si a totle ; with him however and the ancients, it is evidently used ee | to designate the Argonaut? and Nautilus of the moderns, and . i | also to include some terrestrial shells. The Zoophytes how- ever are not confined to the ocean, every rivulet, and stagnant k: ditch or pool affords to some kinds, more commonly denom- {te inated Polypes, and also to some sponges, their destined habi- tation. An infinite army of shell-fish, whether multivalve, bivalve, or univalve, also cover the bed of the ocean, or move in its waters, and some dance gaily on its surface with ex- panded sails, or dashing oars when tempted by fair weather. From this brief view of the local distribution of animals and ae their various haunts, we see the care of Divine Providence, vith that no place, however, at first sight, apparently unfit, might Le be without its animal as well as vegetable population: if the bit hard rock is clothed with a lichen, ‘the lichen has. its inhab- ca | itant: and that inhabitant, besides affording an appropriate Bie food to the bird that alights upon the rock, or some parasite a that has been hatched in or upon its own body, assists in form- ee | ing asoil upon it. There is no place so horrible and fetid Het | 1 Infusoria, Acrita, Agastria, Amorpha, Microscopica. va 2 Argonauta, tf £4 is i | . ? a, *&y a LOCAL. oO from unclean and putrid substances, that is not cleansed and purified by some animals that are either its constant or noma- dic inhabitants. Thus life, a life attended in most cases, if not all, with some enjoyment, swarms every where—in the air, in the earth, under the earth, in the waters—there is no place in which the will of an Almighty Creator is not executed by some being that hath animal life. What Power is mani- fested in the organization and structure of these infinite hosts of existences ! what Wisdom in their adaptation to their several functions! and what Gocdness and stupendous Love in that universal action upon all these different and often discordant creatures compelling them, while they are gratifying their own appetites or passions, and following the lead of their several instincts, to,promote the good of.the whole system, combining into harmony almost universal discord, and out of seeming death and destruction bringing forth life and heaith and uni- versal joy! He who, as an ancient writer speaks, “ Contains all things,”* can alone thus act upon all things, and direct them in all their ways to acknowledge him by the accomplish- ment of each wise and beneficient purpose of his will. Philo. Judzus, in his book upon agriculture,” speaking of those words of the Psalmist, ‘“ The Lord is my shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing,” has the following sublime idea, ilustrative of this subject. ‘‘ God, like a shepherd and king, leads, according to right and law, the earth, and the water, and the air, and the fire, and whatever plants or animals are therein, things mortal and things divine ; the physical structure also of the heavens, and the circuit of the sun and moon; the revolutions and har- monious choirs of the other stars ; placing over them his right Word the first born Son, who hath inherited the care of this Holy Flock, as the Viceroy of a mighty King.” 1 Hermas. 2 Tepe pewpytac. 152. A. Kd. Col. Allob. A iy a yi ‘ a | a” PB. ma | eet y ahi a8 fe r i : i CHAPTER IL. Functions and Instincts of Animals. Havine, in the last chapter, stated how the dispersion and distribution of animals, under the Divine superintendence and direction, probably took place after the Deluge; and having likewise considered those temporary changes of place, either casual or periodical, which are still in operation, I shall next endeavour to give a general sketch of the animal kingdom, its classes and larger groups, and so much of their history, habits, and instincts, as may be necessary to indicate their several functions and offices in the general plan of creation, so as to illustrate more strikingly the Goopness that willed, the Wis- pom that planned, and the Power that executed the wondrous whole ; so that each in its place and station, by employing the faculties and organs, with which he has gifted it, in accom- plishing his will, praises, though unconsciously, its Almighty and Beneficent Creator, thus loudly calling upon man, the rational head of the creation, to take up the strain and lead the general choir. Before I descend to particulars, | must say a few words upon the general functions of the animal kingdom. These, like Janus, have a double aspect ;—on one side they affect the vegetable world, and on the other their own body. There is a singular contrast and contrariety between the majority of animals and vegetables. The head of the animal and the root or base of the vegetable perform the same office, that of collecting and absorbing the nutriment of each. The animal derives this nutriment from organic matter, the vegeta- ble from inorganic. The plant gives oxygen to the heaven, and falling leaves and other matters to the earth. The ani- mal gives nitrogen to the former, and the rejectamenta of its food to the latter. The most beautiful and admired, and odor- ous and elevated parts of the plant are its reproductive organs and their appendages, while in the animal they are the very reverse of this. But, in all this, we see the wisdom and forethought of the Creator. We see how exactly, by this mutual inversion, each FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS 15 class of beings is fitted for its station and functions. The plant to take root in, invest and ornament the earth, and keep the atmosphere pure by a constant supply of vital air; the ani- mal to browse and trim the vegetable, and by checking its luxuriance promote its welfare, to furnish it with a product calculated for its health and necessary to its existence ; and by the manure, various in kind as the animals themselves, which it produces, supplying to the earth fresh pabulum for its vege- table tribes, and making good what it lost by the exhaustion, occasioned by the infinite myriads that, investing it on all sides like a garment, derive their nutriment from it, some plunging deep, and others, as it were, skimming the surface: if we contrast this with the returns they make, we shall be convinced that, in this case, the expenditure would vastly ex- ceed the income, and that a class of beings was essentially necessary as a counterpoise, which, by taking little or nothing immediately from the soil, at the same time that they added to it, some in a greater and some in a less degree, might afford a sufficient supply of those principles which are indispensably requisite for the due nutriment and development of the vari- ous members of the vegetable kingdom, and thus maintain an equilibrium, and make good the deficiency just stated. There is another function which is devolved upon animals with respect to the vegetable kingdom; to keep the members of it within due limits, and to hinder them from encroaching too much upon each other. All organized beings have a na- tural tendency to increase and multiply; and while there is space this tendency is beneficial; but when plants or animals exceed certain limits, they stand in each other’s way, and pre- vent all further growth or healthy progress. The herbivorous animals, in various ways, serve as a countercheck to this tend- ency, and keep the vegetable tribes from encroaching too much upon each other. As I have detailed the effects of this when I spoke of the ravages of the locusts, and shall have occasion again to notice it, I shall not now enlarge further upon it. I am next to consider another general function of animals, or the effects they produce upon their own body: and here the reason just alluded to, their constant tendency to multiply so as to be injurious to each other, and also to vegetable produc- tions, especially those that are important to man or beast, which in the present state of things is so constantly recurring, renders it necessary that some bounds should be set to their increase, which Providence effects by letting them loose against each other. The great object of the Creator is the mainte- nance of the whole system of creation in order and beauty, and 16 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. this he is pleased to accomplish, not always by the concord but by the seeming discord of the agents he employs. When we take a first view of nature we are struck by a scene which seems to be one of universal conflict, for the very heavens appear not clear from the charge: the philosopher who studies them tells us of antagonist powers, that are per- petually striving with each other, the one to absorb all things in a common centre, the other to dissever them, and scatter them in illimitable space, and when we turn to the earth, what a scene of destruction is before us! The king of the terrestrial globe, man, constantly engaged in a struggle with his fellow man, often laying waste the earth, slaughtering its inhabitants, and deforming its productions—his subjects of the animal kingdom following the example of their master, and pitilessly destroying each other—the strong oppressing the weak, and most seeming bent to annihilate the races to which they are opposed; so that, humanly speaking, in the lapse of ages, we might expect that one species of animals would be annihilated after another, till the whole were obliterated from the face of creation, and the sublime language of the prophet literally verified ; “‘ I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the air were fled.” But if, with our spirits depressed, by the prospect of so uni- versal a scene of mutual struggles and destruction, we listen again to the philosopher, he will tell us that the ceaseless struggle of the antagonist powers of the heavens prevents, in- stead of causing disorder and confusion, that by the powerful and mutual counteraction of these mighty opponents, all the heavenly bodies of our system are prevented from rushing to the centre, or being driven, dispersed into their atoms, beyond the flammantia menia mundi; that thus their annual and diur- nal revolutions are maintained, that each observes its appointed course, keeps its assigned station, and ministers to the good and well-being of the whole system. If then we turn our view again to the earth, and take a nearer survey of things— if we consider the present tendency to multiply, beyond mea- sure, of all things that have life, we shall soon be convinced that, unless this tendency was met by some check, the world of animated beings would be perpetually encroaching upon each other, and would finally perish for want of sufficient food; and that the partial evils inflicted by one individual or one class upon another, to borrow a term from the Political FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. V7 Economist, proportions the demand to the supply; that thus both vegetables and animals are so accurately distributed, weighed so nicely against each other, as never to goa step beyond what God decrees, and what is most beneficial to the whole system; and that the actual number of every kind bears due relation to the work it has to do; and, upon closer inquiry, we find, that though since the creation, probably in conse- quence of the great change in the moral state of the world, superinducing physical changes also, some species no longer necessary may have perished, yet that, in general, they have maintained their ground from age to age, in spite of the at- tacks of the great army of destroyers. To maintain things in this state, thus to “order all things in measure, number, and weight,” as the wise man speaks, to cause all so to harmonize, and so out of death and destruction to bring forth life, indi- cates still more strongly the constant and wise superintend- ence, and powerful arm of a watchful Providence, and de- monstrates irrefragably that there is a Great Being constantly at work, either mediately or immediately, to produce effects that, without his constant superintendence and intervention, could never take place. And thus, as sings the bard of Twickenham, ) “¢ All nature is but art unknown to thee, All chance direction which thou canst not see, All discord harmony not understood, All partial evil, universal good.” f ia i ; ym at | "ay Piet \ rh oe = | —_ a CHAPTER IV. Functions and Instinets of the Infusory Animals. As at the original creation of the animal kingdom, it was the will of the Supreme Being to begin at the foot of the scale and to terminate with man, who was at its summit, thus making a eradual progress towards the most perfect being it was his will to create, and ending with him: so I think it will best mani- fest his power and perfections if I endeavour to trace out the footsteps of the Deity in the same direction as he proceeded; and instead of beginning, as is usually done by systematical writers, with the highest grade of animals, if I ascend upwards from the lowest. Our first inquiry must be what are these lowest animals? And are there any organized bodies that partake of two na- tures, that are either animal at one period of their existence and vegetable at another, or else are partly animal and partly vege- table? These doubtful forms must be sought for amongst what have been denominated /first-plants* and _first-animals ;* amongst the former is a certain genus or tribe* of plants, which are distinguished not only by their simple structure, but also by an oscillatory movement which seems to connect them, in some degree, with the animal kingdom. When collected in masses they resemble a piece of green velvet. Some cover considerable spots in moist places; others live in the water, either fixed to substances contained in it, or floating on the surface. They are generally based on a mucilaginous sub- stance, the remains of those that, having fulfilled their func- tions, are become a caput mortuum. The filaments of which the living plant is composed continually oscillate from right to left, or from left to right, but very irregularly, some going in one direction, others in another; some remaining stationary while others continue in motion. Professor Agardh inclines to the opinion that these oscillat- ing plants owe their existence to different species of animalcules, which at first swim about as animals, and afterwards fix them- 1 Protophyta. 2 Protozoa. 3. Oscillatorie. Vauch. : selves as plants. This opinion has been adopted by others ; and lately Mr Unger has stated that he has seen animated particles separate from the parent plant, in a few hours con- verted into globules of vegetable matter, which subsequently became plants perfectly similar to the individual from which they were produced. But surely the motions of these seeds or germs, may be merely mechanical, and may be necessary to enable them properly to fix themselves, somewhat analogous to those me- chanical contrivances by which the seeds of numerous plants, as those of the dandelion and cranesbill, are transported to a distance and enabled to enter the soil and fix themselves in it. That any creature should begin life as an animal and end it as a plant seems to contradict the general analogy of creation, and requires much stronger proofs than appear to have been adduced in the present case, before it can be admitted. The motions of the oscillating plants are not very different from those of the stamina of some, and of the leaves of others, as the Hedysarum gyrans; yet Adanson has proved that the vi- brations of the filaments are the same both in hot and cold weather, and that the aquatic species are equally sensible with the terrestrial, therefore the movement can scarcely be caused by the temperature. But as analogous motions were observed by Mr Brown in spherical and other molecules obtained from vegetables, it is evident that such motions do not necessarily indicate an animal, but only a kind of attraction and repulsion produced by an uncertain cause. Another argument proves their vegetable nature, these plants give out oxygen, whereas if they were animals they would absorb oxygen and give out azote. Professor Agardh illustrates his opinion just stated by the following fanciful allusion. When thus fixed he considers these beings as no longer having any animal life, but as pre- serving the appearance of it, ‘Like those men of Plato,” adds he, “agitated by eternal regret with which the remembrance of a happy life, the sweets of which they formerly tasted, inspires them; always oscillating, never tranquil, they seem aiming at the recovery of that happy life which they have lost.” The locomotions, however, of the germes of these Hydrophytes, and their oscillatory movements when fixed, indicate at least a semblance of animality, and an approach to the confines of the animal kingdom. Leaving, therefore, these doubtful forms, as having no just claim to be considered as animals, I shall now proceed to those whose right to that title is generally acknowledged: And here INFUSORIES. 79 80 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. two very different tribes start up and prefer their claim to be first considered; the Infusories, namely, and those which have been called Polypes and Zoophytes. But since the first of these two classes, by means of one of its tribes, as its great oracle, Ehrenberg, remarks, approaches the oscillating plants,—I shall consider it as the basis on which the Deity has built the ani- mal kingdom. Indeed, though the Polypes at first sight appear most to resemble the higher plants, in their general configuration, the Infusories, as well as coming nearer to the lowest by some of their members, in others exhibit no slight analogy to seeds. Of all the groups of animals those of the least consequence, one would think, must be those that for the most part escape the inguring eye unless aided by a microscope. The infuso- ries, or as they have been also called animaleules, microscopic animals, acrita or indiscernibles, amorpha or without form, are of this description. These wonderful little creatures, though they are every where dispersed, remain like seeds, without ap- parent life or motion, perhaps after animation has been sus- pended for years, till they come in contact with some fluid, when they are immediately reanimated, move about in various directions, absorb their proper nutriment, and exercise their reproductive powers according to the law of their several na- tures. Yet these little animals, though in some respects they exhibit no slight analogy to vegetables, are not only distin- guished from them by their irritability, but likewise by their organization, and powers of locomotion and voluntary action. Their mode of reproduction, however,. is not far removed from that of some vegetables ; they are spontaneously divisible, some longitudinally and others transversely, and these cuttings, if they may be so called, as in the Hydra or common Polype, become separate animals. They are also propagated by germs, and some appear to be viviparous. The species of Vibrio found in diseased wheat by M. Bauer is oviparous, as is evident from his observations and admirable figures. Lamarck indeed regards them as having no volition, as taking their food by absorption like plants; as being without any mouth, or in- ternal organ; in a word, as transparent gelatinous masses, whose motions are determined not by their will, but by the ac- tion of the medium in which they move. That they have nei- ther head, eyes, muscles, vessels, nerves, nor indeed any parti- cular determinable organ, whether for respiration, generation, or even digestion. On account of these supposed negative characters, they were called by De Blainville, 4gastria, or stomachless, as having no intestines ; but Ehrenberg, who has INFUSORIES. 81 studied them in almost every climate, has discovered, by keep- ing them in coloured waters, that they are not the simple ani- mais that Lamarck and others supposed, and that almost all have a mouth and digestive organs, and that numbers of them have many stomachs. Spallanzani, and other writers that preceded Lamarck, had observed that their motions evidently indicated volition : this appeared from their avoiding each other and obstacles in their way; from their changing their direction and going faster or slower as occasion required ; from their pass- ing suddenly from a state of rest to motion without any external impulse; from their darting eagerly at particles of infused sub- stances; from their incessantly revolving on themselves without a change of place ; from their course against the current ; and from their crowding to shallow places of the fluid in which they are: each species seems also to exhibit a peculiar kind of instinct. Lamarck thinks all this delusion proceeding from errors in judgment, and the result of prejudices inducing people readily to believe what accords with their persuasions. But to apply this remark to such observers as Spallanzani, &c., is drawing rather largely on the credulity of his readers, who might very justly change the tables and apply it to himself, who is certainly as much chained by system as any one can be. Admitting that the observations of Spallanzani just sta- ted record facts, it appears clearly to follow from them that these animals have volition, and therefore cannot properly be denominated apathetic, or insensible. The fact that they al- most all have a mouth and a digestive system ; many of them eyes, and some rudiments of a nervous one, implies a degree, more or less, of sensation in them all, and consequently that they have all, whether it be molecular and diffused in their substance, or confined to particular organs, I say that they have all a nervous influence and excitement sufficient for their several wants, corresponding with their several natures. These minim animals may be said almost to be universally dispersed ; they inhabit the sea, the rivers, and other waters ; are supposed to float in the air; they are found in the blood and urine ; in the tartar of the teeth ; in animal substances ; in vinegar ; in paste ; in vegetable substances ; in fruits, seeds, and grain; in sand; amongst tiles; in wells; on mountains, &c. Their numbers are infinite; hundreds of thousands may be seen in a single drop of water; their minuteness is extreme, some being not more than 51,5 part of a line in length, and yet these atoms of animals have a mouth and several stomachs. Let a man, says Dalyell, the translator of Spallanzani, conceive himself in a moment conveyed.to a region where L 82 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. the properties, and the figure and motions of every animal are unknown. The amazing varieties of these will first at- tract his attention. One is a long slender line; another an eel or serpent; some are circular, eliptical, or triangular; one is a thin flat plate; another like a number of reticulated seeds ; several have a long tail, almost invisible ; or their pos- terior part is terminated by two robust horns; one is like a funnel ; another like a bell, or cannot be referred to any object familiar to our senses. Certain animalcules can ehange their figure at pleasure :*+ sometimes they are extended to immode- rate length, then almost contracted to nothing ; sometimes they are curved like a leech, or coiled like a snake ; sometimes they are inflated, at others flaccid; some are opaque while others are scarcely visible from their extreme transparence. No less singular is the variety of their motions ;—several swim with the velocity of an arrow, so that the eye can scarcely follow them; others appear to drag their body along with diffi- culty, and move like the leech ; and others seem to exist in perpetual rest ; one will revolve on its centre, or the anterior part of its head; others move by undulations, leaps, oscilla lions, or successive gyrations ;—in short, there is no kind of animal motion, or other mode of progression, that is not prac- tised by animalcules. Their organs are equally various. Some appear to take their food by absorption, having no mouth, to this tribe belong what have been called vinegar eels; others have a mouth and several stomachs, but no orifice for the transmission of their excrements; others, again, have both a mouth and anal pas- sage, and what is wonderful, in such minute creatures, some- times as many as forty or fifty stomachs ;* though many are without eyes, others are furnished with these useful organs, some having one, others two, others three, and others four; some have processes resembling legs. In the second Class of these animals, the Rotatories, to which the wheel-animalcules be- long, the internal organization approaches to that of the higher classes, for they exhibit the rudiments of a nervous system; their alimentary canal is simple; they have a branch- ing dorsal vessel, but without a systole and diastole; their pharynx is usually furnished with mandibles, which are some- times armed with teeth. The mouth of the majority, espe- cially amongst the rotatories, is fringed with ray-like bristles, which Cuvier thinks are connected with their respiration. This circumstance of a circle of rays surrounding the oral , ' t Prave L Fig. 3. — 2 Leucophrys, Enchelis, &c. INFUSORIES. 83 orifice, is found in the polypes and several other animals of a higher grade. Their use in the present instance, I speak more particularly of the wheel-animalcules, is by their rotation to produce a current in the water to the mouth of the animal, bringing with it the still more minute beings which constitute its food. These invisible inhabitants of the visible world created an early interest in inquisitive minds; Dr Henry Power, and after him the celebrated Hooke, about the middle of the seventeenth century, or earlier, noticed, what were called vinegar eels.’ Sir E. King, in the Philosophical Transactions, described some experiments on the animalcules found in pepper water; and, subsequently, Mr Harris made observations upon a variety of these minute creatures. The subject was afterwards taken up by various writers, both here and on the continent. Amongst these none was more eminent than Spallanzani. O. F. Miil- ler, who seems to have been the first who treated the subject systematically, embodied these animals in a Class by the name of Infusories.2 He was followed by Bruguiere and Lamarck, who divided it into Orders and Sections. But the system of these zoologists has for the most part been set aside by Ehrenberg, a Prussian naturalist, before-mentioned, who devoted ten years of his life to the investigation of these ani- mals, for which he was particularly qualified by his previous studies and employment, the anatomy of the Molluscans of the Red Sea, by which he had been accustomed to the use of microscopes and micrometers. His researches on the Infusories, during Baron de Humboldt’s last journey, extend to more than fifty degrees of longitude, and fourteen degrees of latitude ;— he went as far as Dongola in Africa, and the Altai mountains in Asia, and examined these animals in a great variety of situations. He found them on Mount Sinai; swarms of vari- ous species in the wells of the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon; and at a considerable depth in some Siberian mines, in places en- tirely deprived of light. He considers them, it should seem, as forming a Sub-king- dom, which he denominates Plant-animals. This sub-kingdom he divides into two Classes. The first, from the number of stomachs,* with which the genera belonging to it are furnished, he names, Polygastrica, or many-stomached, probably, to con- trast with De Blainville’s name before-mentioned. Thesecond class he calls Rotaiories,® consisting of the ciliated Polypes of 1 Vibrio Anguilla. 2 Infusoria. 3 Phyto-zoa. 4 Prare I. Fic. 1. 5 Rotatoria. e = a ss et a see be sae = aaa ep ere ae ee ak ee one of the most wonderful works of the Creator. Its mouth is sur- rounded by eight long fleshy arms, or rather legs, somewhat conical in shape, and acute at the end, moved by innumerable nerves, furnished from numerous ganglions: these legs can bend in every direction with the utmost vigour and activity, their surface is furnished with many suckers, by which they can fix themselves strongly to any thing they wish to lay hold 1 Lepus marinus, Plin. 2 Hist. An. 1. v. c. 16. 3. Dibranchiata. 4 Tetrabranchiata. 5 Sema. 7 CEPHALOPODS. 165 of, and by means of which, like the star-fish,+ they can move from place to’place. When this animal walks, in this resem- bling also the star-fish and sea-urchin,? it moves with its head and mouth downwards and its body elevated. It swims also and seizes its prey by means of these organs: besides these arms or legs, for they perform the functions of both, there is a pair of long organs, one on each side, having their origin between the first and second pair of legs, which are incrassated at the end, where, also, they are furnished with many suckers. Cu- vier supposes they use these as anchors to maintain them in their station during tempests, and as prehensile instruments, by which they can seize their prey ata distance. In the centre of the legs is the mouth, surrounded by a tubular membranous lip, including a beak, consisting of two mandibles, like that of a paroquet; these mandibles or jaws are crooked, and the upper one fits into the lower as a sliding lid into a box. With these redoubtable jaws the cuttle-fish devours fishes, crusta- ceans and even shell-fish, which receive a further trituration in its muscular crop and its gizzard. By means of the suckers on their legs and arms, they lay such fast hold of their prey as to deprive. them of all power of motion; thus they master in- dividuals much larger than themselves. The hard and often spinose crust of crabs or lobsters cannot withstand the action of their trenchant jaws, aud they do not fear the gripe of their claws. Their large eyes, which resemble those of vertebrated animals, by their look of ferocity, are enough to create an alarm in the animals they pursue, and are said to see in the night as well as theday. So that although they are not like Pontoppi- dans Kraken—the notion of which is thought to have been taken from a large cuttle-fish—half a league in circumference, so as to be mistaken for floating islands, yet they are reaily as tremendous animals, their size considered, as any that Provi- dence has commissioned to keep within due limits the populace of the waters. | One of their most remarkable and unique features, is the manner in which circulation takes place in them. They have three hearts; the principal one, seated in the middle, sends the blood through the arteries: the blood returns by a vena cava, which dividing into two branches, carries it to the two lateral hearts, each of which sends it to the gills for oxygenation, whence it returns again by the intermediate heart. The Octopus, called by the French writers the Poulpe, pro- bably a contraction of polype, differs from the common cuttle- 1 See above, p. 108. 2 - Ibid. p. 114. 166 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. fish, having neither the arms nor long tentacles of that animal, and instead of the large heavy bone has only two small carti- lages. This different structure is rendered necessary by the difference in their habits. The body of the octopus is small, and it has legs sometimes a foot and a half in length, with about two hundred and forty suckers on each leg, arranged, except near the mouth, ina double series ; so that it walks with ease. They are often out of the water, and frequent rough places, are excellent swimmers, and move rapidly in the water with their head behind. The cuttle-fish, whose legs are short and body heavy, prefer the bottom, and do not attempt to swim, for which they are not well fitted. Providence has, therefore, given them their long arms to compensate for the shortness of their legs. A remarkable peculiarity distinguishes these animals. They are furnished with an organ which secretes a black fluid, with which they can produce an obscurity in the water that sur- rounds them, on any appearance of danger, or to conceal them- selves from their prey. The Chinese are said to use it in making the ink that bears the name of their country ; some- thing similar, but not so black, is prepared from it in Italy; and Cuvier used it to colour the plates for his memoir on these animals. The second order of cephalopods, or at least the pearly nau- tilus, differs in several respects from those which constitute the first, and which I have just described, approaching much nearer to the Molluscans. The most striking approximation, and which first catches the eye of the examiner is its shell, which, though its spiral convolutions are not externally visible, exhibits a general resemblance to a univalve shell. To a per- son who had the opportunity of witnessing the motions of the animal that inhabits it, the first thing that would strike hin, would be the means by which it progressed upon the bed of the sea, he would see no motion produced by the action of tenta- cular legs furnished with suckers, like those of the cuttle-fish, but instead of it, by a smgle expansive organ, exhibiting con- siderable resemblance to the foot of a snail. This organ, Mr. Owen, led by the nervous system, regards as surmounting the head and as its principal instrument for locomotion. The oral organs of this animal are much more numerous and compli- cated than those of the cuttle-fish, and are furnished with no suckers. Its tentacles are retractile within four processes, each pierced by twelve canals protruding an equal number of these organs, so that in all there are forty-eight. In fact, the whole oral apparatus, for the full description of which I must OEPHALOPODS. 167 refer the reader to Mr. Owen’s excellent tract, except the man- dibles and the lip, is formed upon a plan different from that of the cuttle-fish, as likewise from that of the carnivorous trache- lipod Molluscans, and indicates very different modes of entrap- ping and catching their prey. The eye, also, Mr. Owen states to be reduced to the simplest condition that the organ of vision can assume, without depart- ing altogether from the type of the higher classes, so that it seems not far removed from that of the proper Molluscans. In this animal there is only a single heart, the branchial ones | being wanting. There is one circumstance which proves this cephalopod to belong to this shell, and not to be a parasitic animal as that of the argonaut has been supposed to be—it is this, though the whole body appears to reside in the last and largest concame- ration of the shell, yet there is a small tubular tail-like process which enters the siphon, but which unfortunately was muti- lated, only a small piece being left, but enough to show that the animal had power over the whole shell by means of this. organ, hence it follows that a Cephalopod is the animal that forms the shell of the nautilus, and its natural inhabitant, which goes a great way towards settling the controversy con- cerning the real animal of the argonaut, and amounts almost to a demonstration that the celebrated sailor that uses it asa boat, and scuds gaily in it over the ocean, is no pirate that has murdered its natural owner, but sails in a skiff of his own build- ing. The only circumstance that now leaves any doubt in the mind of the inquirer, is the very different nature of the cepha- lopod of the argonaut and the nautilus, the former appearing to be nearly related to the octopus or poulpe, and belonging to the genus Ocyihée of Rafinesque. In this genus the tentacu- lar legs or arms are similar to those of the poulpes, planted on the inner side with a double series of sessile suckers, the second pair having a membranous dilatation at their apex,* which the animal is supposed to use as a sail when it moves on the surface of the sea. Some naturalists deny that this ani- mal ever uses these organs for sailing or rowing, but Bosc ex- pressly asserts, and I am not aware that there is any reason to doubt his veracity, that he has seen hundreds of the argonauts rowing over the surface of the sea, in calm days, at so small a distance from the vessel in which he was sailing, that though he could not catch one, he could observe all their manceuvres ;. 1 See Zool. Journ. n. Xiii. t. iil. 168 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. he further says, that they employ their dilated tentacle some- times as a sail and sometimes as an oar. When we consider how many instances are upon record of Molluscans being fitted with organs that enable them to catch the wind and sail on the surface of the sea,* there is nothing contradictory either to analogy or probability that the argo- naut should do the same, especially when we consider how universally this idea has prevailed, from the time, at least, of Pliny and Oppian, both of whom describe its sails with suf- ficient accuracy. Aristotle also speaks of his polype, which is evidently a cephalopod, as a sailor by nature—he says, that when it rises from the deep it is in a subverted shell, rendering that action more easy and keeping the shell empty, but that when arrived at the surface it reverses it; that it spreads its sail to the wind, and when that blows, letting down its two cirri, one on each side, uses them to steer with. Upon comparing the animal of the nautilus with that of the argonaut, it appears evident, though the gills of the latter seem not to have been examined, that they belong to different Orders, at least, every probability rests on that side; yet every thing speaks the relationship of the latter to the octopus, and therefore they would properly form a section of the dibranchiata of Mr Owen. In fact, the oral organs of the former are so widely different from those of the Order just mentioned, that one would almost expect another to connect them. This probably lies dormant amongst the fossil ammonites, the shells of many of which, though consisting of many chambers, are evidently intermediate between the nautilus and argonaut. We must next inquire what was the object of Him, who does nothing but with a view to some useful, though not al- ways evident, end, in producing these miniature monsters of the deep, so wonderfully organized and so unlike every other tribe of animals, in his creation, and yet containing in them, as we have seen, as it were, the elements, whether we ascend or descend, of all the rest. It appears from the united testi- mony of almost every writer that has noticed them, that they have it in charge to keep within due limits, a tribe of animals, almost equally destructive with themselves, and which are armed also with weapons of offence, apparently equally terrific to their prey. It will be readily perceived that I am speaking of the Crustaceans, and of the formidable pincers with which they seize their prey. It must be a curious spectacle to see one of the larger poulpes attack a lobster; at first sight, we should 1 See above, p. 142. CEPHALOPODS. 169 think the latter most likely to master his assailant, covered as he is with a hard crust, and using adroitly his powerful for- ceps, we should feel sure that the cuttle-fish, with his soft body and oral organs equally soft, stood no chance against such an antagonist. But He who gave him his commission, has fitted him for the execution of it, his soft tentacular or- gans will bend in every direction, and the numerous suckers wherewith they are planted, by pumping out the medium that forms the atmosphere of marine animals, produce such a pressure wherever they are fixed, that, struggle as it may, it cannot disengage itself from the grasp of its assailant; and, by their flexibility, these organs can imitate the fishermen, and tie together the two pieces of the forceps, so that it cannot bite; thus, at last, it is brought within the action of the powerful beak of the cuttle-fish, which soon makes its way through its crust, and devours it shell and all. Even when at a distance, by means of its long arms, the cuttle-fish can lay hold of it and drag it towards it; and the poulpe, which has not these arms, makes up for it by having longer legs. The argonaut probably uses similar means to master its prey, and finds some defence in its shell, but the nautilus has a still stronger castle, which it may be supposed defies the bite of the Crustacean; its-oral organs are calculated for closer com- bat, but the tentacles appear less adapted for holding fast their prey, not being visibly furnished with suckers, but what they Want in power is made up in numbers, since in lien of eight or ten tentacular organs, they have nearly a hundred. So diversified are the ways and instruments by which infinite wis- DOM, POWER, and GoopnEss enables its creatures to fulfil the ends for which he created them: and so an equilibrium is main- tained in every part of creation. The fossil species are mostly called by one name, Ammonites, as if they were the horns of the Egyptian Jupiter, and which, if any of them are now in existence, probably frequent the depths of ocean, and do not, like the argonaut or nautilus, visit its surface, to tell an admiring world, that God has created such wonderful beings. Specimens have been found of the enormous diameter of six feet. Though the sculpture of many of these great cephalopods gives reason to think that they may be intermediate between the argonaut and nautilus, yet the convolutions and external form of their conchs gives them no small resemblances to a genus of snails,‘ the species of which are often found in fresh waters, except that in this the 1 Planorbis. 170 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. . shell is more concave on one side than the other. The genus Spirula, the animal of which appears also to be a Cephalopod, seems to exhibit the first tendency to this form. Amidst all this variety of Molluscous animals, exhibiting such diversity in their structure and organization, in their habits, food, modes of life, and stations, one great object seems attained by their creation especially, the production of calcare- ous matter. Even the shells of terrestrial testaceans, if we consider the vast numbers that every year perish, must add in no trifling degree to the quantity of that matter on the earth, and probably make up for the continual waste or employment of it, so as to maintain the necessary equilibrium ; but in the ocean, the quantity added to that produced by corallines, must be exceedingly great, even in lakes beds are formed of the deposits of the shell-fish inhabiting them, how much more gigantic must they be in the ocean, this will be evident from the superior number and size of the oceanic shells compared with the minute species, the Limnea, Planorbis, &c. that in- habit our lakes and pools. Thus, as reefs and islands are formed by the coral animals, the bed of the ocean may be elevated by the shellsof dead testaceous ones. That eye which is never closed, that thought which is never intermitted, that power which never rests, but, engaged in incessant action, and employing infinite hosts of under-agents to effect his purposes, sees and provides for the wants of the whole creation: the plant absorbs from the soil, the animal after devouring the plant, or the plant-fed creature, returns to the earth what the plant had absorbed, and so maintains the proper equilibrium; He who numbers the hairs of our head, numbers the workmen that he employs, employing them only in such proportions so distri- buted, as may best accomplish His purposes. 1 Prats VII. Fie. 2. CHAPTER XI. Functions and Instincts. Worms. WE are now at length, after long wanderings, arrived, if I may so speak, at the limits of the Molluscan territory, and, having visited the capital, seem now to be upon the confines of the higher hemisphere of the animal kingdom, the inhabitants of which are distinguished by having their whole frame built upon a vertebral column, inclosing a medullary chord, and termi- nating, at its upper extremity, in a skull containing a developed brain. But though we seem arrived at the confines of this higher order of animals, there are still many, and some superior to the most perfect of the Molluscans, in the entirety of their nervous system, and the habits and instincts which they manifest, to which we have not yet paid the attention that they merit. These animals are particularly distinguished from the preceding Classes, by the appearance, or actual existence of segments or joints in their bodies, especially in their legs, of what may be called an annular structure. They are divided into two great tribes, which, from this circumstance, have been called Annelidans, and Annulosans, and the last, with more propriety, Condylopes. There is one tribe, however, amongst the Radiaries, as we have seen, that shows some slight traces of insection, I allude to the star-fish and sea-urchins, forming the main body of La- marck’s Order of Echinoderms. If we examine the former, we find them marked out into areas, and in the latter, as I have before stated at large, the whole shell consists of nu- merous pieces united by different kinds of sutures. Before I call the reader’s attention to the two tribes lately mentioned, exhibiting the appearance or reality of insection, I must notice an anomalous tribe of animals, whose real station has not been satisfactorily made out. I am speaking of the Entozoa or Intestinal Worms. This Class, as Mr W.S. Mac Leay has remarked, consists‘of animals differing widely in their organization, some having a regular nervous system formed by a medullary collar sending forth two threads, while others have no distinct organs of sense. 172 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Lamarck places this Class between the Tunicaries and In- sects, and Cuvier, amongst his Zoophytes, between the Gelatines and Echinoderms. Mr Mac Leay has divided it into two classes, placing one, consisting of the Parenchymatous intestinal worms of Cuvier, between the Infusories and Polypes, and the Cavitaries of that author, amongst the Annulosans or Condylopes. Dr Von Baer is of opinion that these Entozoa, or worms, reducible to no common type of organization, inhabiting various animals in various parts of their body, together with the Infusories— and others might be added—should be banished from a natural arrangement of animals. He seems also to think, in which I feel disposed to agree with him, that the leading types of ani- mal organization are to be found in its lowest grades.* As I formerly observed with respect to the Infusories*—these appear to be the basis on which God has built the animal kingdom. As some of the species appear connected with the Annelidans, I have introduced the Class here, but not as having formed any settled opinion as to its proper division and legitimate station. The majority of this Class are, what their name imparts, in- testinal worms, or parasites, that have their station within the body of other animals. Some of them, however, do not answer this description, as they are found only amongst aquatic vege- tables ; of this kind is a little tribe, which Linné arranged with the leeches,? to which they approach by the flukes. The Plan- aria, 10 some respects, partakes more of the nature of a polype than of any other animal. Draparnaud, who paid particular attention to them, says that when young they have only two eyes, and acquire two more whenadult. The head has no mouth; beyond the middle of the body, and on its under side, is a single orifice which serves for mouth, anus, and nostrils. This orifice answers to a long sac, which is the intestinal tube; from it sometimes issues a white tubublar organ, which he re- gards as respiratory ; this organ is doubtless the same with the retractile trumpet-shaped proboscis, issuing from a circular aperture in the middle of the abdomen, mentioned by Dr John- son in his interesting paper on these animals in the Philoso- phical Transactions, which he supposes to be a kind of mouth, when extended, equalling in length the animal itself.° This remarkable organ was also noticed by Miiller and Mr Dalyell. The circumstance of its receiving and extruding its aliment and respiring at the same orifive, isa clear approximation to the 1 See Zool. Journ. July—October, 1828, 260. 2 See above, p. 80. 3 Hirudo. 4 Fasciola. Distoma. 5 Philos. Trans. 1825. i. 254. ¢. xvi. f. 10. WORMS. 173 polype. A further confirmation of this is the power this ani- mal possesses of spontaneously dividing itself for the purpose of reproduction. M. Draparnaud—after remarking that the species he described, which he calls P. tentaculata, and which is probably synonymous with that particularly noticed by Dr Johnson under the name of P. cornuta, is oviparous in the spring and gemmiparous in the autumn—observes, that, in the latter season, it divides itself spontaneously and transversely into two parts above the abdominal orifice, and at the end of ten days each of these parts has acquired the head or the tail that it wanted. He has divided individuals into many transverse ‘ pieces and two longitudinal ones, and every piece, in due time, completed itself. It formed eyes, an intestinal tube, and other necessary organs. Mr Dalyell and Dr Johnson subsequently made similar ob- servations, and by dividing the head had succeeded in produc- ing an animal with two heads; the latter, from the result of several observations, found that each individual, upon an average, might, by spontaneous self-division, produce ten, and this when under constraint; if at liberty, and in their na- tural situation, we may conjecture that their reproductive pow- ers might be carried much higher. Dr Johnson divided one into three equal portions, when the head speedily acquired a new body and tail; the tail, a new body and head; and the middle piece a new head and tail. From this whole statement it is evident that these pseudo- leeches, to say the least, their substance considered, tend to- wards the polypes, and possess the same reviviscent powers. In several characters, which I shall notice hereafter, they also agree with the Annelidans. Draparnaud, from the approxi- mation of the points on the head of P. cornuta, to the tentacles of Lymnea, thinks that they form a link between the Mollus- cans and the Worms. Reproductive powers have certainly been observed in the former, but only in the reproduction of mutilated organs, for a snail or slug cut in pieces, would not form so many individual animals. Bonnet has given an ac- count of reproductive powers in one of the Mispid Worms of Lamarck, supposed by Gmelin to be the Nais barbata of Miiller, and in a species of fresh water worm belonging to the Anneli- dans, which, if { may so speak, grows from cuttings, and like the Planarie, can produce two heads. These last are proba- bly not far removed from the flukes, though their station is so different. Whether they live on animal or vegetable matter is 1 Vers hispides. 2 Fasciola. 174 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. not certainly ascertained ; to look at their proboscis it seems rather calculated to fix them as a sucker, to some animal, and so to derive their nutriment from it, like their analogue, the leech, especially as the marine species are supposed to be car- nivorous. Their wonderful reproductive powers appear to be given them by a kind Providence to prevent their total annihilation ; at least, it is stated, that at certain periods of the year, their numbers are so reduced, that where thousands were seen in summer, in spring scarcely one has survived. Their substance is so soft and gelatinous, that they are easily destroyed; t compensate this, they are gifted with the extraordinary powers of reproduction above described. God hath so tempered his sentient works, that seeming defects, in one respect, are com- pensated by redundance in another. Having made these observations upon animals of this class, that do not infest man or beast internally, I next turn to those whose office is, in spite of all his care, to make the Lord of the Creation, as well as the whole animal kingdom, not. only their constant abode, but also their foad. More than twenty of these pestiferous creatures, that attack man, have been enumera- ted; some penetrate into the very seat of thought ;* others dis- turb his bile;? others circulate with the blood in his veins ;° others, again, are seated in his kidneys ;* others in his mus- cles ;> the guinea worm’ in his cellular tissue: the ovaries of females are infested by another ;” the tape-worms extend them- selves, joint by joint, to an enormous length in his intestines ;® some select the large intestine ;° and others the small ones ;7° some even attack infants, and ‘them only.‘ Such are the ills that flesh is heir to from these our internal assailants and de- vourers.—The recital is really enough to cause our hair to stand on end. No one can believe that all these instruments of punishment were at work in the first pair when they came from the hands of their Maker, and nothing, except death, can prove with a greater strength of evidence, that he is fallen from his original state of integrity and favour with God, than such Echinococcus Hominis. 2 Fasciola hepatica. Linguatula Venarum. 4 Strongylus gigas. Hydatigera cellulosa. 6 Filaria medinensis. Linguatula piyguic ula. Tema solium, and Botryocephalus Hominis. Trichoce phalue Hominis. 10 Ascaris lumbricoides. Oxyurus Vermicularis. ese COOnN aw = — WORMS. 175 an army of scourges set in array against him. I shall enlarge a little upon a few of them, and then bid adieu to the disgusting subject. There are few people, that have not heard of the fluke, or animal resembling a flat fish, and which really has been mis- taken for one, often found in the liver of diseased sheep, and sometimes also in the human gall-bladder, and bile-vessels. The eyes of these animals are very prominent, and set ina cartilaginous ring, seeming to exhibit both iris and pupil; they are both planted in the upper side of the head, like those of the fisht they resemble. Like the leech, the fluke has two orifices—the first in a tubular prolongation of the head, and the other underneath in the abdomen, but distant from the tail. By these they fix themselves, living by suction; they sometimes produce fatal effects upon sheep. When only in small numbers, they, doubtless, as well as the rest of the Class, answer some good end; it is solely when they become too nu- merous that they occasion fatal diseases. Leeuwenhoek found 870 in one liver, and in others only ten or twelve. He says they occur in many kinds of quadrupeds, as stags, wild boars, and calves. He seems quite at a loss to account for their in- troduction into the livers of these animals, but concludes that, like the leech, their native element is water, and their eggs, swallowed by cattle when they drink, so find their way into the liver. This of course is all conjecture. Providence, who as- signed to them their office, has also directed them to their sta- tion, but from whence or by what route we do not know cer- tainly at present. A friend of mine who has kept a flock for many years, has observed that whenever they were turned into moist meadows in wet seasons, they suffered greatly from these animals ; but that in the same situation, in a dry one, they were not affected. The most celebrated of all the intestinal animals, are the Tape-worms, of which fwe species have been ascertained to inhabit man, besides whom quadrupeds, birds, reptiles and fishes are equally their victims. These are now divided into two genera, the common? and the grape-headed tape-worms. The former is the most common in England,* but the latter’ seems the most gigantic of any. Sir A. Carlisle, who hasa most excellent paper upon the former, in the second volume of the Linnean Transactions, says that he has met with them from 1 Leeuwen: Arcan. Nat. EB. Tr. t. f. HK. i. K. 2 Tenia. 3 Botryocephalus. Prats 1. wp. Fie. 3. 5 Botryocephalus latus. 4 Tenia solium. 176 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. less than six feet long and consisting only of fifty joints, to thirty feet long with four hundred joints. But these are noth- ing compared with others of the latter observed by continental writers. Bonnet mentions them as sometimes extending to the length of thirty ells, probably meaning French ells, or one hundred and twenty-five feet, and Boerhaave, one that greatly exceeded that length. These animals differ little from each other, but i in the com- mon tape-worm, the head which has a circular orifice or mouth at its extremity surrounded by a number of rays of a fibrous texture, and probably serving to fix the mouth, has on each side two small suckers which doubtless attach the head more strongly. The mouth, before spoken of, is continued by a short duct into two canals, which pass round every joint of the animal’s body conveying its aliment, and sending a transverse canal along its bottom which connects the two lateral ones. Sir Anthony injected upwards of three feet of these canals by a single push with a small syringe, but he could not make it pass upwards beyond two joints which seemed to indicate the ex- istence of valves opening only in one direction. He says there is no anal orifice, but other authors expressly mention one, and it is not easy to conceive, if the last has no orifice, how the joints can increase in number and remain concatenated. The body is composed of a vast number of joints, each having an organ whereby it attaches itself: those nearest the head are always small and they enlarge gradually as they recede from it. The extremity of the body terminates in a small semi- _ circular piece. Sir Anthony suspects that the several joints of the tape- worm are separate animals. This is an old opinion and has been adopted by several zoologists, but Bonnet seems to have proved, that however extended, the tape-worm is only a single animal. Whilst a living head remains attached to some joints, this creature maintains its station and keeps augmenting their number, but when any are broken off, they appear not to form new heads, as Sir Anthony supposes, but die and are expelled from the body. Their nutriment is probably derived from the gastric, pancreatic, and other juices which perpetually flow into the stomach and intestines of the animals they infest ; and they employ the tentacular rays as a mean of irritation to determine a greater secretion of these fluids. It would be an endless labour to expatiate in this vast field where the rest of the animal kingdom is concerned, amidst therefore the various and strange forms that are destined to this office, I shall select only a few, beginning with one that WORMS. 177 affects one of the most valuable of our animal possessions, | mean the Hydatids,' which particularly and often fatally affect our flocks of sheep, not indeed that they are confined to them, for they are found also in swine, deer, and oxen, and even in man himself. These animals resemble the tape-worm in their oral organs, but their body, especially posteriorly, is vesicular. ‘The lym- phatic vesicles are what medical men call hydatids ; they are found usually in the brain and in the liver of these animals. Their size varies according to the species, some are as big as the fist, and one was shown to the School of Medicine in Paris as big a man’s head. Their shape varies, but generally is somewhat spheroidal, their substance is composed of mem- branes one on another more or less thick, and formed of circu- lar fibres visible only under a lens; they are half-filled with transparent lymph. They exhibit a peristaltic motion which is often very lively. Three species more particularly annoy our sheep. The cerebral hydatid,? which finds its way into the brain of these poor animals and occasions the vertigo; and the vervecine?® and ovine hydatids,* which penetrate into their lungs and liver and occasion the rot. It is usually discovered when a sheep is infested by the former of these pests by its turning often and briskly its head on one side; when it runs very quick, and suddenly stops without any apparent cause; in a word, when it appears almost deranged. Though the progress of the disease they preduce is slow, it is generally fatal. Five hun- dred have been counted in the head of a single sheep. The ravages, however, produced by this hydatid are nothing to those occasioned by the other two, which attack the lungs and liver and cause the rot, by which, in some years, thousands perish. Some worms are remarkable for their very singular forms or station. One that attaches itself to the gills of the bream, looks like a double animal,* and a kind of fluke,® in great num- bers infests the ball of the eyes of the perch.” Though at first view the animals of which I have in the present chapter given some account seem to be altogether punitive, and intended as scourges of sinful man both in his ‘own person and in his property, and their great object is hasten- 1. Hydatis. 2) Hi. cerebralis. 3) Ad. vervecina. 4 H. oviila. 5 Diplozoon paradorum. Pirate 1.B. Fie. 4. 6 Diplostomum volvens. Ibid. Fie. 5. 7 Ibid. Fie. 6. x 178 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. ing the execution of the sublapsarian sentence of death, yet this evil is not unmixed with good. Though fearful and hurt- ful to individuals, yet it promotes the general welfare by help- ing to reduce within due limits the numbers of man and beast. Besides, with regard to the Lord of the Creation, these things are trials that exercise his patience and other virtues, or tend to produce his reformation, and finally to secure to him an entrance into an immutable and eternal state of felicity, when that of probation is at an end, so that the gates of Death may be to him the gates of pracr and REST. CHAPTER XIL. Functions and Instincts. Annelidans. THE animals we have just been considering form an almost insulated group, so that it seems not easy to say to what tribe they are most nearly related, but the soft Pseudo-leeches, as was observed above, especially those that have rudimental ten- tacles, seem to tend somewhat towards the molluscan tribes; they exhibit considerable resemblance to the blood-suckers or true leeches, and like them have an instrument of suction, though employed, perhaps, in extracting the sap or the blood of plants, and at the same time, in many respects, as we have lately seen, they approach the polypes. The Flukes, likewise, appear to have some characters in common with the leech,? so that a passage is open from the intestinal worms towards the Annelidans, some of which, as the earth-worm, occasionally become intestinal, and several are possessed of reproductive powers almost as great as those of the pseudo-leech, or the polype. I shall therefore next, in taking my departure from the worms, bend my steps to the animals just mentioned, which formerly bore the same general denomination. They are called Annelidans, I suppose, because they appear to be divided into little rings, or else to have annular folds, and are soft vermiform animals, some naked, others inhabiting tubes, in some simply membranous, in others covered with agglutinated particles of sand, and in others formed, like those of the Molluscans, of shelly matter. Some have neither head, eyes, nor antenne, while others are gifted with all these organs ; instead of jdinted legs, their locomotions are accom- plished by means of fleshy bristle-bearing retractile protuber- ances or spurious legs disposed in lateral rows. Their mouth is terminal but not formed on one type ; in some it is simple, orbicular or labiated ; in others it consists of a proboscis often having maxille. They have a knotty spinal marrow, in this being superior to the Molluscans and approaching the Condy- 1 See above, p. 175. 180 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. lopes. They have red blood, and their circulation is by arte- ries and veins, but they have no special organ for the main- tenance of the systole and diastole, their Creator not having given them a heart, but where the veins and the arteries meet, there is an enlargement, and the systole and diastole is more visible, as Cuvier remarks, than in the rest of the system, these enlargements therefore seem to represent a heart. Savigny, in the third part of his Systéme des Animaux sans Vertebres divides them into five Orders, of which he gives only the characters of the four first, intending to publish, in a sup- plement, his account of the fifth ; these Orders he arranges in two Divisions—the first including those that have bristles for locomotion, and the second those. that have them not. 1. His first Order he denominates Nereideans,* and charae- terizes them as having legs provided with retractile subulate bristles, without claws; a distinct head with eyes and antenne; a proboscis that can be protruded, generally armed with maxille. , 2. The second he names Serpuleans, these add to the legs of the former retractile bristles, with claws; they have no head furnished with eyes and antennz, and no proboscis.” 3. The third he names Lumbricinans ; these have no project~ ing legs; but are furnished with bristles seldom retractile ; they have no head with eyes and antenne, and no maxille. | A, His fourth Order he names Hirudineans. They havea prehensile cavity, or sucker, at each extremity, and eyes.® 5. In his fifth Order he intends to comprehend those Anne- lidans that have neither bristles nor prehensile cavities, but his account of this has not been published. He begins with the most perfect of the Annelidans, but viewing them in connection with the worms I must reverse the order, and instead of descending ascend, which will bring me ultimately into connection with the more distinctly jointed ani- mals the Condylopes. 1. The Order of Hirudineans includes animals that are of the first importance, as wellassome that are fearfully annoying, to mankind. The common leech* has long been so much in request with medical men, on account of the facility with which it can be applied to any part of the body where bleeding is required, that they arehow become scarce in our own waters, and consequently dear, so that large numbers are imported from the Continent. 1 WNereidee. 2 Serpulea. 3 Lumbricine and Hirudinee. 4 Hirudo medicinalis, lL. (Sanguisuga, Sav.) ANNELIDANS. 181 Providence has gifted these animals with a sucker on the underside at each extremity of their body, by which their loco- motions are performed, and by means of the anterior one they fix themselves to any animal that comes in their way. Wesee therefore in them, though on a larger scale, some approxima- tion to the locomotive and prehensile organs of some of the Cephalopods, and prior to them, of the Stelleridans and Echin- idans,' which likewise move and fix. themselves by suckers. The mouth is situated in the cavity of the oral sucker, it is tri- angular and armed with three sharp teeth disposed longitudi- nally in a triangle, two being lateral and one intermediate, and higher up. These teeth are sharp enough to pierce not only the human skin, but even the hide of an ox, and have their edge armed with two rows of very minute teeth; at the bottom of the mouth is the organ of suction which imbibes the blood flowing from the wound made by the teeth. These animals inhabit fresh waters, in which they swim like eels with a vermicular motion. In moving ona solid body, they first fix themselves by their anal sucker, which is larger than the oral, and then by means of their annular structure, extend themselves forwards, when they fix their mouth, detach their anal sucker, and thus fixing themselves alternately by each proceed with considerable rapidity. They are hermaphrodites, and bring forth their young alive. When in their native wa- fers they suck any animal that comes in their way, even those with white blood, as the larvee of insects, worms, and the like. Herodotus relates that the crocodile, in consequence of its frequenting the water so much, has the inside of its mouth in- fested by leeches, which a little bird, named the trochilus, en- ters and devours, without receiving any injury from the mon- ster. Geoffroy St Hilaire asserts that no leeches are found in the Nile, and therefore supposes the Bdelle of the father of history were not leeches but mosquitoes. But Savigny has described a leech under the name of Bdella nilotica? which he regards as synonymous with the leech of Herodotus. Bose mentions one which was found in the stagnant waters in Egypt, when not inflated as small as a horse hair, which very much annoyed the French soldiers, attacking them in nearly the same way ; when they drank, fastening itself to their throat, and oc- casioning hemorrhages and other serious accidents. Mr Madox, in his Excursions in the Holy Land, Egypt, &c., states that he had frequently seen, on the banks of the Nile, a bird about the size of a dove, or rather larger, of handsome 1 See above, p. 164, 108, 110. ® Prare VUl. Fic. 3. — —— PS a See ———— See — ——- ner 182 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. plumage, and making a twittering noise when on the wing. It had a peculiar motion of the head, as if nodding to some one near it, at the same time turning itself to the right and left, and making its congé twice or thrice before its departure. This bird, he was told, was called Sucksaque, and that tradi- tion had assigned to it the habit of entering the mouth of the crocodile, when basking in the sun, on a sand bank, for the purpose of picking what might be adhering to its teeth: which being done, upon a hint from the bird, the reptile opens his mouth and permits it to fly away.* This seems evidently the Trochilus of Herodotus, above al- luded to, as clearing the mouth of the crocodile from the leeches. Aristotle, in more than one place of his History of Animals, mentions such a bird, and a similar tradition concern- ing it, with that of Mr Madox. “The Trochilus flying into the yawning mouth of the crocodile cleanses his teeth, and thus is provided with food. The latter, sensible-of the benefit, suf- fers it to depart uninjured.”? In another place,* he seems to speak of it as an aquatic bird, yet afterwards he describes it as frequenting shrubberies and subterranean places. Whether this animal really attends thus upon the crocodile has not been ascertained, but it would be singular that such a tradition should have maintained its ground so long without any foun- dation. As a further proof that the Bdella of the father of history is a true leech, and not a mosquito,—as M. Geoffroy St Hilaire, from the meaning of its primitive,> would interpret the word,— it may be observed that Aristotle compares the Bdella to an earth-worm,® and describes its peculiar motion; and in Hesy- chius it is said to be a kind of Scolez or worm; Theocritus also , alludes to its blood-sucking propensities.? That leeches infest the aquatic Saurians is further evident from a letter received by Mr R. Taylor, and very kindly com- municated by him to me, from a friend at Calcutta, Mr W. C. Hurry, who having observed that the fauces of the gigantic crane® were genefally very full of leeches, determined to ex- amine the crocodile; and upon a large alligator he found a small red species, of which he sent specimens. i | Fi CRINOIDEANS. 195 forated for the transmission of a siphon or intestinal canal, and sending forth at intervals, in whorls, several articulated cylin- drical branches, curving into a hook at their summit; fixed at its base, and supporting at its free extremity a cup-like body, containing the mouth and larger viscera, consisting of several pieces, terminating above in five (or six) dichotomizing, artic- ulated, semi-cylindrical arms, fringed with a double series of tentacular jointed digitations, furnished below on each side with a series of minute suckers: these arms, when expanded, resemble a star of five (or six) rays, and when they converge, a pentapetalous or hexapetalous liliaceous flower. The whole animal, when alive, is supposed to be invested with a gelatin- ous muscular integument. In the specimen figured by Mr Ellis, and that in the Hun- terian Museum, there appear to be siz arms springing from the so-called pelvis, but the natural number appears to be five, cor- responding with the pentagonal column. Mr Miller seems to be of opinion that the species described by M. Guettard, and that which he has himself figured, are the same species, and sy- nonymous with the Isis Asteria of Linné and the Encrinus Caput MMeduse of Lamarck, but to judge from the figures of the first in Parkinson,! and of the other in Miller,? compared with that which is given in this work,® the last seems to differ from both, as well in the pelvis, as in the dichotomies, and length of the arms ; its suckers likewise appear to be circular,* and not an- gular as they are described by Mr Miller under the name of plates.> If this observation turns out correct, I would distin- guish the last species by the name of Pentacrinus Asteria. The stem of the Crinoideans consists of numerous joints, united by cartilages, which exhibit several peculiarities ; in the first place the upper and under side is beautifully sculptured, so as to represent a star of five rays, or a pentapetalous flower ; the Creator’s object in this structure appears to be the attach- ment of the cartilage that connects them, and, perhaps, to afford means for a degree of rotatory motion, as well as to pre- vent dislocations, and also to increase the flexure of the stem according to circumstances, and the will of the animal. For the transmission of the siphon, whether a spinal chord, or in- testinal canal, or both, each joint of the column is perforated, the aperture being round 'in some, and floriform in others. The whole stem, with its whorls of branches, exhibits a striking 1 Organic Remains, ii. t. xix. f. 1. 2 Crinoidea, 48. t. 1. 3 Puarte III. B. Fie. 1. 4 Ibid. Fite. 2. S Ubi supr. 54. t. ii. f. 6. 196 ‘FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. resemblance to the branch of the common horse-tail.t The entire structure seems calculated to enable the animal to bend its stem, which appears very long, in any direction, like the Lepadites, and thus as it were to pursue its prey; we may sup- pose that the branching arms, fingers, and their lateral organs, when they are extended horizontally and all expanded, must form an ample net, far exceeding that of the Cirripedes, which, when they have their prey within its circumference, by con- verging their arms, and closing all their digitations, and em- ploying their suckers, they can easily so manage as to prevent the escape of any animal included within the meshes of their net. With regard to their functions, and what animals their Creator has given a charge to them to keep within due limits, little can be known by observation; as nothing like jaws has been discovered in them, in which they differ from the Cirri- pedes, it should seem that either their food must consist of animalcules that require no mastication, or, if they entrap larger animals, that they must suck their juices, which seems to be Mr Miller’s opinion.? This idea is rendered not improba- ble by the vast number of suckers by which their fingers, and their lateral branches or tentacles as they are called, are fur- nished ; by these they can lay fast hold of any animal too powerful to be detained in their net by any other means, and subject it to the action of their proboscis. From the great rarity of recent species of these animals, it should seem that the metropolis of their race is in the deepest abysses of the world of waters. “It appears,” says Bosc,° “that the species were extremely numerous in the ancient world, perhaps, those actually in existence are equally so, for I suspect that all inhabit the depths of the ocean, a place in which they may remain to eternity without being known to man.” Naturalists very often, too hastily, regard species as extinct, that are now found only in a fossil state, forgetting that there may be many stations fitted for animal or vegetable life, that are still, and, perhaps, always will be inaccessible to the inves- tigator of the works of the Creator, where those mourned over as for ever lost, may be flourishing in health and vigour. 1 Equisetum arvense. 2 Crinoidea, 54. 3 WN. D, D Hist. Nat. x. 224. CHAPTER XIV. Functions and Instincts. Entomostracan Condylopes. WE are now arrived at a great branch of the animal kingdom, which, in its higher tribes, exhibits Divine Wisdom, acting, in and by the instincts of creatures, small indeed in bulk, but mighty in operation, in a way truly admirable, indicating, ina most striking manner, the source from which it proceeds. Some modern zoologists do not regard this vast and interest- ing branch as forming a group by itself, but have associated with it, under a common name, several of the preceding classes. Carus, in his Class of Articulated Animals,* includes Lamarck’s Worms and Annelidans ; and Dr Grant, in his Sub- kingdom, bearing the same appellation, adds to these the Wheel- animalcules,? and Cirripedes.* I cannot help thinking, however—taking the whole of their organization and structure into consideration, particularly their powers and means of locomotion and prehension—that it is best to regard those animals having jointed legs, and, mostly, a body formed of two or more segments, as constituting a sepa- rate Sub-kingdom. This is the view that my late illustrious and lamented friend, Latreille, has taken of this great group, named by him, from the above circumstance, Condylopes,* which term, since that of Annulose animals,> sometimes used, is syno- nymous with Annelidans, I shall adopt in the present work. The distinctive characters of this great group, or Sub-king- dom, may be given in few words: ANIMAL, not fixed by its base, but locomotive. Body, in the great majority, consisting of two or more seg- ments. Legs, jointed. The first of these characters distinguishes the Condylopes from the last class, the Cirripedes, which are fixed by their base, whereas the present tribe are more free in their motions than most of the animals of the preceding groups ; and the two last 1 Articulata. 2 Rotifera. 3 Cirrhopoda. 4 Condylopa, from xoydvacs, joints, and zoug, a foot. 5 Annulosa. 195 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. from the Annelidans, which, though annulated, are not insected, and have no jointed legs. Cuvier, Latreille, and most other zoologists, consider this section of the animal kingdom as subdivided into three great Classes——Crustaceans, Arachnidans, and Insects : Dr Leach, tak- ing the respiratory organs for his guide, also begins with three primary Sections, those, namely, which have gilis, those which have sacs, and those which have trachee, for respiration ; and out of these he forms five Classes, viz. Crustaceans, Arachnoidans, Acarimes, Myriapods, and Insects. The first and last of these Classes he further subdivides, each into two Sub-classes: the Crustaceans into Entomostracans and alacostracans; and In- sects into Ametabolians and Metabolians, or those that do not un- dergo a metamorphosis, and those that do. So that according to his primary Section his system is ternary; according to his secondary it is quinary; and according to his tertiary it is septe- nary. shall mostly follow him in each of these last subdivi- sions. Having made these remarks upon the Condylopes in general, I must now proceed to one of the Classes above enumerated: but here, at first, it seems difficult to ascertain which ought to be regarded as forming the first step in an ascending series,— a difficulty, indeed, which often arrests the course of the student of the works of his Creator, for, when any one, in a philo- sophic spirit, after a careful survey, sits down to trace the paths by which Divine Wisdom seems to have passed in the creation, and the arrangement and connection of the various groups of ' organized beings, he is lost and bewilderedina most intricate and mazy labyrinth, in which paths intersect each other at every angle, and when he thinks he is travelling in a straight road he often comes to branches leading off from it, which render it uncertain in which direction he ought to proceed, in order best to attain the object he is pursuing. Such indeed is the perplexity of animated nature, that it is impossible to see clearly the arrangement of the objects that constitute either the vegetable or the animal kingdom; and in order to get any tolerable notion of them, as God has placed them, when we have reached a certain station we are often obliged to retrograde, and begin a branch, from the point of its divergement, far removed from that to which we have ar- rived. Latreille, in the last edition of the Regne Animal, divides his Crustaceans into two Sub-classes, the first of which, after Aris- totle, he denominates JMalacostracans ;t and the second, after 1 Malacostraca. ENTOMOSTRACAN CONDYLOPES. 199 Miiller, Entomostracans:* these, on account of a connection which seems to exist between them and the King-crab,* he places immediately before the Arachnidans. I agree with this learned entomologist, in considering them as inferior to the proper Crustaceans, and shall therefore begin the Condylope group with some account of them. Like the infusory animal- cules, they form a kind of centre, sending forth rays to different points, some inclosed in a bivalve shell, seeming to tend to- wards the .Wolluscans ;° others assuming more of the Crustacean form ;* a third looking to the Arachnidans ;* and a fourth to the Thysanuran, or Sugar-louse tribe ;° with other forms that might be enumerated, sgme of which are perfectly anomalous, so that it appears almost indifferent where they are placed. As there is, however, evidently some affinity between the Entomostra- cans and the Cirripedes, not only in both being furnished with jointed organs for their motions, but also in some of the former being inclosed in shells, and in others by the brisk agitation of their legs, producing a current in the water to their mouths, as De Geer states of the Water-flea:’ this furnishes a further argument for placing them next to the latter tribe. It is difficult, and next toimpossible, to fix upon any charac- ters that are common to the whole of this remarkable Class. Generally speaking, but not invariably, they are covered, not by a calcareous and solid, but by a horny and thin integument. They vary considerably in the number of their antenne and legs, the former often branching, and used as oars, and the latter usually being connected with their respiration, evincing the analogy between these legs and the ciliz of the Rotatories, and tentacles of the Polypes ;* in the majority these organs are not calculated for prehension. One group of them lives by suction and is parasitic upon other aquatic animals: the great body, however, masticate their food, but without the aid of max- illary legs. Their eyes are generally sessile, and a considerable number of them have only one, or rather two eyes enveloped by a common cornea.® Latreille, in his Cours D’Entomologie, divides this Class— regarded by Linné as forming one genus, which he named JMonoculus—into six Orders; but it will be sufficient here to adopt his division of themin the Regne Animal, into two, which, as separating the fresh-water from the marine genera, is more Entomostraca. 2 Limulus Polyphemus. 3 Cypris, &c. Branchipus. 5 Limulus. 6 Cyclops. Daphnia Pulex. De Geer, vii. 453. See above, pp. 82, 88. Roget, B. T. ii. 493. oantre 200 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. simple, and better suited to my purpose. These Orders he names Branchiopods and Peecilopods. 1. The Branchiopods are all very minute, and several of them microscopic animals. Their mouth consists of an upper lip, two mandibles, a tongue, and one or two pairs of maxille. Their legs are natatory, connected with their respiration— whence their name of Branchiopods, or gill-bearing legs—often branching, varying in number from six to more than a hundred. 2. The Pecilopods differ from the preceding Order by the different structure and uses of their legs, which are not branch- ing, and all of them in some, and part of them in others, are prehensory and ambulatory, in some part are also branchial and natatory. They differ likewise by not having the ordinary mandibles and maxilla, which are sometimes replaced by the spiny hips of the six first pairs of legs, and, in one tribe, by a mouth and oral organs proper for suction. There is a tribe of parasitic animals, which neither Cuvier nor Latreille have included amongst the Entomostracans, but which Audoin and Milne Edwards conjecture are of a Crusta- cean type. Iam speaking of the Lerneans of the author first mentioned, which he has placed, but not without hesitation, in his first order,* of Intestinal Worms.?, Dr Nordmann, how- ever, has made it evident that they undergo a metamorphosis little differing from that of the first Order of the Entomostra- cans, the Branchiopods, especially Cyclops ; and he is of opin- ion, that, in a system, they would follow that genus. Their resemblance is indeed striking in their preparatory states, but in their last or perfect state, they differ, and like the Peecilopods, are parasitic ; many of them are furnished with a very conspi- cuous organ, which I shall afterwards describe, for fixing them- selves; and their form is very different, their body consisting of two segments, like that of the Arachnidans,* though at- tached to their abdomen, like many of the Branchiopods, they have two egg-pouches.* In fact the Lerneans seem scarcely more anomalous amongst the Entomostracans, than the King- crab, and other Peecilopods. All things considered, perhaps, they may be regarded as forming an osculant group between the two Orders. The animals of the first Order mostly frequent stagnant wa- ters, moving about with great rapidity. They are generally regarded as predaceous, and are stated to make the infusory animalcules their prey, but some are supposed to be herbivo- 1 Intestinauz cavitaires. 2 Entozoa, Rud. 3 Puare IX. Fic. 5. 4 Ibid. f. f. ENTOMOSTRACAN CONDYLOPES. 201 rous, and they abound particularly in waters in which plants are vegetating. As the places that they frequent are very subject to be dried up in the summer-time, it seems probable that a kind Providence has fitted them for this event, by giv- ing them, as well as the Infusories, powers of reviviscence. Latreille thinks that those of them, which, for the protection of their slender and frail branching antenne and legs, are enclosed in shells, have the power, after drawing in all their organs, of hermetically sealing their shells till the return of moisture. These little animals differ from the Molluscans, and the other preceding Classes, by the changes of their integument ; they do not, like them, when their advance in growth requires it, add to their shells ; but, fixing themselves to some substance at hand, they move their limbs, and the valves of their old shells, new ones being already formed underneath, and thus loosening their exuviz, in a short time they cast those of the whole body ; of all their limbs, hairs, plumes, even those that are invisible to the naked eye. Amongst these exuvie may be detected, not merely the cast skin of the external parts, but that of the internal also. These moults follow each other at an interval of five or six days, and it is not till after the third that the animal has acquired the reproductive faculty. In the antecedent classes of the animal kingdom, which were almost all inhabitants of the water, we have seen no instances of animals casting their skins, or undergoing any metamorphosis—either in the number or form of their parts— in their progress to their adult state. Some few shell-fish, indeed, are stated to cast their shells, and form others,? but a degree of doubt rests upon the fact. In the: Branchiopods, however, a kind of metamorphosis, as well as the moult just described, has long been noticed and recorded. The young ones of the Cyclops, the animal before mentioned as an analogue of the sugar-louse, when first hatched have only four legs, their body is nearly round, and has no tail, which led Miiller to mistake them for species of a different genus ;? soon afterwards another pair is acquired, which the same author regarded as a second genus,® and so it proceeds till it assumes the perfect form of its kind. Nordmann has given figures of a very remarkable Lernean parasite,* which infests the perch, representing its whole progress, from the egg 1 See above, p. 161. 2 Amymone. 3 Nauplius. 4 Actheres Percarum. AA 202 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. to the perfect insect,* which, like the Cyclops, does not acquire all its organs, except at its last metamorphosis. Our progress upwards, as far as we have at present pro- ceeded, has been a gradual advance, form after form appearing upon the stage of animal existence, each distinguished by characters indicating an elevation as torankand station. But in the animals amongst which the law in question obtains, we see the same individual, at different periods of its existence, assuming a higher tone of character, and often endued with organs that fit it fora more extended range. Sometimes from being purely aquatic, it becomes a denizen of the earth and the air—or of earth, air, and water at once—and, with this change of character and organs, its Creator wills it to under- take a new charge in the general arrangement of functions and duties. It will be recollected that a very considerable portion of the food of the higher creatures, especially the birds, is derived from animals that undergo a metamorphosis ; and, that the ma- jority of these in their first state, are more bulky, and contain more nutritive substance than they do when arrived at their last, and, therefore, even in this view, circumstances important to the general welfare may arise from this disposition, and variety of food may also be produced, and more enjoyment to the vari- ous animals who are destined to live by the myriad forms of the insect world. Whether the higher Orders of Crustaceans undergo a real metamorphosis has not been satisfactorily proved. They are known to change their shells annually, but it has not been observed that this moult is attended by any change of form, or by the acquisition of new locomotive or other organs. . In- sects, we know, after their last change do not increase in size ; the Crustaceans are found, however, to vary very much in this respect. Whether a different law obtains amongst them, from what takes place in insects, and they follow the Batrachian reptiles, which, after they have exchanged the tadpole for the frog, grow till they have arrived at the standard of their respect- ive species, I cannot certainly affirm; but reasoning from ana- logy, it seems more probable that the crustaceans should follow the law of animals most nearly related to them, and belonging to the same primary group, than that they should copy the rep- tiles, animals far removed from them, and of a completely dif- ferent organization. There is another point in which this subject of animal meta- 1 Puarz IX. Egg, Fic. 1, 2. Larva, Fic. 3. Pupa, Fic. 4. Imago, Fia, cr ENTOMOSTRACAN CONDYLOPES. 203 morphoses may be viewed. Do not these successive changes in the outward form, functions, and locomotions of so many animals preach a doctrine to the attentive and duly impressed student of animal forms, and their history—do they not svm- bolically declare to him, that the same individual may be clothed with different forms, in different states of existence, that he may be advanced, after certain preparatory changes, and an intermediate interval of rest and repose, to a much more exalted rank; with organs, whether sensiferous or loco- motive, of a much wider range ; with tastes more refined; with an intellect more developed, and employed upon higher ob- jects ; with affections more spiritualized, and further removed from gross matter ? The multiplication of these creatures, which, like the Aphides, are OViparous at one time, and viviparous at another, is some- times prodigious, and only exceeded by that of the Infusories. A female Cyclops, the animal before alluded to, in the space of three months, after one fecundation which serves for several successive generations, lays her eggs ten times, and it has been calculated that from only eight of these ovipositions, allowing forty for each, she might be the progenitrix, incredible as it might seem, of four milliards and a half, or four thousand five hundred millions !!* Another animal belonging toa genus of the present order,” was observed by Captain Kotzebue in such | myriads that the sea exhibited a red stripe, a mile long, and a fathom broad, produced by a species, individually viewed, scarcely visible to the naked eye. How astonishing is the re- flection, that in so short a space, in the case of the Cyclops, a single individual should be gifted by its Creator to fill the waters with myriads of animated beings, supposing a single impregnated female at first to have been the surviving inhabi- tant of any given pool or ditch. Conjecture is lost when we meditate upon the mysterious subject. How can life, as originally imparted, at the interval of a few months be so mul- tiplied and subdivided, as, that such infinite shoals of beings shall each have ashare in the wonderful bequest. But, when we reflect that an Omnipresent Deity is everywhere mighty in operation, working all in all, and that he guideth all the powers of nature, as the rider guideth the horse upon which he sitteth, to answer the purposes of his providence ;? we may easily conceive, that under his superintendence the thing may 1 Latreille Cours D’ Entomologie, i. 421. 2 Calanus. 3 1 Cor. xii.6. Ps. Ixviii. 4, 33. bate 204 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. be accomplished, though how it is accomplished, must always remain an unfathomable mystery. These powers of multiplication are, however, given to these creatures for a wise and beneficent purpose. They themselves afford a supply of food to a variety of creatures—to numerous aquatic insects, even polypes and worms; and to many fishes and birds, by whom their numbers are hourly and greatly diminished. As the stagnant waters likewise, in which they abound, are apt to be dried up in the summer season, many of them probably perish ; but, in some, animation may be sus- pended till the places they inhabit are again filled with water. I have found the little animal described by Dr Shaw, in the. Linnean Transactions, as the Cancer stagnalis of Linné, in horse- hoof prints, in the spring, then filled with water, but which had been previously quite dry. The finny tribes of the world of waters seem more particu- larly exposed to the invasion of parasitic foes; as far as they are known there is scarcely a fish that swims that is not infested by more than one of these enemies; even the mightiest mon- sters of the ocean, the gigantic whale, the sagacious dolphin, the terrific and all-devouring shark, cannot defend themselves from them. Where they abound they doubtless generate diseases, and are amongst the means employed by a watchful Providence to keep within proper limits the inhabitants of the waters; and probably there are other benefits which our im- perfect knowlege of their history prevents us from duly appre- ciating, that are conferred, through these animals, upon the oceanic population. Their prevalence upon the predaceous fishes, as was before observed, may tend to dimish their ravages by lessening their activity ; while to those of a milder charac- ter, within certain bounds and under certain circumstances, they may be beneficial rather than injurious. Of this description is the tribe of Lerneans, above alluded to as intermediate between the Branchiopod and Peecilopod En- tomostracans; of which I cannot select a more interesting species to exemplify the adaptation of the structure to the instinct and functions, than one described and figured by Dr Nordmann, under the appropriate name of Actheres Percarum,* or Pest of the Perch. This animal, like the Branchiopods, is found in fresh water, where it attaches itself to the common, and another species of the perch genus,? and takes its station usually within the mouth, fixing itself, by means of its sucker, in the cellular 1 AxOnpus, Annoying. 2 Perca fluviatilis and P. luctoperca. ENTOMOSTRACAN CONDYLOPES. 905 membrane, so deeply that it cannot disengage itself, or be ex- tracted by external force, without rupturing the so called arms, that are attached to the sucker, and Jeaving it behind. The animal often fixes itself to the palate, and even to the tongue. The arms? take their rise at the base of the cephalothorax—as the part consisting of head and thorax, not separated by a suture, is called—where they are very robust and thick, but they taper towards the other extremity, a single sucker,? com- mon to both, being, as it were, hooked to them. These arms are bent nearly into a circle, surrounding the cephalothorax, and the sucker is in front of the head: their substance is carti- laginous, and they repose in the same plane with the head; whence we may conjecture’ that the animal, when fixed and engaged in suction, lies close to the part where it has taken its station. When we consider that these predaceous fishes often gorge their prey, swallowing it entire, we see how neces- sary it was that our parasite should be thus fitted to fix itself firmly, and root itself, as it were, that it may be enabled to withstand the pressure and violent action of the bodies that pass over it, for the palate and tongue of a Perch must bea perilous station. This purpose seems further aided by a quan- tity of saliva, usually formed around it. These pests of the perch are themselves subject to the in- cursions and annoyance of animals still more minute than themselves. A small species of mite? makes them its prey, and when the saliva just mentioned is removed, they are often found quite covered by a species of Infusory belonging to the genus Vorticella. The next Order, including all the marine Entomostracans, will not detain us long. The first section consists of a single, but very remarkable, genus, the type of which is the Monocu- lus Polyphemus of Linné.* In the West Indies it is called, by way of eminence, the King-crab, and is found in the seas both of the East and West, from the equator to the 40th deg. of latitude. The species are few, and near to each other. They differ widely both in their characters and form from every other Crustacean tribe. Like the Cirripedes, they have no distinct head: their crust is divided into two portions, the anterior embracing the posterior, and being terminated, like the Rays, to which they present an analogy, by a long angular tail. They have both compound and simple eyes; the first are situ- ? Prare IX. Fie. 5. ¢, c. 2 Ibid. Fie. 5. d. 3 Gamasus scabriculus. 4 Limulus.—Mull. 206 - FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. ated, one in the middle of each lateral ridge, usually under the spine on the outer side; the second, or simple eyes, are on each side of the intermediate ridge, where it begins: these last are very minute, and not easily discoverable. The under side of the shield, or anterior portion of the crust, is deeply hollowed for the reception of the body, and the cavity is marked out anteriorly by an emarginate ridge, which gives it something the appearance of the hooded serpent. Some of them attain to a large size, the species found near the Molucca Islands being sometimes two feet in length. The head in them, as in the Arachnidans, seems suppressed, or to merge in the thorax, which also, as in that Class, bears the eyes, the outer pair corresponding with those of certain Crusta- ceans in which they are sessile, and the inner pair being like those of the Arachnidans, but they have neither the oral organs nor the legs of the Class just named. In fact, these animals seem to stand in much the same position amongst the Ento- mostracans, that the Cephalopods do amongst the Molluscans, and moreover as giants amongst pigmies. Time will probably throw more light upon these singular works of the Creator. Their most remarkable organ is their tail, which is probably of considerable service to them in their locomotions. It is shaped like a stiletto, and is so extremly sharp at the extremity, that it will easily pierce the flesh, and may perhaps be used by the animal as a weapon, as it is said to be by the Indians; it is so articulated with the posterior piece of the crust as to move with more ease upwards and downwards than laterally. Comparing the small body with the vast volume and levity of the crust which covers and protects it, and considering that the animal, as M. Latreille has remarked, passes the night with its anterior half out of the water, we may conjecture that, by the depression of the tail, it may be elevated in part above the water, and remain stationary. By a slight inclination on either side it probably also helps to steer it, and as it is ciliated at the base, like the natatory legs of a Dylicus, it may be of some use in swimming. The legs are all armed with pincers, like those of acrab, from which it seems evident that it is predaceous, and, from their small size, that its prey must consist of minute animals. The whole of its structure appears calculated to give the king-crab more than usual buoyancy, the reasons of which, when its history is better known, will be more fully understood ; and the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness that everywhere flash upon us, when we consider animal structures and their adapta- tion to their habits and instincts, when fully investigated, will ENTOMOSTRACAN CONDYLOPES. 207 be duly appreciated. It is said that this creature, amongst the ancient Japanese, was the symbol of the zodiacal sign Cancer. The animals belonging to the second section of the Pecili- pods differ from all the rest, by the manner in which they take their food. ‘They are parasitic upon Cetaceans, fishes, some reptiles, and Crustaceans, whose juices they imbibe by suction. They are often fixed to the gills of these animals, but nothing further interesting is known of their history. Some have two long jointed tails, like ephemere,* and others are distinguished by a remarkable lateral elongation of the thorax. Some fix themselves to their prey by means of suckers, terminating their first pair of legs,? which the remainder have not. The observation of Dr Von Baer, quoted in a former part of this work,* that the lowest grades of the animal kingdom ex- hibit the leading types of the various organizations it contains, for reasons before alluded to, would almost justify the zoologist in assigning to the Entomostracans a place amongst the Infu- sories. But the subject of centres, in that kingdom, sending forth, as it were, rays in different directions, and leading to various forms, requires very deep and minute investigation, and abundant proof, before it will be safe to adopt it as a principle. 1 Caligus. 2 Nicothoe. 3. Argulus. 4 Ante, p. 172. CHAPTER XV. Functions and Instincts. Crustacean Condylopes. WE are now arrived ata Class of animals, in which the organs of locomotion assume a new and more perfect form, correspond- ing In some measure with those of many of the vertebrated animals. The advance, in structure, hitherto, from a mouth surrounded by organs like rays, serving various distinct pur- poses, and by different means contributing to the nutrition, respiration, and motions of the animal, has been, by certain inarticulate organs, more generally distributed over the body, but still in a radiating order; as for instance, the tentacular suckers of the Stelleridans and Echinidans, which they use in their locomotions, and for prehension, as well as the purposes just named. In the Entomostracans, as we have seen, the legs, though jointed, are very anomalous, assume various forms, and are applied to sundry uses: in the sole instance of the king- crab, they take the articulations of those of the Crustaceans, in which we may trace the general structure of the legs of the other Classes of Condylopes. But as I shall have occasion, in a subsequent chapter, to give a concentrated account of the gradual development of the organs of locomotion and prehension, from their first rudi- ments in the lowest grades of the animal kingdom to their state of perfection in the highest, I shall not here, therefore, enlarge further upon the subject, than by observing, that, in most of the Decapod Crustaceans, the anterior legs are become strictly arms, terminating in a kind of didactyle hand, consisting of a large joint, incrassated usually at the base, and furnished on its inner side with a smaller movable one, constituting together a kind of finger and thumb, with which it is enabled to seize firmly and hold strongly any object that its inclinations or fears point out to it. This hand we called the chela or claw, or more properly pincers, of the lobster or crab. We find it also in the scorpion and book-crab,* which on shore are in some sort analogous to the long-tailed and short-tailed Crustaceans, or 1 Chelifer. CRUSTACEAN CONDYLOPES. 209 lobsters and crabs of the waters. This structure of the hand, in these creatures, is particularly fitted to their wants and situ- ation. A hand like ours, consisting of a quadruple set of fingers and an opposite thumb, to be of sufficient power for their pur- poses, must be so disproportioned to their size, as to be an incumbrance rather than a useful instrument of prehension; but as now constructed, it has the requisite strength for the purposes of the animal, without being disproportioned to its size, and inconvenient for its use. Thus we see how nicely every thing iscalculated and adjusted by Supreme Wisdom, to the nature and circumstances of every animal form. But these great claws are by no means universal amongst the Crustaceans. In some the claws are very small, but the loss is often made up to these by an increase as to number, so that if they cannot lay hold of large animals, they can seize, at the same time, several small ones. We have seen that in the king-crab all the legs have these prehensory claws, and they vary in number in many of the smaller Crustaceans, as the shrimp,? prawn,? pandle,? &c. The foreleg of some of these has prehensory claws, that are formed like the mandibles or cheliceres of spiders and the arms of the MMantis—whence they are called mantis-crabs. Instead of a forceps, consisting of a finger and thumb, the claw that arms the extremity of the leg is folded down, and received into a channel of the shank, and kept from dislocation by a tooth, or spine, at the base: this structure may be seen in the shrimp. There is another circumstance, distinguishing the decapod and stomapod Crustaceans, that is peculiar to them, their eyes are placed upon jointed footstalks, so that when they want to explore and examine what passes around them, they can im- mediately erect these organs, and so greatly enlarge their sphere of vision, but when they have retired to their retreats in the cavities of the rocks, or to burrows that they have formed, they can place them in repose, in a cavity provided for them by their Creator, in the head. Any person, who casts an eye over these creatures, will be struck by repeated analogical forms, representing some terres- trial animals of the same Sub-kingdom. ‘Thus a large number of those distinguished by the shortness of their tails, the crabs, present, both in their retrogressive and, lateral motions and general aspect, an astonishing resemblance to many Arachni- dans; some imitating spiders, and others phalangians:* and, 1 Crangon vulgaris. 2 Palemon serratus. 3 Pandalus. 4 Macropodia Phalangium. BB 210 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. amongst the long-tailed tribe the lobsters, one* very accurately represents a scorpion, and another a mantis.” We have seen the same tendency in the Annelidans to ap- proach or imitate terrestrial forms, as if the marine and aquatic animals were anxious to quit their fluid medium, and to become inhabitants of the dry land. The animal living on shore and in the woods at St Vincent, taken for a Molluscan by Mr Guild- ing,® appears almost like a creature that had succeeded in such an attempt. | All these resemblances and approximations show, that the great Creator embraced at one view all the forms to which he intended to give being, and created no individual without fur- nishing it with organs which give it some relation to others; or so moulding its outward form, as to cause it to represent some others to which it is clear it is not brought near by any charac- ters, common to both, that indicate affinity. What can more evidently and strongly manifest design, and that of a mind com- prehending simultaneously the whole world of created beings, than thus to concatenate all link to link and wheel within wheel, through all their intricate revolutions and ramifications connecting and connected, and all the while reflecting others of a higher or a lower grade with mimic features? this shows the hand, the art, the wisdom, the power, and the goodness of that unfathomable depth and immeasurable height of Deity, which comprehends all things and is comprehended by none; and to whom all things owe their being, and their form, and their organs, and their several places and functions. The general characters of the present class are— Bopy apterous, covered by a calcareous crust, divided into segments. Legs jointed, 10—16. Mouth composed of a lip, tongue, a pair of mandibles, often bearing a feeler, and two pairs of mazille, covered by maxillary legs. Spinal chord knotty, terminating anteriorly in a small brain. A heart and vessels for circulation. Respiration by gills. These are divisible into five orders. 1. Decapods. Gills situated under the sides of the shell. Ten thoracic legs. Eyes on a jointed footstalk. 2. Stomapods. Gills attached to five pairs of appendages, or spurious legs, under the abdomen. Eyes as in the Decapods. 3. Lamipods. No abdominal appendages. Eyes sessile. 1 Thalassina Scorpioides. 2 Squilla Mantis. 3 See p. 187, Prater VIII. Fie. J. CRUSTACEAN CONDYLOPES. 211 4. Amphipods. Head distinct. Eyes sessile. 5. Isopods. Head distinct. Eyes sessile. Legs simple, equal. 1. Decapods. This order naturally resolves itself into two sections, viz. The short-tailed Decapods or Crabs,’ which have their abdomen folded under the trunk: and the long-tailed Decapods or Lobsters, Cray-fish, &c.? whose abdomen is always extended. . Writers on the Crustaceans usually begin with the short- tailed, and then proceed to the long-tailed Decapods, and this arrangement seems natural, when the transit is to those with sessile eyes, such as the locust-crab ;3 but yet when we con- sider how nearly related to the spiders the former animals are, and that in the latter, though the head is not formed by a dis- tinct suture dividing it from the thorax, yet its contour is strongly marked out externally by an impression, and inter- nally by a ridge, at least in the lobster and cray-fish,—it seems as if the two tribes should form two parallel lines, and pro- ceed, side by side, towards the Arachnidans and Myriapods. I shall, however, follow the usual plan, and give now some account of the crabs. Of these, none are more remarkable than what have been denominated land-crabs, from their usually living on shore, and making for the sea only at certain seasons. Of the most noted species of these I have already given a full account,* but I shall here notice some others, having the same habits, that will interest the reader. Aristotle, long ago, noticed a crab of this description, found in Pheenicia, under the name of the Horseman,’ which he says runs so fast that it is not easy to overtake it.® Olivier found this account true of those he saw on the coast of Syria; and Bosc observed a spe- cies’ in Carolina, which he had some trouble to overtake on horseback and shoot with a pistol. These horsemen crabs are found only in warm climates, where they inhabit sandy spots near the shore, or the mouths of rivers. They make burrows in the sand, to which they retreat when alarmed, and in which they pass the night. Another kind of land-crab® is distinguished by the extraor- dinary disproportion of its claws; one of them, sometimes the left and sometimes the right, being enormously large, while Brachyuri. 2 Macrourr. Orchesia litterea. 4 See above, p. 66. Ixrevs. Gr. 6 Hist. Anim. 1. iv. c. 2. _ Ocypode Hippeus, probably Cancer Cursor. L. Gelasimus vocans. anrawre 912 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. the other is very small, and often concealed, so that the ani- mal appears single-handed. This formation, however, is not without its use, for, when retired into its burrow, it employs this large claw to stop up the mouth of it, which secures it from intrusion, and this organ is in readiness to seize such animals as form its food and come within its reach. They have the habit of holding up the great one, as if they were beckoning some One; but this doubtless is an attitude of defence. These crabs live in moist places, near the shore. They attack, in crowds, any carrion, and dispute the possession of it with the vultures; they do not. willingly enter the water, except when they lay and hatch their eggs, and it is conjectured that their young are for some time entirely aquatic. One kind of them, which forms numerous burrows, remaining in them during three or four months in the winter, usually stops them up, so that the animals are obliged to reopen them when the warmth of the vernal sun bids them come forth again from their winter quarters. They are devoured by numerous animals,—otters, bears, birds, tortoises, and other reptiles, all prey upon them, but their multiplication is so excessive, that there seems no sensible diminution of their numbers. The next tribe of Decapods are the long-tailed ones, which do not fold their abdomen under their body. This part is usually furnished at the extremity with several plates, which the animal expands so as to form a fan of five or six leaves; they are easily seen in the common lobster ;? like the tail of birds, they are useful to the animal in its passage through an element that requires to be moved by organs of a firmer con- sistence than feathers. The lateral ones in the species just named, having a kind of articulation, so that they can be par- tially depressed, and push against the plane they are moving upon; they do not, like the crabs, quit the water, and are some of them, as the cray-fish,® fresh-water animals. I shall begin with a tribe which, in some degree, connects the crab with the lobster, these are what are denominated Hermit-crabs,* whose abdomen being naked, and unprotected by any hard crust, their Creator has given them an instinet, which teaches them to compensate this seeming defect, by getting possession of some univalve shell, suited to their size, which becomes their habitation, and which they carry about with them as if they were its proper inhabitants. These crabs 1 G. Pugillator. 2 Astacus Gammarus. 3 Astacus fluviatilis 4 Pagurus, Prater X. Fie. 2. CRUSTACEAN CONDYLOPES. I1S are particularly formed for the habit that distinguishes them. Their naked tail has a tendency to a spiral convolution, fitting them to inhabit spiral shells, which they usually select for their mansion, though, from recent observations, it has been found that any univalve will answer their purpose. Their tail is terminated by an apparatus of movable and hard pieces,t which appear intended to enable the animal to fix itself more firmly in the spire of the shell. Usually the right hand claw, which is disengaged from the shell, is double the size of the other which is not, and is that which is most employed; but in nar- row-mouthed shells, such as the volute, in which Freycinet found one,” both claws are disengaged, and are of equal size. The reason of this formation is evident. The fourth and fifth pairs of legs? are much smaller and shorter, than the anterior ones, they have, below the claw, a piece resembling a rasp, which appears formed to assist them in moving in the shell, whether they wish to move outwards or inwards, and, on one side, they have a series of egg-bearing appendages.* This whole structure proves that they are formed with this particu- lar view of inhabiting the shells of a very different tribe of ani- mals. Some of these hermit-crabs, for there are several species of them, may be called terrestrial, while others are aquatic. In some of the Indian isles, the shores are covered with them. When the heat is most intense, they seek the shelter of the shrubs, and when the freshness of the evening breathes, they run about by thousands, rolling along their shells in the most grotesque manner, jostling each other, stumbling, and produc- ing a noise by the shock of their encounters, which announces their approach before they appear. When they perceive any danger, they hastily conceal themselves in any ready made holes they meet with, or under the roots, or in the trunks of decayed trees, seldom making for the sea, how near soever they may be. At Guam, avery large species frequents forests more than a mile from the sea; and in Jamaica, another species, called there the soldier,® has been found in great quanitities on ele- vated ground, more than four leagues from it. The common species® is aquatic, and usually inhabits the whelk ; it is stated annually to leave its shell, at the time of its moult, and after this great crisisis over, to seek another suited to its increased magnitude. Aristotle, Belon, and others affirm that these animals quit their shell to seek their prey, 1 Ibid. 2. a, a, a. 2 Pagurus clibanarius. See Prats X. Fie. 2. 3 Ibid. bb, cc. 4 Ibid. d, d, d, d. 5 Pagurus Diogenes. 6 P. Bernhardus. 214 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. and that when danger threatens them, they retreat to it back- wards, but observations have not been made by modern authors which confirm this statement. Their sexual intercourse how- ever, could not take place without their first leaving their mansion. Why our, so called, hermits are gifted with this singular in- stinct, is not easy to conjecture. Many other creatures make use of houses that they had no hand in erecting, as the bees, the cuckoo, and sometimes the bear, &c.; but I do not recollect any that, as it were, clothe themselves with the cast garments of other animals. Providence, besides the defence of their otherwise unprotected bodies, has no doubt some object of im- portance in view in giving them this instinct. Perhaps they may accelerate the decomposition of the shells they inhabit, and cause them sooner to give way to the action of the at- mosphere; and as all exuvie may be termed nuisances and deformities, giving to these deserted mansions an appearance of renewed life and locomotion, removes them in some sort from the catalogue of blemishes. By this physical hypocrisy, of as- ‘ suming the aspect of a different animal, which is known as not having powerful means of destruction, these creatures may de- ceive the unwary, and make them their prey, which if they wore the livery of their own tribe, would be on their guard and escape them. Next to the Hermit-crabs, or rather Hermit-lobsters,t comes a very interesting genus, which might be denominated Tree- lobsters, from the singular circumstance of their quitting the sea, like the Climbing-perch,? and in the night ascending the cocoa-nut and other palm-trees, for the sake of their fruit. The species which manifests this remarkable instinct is gigan- tic, and must exhibit a striking spectacle when engaged in ascending. the stem of a cocoa-tree; but Mr Cummings ob- served its proceedings in the Polynesian Islands, where he saw it ascending the palm-trees and devouring their fruit. I have, in a former chapter,’ stated that the Climbing perch ascends the fan-palm in pursuit of certain Crustaceans, perhaps related to the Birgus, which frequentit. Freycinet observed these crabs, in the Marian Islands, and says that their claws*have wonder- ful strength, for when the animal has seized a stick, an infant may be suspended from them. They are very fond of the fruit of the cocoa-palm, and may be fed with it for months without suffering from want of water. Whether, like the land-crab, 1. Birgus Latro. Puare X. Fie. Lf. 2 See p. 65. 3. See p. 65. CRUSTACEAN CONDYLOPES. 215 they have a reservoir capable of containing a sufficient quan- tity of that fluid to keep the gills moist, has not been ascer- tained : probably they have. Amongst the iarger species of the long-tailed Section, there is one of the most ferocious aspect, having its head, the base of its long antenne, and its thorax, beset with sharp spines. This is called in the London market the Thorny lobster,* and is stated sometimes to be nearly a yard in length : it is also called the Cray-fish, and by the French, who esteem it highly, the Langouste: it is, however, far inferior to the common lobster, from which it is distinguished by having no pincers, its legs terminating in a strong simple claw, set with bunches of bris- tles, a circumstance indicating a different mode of taking its prey. From the amplitude of their fan-like tail, and from their natatory plates, these lobsters seem formed for rapid motion in the water. The next species that I shall mention is of much more im- portance to us, and has been celebrated by epicures from an- cient times. Instead of unarmed hands and legs, the Lobster,? as every one knows, has the former armed, often with an enor- mous pair of claws, which must be of vast power, and, besides, ihe two anterior pairs of their legs are furnished with small pincers. It is observable that the movable finger of the claw of the hands is on their inner side, while, in these two pairs of legs, that on the outside is movable. Aristotle’s Carabus* is generally referred to the thorny lobster ; but in one place he expressly mentions its using its pincers to catch and carry its food to its mouth, which could not apply to that animal, though it agrees well with the common lobster; yet in another place, under the same name, he appears to mean the other.* It is not known exactly to what use these smaller pincers are ap- plied ; it must be observed, however, that if the legs are re- garded as naturally pointing towards the head, asin Dr Leach’s figure of Nephrops, the movable thumb in all is on the same side. The antenne in this genus are about the length of the body. The pincers of the hand are very powerful and tuber- cular ; they are used by these animals both to seize their prey and for self defence, and they contain very powerful muscles. When in the water the lobster seizes any thing presented to it, and holds it so strongly that it is impossible to extricate it without breaking the claw. All Crustaceans cast their crust annually. At first it seems 1 Palinurus vulgaris, Leach. Malacostr. Podophth. t. xxx. 2 Astacus Gammarus. 3 Gr. xzpzBccs, Hist. Anim. 1. viii. c. 2. 4. Tord Tn. ¢. 3. 216 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. wonderful how this can be accomplished. With insects, in whom it takes place only in the larves, and whose form and substance are usually adapted to it, a longitudinal fissure of the skin of a soft caterpillar, or grub, when the animal grows too big for it, we can conceive to be no difficult task: but with animals covered with a hard crust, and in whom not only the covering of the head, trunk, and abdomen is to be cast, but also that of the legs and other organs, it seems an opera- tion infinitely more arduous. But He who gave them this defence, instructs them also how to rid themselves of it when it grows too strait for them, and has moulded their structure accordingly. These animals are not, like most insects, limited to an ex- istence, terminated within the period of one revolution of the earth round the sun, but sometimes witness several ; and some are said even to live twenty years, and keep growing during the greater part of their life. But this would be impossible, since it. is incapable of extension, unless they could give room for the expansion of their body, by occasionally rejecting the case which encloses it. At a certain time of the year, about the end of the spring, when food is plentiful, they begin to feel themselves ill at ease: they then probably seek the clefts of the rocks, and other close places, in which they can under- go, in concealment and security, a change which exposes them, in a defenceless state, to danger. But we should have known nothing of the manner in which this great work is effected, had not the illustrious French natu- ralist, Reaumur, adopted methods which enabled him to ascer- tain their mode of proceeding. In the spring, in boxes pierced with holes, which he placed both in the river, and in an apart- ment, he put the fresh-water cray-fish,* of the same genus with the lobster. He observed that when one of these was about to cast its crust, it rubbed its feet one against the other, and gave itself violent contortions. After these preparatory movements, it swelled out its body more than usual, and the first segment of its abdomen appeared more than commonly distant from the thorax. The membrane that united them now burst, and its new body appeared. After resting for some time, it recommenced agitating its legs and other parts, swell- ing to the utmost the parts covered by the thorax, which was thus elevated and separated from the base of the legs; the membrane which united it to the underside of the body burst 1 Astacus fluviatilis. CRUSTACEAN CONDYLOPES. 2t7 asunder, and itonly remained attached towardsthe mouth. In a few minutes, from this time, the animal was entirely stripped except the legs. First the margin of the thorax was seen to separate from the first pair of legs; at that instant, drawing back its head, after reiterated efforts, it disengaged its eyes from their cases, and all the other organs of the anterior part of the head ; it next uncased one of its fore legs, or all or part of the legs of one side, which operation is so difficult that young ones sometimes die under it. When the legs are disen- gaged, the animal casts off its thorax, extends its tail briskly, and pushes off its covering and that of its parts. After this last action, which requires the utmost exertion of its remaining vigour, it sinks into a state of great weakness. Its limbs are nor is it known how many they have when first hatched, but, from their structure, it seems evident that the analogues of the two first pair of legs of the Chilognathans, can never be employed in locomotion; and further, that not only is their first or hip-joint united with 1 De Geer, vii. 583. ¢. xxxvi. f. 20, 21. 2 Anim. sans Vertébr. Mem. ii. t. f. 1. 0. 2. 0. 3 He says that the pieces forming the labium are Dénuées des palpes. Ibid. p. 44. 4 Coxe. 5 De Geer, vii. 562. 230 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. its fellow, so as to form a kind of auxiliary lip, but the other articulations are converted into prehensory organs, instead of a locomotive one, in the first pair armed at the end witha minute forceps, and in the second with a fang resembling the tooth of a serpent, having a pore at the extremity for the emis- sion of poison, connected with an Jotertum or poison bag. Here then, in these two Orders of the Myriapods, we havea regular conversion of organs: those that in the Millipedes are used for locomotion, in the Centipedes, exchange that function for that of prehension, both agreeing in being auxiliary, at their base, to mastication, but the latter with a greater momentum. The reason of this change in the functions of these organs we shall readily see when we consider the habits and food of these respective Orders. The Chilognathans deriving in gene- ral their nutriment from putrescent substances whether animal or vegetable, have no resistance to overcome, and therefore require not the aid of additional prehensory organs to enable them to execute their offices; while the Chilopodans, having to contend with living animals, must put them hors de combat, either by killing them, or deadening their efforts, before they can devour them. In this last Order we find that though the two first pairs of legs have a new office, the third pair are still used for locomotion. From the oral organs and their auxiliaries of the Myriapods to those of the Crustaceans, the interval is not very wide ; and amongst the latter the Isopods, especially the terrestrial ones, as might be expected, approach the nearest to them. De Geer observes that the common wood-louse,* which in its adult state has fourteen legs; when it first leaves the egg, has only six pairs and six segments;? thus doubling the number of the Hexapods and Julus ; and in this animal and its relation, Ligia, the thoracic legs are all used in locomotion; but when we ex- amine the aquatic, especially the marine, genera of this Order, as Idotea, Stenosoma, &c., we find that the first pair of thoracic legs is taken from that function, and made auxiliary to the organs of the mouth. Leaving the Isopods, if we go to the Decapods, amongst those with a long tail,? which from their cylindrical form and other circumstances, are nearer to the Chilognathan Myriapods than to the Chilopodan, taking the lobster for our type, we find the organs analogous to the six legs of Hexapods, exhibiting a new character: for from the outer side of their basal joint issues 1 Oniscus Asellus. 2 vii. 551. 3 Macrouri. — MYRIAPOD CONDYLOPES. 931 an organ which is peculiar to these legs. The organ J allude to is called, by M. Savigny, a flagrwm or whip; and, by M. Latreille, a jflagelliform palpus or feeler ; it usually consists of two parts, an elongated exarticulate base, representing the handle of the whip; and an annulated or jointed part generally forming an angle with it, representing the dash: the mandibles also have feelers of the usual structure. The organs above alluded to, show that all the representatives of the legs of Hexapods in the lobster, are converted to a new function— whether precisely analogous to that of feelers is not clear. In the lobster the basal joints of the first pair of maxillary legs are dilated, and the whole organ may be regarded as maxilliform; but in the second it is palpiform, and in the third it resumes the joints and appearance of a crustaceous leg, and is densely ciliated, which seems to indicate that it is used in swimming. In the common crab,? amongst the short-tail Decapods,? the legs in question seem all taken from locomotion, and the second pair does not differ from those of the lobster; but the last, though consisting of the same number of joints, is very differ- ent, the two intermediate joints being dilated, and the two legs together forming as it were a pair of folding-doors, which close the mouth externally, the three last joints resembling those of the legs. ‘These animals, therefore, in some sort, the flatness of their body and this double auxiliary lip considered, present the same analogy to the Chilopodan Myriapods, that the lobster does to the Chilognathan. In both we see, by their feelers, there is a further conversion of these organs into instruments connected with the mouth; so as to bring them nearer to the nature and use of maxille or under jaws, and of a labium or under-lip. It appears from the experiments and observations of Rathke® that the long-tailed Decapod Crustaceans do not change the form, or increase the number of locomotive organs, that distin- guish them when they issue from the egg.* Once residing a few weeks on the northern coast of Norfolk, where the sea, at low water, retires to a considerable distance from the high’ water mark, I had an opportunity of witnessing the proceedings of a species of crab very common there,° and varying greatly in 1 Cancer Pagurus. 2 Brachyuri. 3 Récherches sur le dévélopement des Ecrevisses. Abstract of Ann. des Sc. Nat. xix. 442. 4 Ibid. 463. 5 Cancer Manas. L. Mr Westwood, in a letter received since this went to press, expresses his conviction that Crustaceans do mot undergo any meta- morphosis. Besides a variety of other arguments which he will himself bring Gon FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. size, some, if my memory does not deceive me, scarcely exceed- ing the size of a pea, others being three or four inches in diameter, and all exactly corresponding in every particular; so that it seems probable that the short-tailed tribe also undergo no change; except of size, though, as we have seen above, the terrestrial Isopods acquire additional legs in their progress to maturity. The legs, however, of these Crustaceans cannot be regarded as analogues of the legs of Hexapods, but rather of the acquired legs of the Myriapods. In order to form aclear notion of the object of Providence in thus, as it were, taking certain organs from locomotion, and forming a new set for that purpose, and multiplying those con- nected with the seizing and mastication of the food of the animals in which this metamorphosis takes place, it would be necessary to watch their proceedings in their native element, the water, to ascertain the nature of their food, their mode of taking it, and other circumstances connected with its conversion into a pulp proper for digestion; but as few can have an opportunity of doing this, we can only conjecture that this multiplicity of organs is rendered necessary by the circumstan- ces in which they are placed, and the element they inhabit; for, as we have seen, no such conversion occurs in the terrestrial Crustaceans; probably the denser medium requires a more complex structure and more powerful action in the instruments connected with the nutriment of the animal. Having considered these instances of the legs of Hexapods being, as it were, metamorphosed into organs more especially connected with nutrition, I shall next mention, more briefly, some cases in which the oral organs themselves are modified to discharge other functions than what is usually their primary otra 204" To begin with the Arachnidans or spiders. In these the two- jointed mandibles or cheliceres, as Latreille calls them, are not organs of mastication solely; for though, from the vast strength and power of the first joint and its flat internal surface, we may conjecture that it assists In pressing the juices out of their prey, yet at the extremity of the second is a poison fang, being fur- nished, like the tooth of a viper or centipede, with a pore for emitting venom, which though not easily discovered in the smaller species, is visible under a lens in the larger; with these forward in due time, he lately met with young specimens of this crab at Con- way, in N. Wales, only 1-16 of an inch in length, which did not differ from adult ones, MYRIAPOD CONDYLOPES. 933 fangs, which communicate with a poison vesicle, the spider dispatches the insects struggling in his toils, which otherwise he could not so easily master, and having sucked out their juices casts away the carcass. The fang, by folding upon the apex of the basal joint of the organ we are considering, which is toothed on each side, and has a channel to receive it when unemployed, can be formed into a forceps, resembling that which arms the anterior thoracic leg of the shrimp, or that of the mantis, and which is probably, in some circumstances, used for prehension. The subject of poison-fangs affords a striking example of the adaptation and modification of different parts and organs to the discharge of the same or similar functions, according to the cir- cumstances in which an animal is placed; the viper, the centi- pede, and the spider have their sting in their mouth, or in its vicinity ; the scorpion and the bee and wasp have it at the other extremity of the body; while the male of the Ornithorhynchus, or Duck-bill, and Echidna, or New Holland Porcupine, have it in their hind legs. Considering the evident affinity between these last animals and the -tirds, their poison-spur seems evi- dently analogous to the spur that distinguishes the males of many gallinaceous birds; and, reasoning from analogy, we may conclude that this organ is given to the males of the Mo- notremes as a weapon to be used in their mutual combats. Whoever examines the underside of a spider will find the feelers and the eight legs arranged nearly in a circle, with their .~ first hip-joints parallel; with some this joint in the feelers is dilated, but in others it is of the same shape with the analo- gous joint of the legs, only a little longer. It forms the mazilla or under-jaw, and between the first pair isthe under-lip. The function of the maxille is to assist the, so called, mandibles, in pressing out the juices of the flies and other insects submitted to their action, and the analogous and parallel joints in the eight legs add some momentum to it, The Palpi, or feelers—which in some cases emerge from the side of the maxilla, and appear a distinct organ, and in others are merely a continuation of it—in one sex undergo a singular conversion, and discharge a function connected with reproduction ; and in the other, the female, are said sometimes to assist in supporting the egg pouch, which many of these creatures carry about with them, and guard with maternal solicitude. It has been made a question by physiologists what the man- dibles, and maxillz with their palpi, of the Arachnidans really represent ; whether they are the analogues of organs bearing EE EE Ear ee eee eee eee 234 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. the same name in Hexapod Condylopes, or of others to be found in the Crustaceans or Myriapods. Latreille, in his latest work, regards the pieces immediately following the upper lip as analogues of the same parts in the Crustaceans, namely, a pair of palpigerous mandibles, two pairs of pediform maxille, and two pairs also of maxillary feet, analogous to the four an- terior feet of insects.t | Of the above organs, the mandibles and two pairs of maxillz may be regarded as having their pro- totype in the Hexapods; for the second pair of maxille of the Crustaceans, in the Chilognathans, is the piece that represents the labium, or under-lip, of the first named animals. Savigny, however, is of opinion that the auxiliary mazille, or, according to Latreille, maxillary feet, of the crab, except the first pair, become the mandibles and mazille of the spider; and that the thoracic legs of the same animal, with the same exception, become also its ambulatory legs :? thus accounting for the reduction of the number of the latter from ten to eight, perhaps he was induced to adopt this opinion, with respect to the oral organs, by considering the mandibles of the spider as analogous to the poison-fang which arms the second pair of auxiliary feet of the Scolopendra. I feel, however, rather inclined to adopt the opinion of the former learned entomologist, from the consideration of an 4rach- nidan, which seems evidently to lead towards the Hexapods. The animal I allude to is one of ancient fame, of which, once for all, I shall here give the history. Aslian relates that a certain district of AXthiopia was desert- ed by its inhabitants in consequence of the appearance of in- credible numbers of scorpions, and of those Phalangians which are denominated Tetragnatha, or having four jaws. An event mentioned also by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo.* Pliny like- wise alludes to this event, but calls the last animal Solpuga,* a name which, in another place,’ he says was used by Cicero to designate a venomous kind of ant. The epithet Tetragnatha, applied by A¢lian, &c. to the ani- mal which, in conjunction with the scorpion, expelled the AXthiopians, as just stated, from the district they inhabited, i clearly to point to the Solpuga of Fabricius, for any per- 1 Latr. Cours D’ Entomologie, 167. 2 Anim. sans Vertébr. ii. 57, Note a. 3 Bochart. Mierozdic. ii. 1. iv. c. 138. 4 Hist. Nat. 1. viii. c. 29. This name seems derived from the Greek, He- liocentris. 5 Li. xxix. c. 4. MYRIAPOD CONDYLOPES. 235 son, not skilled in natural science, would, when he saw the ex- panded forceps of their mandible, pronounce that they had four jaws;* and the animals of this genus, in their general form and aspect, exhibit no small resemblance to an ant, so that it is not wonderful that Pliny should regard them as a kind of veno- mous ant. It seems, therefore, almost certain that the ancient and modern Solpuga are synonymous. Pliny, indeed, men- tions a certain kind of spider—one of which he describes as weaving very ample webs—under the name Tetragnathii; but these appear to have no connection with the Phalangia tetrag- natha of AXlian, &c. Olivier was ithe first modern naturalist who described the animals now before us, to which he gave the generic appella- tion of Galeodes ; but if, as the above circumstances render very probable, they are really synonymous with the ancient Solpuga, that name, revived by Fabricius, should be retained. Whether these animals are really as venomous and malefi- cent as they were said to be of old, and as their terrific aspect may be thought to announce, seems very doubtful. We learn from Olivier that the Arabs still regard their bite as mortal, and that the same opinion obtains in Persia and Egypt; and Pal- las relates several facts, which, he says, he witnessed himself, which appear to prove that, unless timely remedies are applied, they instil a deadly venom into those they bite. Ozil is stated to be the best application. On the other hand, Olivier, who found these Arachnidans common in Persia, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, affirms that every night they ran over him, when in bed, with great velocity, without ever stopping to annoy him; no one was bitten by them, nor could he collect a single well- attested fact to prove that their bite was so dangerous : to judge by the strong pincers with which the mouth is armed, he thought it might be painful, but he doubts whether it is ac- companied by any infusion of venom. Theemanibles have clearly no fang with a poison-pore, like those of the spiders. To return from this digression. I principally mentioned this tribe of animals, because, as was long ago observed by Walck- enaer,? and the observation was repeated by L. Dufour,® the head, in them, is distinct from the trunk ; and, as well as Phry- nus and Thelyphonus, it has only six thoracic legs: so that, as the latter writer remarks, though its physiognomy and man- ners arrange it naturally with the Arachnidans, these charac- ters exclude it from them.* Latreille, indeed, seems to regard 1 L. Dufour. Annal. Génér. des Sc. Nat. iv. t. Ixiv. f. 7, a. 2 Tableau des Aranecd. 1. 3 Ubi supr. 18. 4 Ihd. 20 236 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. the head and trunk of this animal as not distinct, but as form- ing together what he names a cephalothoraz, or headthorax ; yet he admits that the three last pairs of legs are attached to as many segments of the trunk, which certainly infers the separation above alluded to. Savigny says, with respect to the feelers of Solpuga, that they, and the two anterior legs, so closely resemble each other, that they may either be called feelers or legs ; but in the species described by L. Dufour,? and another in my cabinet,® this is not altogether the case, for the feelers, though pediform, are not terminated by a claw, but by a membranous vesicle, from which issues, when the animal is irritated, an apparatus pro- bably used asa sucker, and which gives them a prehensory function; while the organs that represent the anterior pair of legs of the other Arachnidans, at the base of their maxillary or sciatic joint, are soldered, as it were, to the corresponding joint of the feelers, with which they agree in the number and kind of their articulations, except that they do not protrude a sucker ; neither are they armed with a claw like the other legs, but are probably simply tentacular, or exploratory. ‘There seems no slight analogy between these united maxilla and what Savigny denominates the first and second pair of maxille of the mille- pedes, also united, which appear to me to represent the lower- lip and maxillze of the hexapods, and in this case the two pair of feelers that issue from the coxo-maxille, as they are some- times called, or sciatic joints in the Solpuga, may be regarded _as representing the labial and mazillary feelers of the hexapods; the second pair are also analogous, both in their place and their function, to the first pair, or tentacular legs of Thelypho- nus and Phrynus. In the Solpuga, the labium, or under-lip, of the spiders, is represented by a bilobed organ, which Savigny calls a sternal tongue. From the consideration of this animal we seem to have ob- tained the elements, or type, in reference to which the oral, prehensory, and locomotive organs of the Arachnidans were formed; that their mandibles, maxille, and feelers ; their second maxille, and the, so called, anterior legs emerging from them, are analogous to the mandibles, labium and labial feelers, and maxillze and maxillary feelers of the hexapods ; and the remain- ing three pairs of legs, of their six legs; the sternal tongue, so called by Savigny because it is a process of the sternum, will thus be an organ sui generis, unless it may be regarded as, in 1 Cours D' Entomolog. 548. 2 Galeodes intrepidus. 3 Solpuga futalis. MYRIAPOD CONDYLOPES. 937 some sort, the analogue of the prosternum of insects, If this view is correct, we have here various conversions, as of mazille and palpi into legs; a labium into mazille ; and a prosternum into a labium. In the Pedipalps—with the exception of the scorpions,—e. g. in Thelyphonus and Phrynus, especially the latter, the first pair of legs of Octopods seem to wear the form, and in some measure to discharge the functions of antenne. In the shepherd-spiders* all the legs, in some degree, imitate antennee, especially in their tarsi, which sometimes consist of more than fifty joints, rendering them very flexible, so as to assume any curve, and fits them, as their long legs do the crane-fly,? to course rapidly over and among the herbage and the leaves of shrubs, &c. When reposing upon a wall, or the trunk of a tree, this animal arranges its legs so as to forma circle as it were of rays around the body, the thigh forming a very obtuse angle with the rest of the leg, and so, though the body is so small, they occupy a considerable space ; but, if a finger, or any insect, &c. touches them, it elevates these angles into very acute ones, so as to form a circle of arcades round the central nucleus or body, under which any small creature can pass, but if this does not succeed, it makes its escape with a velocity wonderful for an animal furnished with legs more than ten times the length of its body. In the scorpion and the book-crab,? as well as the shepherd- spider, the mandibles, which are short, have a movable joint, and are converted into a forceps, like the anterior legs of the crab or the lobster; their feelers also, which are very long, terminate in the same way, and form an organ by which they can catch their prey; the former being armed besides with a long jointed tail, furnished at the end with a sting, which they can turn over their back, and thus, either annoy their assail- ants, or dispatch any captive whose resistance they cannot otherwise easily overcome. To what a variety of uses are analogous organs applied im the diversified instances here adduced ; and in all these varia- tions from a common type, how apparent are the footsteps of an intelligent First Cause, taking into consideration the in- tended station and functions of every animal, and how the structure may be best adapted to them, not only in general, but in every particular organ. As far as we can lift up the mystic veil that covers the face of nature, by means of observation and experiment, we find 1 Phalangium. 2 Tipula. 3. Chelifer, Obisium, &c. 238 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. that every iota and tittle of an animal’s structure, is with a view to some end important to it; and the Almighty Fabrica- tor of the Universe and its inhabitants, when he formed and moulded, ex prejacente materia, the creatures of his hand, de- creed that the sphere of locomotive and sentient beings should be drawn together by mutual attraction, and concatenated by possessing parts in common, though not always devoted toa common use; thus leading us gradually from one form to an- other, till we arrive at the highest and most distinguished of the visible creation ; and instructing us by his works, as well as by his word, to cultivate peace and union, and to seek the good of the community to which we belong; and, as far as our influence goes, of the whole of His creation. CHAPTER XVII. Motive, locomotive, and prehensory Organs of Animals considered. Tue remarkable circumstances noticed in the last chapter with regard to the legs of Crustaceans and Myriapods, and their em- ployment in aid of manducation, sheds no small light upon the subject of locomotive organs in general, and their primary function; it will therefore not be out of place, if, in the pre- sent chapter, I consider those organs, as far as they are ezter- nal, according to their several types, as exhibited in the entire sphere of animals; upon which, indeed, the due accomplish- ment of their various functions, and the exercise of their sev- eral instincts—which in most of the succeeding classes assume a new and more developed character—mainly depend. This is a wide field, but one full of interest, and which, studied as it deserves, conspicuously illustrates the higher attributes of the Deity. é We are placed in a world full of motion; of all motions, none fall more immediately under our notice than those of the vari- ous members of the animal kingdom; and the external organs by which they are effected, attract every eye both by their infinite diversity, and the adaptation of their individual struc- ture to the occasions and wants of the animal in whom they are found, so that they may, in the best and safest manner, effect such changes of place as are necessary for their purposes. Nutrition may be stated as the primary object of the motions and locomotions of the members of the animal kingdom in general. No sooner is the foetus or embryo so separated from its parent stock, as not to imbibe its food from it, than it begins to employ instinctively its prehensory and motive organs in collecting it. And, whether we descend to the foot of the scale of animals, or mount to its summit, we shall find that their— Daily Bread—is the principal object that in every Class sets the members in motion. The motive organs may be divided into two classes, those that are employed by an animal in locomotion, and those that are used for prehension; but as many of the locomotive organs are also prehensive, and prehension is often in aid of locomotion— Se eS eee ee 240 LOCOMOTIVE AND as in climbing and burrowing—it will not be easy to consider the motive organs separately with regard to these functions, I shall therefore consider them generally, according to certain types or kinds, under which they may be arranged, and which present themselves very obviously, when, with this view, we survey from base to summit, or rather from pole to pole, the entire sphere which constitutes the animal kingdom. Generally speaking, in this survey, as well as in the peculiar motions of the various groups of animals, we have no trouble in ascertaining what are the external organs by which the Creator has enabled and instructed each animal to accomplish them; but there is one anomalous tribe, or, perhaps, it might be denominated, Sub-kingdom, in one Class of which, at least, this is not so obvious. I allude to Ehrenberg’s Tribe of Plant- animals,* particularly his first or polygastric Class,? in which the organs of their various locomotions, enumerated in a former part of this work,* remain unknown, and some, as those that have an oscillatory movement, one might almost suspect were moved by an external cause. The little Monad, parasitic on the eye-worm of the perch,* which alternately spins round like a top, and then darts forward like an arrow,* seems as if, like a watch, it required to’be wound up before it could go. Before I confine myself to those motive organs which are local and planted in certain parts of the body of an animal, as legs, wings, fins, &c., I shall first mention those motions in which the whole body is concerned. Of this description is the alternate contraction and expansion of some, as the Salpes and Pyrosomes and other Tunicaries ;° the annular motion propa- gated from one extremity of the body to the other, as in the earth-worms,’ geometric caterpillars, and many other larves ; the undulating movements of the flexile bodies of many aqua- tic animals, as fishes, particularly the serpentiform ones ; and the gliding motion of serpents themselves over the surface of the earth as well as their undulations. Many of the animals here alluded to are provided with subsidiary organs—as the earth-worm with lateral bristles ;* the geometric larves, with legs at each extremity of their body ; the leech with suckers ; which, however, would be of little use without the expansion and contraction of its body ;® and the fishes with fins: but if Phytozoa. 2 See above, p. 83. 3 Ibid. 82. Diplostomum volvans. 5 See Appendix. See p. 120, 122. 7 Thid. p. 184. 8 Thid. Thid, p, 181. SOs PREHENSORY ORGANS. 941 we consider the form and circumstances of all these animals, we shall see, in each case, the design and contrivance of Su- preme Wisdom. Without the power of contraction and expan- sion, by which the Salpes, Pyrosomes, &c., alternately attract and repel the waters which they inhabit, they might indeed, from their absorbent structure, be saturated, but nutrition could not take place. The earth-worm again, a subterranean ani- mal, but which occasionally emerges, by the annular motion of its body can much more easily wind its sinuous way with- out obstruction when it seeks again its dark abode under the earth. The denser medium compared with air, through which the aquatic animals pass, renders great flexibility a very import- ant quality, to enable them to overcome the resistance it op- poses to their progress. Having premised these observations on motions produced by the action of the whole body, or successively propagated from one extremity to the other, I shall now proceed to consider those external organs, which are its obvious instruments in the great majority of animals, beginning with those that are found in the lowest groups. 1. Rotatory Organs. In some species of Infusories, even in Ehrenberg’s first Family of his Polygastric Class, the oral aperture is fringed with a circlet of bristles, but whether the animal by their means creates a vortex in the water, or whe- ther they are analogous to the tentacles of the polypes, and are employed in collecting its food, seems not to have been clearly ascertained. Lower down in this Class, and approach- ing the Rotatories, we find a singular animal,’ with bristles, by their position, simulating legs, which, as was before ob- served,? revolve with wonderful rapidity. But it is in the Class of Rotatories that these revolving organs are most con- spicuous. They are described as shaped like a tunnel, the tube of which terminates in a deep-seated pharynx armed with jaws, and the external dilated orifice fringed with fine hairs or bristles, to which the animal communicates a very rapid rota- tion, whence they are called wheel-animals. Some, as the vor- ticels,? the wheel-animals by way of eminence, appear to have 1 Discocephalus Rotator, Puate 1. A. Fie. 6. 2 See Appendix. 3 Vorticella. Mull. They constitute chiefly the Rotifera of Lamarck, and are divided by Ehrenberg into numerous genera. His genus Vorticélla, the type of which is V. convallaria, Mull. is placed in his Polygastric Class, in a ‘tha of his fourth Family (.4nopisthia), which section he names Vorticel- ina. FF 242 LOCOMOTIVE AND two wheels, othersthree, or even four: Lamarck is of opinion, from the observations of Du Trochet, that what are taken for two or more wheels, are only one, bent so as to form partial ones ;*but in some they are certainly distinct organs.? The object of the rapid gyration of this wheel or wheels is to create a vortex in the water, whose centre is the mouth of the animal, a little charybdis bear- ing with it all the animalcules or molecules that come within its sphere of action, and by this remarkable mechanism it is enabled by its Creator, as long as it is encircled by a fluid me- dium, to get a due supply of food. These wheels are merely foraging organs, for on a surface the locomotions of these singular animals resemble those of the leech described in an- other place.® In surveying the organs by which animals procure their food, we are struck by the wonderful diversity and multipli- city of means by which the same end is attained, and yet, through all this diversity, a series of approximations may be traced, proving that the same hand directed by the Wisdom, Power, and Love of one and the same Infinite Being fabricated the whole host of creatures endowed with powers of voluntary motion. What care does it manifest, and attention to the welfare of these invisibles, and what contrivance, that they should be fitted with an organ, by means of which, when they are awakened from a state of suspended animation, and from a long fast perhaps of months, or even years, by water coming in sufficient contact with them, they can start up into life, and by the gyrations of their wheels immediately begin to breathe, and to procure a sufficient supply of food for their sustenance, while they continue animated. | 2. Tentacles. Nearly related to these bristle-crowned rota- tory appendages of the mouth of some animalcules are what are named Tentacles, so called probably from their being usu- ally exploring organs. In its most restricted sense, this term is understood to signify organs, appendages of the mouth, which have no articulations,* but, in a larger sense, the term has been applied also to all jointed organs in its vicinity, and used for a similar purpose, which indeed are the precursors of feelers and antenne. The structure of the first-mentioned, or proper ten- tacles, and the means by which they perform their motions, and fulfil their functions, have been before explained.’ It is to these organs, as weli as for their food, that the polypes are 1 See Baker On the Microscope, i. 91. t. viii. f. 5, 2 Ibid. f. 6. 3. See above, p. 181. 4 See Savigny Syst. des Annelides, iii. 4. 5 See above, p. && PREHENSORY ORGANS, 245 indebted for what constitutes their principal ornament, that re- semblance which, though born to blush unseen, even in the depths of the ocean, their Creator has enabled them to assume, of a plant or shrub in full blossom adorned with crimson. or orange-coloured flowers. In the fized polypes, the tentacles are the only motive organs, but in those that can shift their quarters, as the Hydra,* they move by fixing each extremity like the leech, probably by means of something analogous tosuckers. As the former, like their analogues in the vegetable kingdom, are fixed by their base, and consequently cannot move from place to place in search of food, Divine Goodness has compensated this to them, and they obtain all the advantages of locomotion by the pro- gressive multiplication of their oscula or mouths, each sur- rounded by a coronet of tentacles, so that they have, on all sides, and at all heights, numberless sets of organs constantly employed in collecting food from the fluid they inhabit ; some, it is stated, by creating a vortex, like the wheel-animals, and the majority, probably, by means of minute suckers, or some viscid tentacious secretion. What each individual collects does not merely serve for its own nutriment, but also contri- butes something to that of the whole community,? so that though some may contribute more to the common stock and others less, yet the deficiency of one is made up by the redun- dancy of another. The tentacles of the fresh-water polypes forming the loco- motive genus Hydra, are not, as those of the fixed marine ones, shaped like the petals of a blossom, but are long hair-like flexile arms, somewhat resembling the branches of a chandelier,® which explore the waters around them, and lay strong hold of any small animals or substances they come in contact with,* so that they seem to throw out lines, fitted with hooks, to catch their prey. Amongst the Radiaries, in the Order of Gelatines,’ tentacles exist in some genera and not in others, and, where they do exist, their functions and situation are not clearly ascertained. In the Pelasgic Medusa there are four broad flexible arms, and round the margin eight narrow tentacles, as they are called, both of which the animal is stated to employ in seizing its prey, so that both may be entitled in this view to the denomi- nation of tentacles, yet one may be respiratory organs and the 1 See above, p. 92. . 2 Mid. 91. 3 Lasser. L. Théologie des Ins. j. t. ii. fr. 28—32. 4 See above, pp. 28—91. & hid. 104, 244 LOCOMOTIVE AND others merely prehensory.1. But the Medusidans vary greatly with regard to these organs, some having neither arms nor tentacles ;? others having tentacles but no arms;? others again arms but no tentacles ;* and lastly, others both these organs.° In the two first sections of the Order of Echimoderms, con- sisting of the Stelleridans and Echinidans, the mouth has no coronet of tentacles, but, instead, is armed with five pieces, which, in the latter particularly, assume the form and function of mandibles ;° but the Fistulidans present again a floriform coronet of tentacles, not simple but expanded, and branching at their extremity, with which they seize their prey. In the Holothuria, besides these, the mouth is armed with five teeth or mandibles. Tentacles, but not conspicuously, surround the mouth of only some of the Tunicaries, it will therefore be sufficient merely to mention them, and proceed to certain oceanic animals amongst the Annelidans whom their Creator has adorned, if I may so speak, with rays of glory, which, when expanded, surround their head, or rather mouth, with a most magnificent coronet. The animals I allude to constitute the genus Amphitrite of Lamarck, and the Sabella of Savigny; this coronet, in some species, is formed by numerous tentacles, called, by the authors just named, Branchie, or gills; but as they are stated to be employed in collecting their food, as well as in respiration,” they seem in this respect perfectly analogous to the tentacles of the polypes, and wheels of the rotatories, which are also respiratory organs. The great difference seems to consist in their being divided into two fan-like organs in the Amphitrites, in which the digitations or tentacles proceed from a common base, and which together form the coronet. In some the digi- tations, like the sticks of a fan, are connected by an intervening membrane, thus resembling two expanded fans;° in others, this pair of organs forms two bunches, set, as it were, with numerous spirally convoluted plumes;% in a third each bunch of plumy tentacles is convoluted, but not spirally ;*° but the most magnificent species of the genus, if indeed it belongs to it, is that figured in the fifth volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society,* under the name of Tubularia magnifica. I 1 Carus. Comp. Anat. i. 47. 2 Eudora. Lam. 3 Equorea. Lam. 4 Cassiopea, Lam. 5 Aurelia. Lam. 6 Pare III. Fie. 9—11. 7 Lamarck, Anim. sans Vertebr. v. 355. 8 Amphitrite Infundibulum. Linn. Trans. ix. t. viii. 9 A. volutacornis. Ibid. vii. t. vii. f. 10. 0 10 A. vesiculosa. Ibid, xi. t. v. f. 1. 11 = Ibid, t, ix. f. 1—5 ‘ PREHENSORY ORGANS. 245 say, if indeed it belongs to it, because, if the figure quoted is cor- rect, which | am not aware there is any reason to doubt, the gills or tentacles, call them which we will, are not, as in the other species, divided into two fasciculi or bundles, the rays of which sit upon a common base ; but form one glorious and radiant coronet,'whose rays are beautifully annulated with red and white ; there appears indeed to be a double circle or series of these rays, the interior ones shorter than the exterior ; but there is not the least appearance of their division into two bunches, each forming asemicircle. The rays differ little from those of many of the polypes, except in being more numerous and longer, for the diameter of the circle, when the rays are all expanded, is nearly six inches, and it is not stated that the figure is magnified. Whenever the animal is alarmed it withdraws this gorgeous apparatus of respirato-prehensory organs within its tube, and the tube itself into its burrow in the living rock, as a safe refuge from its enemies. Whoever compares the above figure of this expanded animal-blossom with the nectaries of some species of passion-flower, will be struck by the resemblance they exhibit to each other,? and by the analogy that evidently exists between them. As prehensory organs, the principal object of their unusual length and numbers may probably be their capturing, as in a net, a quantity of rock animals, or animalcules, suffi- cient for their support, and perhaps their very beauty may bea means of attraction and bring them within their vortex. With these splendid animals we bid farewell to those whose oral organs seem analogous to the blossoms of vegetables, and also to those in whom the organs of prehension and respiration are united ; or in which the same organs collect food and also act the part of gills. Though tentacles are not henceforth employed in respiration, yet they still exist in several other classes of animals as explo- ratory, prehensory, and locomotive organs. But in none are they more remarkable, both for their structure and uses, than in the Cephalopods or cuttle-fish. In these animals they are used, as we have seen, as arms for prehension, as legs for loco- motion, as sails for skimming the surface of the ocean, as oars for passing through its waves, as a rudder for steering, and as an anchor to fix themselves. ‘ These organs, like the tentacles of the’ polypes, surround the mouth; in some genera, as the poulpe,* and sepiole,* besides 1 See Linn. Trays. ii:t. iii. f. a. b. 2 Octopus. 3 Sepiola. 246 LOCOMOTIVE AND eight shorter arms,* there is a pair of very long ones, which are usually denominated tentacles, by way of eminence, which the animal probably uses, and for which purpose a claw arms their extremity,” to lay hold of prey at a distance. The means by which the tentacles perform the locomotions of these animals, and enable them to seize their prey, I shall advert to under another head. But though, in the great body of the Cephalopods, the ten- tacular organs do not exceed fen, we find, from Mr Owen’s admirable memoir on the Pearly Nautilus,? that, in that animal, they are extremely numerous, and strikingly different in their esirt ha The mouth and its appendages are retractile within the head, which forms a sheath for them, the orifice of which is anterior. The proper tentacles are of two kinds: 1. Bra- chial ones, finely annulated, emerging from thirty-eight three- sided arms, disposed irregularly, nineteen on each side, all directed forwards, and converging towards the orifice of the oral ‘sheath. 2. Labial ones, similar to the others in their structure, and emerging from four broad flattened processes, arising from the inner surface of the sheath, and more imme- diately embracing the mouth and lip: from each of these pro- cesses emerge twelve tentacles, rather smaller than the bra- chial ones. Besides these two descriptions of tentacles, there is a pair, one on each side, emerging from two orifices in the inner part of the hood or foot, arranging with the arms, and perhaps to be reckoned with the brachial tentacles, thus making up the whole number of tentacles of a similar structure eighty-eight. Itis to be observed that neither the parts that sheath them, nor the tentacles themselves, are furnished with any acetabula or suckers.* Besides the tentacles, this animal has four analogous organs of a different structure, one before and one behind each eye, which Mr Owen likens to antenn, and which are lamellated, or composed of a number of flattened circular disks, appended toa lateral stem ;5a circumstance indicating a variation in their functions. From their being retractile, it should seem that in this ani- mal the tentacles are not in constant use, as they are in the naked Cephalopods, and that they require protection; from their finely annulated structure they appear to be flexible and easily applicable to any surface, but whether they are tentacu- lar or prehensory organs, or both, is unknown. Inthe account 1 Puare VII. Fic. 8. a. 2 IJhid. b. 3. Nautilus Pompilius 4 Owen’s Memoir, &c. 13, ¢. i. n. 5 Ibid. 14. PREHENSORY ORGANS. aes of the Loligopsis, a species of cuttle-fish, by the able pen of that eminent zoologist Dr Grant, the part apparently analogous to the labial tentaculiferous processes of the Nautilus, is called the outer-lip, and is stated to send out a muscular band to the base of each arm, which seems to indicate that the arms of the naked Cephalopods are analogous to the labial tentacles of the animal we are considering. The labial processes, with their tentacles, present some resemblance to a many-fingered hand,? and from their situation immediately next the mouth may be conjectured to be most concerned either in the capture or transmission of its food: but whether either set of tentacles is used in its locomotions, as they are in the naked Cephalo- pods and the Argonaut, seems very problematical. As far as its locomotion on a surface is concerned, in its hood, it appears to be furnished with an expansile foot, ap- proaching that of the Gastropods,? so that its tentacles seem not necessary to transport it from place to place on the bed of the ocean; by what means it elevates itself, as it is known to do, to the surface, and floats upon the waves, has not been as- certained. In comparing the organs that surround the mouth of the Nautilus with those of other Cephalopods, we see that a vast change has taken place. ‘They are no longer the princi- pal organs of locomotion, that function being transferred to an expansile foot; their number is increased in nearly a tenfold ratio: being deprived of suckers, they seem destitute of any powerful means of prehension and retention, and so are scarce- ly able to overcome the resistance of the larger Crustaceans. As their principal organ of locomotion is one that seems to pre- clude all idea of rapid motion in pursuit of their prey, it is most probable, as their mandibles are fitted for crushing crust or shell, that certain Molluscans, animals which must be equally slow in their motions, and can scarcely resist them, are their destined food. We may further observe, that, regard being had to the organs which surround the mouth, a very wide interval separates the great body of the Cephalopods, known in a recent state, from the animal now before us; even the Spirula, which Mr Owen conjectures may belong to the same Order, in this respect is formed Upon, Avery different type, RrecLaay that of those Ce- phalopods.* 1 Trans. of Zool. Soc. I. i. 23. 2 Owen, wh supr. t. iv. f, it, 2 g. 3 Owen’s Memoir, &c. 12, ¢. i. n 4 Prame dy) Wie. 2. ‘ 248 LOCOMOTIVE AND This animal, in the above respect, being so completely insu- lated, it seems, as if in its means of entrapping its prey it was formed upon a plan not connected with that of any other Mol- luscan, but quite sui generis: probably, were we acquainted with the animals belonging to what are deemed fossil Cepha- lopods, we should find the hiatus vastly narrowed. In this instance we see clearly that adaptation of means to an end which distinguishes all the works of the Creator; the striking variation which this creature exhibits from the oral apparatus of its Class, is evidently connected with the kind and circumstances of the animals which it is commissioned to keep within their proper limits ; its mandibles, or beak, indeed, re- semble those of the other Cephalopods, indicating that its prey are covered with solid integuments, requiring great force to crush them; but the other oral organs, and its snail-like foot, as we see, indicate that they are not of a kind that can easily escape from their assailants. Two objects seem to have been principally in the mind of the Almighty planner of the universe of beings: one seems to have been the concatenation of all subsistences, seriatim and collaterally, into one great system; and the other, so to order and vary the structure of each individual that it may be duly fitted to answer a certain end, and produce a certain effect upon such and such points of that system, and this in such a way that these effects, though diverse, might not be averse, but pro- ceed, if I may so speak, in the same direction. . Thus, in the subject before us, the general commission given to the Cepha- lopods, is to assist in reducing the armed population of the ocean within certain limits, and to all are given instruments and organs, varying indeed in their structure, but proper to enable them to effect this purpose ; all, however, concurring to bring about a common and connected object, and one taking one de- partment and another another. The tentacles of the Univalve Molluscans, for the headless animal of the Bivalves has no such organ, are neither used for locomotion nor prehension, and therefore seem to have no claim to a place in the present chapter. But as they are clearly the analogues of the tentacles of the animals we have been consid- ering, and though not prehensory, are certainly exploring and sensiferous organs, which are probably connected with prehen- sion, | shall make a few observations upon them. They vary in their number, some having none,‘ others only two ;? others 1 Chiton. 2 Cyprea. Voluta, Prare VI. Fie. 1. 6 PREHENSORY ORGANS. 249 again four ;* and lastly, others six.* They are without articu- lations, though they sometimes exhibit an annulated appear- ance :? they are also often retractile, and in the snail and slug they form a hollow tube, which can be inverted like the finger of a glove; in others they appear to be composed of longitudi- nal fibres, intersected by annular ones, which render them ca- pable of great extension. In form they are either filiform, seta- ceous, or conical; but in the remarkable genus Laplysia, or the Sea-hare, the upper pair are shaped like the ears of the ' animal from which they take their name. Their sense of touch is much more delicate than that of the rest of the body. They are intimately connected with what are usually deemed the organs of sight of the Univalve Molluscans, which in some genera they seem to inclose. Some of these eyes are placed, in the form of a black pupil, at the summit of the tentacle, which surrounds them as the iris does the pupil of the perfect eye; in others they are imbedded in the middle of that organ, and in others at its base; in some, as in the Sea-ear,* they are seated in a separate footstalk. In many of the carnivorous species the pupil is surrounded by an iris,> which seems to indi- cate that the tentacles perform, in some sort, the functions of that part of the eye. The upper pair of tentacles in the Mol- luscans seem analogues of the antenne of Condylopes, and the lower pair of their feelers; and the functions for which the Creator has formed and fitted both are probably not very dis- similar. The extreme irritability of the tentacles of snails and slugs is evident to every one who observes their motion: at the approach of a finger they are immediately retracted; they therefore give notice to the animal of the approach of danger, so as to provide against it, and when necessary to withdraw itself into its shell: the eyes, from their situation in many of them, supposing them to have a greater range and power of - vision than they appear to have, cannot direct them in the choice of their food, in these their lower tentacles may have this office. Snails and slugs, we also know, issue forth from their places of concealment when the earth is rendered moist enough, by showers, for them to travel easily over its surface ; so that they must be endued with some degree of aéroscepsy, of which probably these delicate organs are the instruments. 1 Helix. Limaz. 2 Clio. The tentacles in this genus are retractile, and when retracted form two tubercles, which make the head appear bilobed. 3 Voluta thiopica, Piate VI. 4 Haliotis. 5S Puare VI. Fie. 1, a. GG 250 LOCOMOTIVE AND Whether the barbs appended to the mouths of many fishes, as the barbel, the Siluridans,' and the Fishing-frog,? may be regarded as a kind of tentacle cannot be certainly affirmed, but from their proximity to the mouth, it seems most probable that they exercise some function connected with the procuring of its food. Cuvier regards them asa kind of tactors, and they also present some analogy to antenne and palpi. In many of the Annelidans, tentacles of the present descrip- tion are found not only in the vicinity of the mouth, but also upon the pedigerous segments of the body, and appear to be ~ equally used in exploring objects.® I shall next consider some tentacular organs, which differ from those we have been considering in being more or less jointed. These, on that account, have been considered as a different class of organs, and by many have been denominated cirri or tendrils, or more properly, by Savigny, tentacular cirri. I have before described organs of this kind in my account of the Cirripedes,* by which it appears that they are employed for the same purposes as the tentacles of the ploypes.. Under this head also the anlennz of Crustaceans and insects may be noticed, which seem, as I have lately observed, analogous to the tentacles of the Molluscans, and the barbs of fishes; in some instances, indeed, they are used instead of the fore legs.* The reason why their structure differs from the soft, inarticulate tentacles above described, at least in most cases, appears to be the different nature of the integuments of the animal, which being incased in a kind of coat of mail, it seems requisite that both its locomotive and oral organs should be similarly de- fended, and in this case, unless they had been jointed, they would have lost their flexibility, and so could not have exer- cised the functions assigned to them by their Creator. It may, perhaps, be objected that the shell of the snail is nearly as hard as the crust of the lobster; but when we consider that the former, when moving, can thrust forth the greatest part of its soft body, as it were from a house, while the crust of the, other is really its skin, this objection seems to vanish, Suckers.—The organs I am next to consider, acetabula, or suckers, are, in many cases, so intimately connected with ten- tacles, as to form the most essential feature of them, without which they can be of no use. In fact, in the Cephalopods, 1 Prater XII. Fic. 1. 2 Lophius. Puare XIII. Fie. 2. 3 Fn. Groenland, 294. 4 See above, p. 189. 5 Introd. to Ent. ii. 308 PREHENSORY ORGANS, 25t they bear the same relation to the organ just named that the hand or foot do to the arm or leg, or the fingers and toes to the hand, in higher animals: they are the part by which the animal takes hold of what it wants to seize; and by the alter- nate fixing and unfixing of which, upon a solid substance, it moves from place to place. A sucker* may be defined—An organ by which an animal is enabled to create a vacuum be- tween it, (the organ,) and any surface on which it rests, so as to produce a pressure of the atmosphere upon its upper part, and thus causing it to adhere firmly. Cuvier, speaking of the suckers of the Cephalopods, thus describes their action. When the animal approaches one or more of its suckers to a surface,,in order to apply it more in- timately, it presents it flattened ; when it is fixed to it by the perfect union of the surfaces, it contracts its sphincter, which produces a cavity, in the centre of which a vacuum is formed. By this mechanism, the sucker attaches itself to the surface with a force proportioned to its diameter, and to the weight of the column of water or of air of which it is the base. This force, multiplied by the number of suckers, gives that with which the whole or part of the legs attaches itself to the body, so that it is more easy to tear the legs, than to separate them from the object which the animal wishes to retain.” In some cases, the action of the suckers, as suckers, seems not sufficient for the animal’s purposes, and claws are super- added. This structure is to be found in the suckers of the animal that fixes itself to the gills of the bream, the Diplozoon, before described,* and to those of some Cephalopods a stout claw is added. When we consider the nature and predatory habits of those Cephalopods whose tentacles are furnished with suckers, often pedunculated, on that side which is prone when the animal moves, we shall at once see the reason that this change from the more comrfon Molluscan structure of an expansile foot, took place, for had their principal locomotive and prehensory organ been of this description, or different from what it is, their motions must necessarily have been so slow, and their powers of prehension so weak, that they could never have overtaken and captured, and maintained their hold of the well defended and formidably armed Crustaceans, which are their destined prey. Uncouth, therefore, and misshapen, and monstrous, as 1 Suckers are denominated scientifically Acetabula, and Cotyle, or Coty- loid processes. 2 Anat. Comp.i.410. Roget, B. T. i. 260. 3 See Appendix. 252 LOCOMOTIVE AND these animals, at the first glance, appear, we see that in these organs, and doubtless in all others, they are exactly fitted to answer the end, and fulfil the purposes of Divine Providence in their creation. The suckers of the Diplozoon exhibit a complex structure in aid of its powers of suction, not easily developed and under- stood. Dr Nordmann supposes, that though the animal could attach itself strongly by these organs, additional means were necessary to render its attachment sufficiently firm; and that, therefore, while it is fixing itself by the suckers, it requires the aid of the apparatus of hooks, or claws and arches, to keep itself from being misplaced.* The Class of Annelidans exhibits a great variety of locomo- tive organs, amongst the rest, in the last Order, we find suck- ers, these being the principal organs for motion of the Hiru- dineans or leeches, the animals of which Order, however, M. Savigny is disposed to think are essentially distinct from the rest of the Annelidans, on account of their want of sete or la- teral bristles. The oral sucker of that division of the animals I am considering, to which the common leech? belongs, is dis- guished from the anal one by being formed of many segments, whereas the latter consists of only one. Their motions, by means of these suckers, and the annular structure of their bodies I have before sufficiently described.* Their suckers also enable them to lay hold of any aquatic animals that come in their way, especially the oral one, which once fixed they soon make an entry and begin to imbibe its blood. We see, in this, the reason why their Maker, instead of bristles for locomotion, has given them organs by which they can not only move from one place to another, but also fix them- selves firmly to their prey. I shall next advert toa kind of sucker which really becomes both the hand and foot of the animals that bear them. {[ al- lude to those of the Echinoderms, described on” former occa- sion,* in which the ampullaceous part within the shell presents the first outline of a shoulder or thigh, the exerted extensile part that of an arm or leg, and the dilated part with which the animal seizes its prey or walks, the hand or foot; the two first constituting the tentacle, and the last the sucker. I have, on a former occasion, given some account, under 1 See Nordmann, i. 61. t. v. f. 3, 4, 5. 2 Sanguisuga medicinalis. Sav. 3 See above, p. 181. 4 See above, pp. 108,111. Purare III. Fra. 5. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 253 the name of the Perch-pest,t of a singular animal, belonging to the Lerneans, whose history has been given by Dr Nordmann, and which is distinguished by a sucker common to two legs. Several other Lerneans have similar suckers.? Amongst insects are a variety of animals which are known to walk against gravity, we see the common flies, and other two- winged and four-winged insects, walk with ease upon the glass of our windows, and course each other over the ceilings of our apartments, without, in either case, falling from their lubricous, or seemingly perilous station. Writers on the subject are not agreed as to the means by which this is effected, some sup- posing that it is by atmospheric pressure, produced by suckers; while others maintain that itis by a thick-set brush, composed of short bristles, on the underside of the foot; or by certain appendages at the apex of the claw joint of thatorgan.* Pro- bably both these causes are in action, for though the pulvilli or foot-cushions of flies may adhere by mechanical means, those of some Hymenoptera and Orthoptera seem evidently furnished with suckers. In both cases the design of an Intelligent Cause is apparent; His wisdom, which, under different cir- cumstances, contrives different means to attain the same end; His power, which gives effect to that purpose and contrivance; and His goodness, which causes every varied mean to subserve to the more convenience and comfort of the animals in which each obtains. Could we trace exactly the history and habits of every group of animals, nay, of each individual species, we should discover that the slightest variation was to answer a particular end; and that even its very hairs and pores were all numbered with reference to special uses, foreseen by Divine Wisdom. Amongst other purposes for which suckers were given to the Class of Insects, one bears relation to the intercourse of the sexes. This is particularly observable in the males of the predaceous beetles,’ especially the aquatic ones. In the ter- restrial ones’ indeed something of the kind takes place, for the males may be known by having the three or four first joints sometimes only of ‘the anterior tarsi, and sometimes of the in- termediate, more or less dilated and furnished underneath with short bristles, intermixed, it should seem, with very minute 1 Seeabove, pp. 200, 205. 2 See Nordmann, ¢. vii. viii. 3 Philos. Trans. 1816. 322. t. xviii. Introd. to Ent. ii. 322. White’s Selborne, ii. 274. Ed. Markw. 4 Blackwall in Linn. Trans. xvi. 487. 5 Philos. Trans. ubi sup. t. xix. xxi. 6 Carnivora. Lat. 7 Cicindelide, Harpalide, Carabide, &c. e544 * LOCOMOTIVE AND suckers, and in some with transverse ones.* But these organs are most conspicuous in the male of our most common water- beetles,? in which the three first joints of the anterior tarsus form a dilated orbicular shield, covered with minute suckers, sitting on a tubular foot-stalk, with two exceeding the rest greatly in size. ‘The intermediate legs also have the three first joints thickly set with minute suckers. Leaving the invertebrated animals the occurrence of suckers becomes very rare; very few instances are upon record, in the whole Sub-kingdom of vertebrated animals, of this kind of for- mation, two in the Class of fishes and the other in that of reptiles, namely the lump-fishes,® the sucking-fishes,* and the Geckolizards.* Under the name of lump-fishes I include all those whose ventral fins unite to forma disk or sucker by which they are enabled to adhere to the rocks, constituting Cuvier’s family of Discoboles. But the most celebrated of this tribe, in ancient as well as modern times, are the sucking-fishes or Echenéis which Pliny says were socalled from their impeding the course of the vessels to which they adhered. On the back of their head they have an oval cotyloid disk fitted with numerous transverse laminze denticulated at their posterior edge, forming a double series; by the aid of this apparatus, which appears to adhere by means of the teeth of its laminz as well as by sue- tion, this animal attaches itself to the whale, the dolphin, the shark, the turtle, and other inhabitants of the waters, and even to vessels that are sailing, and thus organs, which at first sight appear to stop all locomotion in the animal, are the means which enable it, like certain barnacles,® to traverse half the globe. The fins of this animal do not permit it to swim with ease and velocity; and therefore this must be regarded as a compensating contrivance, by which it can the more readily fulfil its functions and instincts. ‘Though they are disengaged with difficulty by human force from the vessel to which they are fixed, they very easily detach themselves, and swimming on their back, pursue any object that attracts their attention or excites their cupidity. It is singular to remark that in the case ofttwo such animals, as the barnacle amongst the Cirripedes, which has naturally no locomotive powers and organs; and the Echenéis amongst the fishes, in which they are insufficient to transport it far from E. G. Harpalus caliginosus. ¥. Dyticus marginalis, &c. Philos. Trans. ubi supr. t. xx. Cyclopterus Lumpus, &c. 4 Echenéis. Gecko. Daud. Stellio. Schn, Ascalabotes. Cuy. 6 See above, p. 191. Own = ee Ne ee PREHENSORY ORGANS. 255 its native rocks and haunts, such means should be afforded by a kind Providence of visiting in safety the most distant oceans. These animals, though they may be called parasitic, from their adhering to other animals, yet, as they do not appear to imbibe any nutriment from them, the design of this singular instinct seems to be merely their transport, for purposes not yet fully ascertained. ‘ But there are other fishes whose mouth is a suctorious organ, analogous to that of the leech, by which they suck the blood of the aquatic animals they adhere to; of this description are the Lamprey* and the Hag,’ but upon these I shall not further enlarge. The other sucker-bearing vertebrated animals, which I men- tioned, were those Saurians which form the genus Gecko, and the object of this structure, in them, is to enable them to walk against gravity, that thus they may be empowered to pursue the insects, possessing the same faculty, up perpendicular or along prone surfaces. These suckers,* consisting of transverse laminz, occupy the terminal part of the underside of the toes. By aid of these organs they can mount the smooth chunam walls of houses in India. Another Saurian genus,* the Gecko, of the West Indies, has a similar organ, by means of which it climbs _ up trees, as well as the walls of houses, in the pursuit of insects. The adhesion of suckers and their relaxation, especially in locomotion, in order to answer the end for which they were given, must be as perfectly dependent upon the will of the ani- mal, as our steps on the plane we are moving on are upon ours; and yet in some instances, as in the perch-pest,° the ani-. mal, when once fixed, can scarcely disengage itself; but in this case, having attained its ultimate station, this is of no importance. If we study the individual cases of all the sucker-bearing animals, we shall find that this kind of organ was necessary, and all its modifications, to enable them to fulfil effectuaily their several instincts, and to do the work appointed them by their allwise Creator. For instance, in vain would the Cephalopods pursue and endeavour to seize and devour the crab or the lob- ster, if, instead of tentacles set with numerous suckers, they had the paws and retractile claws of the Feline race: or how would the Gecko be enabled to overtake its insect provender, if its feet were like those of the rest of its class? 1 Petromyzon. 2 Myzine. 3 Philos. Trans. 1816. t. xvii. f. 2. 4 Anolius. 3 Achtheres Percarum. See above, p, 252. 256 LOCOMOTIVE AND As supplementary to this account of suckers, I may mention a locomotive organ, given to a very numerous tribe of inverte- brated animals, which, as I observed on a former occasion, ap- pears in some degree to partake of the nature of a sucker, and which is eminently adapted to the structure, circumstances, and wants of the animals that are provided with it. I mean the expansile foot of the great majority of Molluscans: these animals are the only instance of a unipede structure in creation, but this one foot answers every purpose of a hand or leg; it spins for the bivalves their byssus,* is used by others as an auger,? by others as a trowel,* and by others for other mani- pulations, and is generally their sole organ of locomotion: from its soft and flexible substance it can adapt itself to the surfaces upon which it moves, and by the slime that it copiously secretes lubricates them to facilitate its progress. In very dry weather, however, it cannot move with ease over the arid soil, but when humid from rain, the whole terrestrial Molluscan army issues forth, naked, or in various panoply, each according to its kind, covering the face of the earth, so that it is not easy to avoid crushing them. The most careless observer of God’s creatures must be struck by the correspondence between this foot, and the animal to which it is given; had its locomotions been by means of an organ of a solid substance, or by means of several such organs, the harmony of structure which now strikes us, and relation- ship between its different parts would be done away, and we should think we beheld a mongrel monster engendered by strange mixtures of animals, rather than a creature harmoni- ously moulded by the hands of an allwise Creator. I may also mention here a few other organs which seem to present some analogy to suckers, and which, though aiding in locomotion, are not, strictly speaking, locomotive organs, or those by which locomotion is effected. I allude to the spuri- ous legs, or prolegs of the larves of insects. These are usu- ally retractile fleshy organs, analogous to the bristle-armed protuberances of the Annelidans, rendered necessary by the length of these animals, and supporting them as props, and which usually, by means of a coronet or semicoronet of hooked spines or claws, and by applying their prone surface to the plane of position, take strong hold of it: these legs do not. step; the six anterior jointed legs, where they exist, are the walking legs ; but these organs having been fully described in another 1 See above, p. 135. 2 Ibid. p. 133. 3 Ibid. p. 156. PREHENSORY ORGANS. @ 254 » joint work of Mr Spence and myself, I must therefore refer ‘the reader for further information on the subject to that work. What are called the pectines or coinb-like organs of scorpions, and those pedunculated ones which are attached to the hind legs of the Solpuga or Galeodes, are conjectured by M. La- treille to be connected with the respiration of these animals. Amouroux seems to regard the former as a kind of sucker, but no actual observations have as yet ascertained their real - nature, except that the author last named, states that he has seen the animals use them as feet. Sete or Bristles. Having fully considered suckers and their analogues, [ shall next advert to a species of locomotive organ, principally confined to the nnelidans, animals whose locomo- tions are chiefly produced by the contraction and expansion of the rings of which their body is compesed, but which are also furnished with lateral setiform organs, which assist them in their motion, by pushing against the plane of position. The majority of these animals are aquatic, and some of them grow to a great size; I have a specimen, which I purchased from the collection of the late lamented Mr Guilding, which is more than a foot long, and as thick as the little finger: it has a double series of what may be denominated its legs, each fur- nished at its extremity with a bunch of very fine retractile bristles, and those of the dorsal series having besides a bran- chial organ or gill on each side, consisting of numerous threads. This remarkable animal appears to belong to Savigny’s genus Pleione, and is probably his P. Pedunculata, and the Neréis gigantea of Linné. The bristles on these legs seem not calcu- lated for pushing ona solid surface, but are rather ogans of natation, analogous, in some degree, to the branching legs of the Branchiopod Entomostracans. In the earth-worms? the lateral bristles are simple, and used to assist their motions, either on the surface, or when they emerge from the earth, or make their way into it. At first sight, one would not suppose the bristles of the Anne- lidans to be analogues of jointed legs, or preparatory to their appearance in the great plan of creation ; but when we reflect upon the approach which many of the Neréideans of Savigny make to the Myriapod Condylopes, and that these bristle-bear- ing legs, in Mr Guilding’s genus Peripatus,* begin to assume the appearance of articulations, and are armed at their apex 1 Introd. to Ent. iii. 134. 2 Lumbricus. 3 See above, p. 186. Pate VIII. Fie. 1, 4. 4 Itid. Fie. 1. HH 258 LOCOMOTIVE AND with claws ;* it seems clear that the bristles of the Annelidans, and the base within which they are retractile, are really legs, and lead the way to the jointed ones of the Condylopes. I have before noticed the conversion of legs into oral organs, or their use as auxiliaries to them in the case of the Myria- pods. Mr Savigny, in his description of an animal,* which seems the analogue of the electric centipede,* observes that its four anterior legs are converted into tentacular cirri, affording an additional argument for the ancient opinion that the marine Myriapods, as they might be denominated, have some affinity with the terrestrial, since, at least in this instance, the same number of legs are used as auxiliaries to the mouth. The great majority of the Annelidans inhabit the water, and the tufts of bristles, sometimes forming fans, issuing in many cases froma dorsal and ventral conical protuberance, denominated by Savigny oars, and occasionally expanding so as somewhat to resemble them, seem in some degree analogous to the branching legs of the Branchiopod and Lernean Ento- mostracans,* and are probably natatory as well as ambulatory organs, and means by which their Creator has fitted the loco- motive ones to make their way through the matted sea-weeds and the mud, when creeping after their prey, as well as to row through the water like a stately bireme. These oary feet, emulating in number those of the terrestrial Myriapods, and forming moreover, as was before stated, both a dorsal and ven- tral series, must enable them to move with considerable rapid- ity: those indeed that have observed their proceedings, describe them as both swimming and running with admirable ease and speed.°® There is a Class of vertebrated animals, the Ophidians or serpents, which exhibit considerable analogy to many of the Annelidans, not,only by their form and undulating movements, but also by the organs which effect their progressive motions, not indeed by means of bristles, but of parts that, pushing against the plane of position, propel the animal in any direction accord- ing to its will. But the way in which this is effected having been clearly and most ably explained by an eminent and learned physiolo- gist,” I need not here enlarge upon it, but only observe that 1 Ibid. Fic. 2. c. ¢. 2 See above, p. 224. 3 Lycoris egyptia. Pirate VIII. Fie. 4. 4 Geophilus electricus. 5 Prars IX. Fie. 3. 6 See Otho Fabricius Faun. Groenland, 289, 298, &e 7 Dr Roget. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 259 the motion of one tribe of the Myriapods, though produced by legs, exactly imitates that of the Ophidians, though produced by ribs ; and very amusing it is to see the propagation of it from one extremity to the other in the Millipedes, like wave suc- ceeding wave in the water: a still more striking analogy, as has been already remarked,* is exhibited by the larger centi- pedes, which seem almost models of the skeleton of a serpent. Serpents thus can move not only horizontally, but also up the trunks of trees, probably in a spiral direction, and some are said to have the power of darting from one tree to another. As these animals are not annulated, like the Annelidans, and cannot originate and continue motion by the alternate contrac- tion and extension of the rings or segments of their body, which the nature of their integuments, their vertebral column, and muscular fibre probably preclude, the wisdom of their Creator has subjected their ribs to their will, so that they can use them as Motive organs. Natatory Organs.—The spurious bristle-armed legs of the Annelidans, especially those of Peripatus,* have as it were led us to the mighty host of animals furnished with articulated locomotive or prehensory organs, or real legs and arms, vary- ing in number—but as these will best finish the subject, I shall first consider those external instruments of motion which are peculiar to animals inhabiting the water, or moving through the air, beginning with the first, or those distinguished by nata- tory organs. I have already mentioned some of this description, as the oars of the paper nautilus* and Annelidans,* and also the sails expanded by the former animal and several Mollus- cans.° Before I consider the organs in question, where they are most conspicuous, in the fishes, I must give some account of those to be met with amongst the invertebrated animals, particularly the Condylopes. Several of the Cephalopods and. Pteropods, and other Molluscans, have natatory appendages ; in the former, as to many species, looking like little wings, often nearly round, attached to the lower part of the manile that envelopes them ;° and in the latter assuming the shape and station of the dorsal and other fins of fishes,” though totally different in their structure, not being divided into jointed rays as in the animals just named. 1 See above, p. 225. 2 Prats VIII. Fie. 1, 2. 3 See above, p. 167. 4 See above, p. 258. 5 See above, p. 142. 6 Puare VIL. Fie. 1. 7 Prare V. Fie. 6, 7, 8. 260 LOCOMOTIVE AND Having mentioned these, I shall next advert more fully to the organs by which the great Sub-kingdom of animals with articulated legs move in the waters, whether they always in- habit them, or occasionally visit them. They may be divided into three distinct kinds. 1. Jointed legs dilated towards their extremities, as in the common whirl-wig,* the little beetle that forms circles in the water, and in the tribe of crabs termed swimmers,? these I would call Pediremes. 2. Jointed legs, that terminate in a fasciculus of setiform branches, and are also connected with the respiration of the animal, these might be denominated Branchiremes, and are found in the Branchiopod Entomostracans.? 3. Those in which the imner side of the jointed leg has a dense fringe of hairs, called by Linné, by way of eminence, pedes natatorii, such as are found in many diving* and other aquatic beetles, these might be named Setiremes. As the spurious legs to which the eggs are attached, observable on the underside of the abdomen of the female lobster, cray- fish, and other long-tailed Crustaceans, are used also as nata- tory organs, they are ciliated for that purpose, and belong to this tribe. The same observation will also apply both tomax- illary legs, and other legs of several animals of that Class. ‘The velocity with which the diving-beetles move in the water by the action of these legs, and their suspension of themselves at the surface, by extending them so as to form a right angle with the body, when they come up for air, and the weather is fine and the water clear, affords a very interesting spectacle. Amongst natatory organs I must not overlook the tails of the long-tailed Decapod and several other Crustaceans, which terminate in a powerful natatory organ, consisting usually of five plates, densely ciliated at their apex, the intermediate one formed of the last segment of the abdomen, and the lateral ones articulating with a common footstalk giving them separate motion, the outer consisting sometimes of two articulations, as in the common lobster, and sometimes of only one, as in the thorny lobster; the intermediate plate, as in Galathea, sometimes consists of two lobes; these laminze when expanded form a most powerful natatory organ, which, if we consider the weight of their body, must be necessary to keep them from sinking, and by its vertical motion to enable them to rise or sink in the water. But natatory organs are not confined to those of the trunk and abdomen, even those of the head some- times assist in this kind of motion. Thus in Cypris, an Ento- 1 Gyrinus. 2 Nageurs. Lam. 3 Prater IX. Fie. 4. c. 4 Dyticus. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 261 mostracan genus, resembling a muscle, the mamdibles and first pair of maxilla have branchial appendages used also in swimming, and their antenne are likewise terminated by a fasciculus of threads, which, according to Jurine, the animal developes, more or less, as it wants to move faster or slower.* But the most important natatory organs are those which enable the veriebrated inhabitants of the waters, from the giant whale to the pigmy minnow, to make their way through the waves; it will be interesting to trace the analogies of the fins of these animals to the locomotive organs, whether wings or legs of other animals, especially Mammalians. Some we shall find sui generis, and calculated particularly for the circum- stances in which the Creator has placed the great Class of fishes and the rest of the marine animals; and others, in the course of our analysis, we shall observe gradually assuming the cha- racter and uses of an arm or leg. The fins of fishes are membranes, usually supported by os- seous or cartilaginous rays, which can open or shut, more or less, like a fan, but in some instances they consist of membrane without rays, and in others of rays without membrane. The rays are usually divided into two kinds; those which consist of a single joint, usually less flexible and pointed, whence they are called spiny rays, and those which consist of numerous small articulations, generally branching at their extremity, which are called jointed rays, these jointed rays may be regard- ed as precursors of the phalanxes of fingers and toes in the hands and feet of the terrestrial vertebrated animals. The first pair of fins, which are seldom wanting, and answer to the fore- legs or arms of those animals, are called pectoral, and are usual- ly placed on the side behind the gill-covers. The second pair, supposed to be analogous to the hind-leg, are called ventral, and are placed under the abdomen. Besides these, there is often a fin along the back, sometimes subdivided, named the dorsal fin ; another under the tail, called the anal, and the tail itself ter- minates in a fin, one of the most powerful of all, which is named the caudal, and in some respects may also claim to be regarded as the analogue of the legs. The, so called, fins of Cetaceans, are not properly fins, but legs adapted to their element as marine animals, the anterior pair having all the bones proper to those of mammiferous ani- mals, covered with a thick skin, and wearing the appearance of afin. In the sea-cow there are rudiments of nails in their pectoral fins, and they use them, both for crawling on shore, 1 Latr. Cours D’Ent. i. 430. 262 LOCOMOTIVE AND and for carrying their young, on which account they are called Manatins,* of which Lamantins, their French name, is probably a corruption. The tail also of the Cetaceans, which is in the shape of the caudal fin of fishes, and somewhat forked, but placed horizontally, contains some bones, which appear like rudiments of those of legs, thus, for their better motion in an element they never leave, covered by their Creator with a ten- dinous skin, and enabling them by an up and down motion to sink to a prodigious depth, or to rise from the bottom to the surface of the ocean. If we go from the Cetaceans to the Amphibians, we see a fur- ther metamorphosis of the organs of motion. The pectoral fins of the former are now become arms, with phalanxes of fingers, claw-armed, but still connected by skin for natatory purposes, and their caudal fin is converted into rudimental legs, with a very short intervening tail, and these legs are still of most use in the water. These circumstances induce some suspicion, especially when we consider that the caudal fin of fishes is their most powerful locomotive organ, that it is the real analogue of the hind-legs of the terrestrial mammalians. The ventral fins sometimes seem to change place with the pectoral ones. This is the case with the fishing-frog tribe, in which the former are nearest to the head, and seem analogous to a pentadactyle hand, while the pectoral ones resemble a leg and foot, and the creature looks like a four-footed reptile.* The Rays,* in a system, are placed at a wide distance from these, and yet they possess several characters in common, particu- larly in having the hinder part of the body attenuated into a tail more or less slender, and the enormous mouth and gullet of others* are armed, as in the sharks, with a tremendous appa- ratus of teeth. Cuvier observes of one of them,’ that it can creep on the earth by means of its fins, like small quadrupeds, and that their pectorals discharge the function of hind-legs ;° so that there seems some ground for thinking that they are a branch diverging from the Selacians towards the Reptiles. Fins, and their analogues, were given to aquatic animals, it should seem, solely for locomotion ; and could we witness the motions of their different tribes, each in its place, and observe the play of these appendages, we should find them all so located in the body of the fish, and so nicely measured with 1 Manatus Americanus. 2 See Prate XIII. Fie. 1,3. Lophiade. Lophius. L. Raiade. Raia. L. 4 Prats VIII. Fie. 3. Chironectes. 6 Reene Anim. ii. 251. Last Ed. wt os PREHENSORY ORGANS. 263 regard to volume and weight, as to suit exactly the wants of the animal in its station, and to act as a mutual counterpoise, so that it should not be overswayed by the preponderance of one organ over another; every thing proving that the momentum and action of each, both independently, and in concert with the rest, had been nicely calculated before its creation, by one whose Wisdom knew no bounds, whose Will was the well being and well doing of his creatures, each in its place, and whose Power enabled him to give being to what his Wisdom planned, and his Will decreed. Nothing is more graceful and elegant than the motions of fishes in their own pure element. Not to mention the shifting radiance of their forms, as they glance in the sunbeam; their extreme flexibility, and the ease with which they glide through the waters, gives to their motions a character of facile progress which has no parallel, unless, perhaps, in the varied flight of the wing-swift swallow, amongst their analogues, the birds. How rapidly do they glide, and are lost to our sight by a mere stroke of their tail! at another time, less alarmed, how quietly do they suspend themselves, and cease all progressive motion, so that we can discover them to be alive only by the fan-like movement of their pectoral fins, an action which seems, in some sort, connected with their respiration; for they move them, as I have observed, more rapidly, when, in sultry weather they seek the surface, and their muzzle emerges. These fins, the analogue, as has been before observed, of the hand or fore foot, except in a few instances, may be regarded as usually the first pair of oars that propel the vessel. Some fishes, in front of these, have another locomotive organ and weapon,’ not intend- ed, however, for motion so much in the water as on the earth; this is a powerful, and, usually, serrated bone,? articulating ° with the shoulder bones, and is to be found in the Siluridans, with the exception of the electric species, which its Creator has: fitted with other arms. The second pair of fins, as they most commonly occur, are the ventral, but sometimes, where fishes have a large head, they are placed forwarder, and in general they are under the most bulky part of the body; by this arrangement, we may gather that they are intended to counteract the force of gravity, as well as to act as oars. These fins are wanting in all the 1 Prats XII. Fie. 1. a. 2. 2 N.B. The figure of the bone (2) in the Plate was taken from one dug up in this neighbourhood in forming a manure heap, which Mr Owen in- formed me belonged to a Silurus. 264 /LOCOMOTIVE AND fishes called, on that account, apodes, or footless, to which the eels, and other serpentine fishes belong, some of which also have no pectorals. The caudal or tail fin, which directs the locomotions of fishes as a rudder, and gives to them the chief part of their force and velocity, in the majority of real fishes is vertical, but in flat- fish, which have no natatory vesicle, it is horizontal, as it is likewise in the Cetaceans and Amphibians; in all these, its motion is vertical. The dorsal is also a powerful fin, consisting of spiny rays; some tribes, as the perch, though wanting in others, it is some- times divided into two or three fins. By its various undulations, and by the differently inclined planes which it presents to the water, this fin augments the means of fishes to move in any direction, and adds much to the speed with which those last named pursue their prey: it counterbalances the effect of the caudal fin in cross-currents; but, if the animals could not de-. press it, it might occasionally destroy the equilibrium, and overset them. The anal fin seems, in many fishes, intended as an antago- nist to the dorsal, to prevent the above effect and maintain the fish in its due position. But fins were given to fishes not only to be the instruments of motion in their own element, but likewise in that of terrestrial animals; to some they were given to enable them, under par- ticular circumstances, to vie with the birds in their aérial flights; to others, that like quadrupeds, they may undertake excursions upon Terra firma; and toa third description, amongst other means, to assist them in climbing the trees in quest of their food. Every body knows that the pectoral fins of the different species of flying fishes are very long; that by them, when leaping out of the water to avoid the pursuit of their enemies, the bonito,! and other rapacious fishes, they are sup- ported in the air for a short time; but the action is really not Jlying, since they use these fins merely as an aéronaut, in de- scending, uses a parachute, for a support in the air; in fact, flying from aquatic enemies, they are soon attacked by aérial ones, and the frigate,* and other marine birds, make them their prey—so that they take short flights, as well as short voyages— and though they swim rapidly, they are soon tired, which is the means of saving those that escape from their numerous ene- mies, and preventing the extinction of the race. Besides the 1 Scomber Pelami. 2 Tachypetes Aquila. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 265 common flying-fish,* the Pegasus,? a small fish, inhabiting the Indian ocean, when pursued, leaps out of the water, and takes a short flight. I mentioned on a former occasion,? the terrestrial excursions of the Hassar, and from the statement of Piso, in his Natural History of the Indies, published in 1658, and from that of Marcgrave, of Brazil, quoted by Linné in the Amenitates Aca- demice,* it appears that the Callicthys® migrates in the same way. Dr Hancock mentions a fish, perhaps a Loricaria, which has a bony ray before the ventral as well as the pectoral fins, and which creeps on all fours upon the bed of the rivers, per- haps even when they are dry. These little quadruped fishes must cut a singular figure upon their four stilts. | I have given a full account of a climbing fish amongst the migratory animals,° and shall therefore now take my leave of the finny tribes. Perhaps the fins of the Cetaceans and Amphibians, above described, inasmuch as they are enveloped not in a membrane, like the fins of fishes, but are real feet adapted to their ele- ment, may be regarded as more analogous to what are called paddles, by which term the natatory apparatus of the Chelo- nian reptiles, and of the marine Saurians, hitherto found only in a fossil state, are distinguished. These in the former, the turtles, are formed by the legs and toes being covered by a common skin, so as to form a kind of fin, the two first toes of each leg being armed with a deciduous nail. The coriaceous turtle,” the parent of the Grecian lyre, which presents no small analogy to the Amphibians, has no scales either upon its body or feet, but both are covered with a leathery skin, even its shell resembling leather, and therefore it connects the paddles of the Chelonians with those of the marine Mammalians. It may be defined as a natatory organ, formed of several jointed digitations, covered by a common leathery or scaly integument. In the fossil Saurians the paddle appears to be formed of nume- rous bones, arranged in more than five digitations, but it is shorter and smaller, and seems better calculated for still waters and a waveless sea than to contend with the tumultuous fluc- tuations of the open ocean.* Next to the paddles of the turtles, and fossil Saurians, come 1 Exocetus exiliens in the Mediterranean, and E. volitans in the ocean, but doubts are said to rest upon this species. 2 P. Draco, volans, &c. 3 See above, p. 64. # Y. o00. ¢. xi. f. 1: 5 Prats XII. Fie. 1. 6 See above, p. 65. 7 Sphargis corvacea. 8 See Philos. Trans. 1816. t. xvi. and 1819. ¢. xv. If 266 LOCOMOTIVE AND the palmated or web-foot of the aquatic tortoises, and of nume- rous oceanic birds, in which the toes are united by a common skin. In the paddle the leg and toes together form the nata- tory organ; in the palmated, or lobed foot, the toes. Thus from fins we seem to have arrived at digitated legs. Wings.—Turning from the denser medium of water, we must next inquire what organs have been given to animals by their Creator to enable them to traverse the rarer medium of air, to have their hold upon what to the sight appears a non- entity, and to withstand the fluctuating waves of the atmos- pheric sea, and the rush of the fierce winds which occasionally sweep through space over the earth. The name of wings has by general consent been given, not only to the feathered arm of the bird, but also to those filmy organs extended, and often reticulated, by bony vessels—the longitudinal ones in some degree analogous to the rays of the fins of the fishes, especi- ally of the flying fishes—which so beautifully distinguish the insect races ; as well as to the rib-supported membrane forming the flying organs of the dragon; and those hand-wings by which the bats with so much tact and such nice perception steer without the aid of their eyes through the shrubs, and between the branches of trees; those also of other mammife- rous animals, such as the flying squirrel and flying opossum use in their leaps from tree to tree. Savigny is of opinion that certain dorsal scales, in pairs , ob- servable in two of the genera‘ cf his first family of Neréideans,* are analogous to the elytra and wings of insects : this he infers from characters connected with their insertion, dorsal position, substance and structure, but not with their uses and functions; for, as he also states, they are evidently a species of vesicle, communicating by a pedicle with the interior of the body, which, in the laying season, is filled with eggs,* a circum- stance in which they agree with the egg-pouches of the Ento- mostracans ; and therefore Baron Cuvier’s opinion, that there is little foundation for the application of this term to these or- gans* seems to me correct. Wings may be divided into organs of flight and organs of suspension. 'The first are found in insects, in which they are distinct from the legs; in birds, in which the anterior leg of 1 Halitheaand Polynoe. See Aphrodita Clava. Montague in Linn. Trans. ix. 108, t. vii. f. 3. 2 Aphrodite. 3 Syst. des Annel. 27. 4 Regn. Anim. ili. 206. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 267 quadrupeds becomes a wing; and in bats and vampyres, in which both the anterior and posterior legs support the wing. The second kind of wings is found in the flying cat, the flying squirrel, and the flying opossum; and, under a different form, in the flying dragon of modern zoologists. The wings of insects differ materially from those of birds, and of certain Mammalians : for instance, the bats and vampyres, since in them they are not formed by skin or membrane, at- tached to the fore-leg, or both legs, but are distinct organs implanted in the trunk, usually leaving the animal its classi- cal number of legs, for its locomotions on terra firma. These organs are composed of two membranes, closely applied to each other, and attached to elastic nervures issuing from the trunk, and accompanied by a spiral trachea or air-vessel. These nervures vary in their number and distribution : in some insects the wing has none except that which forms its anterior margin,* and in others the whole wing is reticulated by them ;? the longitudinal ones often give an inequality to the surface, and form it into folds, which probably, in flight, it can relax or contract according to circumstances. In some genera*® the wing is folded longitudinally in repose, and in others also trans- versely.* In the higher animals the wings never exceed a single pair; but in insects the typical number is four; and though some are called Dipterous, or two-winged, yet even a lavge proportion of these have, in the winglets,® the rudiment of another pair. The anterior pair, called elytra, &c. in the beetles, and some others, are principally useful to cover and protect the wings when unemployed, still they produce some effect in flight, and they partake in a reduced degree of the motion of the wings, those of the cock-chaffer® describing an are equal to only a fourth part of that of the latter organs. M. Jurine, in which he is followed by M. Chabrier, has regarded the primary wing of insects as analogous to the wing of birds; but though this may hold good in some respects, it does not in its main feature. If we consider that the wing of birds is really the analogue of the fore-leg of quadrupeds, and replaces it ; and also that insects have a representative of that leg fixed to the anterior segment of the trunk, thence called the Manitrunk, in contradistinction to the Alitrunk, which bears the wings; it seems not probable that the anterior leg, and the anterior wing which belong to different segments, should 1 Psilus, &c. See Jurine Hymenopt. t. v. and xiii. G. 48. 2 Labelluline 3 Vespide. 4 Coleoptera. S Alule. 6 Melolontha vulgaris. 268 LOCOMOTIVE AND be analogues of the same organ. The first pair of wings, or their representatives, the elytra, are connected with the hip- joint, by an intermediate piece called the scapular ;? and the posterior wings are connected with the same joint of the pos- terior legs by the parapleura,’ so that, in some sort, the wings of insects may be regarded as appendages,—not of the fore-legs, or arms, which are the real analogues of the fore-leg of quad- rupeds, and wing of birds,—but the first pair of the mid-legs, and the second of the hind-legs. Some winged insects, especially the dragon-flies, like the crabs and spiders, can retrograde in their flight, and also move laterally, without turning; thus they can more readily pur- sue their prey, or escape from their enemies. The situation of their wings is usually so regulated in the majority with respect to their centre of gravity, as to enable them to maintain nearly a horizontal position in flight ; but in some, as the stag-bee- tles,* the elytra and wings have their attachment in advance of that point, so that the head, prothorax, and mandibles do not fully counterpoise the weight of the posterior part of their body, occasioning this animal to assume a nearly vertical posi- tion when on the wing. The apparatus and conditions of flight in birds and insects are very different, varying according to the functions and struc- ture of the animal. In birdsa longer and more acute anterior extremity distinguishes the wing, by which their Creator ena- bles them to pass with more ease through the air; but in in- sects that extremity is not a trenchant point that can win its own way, but usually is very blunt, opposing either the por- tion of a circle, or a very obtuse angle to it; hence perhaps it is that the common dung-beetle,® which is a short obtuse ani- mal, “ wheels its droning flight” in a zig-zag line, like a ves- sel steering against the wind, and thus it flies, as every one knows, with great velocity as well as noise. This also may be one reason why insects have usually a greater volume of wing than birds, and that a very large number are fitted and adorned with four of these organs, which can sometimes hook to each other, by a beautiful contrivance,® and so form a single ample van to sail on the aerial waves, and bear forward the bluff-headed vessel. The motions, in the air, of numerous in- sects are an alternate rising and falling, or a zig-zag onward flight, in a direction up and down, as all know who have ob- 1 Cozxa. Sce Introd. to Ent. iii. 661. 2 Scapulare. I bid. 561. 3 Ibid. 575. 4 Lucanus. 5 Geotrupes stercorarius, &c. 6 Mon. Ap. Angl. i. 108. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 269 served the flight of a butterfly, or a kind of hovering in the air, or a progress from flower to flower, or backwards and for- wards and every way in pursuit of prey,—how admirably has their Creator furnished them to accomplish all these motions with the greatest facility and grace. And though their wings are usually naked, without any representative of those plumes which so ornament the wings of birds, and give them as it Were more prise upon the air, yet in one numerous tribe,* the moths and butterflies, they rival the birds, and even exceed them, both in the brilliancy of the little plumes, or rather scales, which clothe the wings, and the variety of the pattern figured upon them, and likewise of their forms and arrangement. So that every one, who minutely examines them in this respect with an unbiassed mind, can hardly help exclaiming,—I trace the hand and pencil of an Almighty Artist, and of one whose understanding is infinite, and who is in himself the architype of all symmetry, beauty, and grace! The wings of a variety of insects, though few, save the Le- pidoptera, are ornamented with scales, are planted with little bristles, more or less numerous or dispersed ; these Chabrier thinks, as well as the scales now alluded to, amongst other uses, are means of fixing the air in flight, as well as augment- ing the surfaces, and points of arrest, in each wing.? They also strengthen the wing and add to its weight, and doubtless have other uses not so easily ascertained. Hair, in scripture, is denominated power, and probably those fluids, which we can neither weigh nor coerce, find their passage into the body of the animal, or out of it, by these little conductors; and thus the various piligerous, plumigerous, pennigerous, and squami- gerous animals, may offer points and paths not only to the air, but to more subtile fluids, either going or coming, whose in- fluences introduced into the system, may add a momentum to all the animal forces, or, which having executed their commis- sion and become neutralized, may thus pass off into the atmos- phere. But of all the winged animals which God has created and given it in charge to traverse the atmosphere, there is none comparable to the great and interesting Class of birds, which emulating the insects on one side by their diminutive size and dazzling splendours, on the other vie with some of the Mam- malians in magnitude and other characters. Here we have the humming-birds of America, scarcely bigger than the hum- ble-bee ; and there the savage condor of the same country, 1 Lepidoptera. 2 Sur le Vol des Ins. 24. 270 LOCOMOTIVE AND whose outstretched wings would serve to measure the length of the giant elephant or rhinoceros. Though we cannot mount into the air ourselves, yet every one, from the peasant to the prince, that is able to follow the flight of the birds with his eyes, is delighted with the spectacle of life that they exhibit in the aérial regions, and we should scarcely miss the beasts of the earth and all the creatures that are moving in all direc- tions and paces over its surface, than we should the disappear- ance of the birds of every wing from the atmosphere. And therefore the prophet in his sublime description of the desola- tion of Judah, makes the disappearance of the birds of heaven the most striking feature of his picture. J beheld the earth, says he, and lo, it was without form and void : and the heavens, and they had no light; I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled’. The wing of these animals, in many cases, so powerful to bear them on through the thin air, and counteract the gravity of their bodies; to take strong hold of that element which man cannot subdue like water, to move through himself, and so to push themselves on, often with the swiftness of an arrow, through its rushing winds or almost motionless breath: the wing of birds is in fact the fore-leg or arm adapted and clothed by Supreme Intelligence, for the action it has to maintain, and for the medium in which that action is to take place, and con- sists of nearly the same parts as the fore-leg in Mammalians, for there is the shoulder,? fore-arm,* and the hand,* with the analogue of a thumb, called the winglet,> and of a finger.®. The ten primary quill feathers are planted in the hand, and the secondaries, varying in number, on the fore-arm, these quill- feathers, being very principal instruments of the wing in flight, are also named the remiges or rowers of the vessel. The pri- mary feathers usually vary in length, the external ones being the longest, so as to cause the wing to terminate in a point; those that cover the shoulder are cailed scapulars ; and those short ones that cover the base of the wings above and below are called coverts.? Wings usually curve somewhat inwards, are convex above and concave below, and are acted upon by very powerful muscles. Wonderful is the structure of the feathers that compose them, and each is a master-piece of the Divine Artificer. In general it is evident that each has been 1 Jerem. iv. 23—25. 2 Humerus. 3. Cubitus. 4 Carpus and Metacarpus. 5 Alula. 6 Digitus. 7 ~ Tectrices. PREHENSORY ORGANS. O71 measured and weighed with reference to its station and func- tion. Every separate feather resembles the bipinnate leaves of a plant; besides the obvious parts, the hollow quill, and solid stem bearded obliquely on both sides with an infinity of little plumes; each of these latter is also formed with a rachis or mid-rib set obliquely with plumelets, resembling hairs, and exactly incumbent on the preceding one, and adhering, by their means, closely to it, thus rendering the whole feather not only very light, but, as it were, air-tight. In the goose, the mid-rib of the plumelets of the primary feathers is dilated towards the base into a kind of keel, so that each plumelet at the summit looks like a feather, and at the base like a lamina or blade. By the use of very fine microscopes of garnet and sapphire Sir David Brewster succeeded in developing the structure of the plumelets; he discovered a singular spring consisting of a number of slender fibres laid together, which resisted the divi- sion or separation of the minute parts of the feather, and closed themselves together when their separation had been forcibly effected.* | If we examine the whole wing, and the disposition and connection of the feathers that compose it, we shall find that one great object. of its structure is to render it impervious to the air, so that it may take most effectual hold of it, and by push- -ing, as it were, against it, with the wing, when the wing-stroke is downwards, to force the body forwards. A person’expert in swimming or rowing, may easily get an idea how this is ef- fected, by observing how the pressure of his arms and legs, or of his oars, against the denser medium, though not in the same direction, carries him, or his boat, forwards. In the case of the bird, the motion is not backwards and forwards, but upwards and downwards, which difference, perhaps, is rendered neces- sary by the rarer medium in which the motion takes place. ‘To facilitate the progress of the bird through the air, the head usually forms a trenchant point, that easily divides it and overcomes its resistance; and often to this is added a long neck, which, in the case of many sea-birds, as wild geese and ducks, is stretched to its full length in flight; while in others, where centre of gravity requires it, as in the heron,” bittern,® &c., it is bent back. The swiftness of the flight of some birds is wonderful, being four or five times greater than that of the swiftest quadruped. Directed by an astonishing acuteness of sight, the aquiline 1 Lit. Gazette, Oct. 11, 1834, 690. 2 Ardea cinerea. 3. A. stellaris. VA LOCOMOTIVE AND tribes, when soaring in the air beyond human ken, can see a little bird or newt on the ground or on a rock, and dart upon it in an instant, like a flash of lightning, giving it no time for escape. But though some birds are of such pernicious wing, there are others of the most gigantic size, for instance the ostrich, emu,? &c. that have only rudiments of wings, and which never fly, and for their locomotions depend chiefly upon their legs, to which the muscles of power are given, instead of to the wings. Amongst the terrestrial animals that give suck to their young, there is a single Family which the Creator has gifted with organs of excursive flight, and these afford the only example of the third kind of those organs mentioned above. These cannot, like insects and birds, traverse the earth upon legs, as well as flit through the air upon wings; for the analogues of the legs of quadrupeds, not solely of the anterior pair, as in birds, but of both pairs, form the bony structure by which the wing is extended and moved, and to which it is {attached. It will be immediately seen that [ am speaking of the bats and vampyres. These animals, which form the first Family of Cuvier’s Order of Carnivorous Mammalians,*? are denominated Cheiroptera, or hand-winged, because in them the four fingers of the hand, the thumb being left free, are very much elongated so as to form the supports and extensors of the anterior portion of the membrane of which the wing is formed; while the hind leg and the tail, in most, perform the same office for the pos- terior portion of the wing: so that two wings appear to be united to form one ample organ of flight. The membrane itself, which forms the wing, is only a continuation of the skin of the flanks: as in the wings of insects, it is double, very fine, and so thin as to be semi-transparent; it is traversed by some blood-vessels, and muscular fibres—doubtless accompanied by nerves—which when the wings are folded form little cavities placed in rows, resembling the meshes of a net. As bats are not provided with air-cells, or air in their bones, like birds, and their flight is unassisted by feathers, these wants are compen- sated to them by wings four or five times the length of their body. Their flight is of a different character from that of birds, resembling rather the flitting of a butterfly ; when we consider that the peculiar function of bats is to keep within due limits the numbers of crepuscular and nocturnal insects, especially moths, we see how necessary it was that they should be ena- bled to traverse every spot frequented by the objects their 1 Struthio. 2 Casuarius. 3 Les Carnassiers. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 273 instinct urges them to pursue and devour. For this purpose their wings are admirably adapted not only by their volume, but by their power of contracting them, and giving them vari- ous inflections in flight, so that their speed is regulated by the object they are pursuing. | When we further reflect that their eyes are small and deep- seated, we may conjecture that it requires extraordinary tact and delicacy of sensation in some other organs to supply this defect in its sight. Spallanzani found that blind bats fly as well as those that have eyes; that they avoided most expertly threads of fine silk which he had so stretched as just to leave room for them to pass between them; that they contracted, at will, their wings, if the threads were near, so as to avoid touch- ing them; as well as when they passed between the branches of trees; and also that they could suspend themselves in dark places, such as vaults, to the prominent angles. He deprived the same individuals of other organs of sensation, but they were equally adroit in their flight, so that he concluded they must have some sensiferous organs different from those of other animals to enable them to thread the labyrinths through which they ordinarily pass. Dr Grant observes on this subject—“Bats are nocturnal, but, contrary to what is generally the case with nocturnal ani- mals, their eyes are minute and feeble, and indeed, compara- tively speaking, of minor importance, for so exquisite is the sense of feeling diffused over the surface of their membranous wings, that they are able to feel any vibration of air however imperceptible by us; they can tell, by the slight rebound of the air, whether they are flying near any wall, or opposing body, or in free space though their eyes be sealed or removed.”* A similar observation was long ago made by Mr Bingley.? We see in the circumstances here detailed a remarkable in- stance of the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of the Creator, in compensating for the absence or imperfection of one or more senses, by adding to the intensity of another, and in establish- ing its principal seat in organs so nicely adapted to derive most profit by the information communicated. An animal nearly related to the vampyres, the cat-ape,? com- monly called the flying cat, and by some the flying dog, though nearly related to the bats, and included by Cuvier in the same Family, differs essentially from them, in being furnished with organs formed by the skin of the flanks connected with the 1 Quoted in Lit, Gaz. Feb. 9, 1834. 2 Mem. of Brit. Quad. 34. 3 Galeopithecus. KK Q74 LOCOMOTIVE AND legs of each extremity, which are calculated for suspension rather than flight, being used, as Cuvier remarks, merely as a parachute, and thus belong to the second kind of wings, men- tioned above. This animal, which climbs like a cat, vaults from one tree to another, by the aml of the above skin, which supports it in the air. ‘The pedaurists,t or flying squirrels, and the phalangists,? or flying opossums are similarly equipped, and fora similar purpose. ‘The common squirrel,? using its tail as a rudder, leaps with great agility from tree to tree, without the aid of this kind of parachute, the force of its spring being sufficient to counteract that of gravity. Providence has evidently added an organ of suspension, in the case of the three former animais, either because their vaults were necessarily longer, or because the greater weight of their bodies required it. The dreaded name of dragon, attached to the monsters of fable, has excited in our imagination ideas of beings clothed with unwonted terrors, from our earliest years, so that when we find the only animal that inherits their name is an insig- nificant lizard, not more than eight inches long, we are tempt- ed to exclaim, Parturiunt monies. 'This little animal, under the name of wings, is furnished with two dorsal appendages independent of the legs, formed of the skin, and actually sup- ported by the six first short ribs, which, instead of taking their usual curvature, are extended inaright line. These organs are not used to fly with, but to support the animal in its leaps from branch to branch, and fromm tree to tree. We see in this instance, how exactly the means are adapted to the end proposed. This animal walks with difficulty, and consequently seldom descends from the trees. It is therefore enabled to move from one part of a tree to another, not by its legs, but by an organ formed out of its ribs! How various and singular, in this instance, as well as in that of serpents, before alluded to,* are the means adopted by a Being, who is never at a loss to answer the foreseen call of circumstances by wise expedients. Steering Organs.-—But wings are not the only organs of flight with which the Creator has fitted those animals, to which he has assigned the air as the theatre of their most striking and interesting locomotions. They would be like a ship at sea without a rudder, and be altogether at the mercy of every wind of heaven, had they no means to enable them to steer their vessel through the fluctuations of the viewless element assigned 1 Petaurus. 2 Phalangisia. 3 Scturus vulgaris. = 4 See above, p. 208. 5 Gubernacula. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 275 to them. The eagle and the vulture would be gifted in vain with the faculty of seeing objects at a great distance, had they no other organ than their sail-broad vans to direct them in their flight. The same remark will apply as well to the insect as to the bird, which would in vain endeavour to discharge its functions, unless it could steer its course according to the direc- tion of its will and the information furnished by its senses. But, upon examination, we shall find that God hath not left himself without witness in this department, but hath furnished every bird and insect with such an organ of steerage as the case of each required ; nay, even amongst the beasts and the teptiles we may discover similar means of directing their motions, especially when they leap, whether from the ground, or from tree to tree. The caudal fin, or tail of fishes, may be regarded as belong- ing in some degree to this head; but as this is also their prin- cipal organ of locomotion, [ thought it best to consider it with the other fins. : ~ The abdomen of many insects seems to serve them asa rudder, being composed of several inosculating rings formed each of a dorsal and ventral segment ; it is capable of considerable flexion in almost all directions; it can be elevated or depressed, and turned to either side, so that it seems, in a great degree, calcu- lated to enable insects to change the course of their flight according to their will. But besides this important organ— which by the air it is constantly inspiring adds force also to the internal impulse, and to the air-vessels in the wings—insects have other auxiliaries to keep them in their right course. Whoever has seen any grasshopper take flight, or leap from the ground, will find that they stretch out their hind legs, and, like certain birds, use them asa rudder. The tails also of the day-flies* seem to be used by them asa kind of balancer in their choral dances up and down in the sun’s declining beam. But the most interesting and beatiful organ for steering ani- mals in the air, is that formed by the tail feathers of birds, called by ornithologists, rectrices, or governing feathers, because they are used to direct their course ; these are feathers planted in the rump,? usually twelve in number—but in some amount- ing to nearly twenty—constituting two sets of feathers of six each, and forming together a kind of forlk like the caudal fin of some fishes ; the inside of each feather is set with much larger plumelets than the outside, so that there is a double series of corresponding feathers beginning one on the right side, and the 2 Uropygium. 1 Ephemera. 276 LOCOMOTIVE AND other on the left; the middle feathers in each series differ sometimes from the five exterior ones, being more acute, and wearing a different aspect. In flight the tail-feathers appear to be expanded, and probably the bird, by giving an impulse to either series, can turn this way or that; or by their depression or elevation, judging from their analogy with the caudal fin of fishes, rise or fall. The rudder-tail here described is that of the male bull-finch ;t in many birds of the Gallinaceous Order, as the common cock and peacock, these feathers form a glori- ous ornament, but seem to lose their use as a steering appa- ratus. In the black game? the two sets of feathers of the tail turn outwards, one on each side, and so form a fork ; and, in our domestic poultry, these sets of feathers, when not expanded, fold upon each other. Some of the waders,® the tail-feathers of which are short, use their long legs, like the grasshoppers, as a rudder in flight, stretched out straight behind them. Many of the web-footed birds,* as the goose and duck tribes, also have these feathers very short, which seems a convenient provision for aquatic birds, but whether their legs assist in directing their course seems not to have been ascertained, Some of them, however, as the pin-tail duck® have the middle feathers of the tail elongated, as they are in many other birds; in the swallow tribe,® and the sea-swallow,’ the external feathers of the tail are elongated, as these birds are frequently turning when in the air, and flying backwards and forwards ; their Creator has thus equipped them for their ever changing evolutions. Some birds, as the thrushes,® magpies,? and other crows, have all the tail feathers long, which gives great power to them in flight. The tails of quadrupeds, both oviparous and viviparous, appear, in many cases, to act in some degree as a rudder. They are not only useful to those lately mentioned, that by the assistance of a kind of parachute, leap from tree to tree ; but likewise to the feline race, when they spring upon their prey ; the tail is then extended stiffly in a right line, as if to guide them through the air straight to the object they have been watching from their lair. The long tail also of many lizards may, in their sinuous windings, serve some purpose connected with their locomotion related to the one under discussion, eet we have not data sufficient to speak positively on the subject. 1 Loxia pyrrhula. 2 Tetrao Tetrix. 3 Grallatores. 4 Palmipedes. 5 Anas acuta. 6 Hirundo. 7 Sterna 8 Turdus. 9 Corvus Pica. PREHENSORY ORGANS. Q77 Legs.—We are now arrived at organs that are the most perfect instruments of locomotion and prehension, organs which are found in their greatest perfection in the highest animals, articulated legs and arms, terminating in the most perfect in- strument, upon the due employment or misemployment of which the weal or woe of the whole human race, as far as se- cond causes are concerned, depend. ' The legs of animals may be considered generally as to their number, composition, and adaptation to their functions. As to their number, taking the legs of vertebrated animals, which may be regarded, being the most perfect, as a standard to measure others by, we may assume that four is the most perfect number. Thus, in man, the highest animal, there are two for locomotion, and two principally for prehension. Tak- ing, therefore, man for the ultimate point to which all tend, let us see how, in this respect, the scale is formed, We observed in certain tribes of the Annelidans, an approach to jointed legs, and it should seem a link, connecting, in some degree, that Class with the Myriapods; with these last, there- fore, we may start in our consideration of articulated locomotive organs, and here we find a long body moved by numerous legs, gradually acquired, as we have seen, with its increasing length. We may observe, that in the superior tribes of animals, the four legs being planted in pairs at each extremity of the body, the sradual increase of stature did not require additional props, but only the proportionate growth of the existing or natal legs and arms; but in the Myriapods, where the great increase of the body in length is not between the original extremities, but beyond them, additional supports were requisite, so that as the body increased in length, its Creator, in his goodness willed— that it might not draw its slow length along like a wounded snake—that it should be furnished at the same time witha proportionate increase in the number of its locomotive organs. These animais then, with respect to number of legs, may be regarded as at the foot of the scale, and are the furthest re- moved from man. From the Myriapods, we go to the great Crustacean host, in which, including the maxillary legs, the real analogue of the legs of Hexapods, the typical number is sixteen; and from these, the transition is naturally to the spiders, which have half that number, and from them to the insect tribes, walking only upon sixlegs. Having arrived ata hexapod type, we may obseve that one pair of the legs has a direction towards the head, and are lo- cated in the anterior segment of the trunk; and that the other two pairs have a direction the contrary way, towards the ab- 278 LOCOMOTIVE AND domen, and are located in that part of the trunk which bears the wings, and of these, the last pair may be regarded as the representatives of the legs in man, and of the hind legs of quadrupeds, As to the composition of legs, if we take the arm and leg of man for the type or standard with which to compare all the articulated organs of locomotion and prehension with which animals are gifted, we shall find a considerable, though not an entire, correspondence between them. Anatomists usually divide the arm, or anterior extremity, into four principal por- tions, namely, the shoulder-blade,* the shoulder,? the fore-arm,® the thigh,°® the shank,® and the foot.’ The first of these, however, the thigh, inoseu- lates with the lower part of a bone; caiied the ‘iinet bone,® which in very young subjects forms. three, named the haunch,? the share-bone*® and the hip-bone :** now this bone appears evi- dently the analogue of the shoulder-blade in the anterior leg or arm, and thus, admitting this, both extremities in the num- ber of principal parts correspond with each other. As the vertebrated animals, for the most part, agree with their prototype in the greater articulations of their anterior and posterior extremities, though much modified in particular in- stances and for particular uses, I shall now only compare the legs of the great sub-kingdom of Condylopes, or invertebrated animals with jointed legs, with those of man, and other Mam- malians, and inquire how, in the above respect, they consist of analogous parts. The remarkable distinction which separates the vertebrated from the invertebrated animals, namely, that, in the former, the muscles have no external points of attachment; and, in the latter, with a few partial exceptions, no internal ones—must produce a marked difference in all parts of their several strue- tures, and, amongst the rest, between their organs of locomotion and prehension : and therefore it is not to be expected that they will be perfectly analagous in their composition. Thus in the invertebrates the parts corresponding with the fore-arm and shank of the vertebrates do not consist of two parallel. bones ; the hand and the foot also are essentially different; and the 1 Scapula. 2 Humerus. 3 Culbitus, including two parallel bones, the Ulna and Radius. 4 Manus. 5 Femur. 6 Crus, including also two parallel bones, Tibia and Frbula. 7” Pes: 8 Os innominatum. 9 Os iluem 10 Os pubis. 11 Os ischiwm. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 279 parts by which the extremities in one case articulate with the vertebral column towards its summit and base, and in the other with the trunk of the animal at various points, are usually extremely dissimilar: in several beetles, however, the basilar joints, especially of the hind legs, assume something of the character and form of the shoulder-blade of Mammalians; and in certain water-beetles! the posterior pair are immovable. In quadrupeds, usually, the thighs are remarkably clothed with muscle, especially towards their base; but, in the Condylopes, with the exception of some beetles and jumping insects, where a powerful muscular apparatus was requisite, they are not conspicuously incrassated, so as to contain muscles of great volume. From these circumstances I am induced to confine my ob- servations to the numerical composition of the locomotive and prehensory organs of Condylopes, and animals that give suck to their young. | In order to perceive clearly how far they agree or disagree in this respect, it will be advisable first to inquire whether these organs in Condylopes themselves can be reduced to a common type. The Crustaceans and Arachnidans, including under the latter denomination all regarded by Latreille as belonging to the Class, at the first inspection of the organs in question, appear to have one joint more than insects. This supernu- merary joint is the fourth, in The Introduction to Entomology named the Epicnemis,? which is there regarded as an accessory of the shank. But from further observation, and from a com- parison of this joint of the Arachnidans with an analogous one in the Crustaceans, in which it is longer and more conspicuous, I feel convinced that, short as it is in them, it is really the shank in that Class, and that the long joint usually regarded as the shank is analogous to the first, often dilated and elongated,® joint of the tarsus in insects. That this joint belongs to the tarsus or foot will be further evident from the following cir- cumstance. If we examine the anterior leg, or arm, of the lobster or crab, we shall find that the joint in question, which is the fifth of the leg,* is what is called the metacarpal joint, a process of which forms the index or finger of the’didactyle hand or forceps of these animals, and the succeeding and terminal joint the opposing thumb. It is evident, therefore, that. this 1 Dytiscus. L. 2 Vol. ii, 668. 3 E.G. In the Bees and many other Hymenoptera. 4 Prare X. Fie. 1. “SoS i - - S Ce 280 LOCOMOTIVE AND joint belongs not to the shank or cubit, but to the foot; and that consequently a Crustacean or Arachnidan leg or arm nu- merically corresponds in its greater articulations with that of an insect. Having proved, I hope, to the satisfaction of the reader, that the legs of Condylopes, with regard to the number of their principal articulations are reducible to one type,—unless we may except some of the Acaridans, or mites, and the Branchiopod Entomostracans, which appear reducible to no general rule—I shall next endeavour to show that the Condylope leg does not usually differ numerically from that of the quadruped or mam- malian; and that the former consists of only four principal arti- culations as well as the latter, and it will not require many words, or any laboured disquisition, to prove this. The, so called, trochanler is, with great propriety, considered by M. Latreille as being a joint of the thigh, as it really is, and in many cases, especially in Coleopterous insects, has no separate motion; consequently if this opinion be admitted, the number of articulations, both in the Condylopes and Mamimalians will be the same. Animals that are built upon a skeleton, or incased in an ex- ternal crust or rigid integument, in order to have the power of free locomotion and prehension,’ must necessarily be fitted with jointed organs, whose articulations are more numerous at the extremity, where the principal action is, that those parts may so apply to surfaces as to enable the animal to take sufficient hold of them for either of the above purposes. There is a circumstance connected with the legs of insects which, at first sight, seems to throw some doubt upon this con- clusion. The shank has often at its apex, and sometimes the cubit, certain little movable organs, which have been called spurs, but which really appear to aid the animal in its locomo- tions,t and in some they even terminate in suckers :? as these organs are co-ordinate with the jointed tarsus, they seem in some sort a kind of auxiliary digitation. In the mole-cricket® the structure is still more anomalous, the cubit terminating in four strong digitations or claws, opposed to which is the, so called, tarsus, which seems analogous in some sort to a jointed thumb, so that the whole represents a pentadactyle hand. A similar anomaly distinguishes the posterior pair of legs of one of the Entomostracans, the king-crab: in these, besides the J} Introd. to Ent. iii. 674. 2 Philos. Trans. 1816, t. xix. f. 8, 9. 3. Gryllotalpa, PREHENSORY ORGANS. 98k tarsus armed with two claws, there are four movable digita- tions.* Though the Creator has evidently connected the sphere of animals by some organs or characters common to the whole, and generally speaking, in the tribes that we are comparing, has formed the organs which I am considering, as to their articulations, upon a common type; yet occasionally we see departures from a strict adherence to the likeness, as in the cases here specified, where the circumstances and functions of an animal required such departure. Adaptation of Legs.—It is by the adaptation of its legs to the circumstances of an animal, and to the functions which it was created to exercise, that the design of an Intelligent Cause is apparent, and the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator manifested. The well known adage, Natura non facit saltus, is exemplified in the passage, with respect to their locomotive organs, from the expansile Annelidans to the rigid Condylopes; for in num- berless instances, we have in the larve of insects a kind of in- termediate animal, in some degree expansile, some of which move like the leech,? and others are apodes, like worms, mov- ing by the contortions of their bodies, a large proportion at the same time having the jointed legs of their Class when arrived at perfection, and in their spurious legs imitating, in some sort, the locomotive organs of the Annelidans. The principal offices of legs are to enable the animal to procure the kind of food which its nature requires; to be em- ployed in operations connected with the continuation of its kind; and to be instrumental in its escape from danger and from the pursuit of its enemies; and the means by which these ends are accomplished are the comparative length of its legs; their volume, either in whole or in part; the structure of their extremity, either for locomotion or prehension ; or where the ex- tremity of the legs is not adapted to the latter function, certain compensating contrivances calculated to supply that want. To enable some animals to come at their food, sometimes a great difference, as to measure, between their anterior and pos- terior extremities, is necessary. At the first blush, and before we were acquainted with its habits, should we chance to meet with a giraffe,’ so striking is the seeming disproportion of many of its parts, that we should be tempted to take it for an abortion 1 Savigny, dnim. sans Vertebr. i. t. vii. f. 1. k. 2 The Geometric caterpillars or loopers. 3 Camelopardalis Giraffa. LL 282 LOCOMOTIVE AND in which the posterior parts were not fully developed. Ob- serving its length of neck and elevated withers, the apparently unnatural declivity of its back, and the comparative lowness of its hind quarters, we should conclude that such must be the case. But if we proceeded to inquire into the nature of its food, and were told that it subsisted by cropping the branches of certain trees which thus it was enabled to reach, the truth would flash upon us, we should immediately perceive the cor- respondence between its structure and its food, and acknowledge the design and contrivance of a benevolent Creator in this for- mation. A similar idea would perhaps occur to us the first time we saw ayerboa,* ora kanguroo.? Hasselquist says of the former— ihat it might be described as having the head ofa hare, the whiskers of a squirrel, the snout of a hog, the body, ears, and fore-legs of a mouse, hind-legs like those of a bird, with the tail of a lion; and an ancient zoologist would have made a mon- ster of it that might have rivalled the chimera. ‘The kanguroo also would have met with a similar fate. ‘Though the jerboa is not a marsupian animal like the kanguroo, yet they have many characters in common. They both have-very slender fore- quarters, and short and slender fore-legs; their hind-quarters, on the contrary, are remarkably robust and incrassated, and they sit erect, resting upon them like a hare ; both have a long powerful tail, which they use as a fifth leg. "The object of this formation, at the first glance, so at variance with all ideas of symmetry, appears to be a swifter change of place, and more ready escape from annoyance or violence. ‘The jerboa is stated to take very long leaps, and those of the kanguroo are said to extend from twenty to twenty-eight feet, and they rise to an elevation of from six to eight feet. When they leap they keep their short fore-leg pressed close to their breast, and their long and robust tail, having first assisted them in their leap, is ex- tended in a right line. A double end is answered by their peculiar structure ; sitting on their haunches, they can leisurely look around them, and if they spy any cause of alarm make off by the means just stated. Their attenuated fore-quarters and short fore-legs rendering it much more easy for them, over- stepping every obstacle, to dart into the air; their centre of gravity is then removed nearer the hind quarters, so that the tail can act as a counterpoise to the anterior part of the body. The jerboa also, like the kanguroo, when alarmed, springs into the air. W hen ready to take flieht, it stands, as it were, 1 Dipus. 2 Macropus. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 283 on tip-toe, supporting itself by its tail. Its fore-legs are then applied so closely to the breast as to be invisible, whence the ancients call it Dipus, or biped ;* having taken their spring they alight upon their fore-feet, and elevating themselves again, they are off so rapidly, that they seem to be always, so to speak, upon the wing. They use their long tail to support themselves when they recover from their leaps, giving it the curvature of the letter S reversed, thus, 2. When their tail has been short- ened at different lengths, it has been found that their leap is diminished in the same proportion; and when it was wholly cut off they could not leap at all. We see, in one Order of the Birds,? the Waders, a remarkable disproportion of the legs to those of the rest of the Class; they look as if they walked upon stilts, whence the name of the Order, so disproportionally long are their legs to those of the generality of birds. I have before noticed the use of these legs to them in flying,® but the principal object of this structure is to enable them to prey upon aquatic animals, fishes, worms, and the like. Whoever isin the habit of frequenting estuaries, and other waters, will generally see some of these birds, as herons and bitterns, standing in them, where shallow, and ever and anon dipping their heads, and then emerging swallow their capture. ‘The design of this structure must be obvious to every eye, namely, to qualify these birds of prey to assist in keeping within due limits the population of the various waters of our globe, which other predaceous animals cannot come at. Another tribe of long legged birds, which Cuvier considers as belonging to the present Order, though their habits and habitat are altogether different, and which constitute his family of short-winged waders,* is that to which the Ostrich’ and Emu® belong, but in these the object of this structure is to fit them not for standing in the water, but for running in the sandy desert; and such is the velocity of the ostrich that it can outstrip the fleetest Arabian courser when pursued. Other birds are re- markable for the shortness and strength of their legs; of this description are the aquiline race, which are thus fitted by their Creator for seizing and holding fast any prey which their piercing sight discovers. 1 Herodot. Melpon. § 192. Ed. Reizii. 2 It is to be observed in general, with respect to the Class of Birds, that the conspicuous part of their legs is not the shank, which is chiefly covered by muscle and feathers, but is formed of the tarsal and metatarsal bones united into one. 3 See above, p. 276 4 Echassiers brevipennes. 5 Struthio Camelus. 6 Casuarius Emeu. 284 LOCOMOTIVE AND There is one, and a very elegant bird, belonging to this Or- der, the secretary-bird,* the legs of which are so long, that many ornithologists have arranged it with the waders. Itis, however, very properly placed amongst the predaceous birds. Its long legs are given it to enable it to pursue the serpents, which form its food. We see, in this instance, a departure from one of the typical characters of its own tribe, and those of another adopted in order to accommodate the animal to the circumstances in which it was the Divine will to place it, and to fit it for the function which it was there to exercise. Amongst the Repiiles there is little diversity, as to the rela- tive proportions of the organs we are considering, and their parts ; in the Batrachians, or frogs and toads, which are mostly leaping and swimming animals, the hind legs are elongated to accommodate them to those kinds of locomotion ; and in some of the Saurians or lizards, which are approaching to the Ophi- dians or serpents, the legs are very short,? and sometimes re- duced to a single pair ;* even in some serpents rudiments of a pair of legs have been discovered, particularly in the Boa.* Some insects are remarkable for the vast length of their ante- tior pair of legs ; what may be the object of this formation has not been discovered except that, in one instance,° it is found only in one sex. The animal I allude to belongs to the tribe of Capricorn beetles,® and seems not to be uncommon in Brazil. The fore-legs of the male are more than twice the length of the body, while those of the female, though longer than the others, are scarcely half so long. Many insects are formed, im some degree, after the pattern of the kanguroo and the jerboa, in order to enable them to transport themselves by leaping beyond the reach of their ene- mies. The thighs of their bind legs are incrassated so as to afford a box capable of containing muscles sufficiently power- ful, by their action, to send them through the air to an almost incredible distance. If we examine the sructure of the poste- rior legs of any common grasshopper, we immediately see, both from the position of the joints with respect to each other, and the shape and volume of the elongated thigh, that they are made for leaping. The shank, when the animal prepares to leap, forms an acute angle with the thigh, so that being sud- denly unbent, it springs forward, often to the distance of two hundred times its own length. Many catriages are set upon 1 Ophiotheres cristatus. Veill. 2 E. G. in Seps. 3 As in Bipes. 4 Zool. Journ. iii. 253. 5 Acrocinus longimanus. 6 Cerambyx. L. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 985 springs made to imitate the position of this insect preparing to leap, which are known by the name of grasshopper springs.* Several beetles rival the grasshoppers in their leaps, and have their posterior thighs much disproportioned to the bulk of their bedies, which allow space for a sufficient muscular apparatus, to send them, like an arrow from a bow, to a great distance. If a finger be held to a leaf covered by the turnip flea,? in the twinkling of an eye, all skip off and vanish. We may hence imagine with what expedition they disappear at the approach of any insectivorous bird. Thus their Creator, who cares for the meanest of his creatures, has furnished them with means of escape, to prevent their annihilation, and to preserve them in such force, as may best answer his end in creating them. But besides partial modifications of the structure of these or- gans for particular uses, others are more general and affect the whole leg. Every one is aware how well adapted, by their fleetness, some of the Ruminant Mammalians are to make their escape from their ravenous pursuers, the most adroit and the most ruthless of which is the mighty hunter, man. If we look at the legs and hoofs of the deer tribe,? the former long, slender, and elastic ; and the latter calculated for sure footing ; and if we consider besides the quickness of their senses of seeing and hearing, we see at once that their structure is the effect of design, and that the deepest intellect presided at its first fabrieation.* Though man, as well as every ferocious beast, pursues these beautiful and elastic animals, it is only because he is Gule deditus, seldom with any view to seek their alliance, er to turn them to his purposes. There are some, however, as well as the rein-deer,* cherished by the Laplander as his principal treasure, but pursued by the American savage only to be devoured, which probably might be employed with advantage, as well as the dog, in countries not suited to our beasts of burthen ; and it has been supposed that the Wapiti® might be trained and rendered useful, I am ignorant, however, whether any steps have ever been taken to ascertain this, But the legs, as well as instruments of flight and escape, are adapted in fiercer animals to the pursuit and prehension of their prey, and in this, and many other respects, their hand or 1 See Introduction to Entomology, ii. 310. 2 Haltica oleracea, Nemorum, &c. 3 Cervus. L. 4 See Roget, B. T. i. 506. 5 Cervus Tarandus. 6 C. Stongyloceras. 286 LOCOMOTIVE AND foot is the part principally interesting. This is used for so many various purposes, that perhaps it will be best to take a summary survey, in this respect, of all the Classes of animals with articulated legs, and briefly point at their different struc- tures and their uses. As I have already given an account of the two kinds of forceps of Crustaceans,* I shall begin with the legs of the Arachnidans, or spiders. Every one who examines the web of a common spider, whether-it is formed of concentrig circles supported by diverging rays, or whether it imitates any finely woven sub- stance, will be convinced that she must be furnished with a peculiar set of organs to effect these purposes: that she must have something like a hand to work with. Amongst the small things that are wise upon earth, Solomon mentions the spider; and the way by which he tells us she shows her wisdom is by her prehensory powers—she takes hold with her hands.2 And truly what Arachne does with her hands and her spinning or- gans is very wonderful, as I shall have occasion hereafter to show; I shall now only make a few observations upon the or- gans by which she takes hold. Spiders are gifted with the faculty of walking against gravity, even upon glass, and in a prone position. According to the observations of Mr Blackwall, this is not effected by producing atmospheric pressure by the adhesion of suckers, but by a brush formed of “slender bristles fringed on each side with exceed- ing fine hairs gradually diminishing in length as they approach its extremity, where they occur in such profusion as to form a thick brush on its inferior surface.”* These brushes he first discovered on a living specimen of the bird-spider,* and the same structure, as far as his researches were carried, he found in those spiders which can walk against gravity and up glass. This is one of the modes by which they take hold with their hands, and thus they ascend walls, and set their snares in the palace as well as the cottage. Whoever examines the under- side of the last joint or digit of the foot of this animal with a common pocket-lens, will see that it is clothed with a very thick brush, the hairs of which, under a more powerful mag- nifier, appear somewhat hooked at the apex; in some species this brush is divided longitudinally, so as to form two. But the organs that are more particularly connected with the weaving and structure of the snares of the spiders are most 1 See above, p. 208, 209. 2 Prov. xxx. 28. 3 Blackwall in Linn. Trans. xvi. 481. t. xxxi. f. 5. 4 Mygale avicularta. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 287 worthy of attention. Setting aside the hunterst, and others that weave no snares to entrap their prey, I shall consider those I intend to notice, under the usual names of weavers? and retiaries.® Before Mr Blackwall turned his attention to the proceedings of these ingenious and industrious animals, it had not been ascertained, in what respect their modes of spinning their webs, and the organs by which they formed their respective manu- factures differed. But Mr Blackwall, whose observations were principally made upon one of the weavers* which frequents the holes and cavities of walls, and similar places, observes that it spins a kind of web of different kinds of silk, the surface of which has a flocky appearance, from the web being as it were ravelled. This web is produced, he observes, by a double series of spines, opposed to each other, and planted on a prominent ridge of the upper side of the metatarsal joint, or that usually re- garded as the first joint, of the foot of the posterior legs on the side next the abdomen. These spines are employed by the animal as a carding apparatus, the low series combing, as it were, or extracting, the ravelled web from the spinneret, and the upper series, by the insertion of its spines between those of the other, disengaging the web from them.® By this curious operation, which it is not easy to describe clearly, the adhesive part of the snare is formed, thus large flies are easily caught and detained, which the animal, emerging from its conceal- ment, soon despatches and devours. The organs by which the retiary spiders form their curious geometric snares have generally been described as three claws, the two uppermost armed with parallel teeth like a comb, and the lower one simple and often depressed; but Mr Blackwall found, in a species related to the common garden spider,’ eight’ claws, seven of which had their lower side toothed. The object of this complex apparatus of claws simple and pectinated, is to enable these animals to take hold of any thread; to guide it; to pull it; to draw it out; to ascertain the nature of any thing ensnared, whether it be animate or inanimate; and to suspend itself. In fact the Creator has made their claws not only hands but eyes to these animals. 1 Araneae. venatorie. 2 A. textorie. 3. A. retiarie. 4 Cluliona atroz. 5 Mammule. _ 6 Blackwall, ubi sup. 473. 7 Epeira Diadema. The species examined by Mr B. was E. apoclisa. 8 Blackwall, wht sup. 476. 288 LOCOMOTIVE AND Besides these organs, scattered movable spines or spurs are observable upon the legs, especially the three last joints, which I consider as forming the foot, but sometimes also upon the thighs of spiders, which, as they can be elevated and depressed at the will of the animal, probably are used as a kind of finger, when occasions require it. , In the multiform apparatus of these ingenious animals, as far as we understand its use, we see how they are fitted for their office, by contributing te deliver mankind from a plague of flies, which would otherwise, like those which swarmed in Egypt, annoy us beyond teleration, and corrupt our land. If the spider taketh hold with her hands, and spreads her snare in kings’ palaces, what shall we say of the bee, who with her hands erects herself her many-storied palaces, each story con- sisting of innumerable chambers, far more durable, and built of a materal infinitely exceeding the flimsy webs of Arachne. Her Creator hath instructed her, and fitted her with the means, to gather from every flower that blows a pure and sweet nec- tar, from which, received into her stomach, she elaborates the beautiful and important product of which her wondrous struc- tures are formed; and from the same source she is also instructed to load herself with a fine ambrosial dust, which, kneaded by her into a paste, constitutes the chief subsistence of herself and the young of the community to which she belongs, Almost every organ, implanted in her frame by her benefi- cent Creator, is employed by this symbol and exemplar of vir- tuous industry as a hand in her several works and. manipula- tions. Her antennae, those still mysterious organs, inform her in what flowers she may find honey, and which to pass by; they plan and measure her work, and by them she examines whether all is right; she also uses them to converse with her associates, and for various other purposes; her tongue is like- wise an instrument equally useful to her; it can assume vari- ous shapes as occasions demand; it collects the honey from the nectar-organs of the flower; it tempers the wax for build- ing and prepares it for the action of the mandibles. With these last organs she works up the wax till it is fit for use. The plumy hairs of her body, especially in the humble-bees, are useful in detaining the dust of the anthers. Her legs, more particularly the posterior pair, though not used immediately in her structures, are extremely important organs, both for pre- paring her food and the material with which she builds her palace. At the junction of the shank, with the first joint of the foot of this pair, a kind of forceps is formed, by the angle at the apex of the former and the base of the latter, with which PREHENSORY ORGANS. 289 the bee takes a plate of wax from the wax-pockets under her abdomen, and delivers it to the anterior pair of legs, by which it is submitted to the action of the mandibles. The shanks of the posterior legs likewise on their upper side have a cavity surrounded with hairs, which form a kind of basket, in which the diligent labourer carries a mass of pollen, kneaded by the aid of the comb at the end of the shank into a paste, which is deposited in the cells, and contributes to form the family store of provision. What a number of compensating contrivances does this sin- ele animal exhibit, and how wonderfully and admirably has Supreme Wisdom and Goodness contrived for her, and Al- mighty Power given full effect to what they planned! Noth- ing is superfluous in her, every hair and every angle has its ‘ use; so that well may we adore Him who created the honey- bee, and, at whose bidding, and by whose instruction, she erects those wonderful edifices that have been the admiration of every age.* Instinct directs many animals, as well as traversing the sur- face of the earth, to seek a subterranean abode within its bosom. Amongst insects, though there are many that burrow, none is more remarkable than the mole-cricket.2, The most su- perficial observer, when he looks at this creature, must see at once from its structure, especially that of its fore-legs, what its function is. If he compares other crickets with it, a singular change will strike him, the bulk of the posterior thighs, far ex- ceeding that of the same joint in the other legs, will appear to be chiefly transferred to the anterior pair of legs, which, the size of the creature considered, are as powerful instruments for excavating the earth as can be found in any animal now in existence: all the joints of this leg are very much dilated, especially the haunch and the thigh, which contain the power- ful muscles that move the apparatus for burrowing. This con- sists of a triangular joint, the analogue of the shank of the other legs, but assuming the form of a hand with the palm turned outwards, as in the mole, and terminating in four strong claw- like digitations ; on the side next the head these fingers, in. the middle, are longitudinally elevated and naked; while the sides are longitudinally excavated and hairy, which give this part some resemblance to the foot and claws of burrowing quadrupeds. The thigh is hollowed out underneath, evidently to receive the joint just described, and overhanging this cavity, at the base, is a stout triangular tooth, which probably is em- 1 See Bochart Mierozoic. ii. 515. a. 2 Gryllotalpa, MM 290 LOCOMOTIVE AND ployed to clean the hand when necessary ; on the outside op- posed to the hand is the analogue of the tarsus consisting of three joints, the two first large and triangular, with the upper edge curved and the Jower straight and hairy at the base, the other is of the ordinary form, and armed with two straight claws. These teeth, as well as those of the shank, have a trenchant edge on the straight side, and together are supposed ‘to act the part of a pair of shears, and to cut any roots that may interfere with its progress. Rdésel, however, thinks, the use of these teeth of the tarsus is merely to clean the burrow- ing hand, which it may also do. It is to be observed that the trenchant edge is opposite in the teeth of the shank and tarsus, as in a pair of scissors, which favours the idea that they are used sometimes for cutting. The position of the shank is vertical, with the teeth next the ground, so that the animal, when dis- posed to burrow, has nothing to do but to plunge these claws into the soil and push outwards, and then extricating her arms proceed in the same way till she has accomplished her object. The apex of the shanks, of the two posterior pairs of legs, is armed with several spines which probably assist either in making progress, or, when necessary, to retrograde. “Tt might, I think, be asserted,” observes Dr Kidd, in his valuable and interesting memoir On the anatomy of the mole- cricket,+ “‘without fear of contradiction, that throughout the whole range of animated nature, there is not a stronger in- stance of what may be called intentional structure, than is afforded by that part of the mole-cricket (the anterior leg), which I am now to describe.” And certainly, we see and own with- out hesitation, as even the most sceptical would scarcely refuse doing, that this arm was planned, and all its various parts, de- pendent upon and mutually affecting each other, by a calcu- lating Mind, which framed and put the whole together to an- swer a particular purpose. The Class of reptiles affords no very striking instances of the adaptations we are considering, except in the case before no- ticed of the gecko lizards, and the tree-frogs,? which, by means of suckers, are enabled to support themselves and walk against gravity. Like Mammalians, reptiles are usually furnished, but not invariably, with four legs, and a pentadactyle foot. In an animal of this Class, celebrated from of old, the Cha- meleon,? a remarkable modification of this structure is observa- ble. It is stated with respect to this animal, that it moves very slowly, that. it will sometimes remain whole days on the 1 Philos, Trans. 1825,217. 2 Hyla. 3. Chameleo Africanus, &c. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 991 same branch: and it is only with great circumspection, and after taking great care to get firm hold with its prehensile tail, that it ventures to seta few steps: it may be expected, there- fore, that its principal organs of locomotion should be adapted to give it secure footing on the branch it selects for its station. Aristotle, in his account of this animal, observes that “each of its feet is divided into two parts, an arrangement resembling that of our thumb, opposed to the rest of the hand; and a little short of this,? each of these parts is divided into certain fingers; in the fore-legs the internal ones being three, and the external two,® but in the hind the internal fingers are three, and the ex- ternal two,* and these fingers have ‘crooked claws.” By this structure of the feet, and arrangement of the fingers or toes, the three-toed Jobe is on one side of the branch at the anterior extremity of the animal, and on the other at the posterior, and by this counteraction of each other’s pressure, enable it to main- tain its position against any force that may be likely to disturb it. The lobes are longer than the fingers, and thus by their means it can hold very firmly, and watch the flies and insects which form its food, and are entrapped by the gluten with which its long tongue is besmeared. The analogue of the fore-leg of quadrupeds in birds, as we have seen, is converted into an organ of flight, and cannot be employed as an organ of prehension; sometimes, indeed, in their combats, it is used to annoy their opponents, and is occa- sionally armed with a spur, but the prehensory faculty is transferred to the beak and the remaining pair of legs; with these latter the eagles and other birds of prey usually seize the animals that they devour; with these also fructivorous birds, as the parrots, paroquets, &c. hold the fruit while they eat.it, and the Gallinaceous Order scratch the earth to find food for themselves and chicks; the foot of birds is most commonly tetradactyle, with one toe or thumb at the heel and the other three in front; in one Order,’ the birds forming which have occasion to fix themselves firmly on their perch, the thumb and the external toe both point backwards, so as to form a cross with the others and the rest of the leg. In the emu the foot consists of three toes, and in the ostrich of only two, there being no thumb in either. Many of the aquatic birds have the toes 1 Aristot. Hist. Anim. 1. ii. c. 11. 2 Gr.\Ex: Bexye. Meaning, I suppose, that the toes are not so long as the primary division of the foot. 3 Puate XIV. Fig. 2 4 Ibid. Fie. 3. 5 Scansores. 292. LOCOMOTIVE AND conuected by membrane, and so forming oars for swimming; and in some each toe has a margin of membrane, which is usually notched, these last are called lobed feet. But the absence of the fore-leg in birds is admirably com- pensated by the beak; with this they generally collect, as well as devour their food. Some indeed employ their tongue in this service. Of this description is the woodpeckert and the hum- ming Bird ;? the former using it to catch insects® and the latter to imbibe the nectar of flowers, for which purpose these little gems amongst the birds havea long slender tongue, somewhat resembling that of a butterfly, and moved by an apparatus, in some degree, like that of the woodpecker.4 The beak of birds is uniformly constructed with respect to their food, and varies ad infinitum. Perhaps in none is it more remarkable than in those of Cuvier’s two last Orders, the waders and web-footed birds. These, especially the last, can use their legs only for locomotion, either on shore or in the water, and therefore their beaks have the whole function, not only of taking, but of hunt- ing for food devolved upon them, and accordingly are fitted for it by their structure.* Generally speaking, they may be stated to be of two kinds. Beaks for catching worms, and beaks for catching fishes; of the first description are those of the wood- cock,® snipes,? and numerous other waders; and of the last, amongst the most remarkable, are those of the spoonbill® and pelican.? The former—which the French, perhaps with more propriety, call the spatula-bill,*® as its beak resembles a spatula rather than a spoon—dabble with their bill in the mud, for which it is well calculated, and thus capture small fishes, shell-fish, reptiles, and other aquatic and amphibious animals, which the tubercles within it are also calculated to retain and crush. But the latter, the pelican, has the most remarkable organ for taking its food, and is a bird known and celebrated from the earliest ages. The lower mandible is fitted witha kind of sac, formed of the dilated skin of the throat, which Vieillot says can be so expanded as to contain between two and three gallons of water.** When fishing, these birds some- times rise to a prodigious height, at others they skim the sur- face of the water, or hover, at a moderate elevation, that they 1 Picus. 2 Trochilus. 3 See Dr Roget, B. T. ii. 182. 4 See Vieillot. V. D. D’ Hist. Nat. vii. 342. t. B. 38. 5 Roget, B. T. ii. 391. 6 Scolopax rusticola, 7 Sc. gallinago, and gallinula. 8 Platalea leucorodia 9 Pelecanus Onocrotalus. 10 Spatule. 1 il WN. D. D’Mist. Nat. xxv. 139 PREHENSORY ORGANS. 398 may more readily precipitate themselves upon their prey. The sudden fall of so powerful an animal, the whirling round, the boiling which the great extent of its wings occasions in the water, soastounds and stuns the fishes that few escape. Then rising again and again descending, it continues this mancuvre till it has filled its pouch. When this is accomplished it retires to some rocky eminence where it devours what it has caught, which sometimes, Vieillot says, will amount to as many fishes as would satisfy six men.* It presses its pouch against its breast when it feeds its young, in order to disgorge the fishes, whence probably arose the fable of its feeding them with its own blood. But the beak is not only used by birds in collecting their food, some also it assists in climbing; parrots are remarkable for this, and also employ their tail for the same purpose. Truly, when we examine and compare all these organs of prehension as well as manducation, and the infinite modifica- tions of them, to suit the peculiar kind of food and circum- stances of every tribe, we cannot help exclaiming—God is here, we behold the evident footsteps of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness. Well might our Saviour say, Behold the fowls of the air ; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them.? The legs of Mammalians, with respect to their extremity, may be considered as divided into those that have powers of prehension, more or less, and those that have only powers of locomotion. I shall begin with the latter. 1. These consist of Baron Cuvier’s seventh and eighth Orders of the Class above mentioned ; namely, the Pachyderms, or thick skinned beasts, and the Ruminants, or those that chew the cud. The great man, just named, considers the horse and ass, constituting the equine genus,® as forming a Family of the first of these Orders, to which he has given the ancient appel- lation of Soliped,* or whole-hoofed. He originally regarded the Solipeds as forming a separate Order, and, indeed, com- paring them with the other Pachyderms, as the elephant, rhi- noceros, hippopotamus, hog, &c., the horse genus seems scarcely to belong to the same order. _Illiger, who altered the name, but without sufficient reason, to Solidungula, considers them as distinct. 1 Ubi supr. 138. 2 Matth. vi. 26. 3 Equus. 4 Gr. Mowég. Aristot. 294 LOCOMOTIVE AND Though the speed of the deer, except in a single instance, on account of their usually slight form and slender limbs, has not been applied by man to his purposes, and to add to the velocity of his progress, yet in the soliped race, especially in that noble quadruped the horse, we have an animal endowed with equal speed and greater strength, and by their undivided hoof, where speed as well as strength is required, calculated, with much more advantage and less injury, to traverse—both as beasts of burthen and draft, and as adapted peculiarly for the conveyance of man himself—not only soft and verdant prairies, but hard and rocky roads. Hence this animal has been employed by man from a very early period of society. We do not indeed know whether the mighty hunter, Nimrod, went to the chase of man and beast on horseback, though it is not improbable ; but both the horse and the ass were common in Egypt in Joseph’s time,* the latter was used by Abraham to ride upon,* and asses are enumerated amongst his posses- sions when he went up from Egypt fifty years before.® The sole organs of prehension of this tribe are their mouth and upper lip. Every one knows how adroit the horse and ass often become in the use of these organs, not only in gathering their food, but in opening gates that confine them to their pas- tures. In the genuine Pachyderms the foot begins to show marks of division. In the rhinoceros there are three toes, in the hip- popotamus four, and in the Proboscidians of Cuvier, including the elephant and JMastodon, or fossil elephant, there are five toes, three of the nails of which only appear externally, and four on the hind foot of the Asiatic species.* The Swine family divide the hoof like the Ruminant; it consists of two intermediate toes, large, and armed with nails or hoofs, and two lateral ones much shorter and not touching the ground ; in this respect also resembling many Ruminants. In hilly and mountainous districts these upper toes are probably useful in locomotion. The prehensory organ of the animals here enumerated is usually the snout, with this the hog* turns up the ground in search of roots or grubs, often doing great injury to pastures. The male is armed with a defensive and offensive weapon in his tusks. That hideous animal of this tribe, the Ethiopian boar,® is armed with four tusks, two proceeding from the upper jaw, 1 Genes. xivii.17. 2. xxii. 3. 3 xii. 16 4 E. indicus. 5 Sus scrofa. 6 Phascochwrus Africanus. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 295 which turn upwards like a horn, sometimes nine inches long and five inches in circumference at the base; the other pair issuing from the lower jaw, projecting not more than three inches from the mouth, flat on the inside, and corresponding with another plain surface in the upper ‘tusks. The Boshies men, Sparrman relates, say of this animal, ‘‘ We had rather attack a lion in the plain than an African wild boar ; for this, though much smaller, comes rushing on a man as swift as an arrow, and throwing him down snaps his legs in two, and rips up his belly before he can get to strike at it, and Ixill it with his javelin.”* They inhabit subterranean recesses ; and turn up the earth very dexterously, probably by the aid of their tusks, in search of roots, which form their food. The Babiroussa? or Babee rooso, a name which signifies Hog- deer, given to this animal probably on account of its longer legs and slender form, is distinguished by a pair of long tusks from the upper jaw, which rising above the head, then turning down, form a semicircle, and have the appearance of horns, for which they have been mistaken. ‘They are only found in the male, which is stated to use them as hooks to suspend himself to the branches of trees, thus resting his head, so as to sleep upright. As the animal feeds upon the leaves of the Banana and other trees, it is not improbable that these tusks may be used to pull down the branches. The Rhinoceros is said to use its horn for digging up the roots of plants, which compose the principal portion of its food. I am speaking of the two-horned rhinoceros of Sparrman. The Hottentots and the colonists assert that this animal uses only its second or shortest horn for digging up roots, which appeared to him worn by friction, marks of which the anterior one never exhibited. When engaged in that employment it was stated. to turn that horn on one side® out of the way. But one of the most wonderful compensating contrivances: and structures of Divine Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, and which has excited the admiration of every age, is the proboscis: of the elephant. The weight of the enormous head of this animal is such as to preclude its being employed, if it termi- nated in a common mouth, either to break the boughs of trees, or to crop the grass, for it could not easily be either elevated or depressed for these purposes; in its proboscis, however, it is supplied with an instrument that amply compensates this defi- ciency. Almost every one is aware that this beautiful organ, 1 Voyage, ii. 23. 2 Sus babyrussa. 3 Sparrman. Voyage, ii. 98. 296 LOCOMOTIVE AND beautiful I mean for its structure,* answers a variety of pur~ poses ; that it is given by its Creator to this mighty animal to be to it an instrument almost of sight, of most delicate touch, of scent and breathing, of prehension as adroit as that of a hand ; added to this, that by the extraordinary flexibility with which he has endowed it, it can not only be inflected inwards to carry things to its mouth, but be bent upwards, downwards, or laterally, to lay hold of things above, below, or on each side of it, and that by the assistance of a single finger at its ex- tremity, it can take hold of any thing as readily as we do by the assistance of four fingers and a thumb. As the brain of these gigantic animals, compared with their bulk, is very small, itis thought, by modern zoologists, that their intellect has been exaggerated, and that it does not surpass that of dogs, and many other carnivorous animals. Others have imagined that their sagacity is wholly the result of their being provided with so wonderful an organ; but this organ would be of very little use without the nervous apparatus by which it is moved according to the will of the animal. Amongst the Ruminants,—which appear to connect with the Pachyderms in two points, by the swine tribe and Solipeds, the latter possessing several characters in common with the Gnu,? which seems between them and the bovine genus;? and the former approaching them by their common character of dividing the hoof,—there is another animal, which may be considered as the horse of the desert, exhibiting in some degree a union of characters not found in the remainder of the Order; it chews the cud, but does not actually divide the hoof. Iam speaking of the Camel, but though not actually, the hoof is superficially divided. Considering the deserts of loose and deep sand that it often has to traverse, a completely divided hoof would have sunk too deep in the sand; while one entire below would present a broader surface not so liable to this in- convenience. Boys, when they want to walk upon the muddy shores of an estuary at low water, fasten broad boards to their feet, which prevent them from sinking in the mud; I conceive that the whole sole of the camel’s foot answers a similar purpose: its superficial division probably gives a degree of pliancy to it, enabling it to move with more ease over the sands; upon which these animals often trot with great rapidity, travelling some- times twelve miles within the hour; its common amble, which is exceedingly easy, is nearly six; this pace, if properly fed every evening, or in cases of emergence, only once in two days, 1 Roget, B. 7. 1. 520. 2 Catoblepas Gnu. 3. Bos. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 297 the camel will continue uninterruptedly for five or six days: with these qualities, so suitable to barren and sandy deserts, what a valuable gift of Providence was this, especially to the descendants of Ishmael; who, according to the prophecy, have maintained undisturbed possession of their decarts and their necessary accompaniment, the camel, from the time of their progenitor to the present day, a period of between three or four thousand years. ‘They have been wild men, always assailing and assailed, and yet maintaining their ground. But the time will assuredly come, when The flocks of Kedar, and the rams of Nebaioth,* shall forsake their deeds of spoliation and robbery and be gathered to the church. Though the Ruminants, in general, by the structure and division of their hoof, are calculated for sure footing, so as to enable them best to exercise their several functions; as the camel, the ox, and the rein-deer at the bidding of their master man; and others, as the chainois and the goat, for the ascent of mountains and precipices, seemingly inaccessible, where they can laugh at their pursuer; and others again, as the deer and antelope tribes for speed that almost mocks pursuit; yet with respect to prehension these organs are of no use to them. Their mouth and lips, and tongue, are the only means by which they can help themselves to their food; they have no tusks like the Pachyderms in general, nor nasal horns like the rhinoceros, to cut or dig with; but as their food is most com- monly the herbage that covers the earth, these are fully suffi- cient to enable them to supply themselves with Food convenient for them. The camel and dromedary differ from the other Ru- minants, not only in their long neck, which probably is useful to them in gathering their food, but also in having a cleft lip, which doubtless, adds to the prehensory powers of that organ. The lofty neck is still more striking in the Camelopard, the long tongue of which is also used by them as a hand to pull down the branches of the mimosa, from they derive their sub- sistence. 2. I shall now consider those Mammalians, whose legs are more or less prehensory, next above the Pachyderms and Ru- ininants. Cuvier’s sixth Order consists of a tribe of animals which he denominates Edentate,* because they have no fore- teeth. The MMonotremes form the last Family of the Order, and precede the Pachyderms. In many points they seem con- nected with the birds ; one genus? having a mouth resembling the bill of a duck, and being almost web-footed ; it has also fy isav, 1x 7. 2 Edentés. 3 Ornithorhynchus. NN 298 LOCOMOTIVE AND been stated to be oviparous ;* the male, as I before observed, is armed with a sting, like aserpent. The other genus, Echidna, approaches nearer the pangolins,® and anteaters,* having, like them, an extensile viscid tongue, by means of which they en- trap and devour the ants. The other animals of the Order are remarkable for their great nails, almost approaching to hoofs ; in the Family which precedes the Monotremes? they are often used for burrowing. Next above the Echidna is a singular animal, wearing the outward aspect and Scales of a Saurian, the pangolin, which rolls itself up like an armadillo, and is the ant-eater of the old world. It is singular that areal lizard, the chameleon, shouid have the same instinct of catching its insect prey by means of along tongue besmeared with slime. In the new world the pangolin is replaced by the ant-eaters, which have the same habits, and the same mode of procuring their food. With the long nails of their fore-feet they penetrate the nests of the white ants and common ants, and inserting their long tongue, besmeared with a viscid saliva, into these nests, retract it co- vered with game; and this with such velocity, that the eye can scarcely follow them. Their nails, which require to be kept sharp, for the operation just mentioned, when not em- ployed, are folded inwards, so as to prevent their being blunted. In one species® in the fore-foot there are only two nails. Amongst the animals that are clothed in armour, in this Order, the most remarkable is the Chlamyphorus,? whose feet are armed with five long and sharp nails, especially the ante- rior ones, Which must enable it to excavate its subterranean abode very rapidly. From the formation of its foot and these nails it does not appear to dig with them laterally, but ina line with the body ; its singular clubbed tail therefore would be a very useful organ, if, as Mr Yarrel supposes, it is used in removing backwards the loose earth accumulated under its belly by the action of the fore-legs.§ This animal, which is a native of Chili, is reputed to carry its young beneath the scaly armour attached principally to the spine, which covers it loosely like a cloak. The last family, as we ascend, in the present Order, is very well distinguished by the name of Tardigrades, from the exces- sive slowness of their motions. Their nails are enormously 1 Cuv. Réegne Anim. i. 234, note 2. 2 See above, p. 233. a, eats, 4 Myrmecophaga. 5 Edentés ordinaires. Cuv. 6 M. didactylas. 7 Prats XVI. 8 wit . PREHENSORY ORGANS. 299 long, compressed, and crooked, and exactly calculated for lay- ing strong hold, so as to enable them to maintain their station on the trees, whose leaves and buds form their food. Their English appellation, the Sloth,* indicates their character ; when they have satisfied their appetite, like most of the other Eden- tates, they can roll themselves up and take a long and reck- less sleep. But I need not enlarge further upon this tribe, since Dr Buckland has excellently —Justified the ways of God to man,—and, in the present instance, demonstrated, by most convincing arguments, that these animals, instead of being an abortion, imperfect, misshapen, and monstrous, are exactly, and in every respect, adapted for the station which God has assigned to them, and for the work which he has given them in charge.? Next above the Endentate Mammalians is an Order, the fifth of Cuvier, consisting of a greater number of Genera and Subgenera than any other in the Class, which, instead of hav- ing no front teeth or incisives, have very conspicuous ones, rendered more so by being separated by a void space from the grinders. From these teeth, which are neither calculated to seize or lacerate their feod, but merely to nibble and gnaw it, they have received their name of Nidblers or Gnawers.5 The great majority of this Order are gregarious, and live in burrows, or common habitations, which they excavate or fab- ricate themselves. Like the Hymenopterous Class of insects, many are noted for the sagacity and skill which they manifest in their united labours for the good of the community, and also for the organs by which they are enabled to answer the bidding of instinct. One of the most remarkable of these is the Beaver ;* this animal has five toes on all its feet, which in the hind pair are connected by membrane; those of the fore-leg, which it uses as a hand to convey its food to its mouth, are very distinct. They carry also with these hands the mud and stones which they mix with the wooden part of their buildings. But their incisor teeth are their principal instruments, with these, as Dr Richardson states, they cut down trees as big or bigger than a . man’s thigh ; when they undertake this operation they gnaw it all round, cutting it sagaciously on one side higher than on the other, by which it is caused to fall in the direction they wish ; they use these powerful organs not only to fell the trees 1 Bradypus. 2 Linn. Trans. xvii. 17. 3 Rodentia. 4 Castor Fiber. 300 LOCOMOTIVE AND they select, but also to drag them to the place where they want them. It is said, that a beaver, when at its full strength, can at one stroke bite through the leg of a dog. It has been affirmed that-beavers employ their tail both asa trowel to plaster their houses, and as a sledge to carry the trees that they fell; but both these assertions seem to be built upon conjecture rather than observation, and are not credited by those who have had the best opportunities of observing their manners, as Hearne, Cartwright, and Dr Richardson. The fabrics they are taught by their Creator to erect, and impelled by the instinct he has implanted in them, are sufficiently won- derful without having recourse to fiction to exaggerate it. Their tails, probably, are useful to them in the water as nata- tory organs. There is a very singular animal discovered by M. Sonnerat, in Madagascar, called the Aye-Aye,* which seems, in some de- gree, to approach the Quadrumanes. The fore-feet have five excessively long fingers, and what is singular, the middle one is much slenderer than the rest. In the hind feet there is a thumb opposed to the other fingers, by which structure it is enabled to take firmer hold of the branches of trees. It is said to use the slender finger of its hand for the same purpose that the wood-pecker uses its barbed tongue, to extract the grubs from the trees. The squirrels, which form the first genus in this interesting Order, are known to use their fore-legs for prehension, which indeed is the case with the majority of animals included in it. They are also, at least a large proportion, remarkable for sitting, when at rest, upon their haunches, and also for their ready use of their fore-legs. Having before noticed the most remarkable animal in Cu- vier’s fourth Order, the Marsupians, which suckle their young in a pouch, I shall only mention one other animal belong- ing to it, the Koala? a New Holland quadruped, in some respects resembling the bear; like the chameleon, it has the five toes or fingers of the fore-foot divided into two groups, the thumb and fore-finger forming one, and the three remaining fingers the other; the object of this structure is evidently to enable it to take firm hold of the branches of the trees on which it passes part of its life; this is of the more importance to it, as it carries its young upon its back. It sometimes, probably in 1 Chetromys. 2 Lipurus. * PREHENSORY ORGANS. 301 the night, retires to burrows which it excavates at the fuot of the trees. We have now arrived at the foot of Baron Cuvier’s third Order, containing the predaceous Mammalians, which, though a very comprehensive group, will not detain us long, as the first and last family, the Bats and Seals, have been noticed in another place.t The rest of the Order consists of the insec- tivorous and carnivorous Mammalians; the latter is further subdivided into two tribes, which are denominated the Planiti- grades and the Digitigrades. Those last mentioned usually walk more upon their toes, and consist of the feline, canine, and several other tribes, all swift in their locomotions, and making use of their paws or fore-foot, either for scratching and burrowing, or to seize their prey, and they have all, I believe, five toes. The Plantigrades are so called because they walk, like man, upon the whole foot, and consist of the bear,’ the glutton,*® and similar animals. This structure enables the former to rear itself on its hind feet, and walk erect; and their fore-foot will grasp a staff like a hand ; it is armed with long claws, with which they scratch up roots which form part of their subsist- ence, excavate burrows, climb the trees, and seize their prey. These armed paws are fearful weapons, both in the lion and the bear, to which few would like to be exposed ; but an heroic youth, beloved of God and man, regarded them not when, as a faithful shepherd, he rescued a lamb of his father’s flock from their grasp and voracity. The two most remarkable animals in the insectivorous tribe of predaceous Mammalians are the mole,* and the harmless, though persecuted hedgehog,*® but they are both too well known, the former for its piquants, and the latter for its hand turned outwards and moved by an enormous apparatus of mus- cles, to enable it to excavate its subterranean habitation. We are now arrived, in our progress upwards, at Cuvier’s second Order of Mammalians, which he names Quadrumane, or four-handed, and which consists of apes,® baboons,” and mon- keys,® whose hind as well as fore-foot is usually furnished with a thumb opposite to the fingers, so that they can use all their 1 See above, p. 262, 272. 2 Ursus, 3 Gulo. 4 Talpa. 5 Erinaceus. 6 Simia, &c. 7 Cynocephalus, &c. 8 Lemur, &c. 302 LOCOMOTIVE AND ° feet for prehension: the object of Providence by this structure is to enable these animals to move ahout amongst the branches of the trees, which are their usual habitations, and to fix them- selves securely upon them, so that they can use their hands to gather fruit or any other purpose. Thus also they can peram- bulate the trees with as much ease and safety as we do our houses; and run up and down the branches with as much celerity as we do our staircases: but they cannot make equal progress on the earth, or a plane surface, whether they go on four feet or two. Even man himself, though he ordinarily cannot use his toes for prehension, yet is sometimes placed in such circumstances, as to acquire the power of doing so. I remember, when a boy, going to see a girl who was born without arms, and was ex- hibited by her parents to the public. She could use her toes as fingers; could hold scissors, cut out watch-papers, sew, and even write. An account was given in the St James’s Chron- icle, not long ago, of a youth similarly circumstanced, who being cruelly turned out by his father, but patronized by his sister, learned to draw with his toes. In India théy are used as fingers, and are sometimes called foot-fingers. The Hindoo tailor twists his thread with them, and the cook holds his knife while he cuts fish, vegetables, &c., the joiner, weaver, and other mechanics all use them for a variety of purposes; and J ain told by a friend, who has often been in India, that they can even pick up pins with them. We are now arrived at man himself, who, as we see, takes his particular denomination from the hand. He isthe only Bimane. The physiology and anatomy of the Human Hand, that won- derful organ, have been explained and reasoned with great ability in a‘separate treatise, by the eminent comparative anat- omist to whom that subject was assigned; I shall not, therefore, here say any thing on its structure and its uses: but as it has not been treated of as a moral organ ; as being in intimate con- nexion with the heart and affections; as their principal index and premonstrator ; and as the mighty instrument by which a great part of the physical good and evil which befalls our race is wrought, I may be permitted to make a few observations upon it as far as these are concerned. God made the body in general a fit machine, not only to ex- ecute the purposes of its immaterial inhabitant the soul; but, in some sort, he made it a mirror to reflect all its bearings and character; to indicate every motion of the fluctuating sea within, whether its surges lift themselves on high elevated by PREHENSORY ORGANS. 303 the gusts of passion; or all is calm, and tranquil, and subdued. None of the bodily organs, by its structure and station in the body, is so evidently formed in all respects for these functions as the Hann. The eye indeed is, perhaps, the most faithful mirror of the soul’s emotion; yet though it may best pourtray and render visible the internal feeling, it can in no degree exe- cute its biddings; but the hand is the great agent and minister of the soul, which not only reveals her inmost affection and feeling, and, in conjunction with the tongue—and these two in connection are either the most benificent or maleficent of all our organs—declares her will and purpose; but is also em- ployed by her to execute them. Thus Heart and Hanp, the principle and the practice, have been united, in common par- lance, from ancient ages. The earliest dawn of reason in the innocent infant is shown by the signs it makes with its little hands ; by them it prefers its petitions for any thing it desires, and, in imitation of this, God’s children are instructed to lift up holy hands in prayer.* Love, friendship, charity, and all the kindly affections of our nature, use the hands as their symbol and organ ; the fond embrace, the hearty shake, the liberal gift, are all ministered bythem. Joy, gladness, applause, welcome, valediction, all use these organs to represent them. Penitence smites her breast with them; resignation clasps them; devotion and the love of God stretches them out towards heaven. But the hands are not employed to express only the kindly affections of the soul. Those of a contrary and less amiable character use them as their index. Anger threatens, and more violent and hateful passions destroy by them. They are indeed the instruments by which a great portion of the evil, and mis- chief, and violence, and misery, that our corrupt nature has in- troduced into the world, are perpetrated. The hand also, on some occasions, becomes the spokesman instead of the tongue. The fore-fingeris denominated the indez, because we use it to indicate to another any object to which we wish to direct his attention. By it the deaf and dumb per- son is enabled to hold converse with others so as not to be to- tally cut off from the enjoyment of society ; and by it we can likewise mutually communicate our thoughts when separated by space however wide, even with our Antipodes. The Deity himself, also, condescends to convey spiritual benefits to his people by means of the hands of authorized persons, as in Confirmation and Ordination; and the Blessed Friend, and Patron, and Advocate and Deliverer of our race, tt Tom: ws. 8. $04 LOCOMOTIVE AND when he was upon earth, appears to have wrought most of his miracles of healing by laying on his hands;* in benediction also, when children were brought unto him he laid his hands on them; and at his ascension he lifted up his hands to bless his disciples.? To enumerate all the modes by which the internal affection of the soul is indicated by the hand would be an endless task. I shall therefore only further observe, that the greater part of the instances I have adduced are natural, and not conventional or casual modes of expressing feeling, as is evident from their being employed, with little variation, in all ages, nations, and states of society. How grateful then ought we to be to our Creator for enrich- ing us with these admirable organs, which more than any outward one that we possess, are the immediate instruments that enable us to master the whole globe that we inhabit, not merely the visible and tangible matter that we tread upon, and its furniture and population, but even often to take hold as it were of the invisible substances that float around it, and to bottle up the lightning and the wind, as well as the waters. Thus by their means do we add daily increments to our know- ledge and science, and consequently power; to our skill in arts and every allied manufacture and manipulation; to our com- forts, pleasures, and every thing desirable in life. If now—having arrived at the most perfect instrument, as to its uses, and the most important to the happiness and wel- fare of the Human race, whether it be considered as an instru- ment of good or evil—we turn back and review this long train of organs for every kind of motion, and every kind of operation, and consider moreover the animal to which each belongs with respect to its place and station, connection, powers of mul- tiplication, relative magnitude, form, composition, structure, functions, and at the same time take into further consideration the theatre upon which each is destined to appear, the medium in which it is to move and breathe, and the beings, whether vegetable or animal, with which it is to come in contact, and upon which it is to act. When, I say, we take this review, what an infinite diversity in every respect bewilders our thought, and we are unable to form any distinct idea of the general effect and harmony that we know to be produced, nor how all these instruments, dove- tail, as it were, so as to form the whole into one great fabric or sphere of agents, all contributing to fulfil the purposes of the 1 Mark, viii, 23—25. 2 Mark, x. 16. Luke, xxiv. 50. PREHENSORY ORGANS. 305 Great Being who fabricated it, and promoting the general health and welfare of the whole system. But this we can understand that the Fabricator of this sphere must have taken a simultane- ous survey of all the circumstances here mentioned; must have calculated the momentum of each individual, have weighed and measured it, so that it should not exceed a certain standard ; must have seen at once all that it wanted to fit it for its station; must, before he made it, have formed a correct estimate of all the requisite materials, whether gaseous, aquiform, or solid, so as to put together the whole harmonious compages without failing in a single atom; and give full accomplishment to his will. He who could effect all this could only be one whose Under- standing is infinite, and whose Power and Goodness are equally without bounds, 00 CHAPTER XVII. On Instinct. THERE Is no department of Zoological Science that furnishes stronger proofs of the being and attributes of the Deity, than that which relates to the Instincts of animals, and the more so, because where reason and intellect are most powerful and suf- ficient as guides, as in man, and most of the higher grades of animals, there usually instinct is weakest and least wonderful, while, as we descend in the scale, we come to tribes that ex- hibit, in an almost miraculous manner, the workings of a Divine Power, and perform operations that the intellect and skill of man would in vain attempt to rival or toimitate. Yet there is no question, concerning which the Natural Historian and Phy- siologist seems more at a loss than when he is asked—what is Instinct? So much has been ably written upon the subject, so many hypotheses have been broached, that it seems won- derful so thick a cloud should still rest upon it. It must not be expected, where so many eminent men have more or less failed, that one of less powers should be enabled to throw much new light upon this palpable obscure, or dissipate all the dark- ness that envelopes the secondary or intermediate cause of In- stinct. Could even the bee or the ant tell us what it is that goads them to their several labours, and instructs them how to perform them, perhaps we might still have much to learn before we should have any right to cry with the Syracusan Mathematician, ‘Even, | have unveiled the mystery. Still, however unequal to the task, [ cannot duly discharge the duty incumbent upon me, who may be said to be officially engaged to prove the great truths of Natural Religion from the Instinets of the animal creation, to leave the subject of Instinct, consi- dered in the abstract, exactly as I found it; a field, in which whoever perambulates, may wander “in endless mazes lost.” I will, therefore, do my best to make the way, in a small de- gree, more level, and less intricate, than it has hitherto been. But, before I proceed, lest the reader should feel disposed to accuse me of contradicting the opinions on this subject stated in the Introduction to Entomology, I beg to direci his attention to the following paragraph in the advertisement to the third INSTINCT. 307 volume of that work. ‘Jt will not be amiss here to state, in order to obviate any charge of inconsistency in the possible event of Mr Kirby’s adverting in any other work to this subject, that, though on every material point, the authors have agreed in opinion, their views of the theory of Instinct do not precisely ac- cord. That given in the second and fourth volumes is from the pen of Mr Spence.” It is not without considerable reluctance that the author of this essay takes the field, in some degree, against his worthy friend and learned coadjutor, but as he is thus left at liberty to do it, and the nature of his subject requires it, he will state those views, which seem to himself most consistent with nature and truth, and most accordant with the general plan of crea- tion. It is doubtful whether the ancients had any distinct idea of that impulse upon animals, urging them necessarily to cer- tain actions, which modern writers have denominated instinct. Aristotle, indeed, in a passage of his physics quoted by Bochart,* alludes to certain writers who doubted whether spiders, ants, and similar animals were directed in their works by intellect, or by any other faculty. The Stagyrite himself resolves the causes of motion into intellect and appetite,? but I have not been able to discover that he has recorded any opinion as to what cause the, now called, instincts of animals, whether to appetite or intellect, are to be attributed: he says much on the subject of the hive bee, but it is merely a history of its proceed- ings, unaccompanied by a single syllable from which we might conjecture that he attributed any part of these proceedings, wonderful as he must have thought them, to any faculty dis- tinct from intellect, and what seems more extraordinary, with- out any expression of admiration at the expertness, and art, and skill, so evident in all! that this little creature almost miracu- lously accomplishes. On another occasion, indeed, he observes, that “Some of the animals that have no blood, have a more intelligent soul than some of those that have blood, as the bee and the ant genus.”* A much later Greek writer has asked the question, “ Who taught the bee, that wise workman, to act the geometer, and to erect her three-storied houses of hexagonal struc- tures?”* And this is the question I shall now endeavour to answer. 1 Merozoic. ii. 599, b. 2 De anima, 1. iii. c. 11. 3. De Part. Animal. 1. ii. c. 4. 4 Tis ony perirrayv, tv coguy TH epyariv Temmerpely ereloe, xak TeLMpodss Oimes eyerpety SEapovwv xticpartoy. Pisidius, De Mundi Opificio, quoted by Bochart. 308 INSTINCT. When we consider the infinite variety of instincts, their nice and striking adaptation to the circumstances, wants, and station of the several animals that are endowed with them, of which numerous instances will be given hereafter, we see such evi- dent marks of design, and such varied atterition to so many particulars, such a conformity between the organs and instra- ments of each animal, and the work it has to do, that wé can- not hesitate a moment to ascribe it to some power who planned the machine with a view to accomplish a certain purpose, and when we further consider that all the different animals combine to fulfil one great end, and to effect a vast purpose, all the details’ of which the human‘ intellect cannot embrace, we are led further to acknowledge that the whole was planned and executed by a Being whose essence is unfathomable, and whose power is irresistible. | F must here previously observe, that in considering this mys- ferious subject, we must avoid, as much as’ possible, building our theories upon’ facts which, if properly interpreted, are ex- tranéous to’ the subject, and wear such am aspect of the mar- vellous, as to'appear out of the regular course of nature, and the ordinary proceedings to which its instinet urges any animal. The cases here alluded to, if true, to the full extent of the'state- ments concerning them, would rather indicate a particular interposition of Divine Providence; either to prevent some cala- mity, or to produce some blessing or benefit to the individuals concerned. Thus'the account of Sir H. Lée’s dog, mentioned by Mr French,* which saved its master’s life, by taking and maintaining its station, which it had never before done, under his bed; and that given by Dr Beattie, of a dog, who, when his master was in a situation of the: most imminent peril, after fruitlessly attempting to save'him, ran'to'a‘neighbouring village, and by significant gestures at last’ prevailed’ upon a man to follow him, and saved his’ master’s life. These and many more such cases, can! scarcely be regarded as belonging to the ordinary instinct of the species, for if it did, more’ murderers would be disappointed of their intended victim by the agensy of hisorherdog. I knew myself an instance, in which a most valuable life’ was saved by a dog, which, being’ condemned to the halter by a former master, and escaping from! those appointed to dispatch him, at last established. himself, after re- peated expulsion, in my friend’s family, and afterwards, there is every reason to believe, by the sacrifice of his own life, pre- vented his master from being drowned.* These cases are 1 Zool. Journ. i: 7. 2 AMivial: de¥' Se: Naturel. xxi. INSTINCT. 309 remarkable, but they do not appear to belong io instinct, but rather to the doctrine of a particular Providence. Some cases upon record, with respect to dogs and other ani- mals, belong to intellect and memory rat her than instinct. M. Dureau de la Motte, in a memoir on the influence of domes- ticity in animals, mentions a dog, which being shut out, would use the knocker of the door ;+ and I had myself a cat, which indicated its wish to come in or go out, by endeavouring with its foré paws to move the handle of the door-latch of the apart- ment; and used every morning to call me by making the same indication at the door of my bed-room: other cats have at- tempted to ring the bell. But the most remarkable instance, is one related, by the writer just named, of a very intelligent dog, which was employed to carry letters between two gentle- ~ men, and never failed punctually to execute his commission— first delivering the letter, which was fastened to his collar, and then going to the kitchen to be fed. After this, he went to the parlour window, and barked, to tell the gentleman he was ready to carry back the answer.? | The remarkable case of the ass Valiante,* and of other ani- mals that find their way to their old quarters from a great dis- tance, may be attributed, I think, rather to natural sagacity and memory, than to any instinctive impulse. The animal just alluded to might have sagacity enough to keep near the sea, or a concurrence of accidental circumstances might befriend her. Divine Providence has at its disposal the whole animal crea- tion, and can employ all their instincts and their faculties to bring about its own purposes, both with respect to individuals and mankind in general. Man, who may be called, under God, the king of the visible creation, makes a similar use of the creatures that are placed at his disposal; of some, as the horse and the ox, he employs the physical powers; of others, as the bee and the dog, he avails himself of the instinct. Some he instructs how they are to do his work; others, he takes as he finds them. So the Deity, it may be pr esumed, with a secret hand, guides some to fulfil his will, instructing them, as it were, because their unaided instinct would not alone avail, in the decree they are to execute, while others, merely by following the bent of their nature, do the same. In many cases, also, he may be supposed merely to direct them to the field in which he meansthey should labour, and then leave them to their instincts 1 Annal. des Sc. Naturel. xxi. 52. 2 Annal. des Sc. Naturel. 66. 3 Introd: to Ent. ii. 496. Note a. 310 INSTINCT. to accomplish his purposes. In the case of the dog who saved his master from intended assassination, a supernatural impulse might carry him to his chamber and cause him to maintain his station there, and when the hour of danger arrived, his natural instinct wouldsuffice for the defence and liberation of his master from the threatened danger. Whien we consider the work that animals have to do in this globe of ours, each in a particular department, and to a certain extent, it seems absolutely necessary that, on many occasions, the interference of a Supreme Power should take place, to say to each, “‘ Hitherto shalt thou come and no further,” and only an Omunipresent Being, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness, could check the further progress of any body of his workmen when he foresaw it would be noxious, exceed his intentions, and derange his plans. “© Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit,” was the dictum of a poet, who had as much judgment, and good sense, as he had genius ; and it is only where ordinary means are evidently insufficicnt to account for any fact, that we are at liberty to ascribe it to the extraordinary interposition of the Deity ; or to any intermediate supernatural agency em- ployed by him to produce it: and no class of facts so loudly proclaim their Great Author as those which are the result of the nice balancing of conflicting energies and operations ob- servable in the different departments of the animal kingdom. We may observe, however, that when our Saviour says to his disciples concerning sparrows— One of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are allnumbered ;* the observation implies that nothing escapes the notice, or is too mean, or insignificant, to be below the at- tention and care of Him who is all eye, all ear, all intellect ; who directeth all things to answer his purposes, according to the good pleasure of his will,? which is the universal good of his creatures, Having premised these general observations, I shall now proceed to inquire into the proximate cause of instinct; admit- ting, as proved, that every kind of instinct has its origin in the will of the Deity, and that the animal exhibiting it, was ex- pressly organized by Him for it at its creation. 1 Matth. x. 29, 30. 2 Ephes.i. 5 INSTINCT. 311 The proximate cause of instinct must be either metaphysical or physical, or a compound of both characters. 1. If metaphysical, it must either be the immediate action of the Deity, or the action of some intermediate intelligence em- ployed by him, or the intellect of the animal exhibiting it. 2. If physical, it must be the action or stimulus of some physical power or agent employed by the Deity, and under his guidance, so as to work His will upon the organization of the animal, which must be so constructed as to respond to that action in a certain way ; or by the exhibition of certain phe- nomena peculiar to the individual genus or species. 3. Ifcompound or mized, it will be subject occasionally to vari- ations from the general law, when the intelligent agent sees fit. 1. With respect to the first Hypothesis, one of the principal promulgators and patrons of which is Addison,* it nearly amounts to this, as that amiable writer confesses, that ‘ God is the soul of brutes.” It is contrary, however, to the general plan of Divine Providence, which usually produces effects in- directly, and by the intervention and action of means or secondary causes, to suppose that it acts immediately upon insects and other animals, and is so intimately connected with them as to direct their instinctive operations ; such an action, it should seem, would be infallible, and never at fault, whereas observation has proved that animals are sometimes mistaken, where their instinct should direct them. For, if God were their immediate instructor, would it be possible for the flesh-fly, as I have seen that she does, to mistake the blossom of the catrion-plant,? for a piece of flesh, and lay her eggs in it ; or for a hen to sit upon a piece of chalk, as they are stated to do,$ instead of anegg? Stillall instincts are from God, He decreed them, and organized animals to act according to that decree, and employed means to impel them to do so. Other arguments might be adduced proving that this Hy- pothesis does not rest upon a sound foundation; but as I shall hereafter advert to some of these, I shall now proceed to con- sider whether instinct be the action of some intermediate intelli- gence, employed by the Deity, upon the animal exhibiting it. An ingenious and acute writer, Mr French, is the author of this Hypothesis, which appeared in the first number of the Zoological Journal. He infers, “ That the Divine Energy does in reality act, not immediately, but mediately, or through 1 See Spectator, ii. p. 121. 2 Stapelia hirsuta. 3 Spectator, ii. n. 120. $L2 INSTINCT. the medium of moral and intellectual influences, upon the na- ture or consciousness of the creature, in the production of the various, and in many instances, truly wonderful actions which they perform; that brutes are governed by such agencies, good and evil, but under the control of Providence; and that such agencies act by impressions upon their conscious nature, but unperceived by it in a moral or intellectual sense.”* He thus opens the way to his theory. “If it be asked by what inter- mediate agency the operations of brutes are thus directed ;—I reply that it is generally admitted by a large class of mankind, at least, that superior (yet intermediate) powers of some kind, are in actual connection with the human mind.” From the passages here quoted, it seems evident (though the author declares that he will not even “ venture a suggestion® as to the nature of the superior powers here alluded to,”)* that he had in his mind those good and eyil intelligences that are generally acknowledged to be in actual connection with the human mind; or, to use the common phraseology, Angels and Demons. The former being the cause of the beneficent, and the latter of the ferocious instincts of animals. When he further observes—“ Upon these principles the mixed natures of some animals are satisfactorily explained ;—as in the instance of the Phoca ursina, the males of which species manifest the most singular tenderness towards their young progeny ; and, at the same time, a savage and persecuting dis- position towards their females.”* From this passage it would seem that the author was of opinion that the same animal was subject to the agency both of good and evil intermediate intelligences, the one producing its affection, and the other its ferocity. When our Saviour denominates serpenis and scorpions the power of the enemy,° it may perhaps be thought that he affords some countenance to this opinion, especially as the evil spirit actually made use of the serpent, as his organ and instrument, when he accomplished the fatal lapse of our first parents from the original rectitude of their nature. But, if we pay due at- tention to the context, we shall find that, in this passage, as often in other parts of Scripture, the symbol is put for the thing symbolized. ‘J beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from Heaven,” says our Lord. ‘“ Behold, I give unto you power to tread on ser- pents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy.—Never- theless in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject to you.”® The 1 Zool. Journ. i. 5, 6 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 6. _ A Ibid. 7. 5 Luke, x. 19. 6 Ibid. 18—20. INSTINCT. Sho treading therefore onserpents and scorpions was treading upon the spirits of which they were figures. If we duly reflect upon the incongruity of an angel anda demon influencing the same animal, in so far as it exhibits in- stincts partly benevolent and partly ferocious, we shall be con- vinced that this hypothesis, pursued to all its consequences, cannot stand. Intermediate agents between the Deity and the brute are as much in the place of a soul to the latter, as the Supreme Intelligence would be if his action upon them Were immediate, so that the same irrational animal would be alternately a machine impelled by a good or evil intelligence. According to this hypothesis, the bee, that symbol of wisdom, when she sets out upon her beneficent errand of collecting honey and pollen, is acted upon by the good angel ; but, if she meets with any thing that excites her fear or her anger, she is stimulated to take vengeance upon the object of her displea- sure, and to make him feel the puncture of her poisoned dart, by the evil one. This can never be admitted. The same objection too lies against this hypothesis as against the last, that it does not ac- count for the mistakes sometimes made by the animal when endeavouring to accomplish itsinstinct. It cannot be supposed that, in the case before mentioned, the intelligent intermediate agent would stimulate the flesh-fly to deposit her eggs upon the blossoms of the carrion-plant, where the young must in- evitably perish from hunger, instead of upon real flesh. I am next to consider whether instinct be the result of the intellectual powers of the animal itself that exhibits it. If we survey the different tribes of the animal kingdom, we shall find a vast difference between them with respect to intellect. That wonderful pulp, which of all substances is alone able to respond to incorporeal agency: to receive and store up the information collected by the organs of sensation, that it may be ready for future use, and which is the seat of the intellectual faculties, that wonderful pulp appears under very different circumstances in the different Classes of animals; but it has not been made evident that the acuteness of the intellect, though in some in- stances it seems to do so, depends altogether upon the com- parative volume of the brain ; for that of the mouse, compared with its size, is greater than that of the half-reasoning ele- 1 The brain of the elephant is five times the size of that of the rhinoceros, being as 182 to 35. The space for the brain is smaller in the parrot than in any other bird. Lit. Gaz. May 28, 1831. Philos. Trans. 1822. 42. PP 314 INSTINCT. phant.t Man indeed, generally speaking, has the largest brain of all animals, but it seems a singular anomaly that persons of very weak intellects have often disproportionately large heads, indicating a great volume of brain. When we leave the ver- tebrated animals, we find the nervous system, in most, mate- rially altered and degraded, so that more power is given appa- rently to instinct and less to intellect. In other animals, as we descend, the nervous system becomes more and more dispersed, so that in those at the foot of the scale we discern no traces of intellect, and very few of instinct ; and only so much apparent sensation as is necessary for the purposes of nutrition and repro- duction. I have made the above observations because they bear in some degree on the question now before us. For if we pay due attention to the proceedings of animals, we shall find that those whose nervous system is cerebral usually exhibit the most striking proofs of intellectual action, are most capable of instruction, and are less remarkable for the complexity and in- tenseness of their ‘instincts; while those of the next grade, whose nervous system is ganglionic, as far as we know them, though not devoid of intellect, are endued with a much smaller portion of it, while their instinctive operations are all but mira- culous, and that where the nervous system is still less concen- trated both are greatly weakened, till at the bottom of the scale they almost disappear. From hence it seems to follow that extraordinary instinctive powers are not the result of extraor- dinary intellectual ones. But when we reflect further, that even in cases where the instincts are most complex and wonderful, the animal practises them infallibly, without guide or direction, and is as expert at at them when it first emerges into life, as when it has been long engaged in the practice of them ; it follows that it must be instructed in them from the first moment of its existence in the state in which it exercises them, by an infallible teacher. The bee, the moment it emerges from the pupa, begins to col- lect honey and pollen, and to perform all the other manipula- tions that belong to her instincts. In the higher animals the case is somewhat different. When they emerge into life, from the womb, or from the egg, it is usually in a state of helplessness, in which at first they can do little or nothing for themselves but suck, or receive food from, their dam. As their organization developes they gradually gain new powers, till they arrive at their acme, or age of pu- berty. 1 Cuv. Anat. Comp. ii. 148. INSTINCT. 315 The young beaver generally remains with its parents till it is three years old, when they couple, and build a cabin for themselves and offspring. The unfledged bird remains quietly in its nest, and is content to receive its food and warmth from its parents, but no sooner are its feathers grown, and its beaked prow and plumy oars and rudder fit it to win its way, in the ocean of air, than, incited by parental exhortations, it makes the attempt, and henceforth is equal to support itself, and to fulfil the biddings of instinct as well as of intellect and appetite. This storge stimulates the parent animal while its care of ils young is necessary to them and then ceases. This is there- fore chiefly instinctive; but in the most intellectual of all animals, where instinctive love ceases, rational love begins ; and care and anxiety for the welfare of our offspring, and affectionate regard for their persons, continues after they cease to have any need of our help and attention. It is not always easy in this tribe of animals to distinguish those actions that are purely instinctive from those that are not so, and writers on this subject, as was before observed, often ascribe to instinct actions that are produced by other causes. Animals of the higher grades, by means of their organs of sen- sation, acquire ideas upon which they in some sort reason, by comparing one with another; thus they get experience, and as they grow older literally grow wiser. Hence we see old ones often very cunning and expert in removing obstacles, finding their way, and the like. With regard to truly instinctive actions, they invariably follow the development of the organization ; are neither the ‘result of instruction, nor of observation and experience, but the action of some external agency upon the organization, which is fitted by the Omniscient Creator to respond to its action. Indeed, if intellect was the sole fountain of those operations usually denominated instinctive, animals, though they sought the same end, would vary more or less in the path they seve- rally took to arrive at it; they would require some instruction and practice before they could be perfect in their operations ; the new born bee would not immediately be able to rear a cell, nor know where to go for the materials, till some one of riper experience had directed her. But experience and observation have nothing to do with her proceedings. She feels an indom- itable appetite which compels her to take her flight from the hive when the state of the atmosphere is favourable to her pur- pose. Her organs of sight—which though not gifted with any power of motion, are so situated as to enable her to see what- ever passes above, below, and on each side of her—enable her 316 INSTINCT. _ to avoid any obstacles, and to thread her devious way through the numerous and intertwining branches of shrubs and flow- ers; some other sense directs her to those which contain the precious articles she is in quest of. But though her senses guide her in her flight, and indicate to her where she may most profitably exercise her talent, they must then yield her to the impulse and direction of her instincts, which this happy and industrious little creature plies with indefatigable diligence and energy, till having completed her lading of nectar and am- brosia, she returns to the common habitation of her people, with whom she unites in labours before described,* for the gen- eral benefit of the community to which she belongs. More reasons might be adduced to prove that intellect is not the great principle of instinct, but enough seems to have been said to establish that point. It should be borne in mind, how- ever, that though intellect is not the great principle, yet it must be admitted that all animals gifted with the ordinary or- gans of sensation, more or less employ their intellect in the whole routine of their instinctive operations, as I shall show under another head. 2. Butif no metaphysical power can be satisfactorily demon- strated to be the intermediate cause of instinct, then it seems to follow that it must be either a physical one, or one partly physical and partly metaphysical. In the former case, it must be the action of some physical power or agent, employed by the Deity, and under his guid- ance so as to work his will, upon the organization of the ani- mal ; which must be so constructed as to respond to that action in a certain way, or by the exhibition of certain phenomena peculiar to the individual genus or species. Mr Addison has observed—“ There is not, in my opinion, any thing more mysterious in nature than this instinct in ani- mals, which thus rises above reason, and falls infinitely short of it. It cannot be accounted for by any properties in matter, and at the same time works after so odd a manner, that one cannot think it the faculty of an intelligent being. For my own part, I look upon it as upon the principle of Gravitation in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, nor from any laws of me- chanisin, but according to the best notions of the greatest phi- losophers, is an immediate impression from the First Mover, and the Divine Energy acting in the creatures.”2 1 See above, p. 288, and Introd. to Ent. ii. 173. 2 Spectator, ii. n. 120. * tion. INSTINCT. S17 4 I have quoted this passage not as if Addison intended to patronize the hopothesis now before me, but to refer to his illustration of instinct by comparing it with Gravity. If Gra- vity be the result of physical agency, and not an immediate impression of the First Mover, so may Instinct be likewise. Reasoning from analogy it seems inconsistent with the custom- ary method of the Divine proceedings with regard to man, and this visible system of which he is the most important part— for a being that combines in himself matter and spirit, must be more important than a whole world that does not combine spirit with matter—to act immediately upon any thing but spi- rit, except by the intermediate agency of some physical though subtile substance, empowered by him to act as his vicegerent in nature, and to execute the law that has received his sanc- If we consider the effects produced by the great physical powers of the heavens, by whatever name we distinguish them: that they form the instrument by which God maintains the whole universe in order and beauty ; produces the cohesion of bodies ; regulates and supports the motions, annual and diur- nal, of the earth and other planets; prescribes to some an eccentric orbit, extending, probably, into other systems ;* causes satellites to attend upon and revolve round their primary pla- nets ; and not only this, but by a kind of conservating energy empowers them to prevent any dislocations in the vast ma- chine ; and any destructive aberrations arising from the ac- tion of these mighty orbs upon each other. If we consider further what God effects both upon and within every indivi- dual sphere and system, throughout the whole universe, by the constant action of those viceregal powers, if I may so call them, that rule under him, whatever name we give them ; I say, if we duly consider what these powers actually effect, it will require no great stretch of faith to believe that they may be the inter-agents by which the Deity acts upon animal organi- zations and structures to produce all their varied instincts. An eminent French zoologist? has illustrated the change of instincts, resulting from the modification of the nervous sys- tem, which takes place in a butterfly, in the transit to its per- fect or imago state from the caterpillar, by a novel and striking simile. He compares the animal to a portable or hand organ, in which, on a cylinder that can be made to revolve, several tunes are noted ; turn the cylinder and the tune for which it is set is played; draw it out a notch and it gives a second ; 1 La Place. E. T. ii. 337. 341. 2 Dr Virey. 318 INSTINCT, , and so you may go on till the whole number of tunes noted on it have had their turn. This, happily enough, repre- sents the change which appears to take place in the verte- bral chord and its ganglions on the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly, and the sequence of new instincts which result from the change. But if we extend the compa- rison, we may illustrate by it the two spheres of organized be- ings that we find on our globe, and their several instinctive changes and operations. We may suppose each kingdom of nature to be represented by a separate cylinder, having noted upon it as many tunes as there are species differing in their respective instincts—for plants may be regarded, in some sense, as having their instincts as well as animals—and that the constant impulse of an invisible agent causes each cylinder to play in a certain order all the tunes noted upon it: this will represent, not unaptly, what takes place, with regard to the devolopment of instincts, in the vegetable and animal king- doms ; and our simile will terminate in the inquiry, whose may be that invisible hand that thus shakes the sistrum of {sis,t and produces that universal harmony of action, resulting from that due intermixture of concords and discords, according to the will of its Almighty Author, in that infinitely diversified and ever moving sphere of beings which we call nature.* What, if the powers lately mentioned, and which, in the Introduction to the present work, I hope I have made it appear, are synonymous with the physical Cherubim of the Holy Scrip- tures, or the heavens in action which under God govern the universe ; what, if these powers—employed as they are by the Deity so universally to effect his Almighty will in the uphold- ing of the worlds in their stated motions, and preventing their aberrations,—should also be the intermediate agents, which by their action on plants and animals produce every physical development and instinctive operation, unless where God him- self decrees a departure that circumstances may render neces- sary from any law that he has established ? With regard to the vegetable kingdom, consisting of organ- ized beings without sense or voluntary motion, few would deny that they are subject to the dominion of the elements, and re- spond to the action of those mysterious powers that rule, under God, in nature. But when the query is concerning the animal kingdom, most of the members of which to organization and life add a will and powers of voluntary motion, and many have a degree of intelligence residing within them which governs 1 The Sistrum of Isis symbolized the elements. 2 Ducis Wevasorn. INSTINCT. 319 many of their actions, we hesitate as to the answer we shall return to it. It will furnish a presumptive proof that those actions which © are instinctive in animals are the results of the action of those intermediate powers to which I have just alluded, if it can be shown, that there is any thing in plants at all analogous to the instincts of animals, for if there be, one can scarcely suppose that they are produced bya different cause. Let us, therefore, now leaving the animal kingdom,—which to us perhaps appears the sole theatre in which instincts manifest themselves—and turning our attention to the vegetable, inquire whether any thing analogous to these springs of action is discoverable there. One remarkable distinction, between the animal and the vegetable is in the difference of the principles that form their pabulum. The former does not become the nutriment of the latter till it is chemically decomposed ; whereas the latter becomes the food of the former, either in its green, or ripe state, and is not decomposed and turned to nutriment till it is passed into its stomach, and is subject to various actions of various organs, or their products, so that, though the food of both is de- composed in order to be assimilated, yet with regard to the vege- table this happens before it enters it, but to the animal after it enters it, the decomposing powers being without the plant and within the animal. In the former case it is the action of the atmosphere unassisted by the organization of the plant—in the latter it is the same action assisted by the organization of the animal. Another thing may be here observed—that as the most re- markable instincts of animals are those connected with the propagation of the species, so the analogue of these instincts in plants is the development of these parts peculiarly connected with the production of the seed—so that the expanded flower and the operations going on in it is the analogue of the repro- ductive instinct of the animal: this is all produced by physicai action upon the organization of the plant. Now if we consider the infinite variety of plants, and the wonderful diversity of their parts of fructification, and that these are all produced in their several seasons and stations by the action of some physical powers upon their varied organization, and by means of the soil in which they are planted, we shall think it nearly as wonderful and accountable as the instinctive operations of the various creatures that feed upon them. That the same action should unfold such an infinite variety of forms in one case and instincts in the other is equally astounding and equally difficult to explain.—Compare the sunflower and the hive-bee, the 320 INSTINCT. compound flowers of the one, and the aggregate of combs of the other—the receptacle with its seeds, and the combs with the grubs. Again, as ali plants have their appropriate fructification, so they have other peculiarities connected with their situation, nutriment, and mode of life, corresponding in some measure with these instincts that belong to other parts of an animal’s economy. Some with a climbing or voluble stem, constantly turn one way, and some as constantly turn another. Thus the hop twines from the left to the right, while the bindweed ° goes from right to left;* others close their leaves in the night, and seem to go to sleep; others show a remarkable degree of irritability when touched ; the blossoms of many, as the sun- flower, follow the sun from his rising to his setting ; some blos- soms shut up, as in the anemone, till the sun shines upon them; others close at a certain hour of the day, as the goatsbeard ;? another, Hedysarum gyrans, slowly revolves. The same phy- sical action upon a peculiar organization produces all these effects. We may further observe that the great majority of plants send forth radicles which presenting their points to the sources of vegetable life and nutrition on all sides, absorb each its por- tion, and convey it to the stem from which they issue ; analogous, in this respect, to the polypes, which unfold and expand their tentacles for a similar purpose. Ivy planted against a wall or trunk of a tree supports itself by innumerable radicles, but I once saw a plant reared as a standard which sent forth none. This seems analogous to some animal instincts, which, depend- ing upon circumstances, may be called conditional ; as when, in the case of a sterile queen, the bees do not, as usual, mas- sacre the drones.® There is another parallelism between the plant and the ani- mal, especially the insect, which appears to prove that their instincts are ruled by the same physical agent, I mean their hybernation. In extratropical countries, or a great proportion of them, as the year declines, and the amount of heat, received from its great fountain, is diminished by the shortening of the days, the deciduous trees and shrubs cast their leaves, plants of every description cease more or less their growth, and all vege- table nature seems to become torpid. At the same period, and under the influence of the same cause, the decrease of the amount of caloric, several of the higher animals, all the reptiles, 1 See Willd. Princip. of Botany, § 18.n. 51. a. b. Plate ii. f. 32, 25. 2 Tragopogon. 3 Introd. to Ent. ii. Lett. xx. INSTINCT. 321 as well as nearly the whole world of insects, retire from the exercise of their wonted instincts, and conceal themselves, some under the earth, and others under bark, under stones, in crev- ices, moss, and similar hiding places, where they take their winter’s sleep, till a more genial temperature whispers to them —Awake—and they return to their severalemployments. - This effect in both the plant and the animal, seems to spring from the same physical cause—the periodical lowering of the tempe- rature; so that heat appears to be the plectrum, and the organi- zation of the animal, the strings it touches, which cause it to exhibit the prescribed sequence of its instincts. Whoever has been in the habit of attending to the motions of insects will find them most alert in sultry weather, especially in an electric state of the atmosphere before a thunder storm. Heat and electricity also accelerate the growth of plants, if duly supplied with moisture. It is remarkable, and worthy of particular observation, veri- fying the old adage that extremes meet, that an approach towards the maximum of heat produces sometimes the same effects upon organized nature that an approach towards the minimum does. In tropical countries they do not divide the year into winter and summer, but into the rainy and dry seasons ; as to temperature, the former would, perhaps, be judged to correspond with our winter, and the latter with our summer, but with respect to the state of animals and vegetables, the reverse would appear to be most consistent with facts. The sreat rains, according to M. Lacordaire,? “begin to fall in Brazil about the middle of September, when all nature seems to awake from its periodical repose; vegetation resumes a more lively tint, and the greater part of plants renew their leaves; the insects begin to reappear: in October the rains are rather more frequent, and with them the insects ; but itis not till to- wards the middle of November, when the rainy season is defini- tively set in, that all the families appear suddenly to develope themselves; and this general impulse that all nature seems to receive continues augmenting till the middle of January, when it attains its acme. The forests present then an aspect of movement and life of which our woods in Europe can give no idea. During part of the day we hear a vast and uninter- rupted hum, in which the deafening cry of the tree-hopper? prevails ; and you cannot take a step, or touch a leaf, without putting insects to flight. At 11 A. M. the heat is become 1 Annal. des Sc. Natur. xx. Juin. 1830. 193. 2 Tettigonia. Cicada, &c. QQ $22 INSTINCT. insupportable, and all animated nature becomes torpid—the noise diminishes—the insects, and other animals disappear— and are seen no more till the evening. Then, when the at- mosphere is again cool, to the matin species succeed others whose office it is to embellish the nights of the torrid zone. I am speaking of the glow-worms' and fire-flies ;? whilst the former, issuing by myriads from their retreats, overspread the plants and shrubs ; the latter crossing each other in all direc- tions, Weave in the air, as it were, a luminous web, the light of which they diminish or augment at pleasure. This brilliant illumination only ceases when the night gives place to the day. As during our winters, some part of the insect population occasionally appear and dance in the sunbeam, so in Brazil, according to M. Lacordaire, during the months of May, June, July, and August, the season of great drought, when all nature is embrowned, and consequently affording no proper food for perfect insects; the caterpillars of Lepidoptera are those mostly to be met with, while in the rainy season those only that live in society occur. The great object of the Creator appears to be the employ- ment of the various tribes of animals, to do the work for which he created them at its proper season; and where the object is particularly to keep within due limits the growth of plants, or to remove dead or putrescent substances before they generate miasmata, we may conjecture, that when their services are not wanted, they would be allowed a season of repose, so that dur- ing winter with us, when there is little or no vegetation of the plant, and a hot sun does not cause putrescent substances to exhale unwholesome effluvia, the great body of labourersin these departments, we may say, are sent to bed for a time, till their labours are again necessary. So also in tropical countries, where drought and heat united are sufficient to do the work of nature’s pruners and scavengers, by stopping vegetation, and immediately drying up animal and other substances, before putridity takes place, they then abstract themselves, and retreat to their winter quarters; but when the rainy season revives the face of nature, they return, each to exercise his appointed func- tion, at the bidding of his Creator. All these circumstances indicate an analogy between certain phenomena observable in the history of plants, and some of the instincts of animals : and tend to prove that the proximate cause of both may be very nearly related; and that as the immediate cause of the vegetable instinct is clearly physical, so may be 1 Lampyris. Pygolampis. K. 2 lator noctilucus, &c. INSTINCT. 398 that of the animal. With regard to all actions, in the latter, which are the result of intellect, they, of course, are produced by some principle residing within, as when the senses guide it, or it exercises its memory; and these aid it in following the impulse of instinct. The greatest of modern chemists has ob- served, with respect to some such agent, “that the immediate connection between the sentient principle and the body may be established by kinds of etherial matter, which can never be evident to the senses, and which may bear the same relation to heat, light, and electricity, that these refined forms or modes of existence bear to the gases.”* I may observe upon this passage, that the farther any matter is removed from our knowledge and coercion, the more powerful it really is. Thus liquids are more powerful than solids, gases than liquids, imponderable fluids than gases, and so we may keep ascending till we ap- proach the confines of spirit, which will lead us to the foot of the throne of the Deity himself, the Spirit of spirits, the only Almighty, the only All-wise, and the only All-good. Dr Henry More, a very eminent philosopher and divine of the seventeenth century, under the name of the Spirit of Na- ture, speaks of a power between matter and spirit, which he describes as—“ A substance incorporeal, but without sense and animadversion, pervading the whole matter of the universe, and exercising a plastical power therein, according to the sundry predispositions and occasions in the parts it works upon, raising such’ phenomena in the world, by directing the parts of matter and their motion, as cannot be resolved into mere mechanical powers—which goes through and assists all corporeal beings, and is the vicarious power of God upon the universal matter of the world. This suggests to the spider the fancy of spinning and weaving her web; and to the bee of the framing of her honey-comb; and especially to the silk-worm of conglomerating her both funeral and natal clue ; and to the birds of building their nests, and of their so diligent hatching their eggs.”? This Spirit of Nature of Dr More seems not very different from the Etherial Matter of Sir H. Davy ; and it is singular, that Dr Paris, in his interesting life of our great chemist— speaking of a monument to be erected to his memory at Pen- zance—should thus express himself. ‘It was to be erected on one of those elevated spots of silence and solitude where he delighted, in his boyish days, to commune with the elements, 1 Consolations in Travel, 214. 2 On the Immortality of the Soul, B. iii. c. 12, 18. 324 INSTINCT. and where the Spirit of Nature moulded his genius in one of her wildest moods.”* But—to return from this digression to Sir H. Davy’s etherial matter bearing the same relation to heat, light, and electricity, that they do to the gases—I would ask, if such may be the powers by which the soul moves the body, and produces those actions that are In our own power to do or not to do, depend- . ing upon the will, does it seem incongruous that light, heat, and air, or any modification of them, upon which every animal depends for life and breath, and nutrition and growth, and all things, should be employed by the Deity to excite and direct them, where their intellect cannot, in their instinctive opera- tions? That their organization, as to their instruments of man- ducation, motion, manipulation, &c. has a reference to their instincts every one owns; can we not, therefore, conceive that the organization of the brain and nervous system may be so varied and formed by the Creator, as to respond, in the way that he wills, to pulses upon them from the physical powers of nature; so as to excite animals to certain operations for which they were evidently constructed, in a way analogous to the excitement of appetite? The new-born babe has no other teacher to tell it that its mother’s breast will supply it with its. proper nutriment; it cries for it; it spontaneously applies its mouth to it; and presses it under the bidding of appetite result- ing from its organization. When it arrives at the age of denti- tion, it as naturally uses its teeth for mastication; it wants no Instructor to inform it how they are to be employed to effect that purpose ; and so with respect to other appetites which the further development of its organs produces. It may, perhaps, be urged, in the case lately alluded to, of the infant growing up to puberty, that the instinctive operations that take place under the bidding of appetite fall under the general law of instinct; but it must be admitted that the gra- dual development of the organization is the consequence of the action of physical powers in the processes going on in the body. Or, asa learned writer on the subject asks,—‘‘In effect is instinct any thing else, but the manifestation without of that same wisdom which directs, in the interior of our body, all our vital functions.””? | Having rendered it probable that those instincts, which re- sult evidently from what are called bodily appetites, are the consequences merely of physical action upon an organization 1 Life of Sir H. Davy, 4to. edit. 517. 2, Dr Virey, V. D. D’ Hist. Nat. xvi. 293. INSTINCT. 325 adapted to respond to it, I shall next inquire whether this may not be the case in instances which are not to be regarded in that light. We may divide instincts into three general heads :— a, Those relating to the multiplication of the species, espe- cially the care of animals for their young both before and after birth. 8. Those relating to their food. y. Those relating to their Hybernation. a. The pairing of animals usually begins to take place in the spring, when the winter is passed, the earth is covered with verdure and adorned by the various flowers that now expand their blossoms, in proportion as the great centre of light and heat more and more manifests his power over the earth ; the birds sing their love-songs ; the nightingale is now—‘ Most musical, most melancholy ;’—the cuckoo repeats his mono- tonous note; and every other animal seems to partake of the universal joy. All this appears the result of a physical rather than a metaphysical excitement. As to their care of their future progeny, a great variety of circumstances take place. Viviparous animals have generally to give suck to their young for a time; oviparous ones either to construct a nest to receive their eggs, and, after hatching, to provide them with appropriate food during a certain period, or to deposit their eggs where their young progeny, as soon as hatched, may infallibly find it. But first, I must say some- thing of that Storge, or instinctive affection, which is almost universally exhibited by females for their progeny both before and after parturition ; a feeling of affection not generally com- mon to the males, or rather only in a few instances, as where the male bird assists the female in incubation. Yet this in- stinctive fondness, as soon as it ceases to be necessary, vanishes; except, as was before observed,* in the human species; a fact that seems to prove that it is not the result of the association of ideas, but of an impress of the Creator interwoven with the frame. But that this impress is by means of a physical inter- agent, seems to follow from this circumstance—that the hen shows the same instinctive attachment to the young ducklings that have been hatched under her, that she would do to chick- ens, the produce of her own eggs ; and if the new-born offspring of any mammiferous animal is abstracted from her, and another substituted, even of a different kind, the same affectionate ten- 1 See above, p. 315. 326 INSTINCT. derness is manifested towards it, as its own real offspring would have experienced. Now was it a metaphysical, and nota physical, impulse, surely this would not be the case. This is only one of many instances, which prove that instinct is not infallible : and, in truth, with regard to the higher animals, many associations may take place between the childand parent that help to endear the former to the latter. In the first place, the very circumstance of its being the fruit of her own bowels, and fed with milk from her own breast must bind it to her by the tenderest of ties; especially as, at the same time, it relieves her from what is troublesome. There is something also in infant helplessness, and infant gambols, calculated to win upon the doting mother. The subsequent alienation and estrangement of the female from her young, which takes place in all animals except man, appears, in the first instance, to be produced by their becoming troublesome and annoying to her; which, in some degree, may account for her desire to cast them off. Examin- ing the subject, therefore, on all sides, in the highest grades of animals, and those in whom maternal affection appears most intense, intellect and associations may be a good deal mixed with instinct in producing it. As we descend in the scale, the intensity of the feeling seems much reduced; and, in numerous tribes, is confined solely to the circumstances of parturition. So that the Storge, and its cessation, do not ap- pear altogether soextraordinary and unaccountable as a cursory view might tend to persuade us. The JMammalians, in general, appear to have recourse to very few striking preparatory actions previously to bringing forth their young, since they have usually no nest to prepare for their reception. Cats, however, it may be observed, search about very inquisitively for a snug and concealed station; and burrowing animals naturally retire to the bottom of thei bur- rows, when their feelings tell them their hour is come, and there are relieved of their precious burthen. Several others of the Rodentia, or gnawers, as the dormouse, make beds of their own hair to receive their young. In most cases that fall under our daily observation, the young are dropped where the mother happens to be when the pains of labour overtake her. The animals we are speaking of have at hand immediately a plen- tiful supply of food for the nutriment of their new-born offspring ; they have not, like the birds, to search for provision for them, but, from their own bodies, furnish them with a delicious fluid suited to their state, which forms their support till they are able to crop and digest the herbage, when they are left to shift for themselves. Some are born more independent of maternal INSTINCT. 327 care than others; thus domestic animals, as the calf, the lamb, and the young colt, can move about almost as soon as they are born, and can immediately use their organs of sight ; whereas the progeny of beasts of prey usually come into the world blind, and some time elapses before they can run about, so that the dam, if she wishes to remove them, must carry them herself, which she generally does, in her mouth. As the proper food of herbivorous quadrupeds is almost every where abundant, they are soon tempted, without the intervention of the mother, to browse upon the herbage: but, the predaceous beast whose food must be pursued and cap- tured, takes more pains to instruct her young how to maintain themselves ; thus the cat lays the mouse or bird, that she has caught, before her kittens ; and it is laughable to observe how they are excited, and with what resolution and ferocity the little furies endeavour to keep possession of the prey their dam has brought to them. But of all classes of animals the birds are the most remarka- ble for the labours they undergo preparatory to laying their eggs. In those that migrate a long aerial voyage is previously to be undertaken, the stimulus to which, in the swallow, ap- pears to be altogether physical,* and is probably so in other migrators. But what is it that directs them in their flight, and enables them to return to the countries from which they had migrated? Did the swallow? steer her course within sight of land, it might, perhaps, be supposed that her memory was her Secon : but these birds are often found at sea, hundreds of miles from any shore,? where, one would think, there could be no index either in the clouds or the ocean to instruct her which way to steer her adventurous course. The only atmos- pheric phenomenon affecting her would be the change of tem- perature as she went northward. But we can only conjec- ture in this case—observation, as well as Scripture, tells us, indeed, The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times ; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming,* but God, who decrees the end, appoints the means, which often remain amongst his Secret Things. Yet, though the immediate agent that “ouides the swallow over the expanse of water, from the torrid to the temperate zone is latent, we may still Inquire, when she has made the shores of Britain, what is it that urges her to seek her old vicinity, and to build 1 See above, p. 55. See Jenner, Philos. Trans. 1824. 20. 2 Hirundo rustica. 3 Philos. Trans. ubi supr. 13. peas 4 Jerem. vii. 7. 328 INSTINCT. her nest in the very spot where she herself first drew breath, as Dr Jenner’s experiments prove that swallows do™ Here may we not conjecture that her intellect and memory become her guides? She recognizes the spot in which she committed herselfto the sea breeze; and there, probably, again flies inland, and will have no great difficulty in pursuing the line of coun- try which leads to her native village, and to the very roof under the eaves of which she was born. But-of all the instincts of the feathered part of the creation, there is none more remarkable, more varied, and more worthy of admiration than that which directs them in the situation and structure of their nests. —One nidificates upon the ground ;? another under ground, or in the sand ;? some select the chimney or eaves of houses for their clay-built structures ;* those gela- tinous nests, which the Chinese epicures and orators so highly prize, are formed in caverns and dark places by the little bird® whose work theyare. The great majority, however, nidificate in trees and bushes, and where they are within reach their nests are carefully concealed. The structure and materials of nests are also infinitely vari- ous,'and may be considered to result, as well as all the proceed- ings of animals with regard to their young, from an excitement analogous to that which Dr Jenner first noticed in the swal- low ;° upon which he observes—** The economy of the animal seems to be regulated by some external impulse which leads to a train of consequences,”” and which does not cease its action till it has accomplished the end for which it was given ; namely, the procreation ; oviposition preceded by nidification ; incuba- tion; hatching, or birth; nutrition and education of the young progeny of each individual kind, according to the general law of the Creator. We know very little of the proceedings of the remaining Classes of Vertebrates—which are distinguished by having cold blood—the Reptiles, namely, and the Fishes; except that they do not feel that instinctive love for their young, after birth, exhibited by the quadrupeds and birds. ‘They, however, are invariably instructed by the Creator to select a proper place in which to deposit their eggs where they can be hatched either by artificial or solar heat. ‘Those of some Ophidians, as snakes, are buried in sand, and not seldom even in heaps of ferment- 1 Philos. Trans. ubi supr. 16. 2 Motacilla Troglodytes. 3 Mirundo riparia. 4 H. rustica et urbica. 5 AL esculenta. 6 Philos. Trans. 1824. 20. 7 Ibid. 2. INSTINCT. 329 ing manure; while those of venomous ones are hatched in the womb of the dam, and come forth in the serpentine form, ~The Saurians also select a proper place for their eggs, and then de- sert them; the crocodile buries hers in the sands near the river; where many, however, are devoured by the ichneumon, and its other enemies, and are even relished by man. In the Ba- trachian Order one species of salamander commits a single egg to a leaf of the Persicaria, which it protects by carefully doubling the leaf, and then, proceeding to another, repeats the same manceuvre, till her oviposition is finished :* the toads and frogs lay their eggs in the water, the former producing two tong strings resembling necklaces, formed, as it were, of beads of jet, inclosed in crystal; while those of the latter consist of irre- gular masses of similar beads. This gelatinous or transparent envelope forms the first nutriment of the embryo. The nuptial song of the Reptiles is not, like that of birds, the delight of every heart, but is rather calculated to disturb and horrify than to still the soul. The hiss of serpents; the croaking of frogs and toads; the moaning of turtles; the bellowing of crocodiles and alligators,? form their gamut of discords. With regard to the Class of Fishes, the general object of those that migrate appears to be the casting of their spawn ; this it is that causes the different species of the salmon genus to leave the sea for the rivers; for this the herring travels south- ward, and the mackarel seeks the north ; all of them guided by the law of the Most High, showing itself by an indomitable instinct, toseek those stations for oviposition that are best suited to the aération, hatching, and rearing of their spawn ;—but as no very striking traits are upon record with regard to the ovi- position of fishes, I shall merely refer the reader, with respect to the instinct of the migrators, to a former part of the present work, where that subject is discussed more at large.* Under *this head I shall only further notice the numerous tribes of the insect world, which have all their seasons, varying according to their several destinies, for fulfilling the great law of nature, and to which the organization of each species is adapted : and when the period for laying their eggs is arrived each is directed to place them where their young, whien disclosed, may find their appropriate nutriment. From the instance of the flesh-fly, above related,®> we learn that it is their scent that 1 Salamandra platycauda. 2 Edinb. Phil. Journ. ix. 110. 3 See above, p. 17. 4 Ibid. p. 57. 5 Ibid. p. 311. RR 330 INSTINCT. directs insects toa proper station for their eggs. When we recollect that every plant, almost, is the destined food of some peculiar insect, we may conjecture that the sense of smelling must, in them, be far more nice than in the higher animals, so as to enable them to distinguish from all others the appropriate nutriment of their own descendants. Where the parent, as is sometimes the case, feeds upon the same plant with the chil- dren, she requires no such guide, but with respect to the ma- jority of insects, especially the infinite host of Lepidoptera,— which, after they arrive at their perfect state, never touch what forms their nutriment while they are larves,—some such guide is absolutely necessary. 8. Another Class of Instincts relates to the different modes by which animals procure their food. Nothing affords a more striking proof of Creative Wisdom, and of the most wonderful adaptation of means to an end, than the diversities of structure with a view to this particular function. If we consider the infinite variety of substances, animal and vegetable, produced from the earth, which form the nutriment of its inhabitants— some solid and not easily penetrable; others soft and readily severed and comminuted ; others again fluid, or semi-fluid ;— we may conceive what a vast diversity of organs is necessary to effect this purpose. ‘To render solid food, of any kind, fit for deglutition and digestion, the same mouth must be furnished with several kinds of teeth, some for incision, others for lacera- tion, others again for grinding and mastication—while those that only absorb liquids merely require an organ adapted for suction, though often, at the same time, fitted to pierce the substance from which the nutritive fluid is to be derived. How various, also, must be the organs for swallowing, and digesting the food according to its nature; others for elaborating it, and abstracting from it all those substances ‘that are required by the several systems at work in the body, and conveying them to their proper stations ; and the means also for rejecting from the body the residuum after the secernment for the above pur- poses of the finer life-supporting products. Here are a variety of organs, admirable in their structure, and fitted for action in an infinity of ways; some at the bidding of the will stimulated by the appetite; others independent of the will, such are the dis- tillations, percolations, chemical and electrical processes, con- stantly going on in the body of every animal, to separate all the products that its nature and functions require, all speak of a mechanical agency at work within, not independent in its INSTINCT. §3i operation, but fulfilling a law which must be obeyed.* It has been found that Galvanic action will supply the place of the will upon the nerves'and muscles, for by it the eyes can be opened, and other muscular movements be produced in a dead body. Sir H. Davy was of opinion that the air inspired car- ries with it into the blood a subtile or ethereal part probably producing animal heat, since those animals that possess the highest temperature consume the greatest quantity of air, and those that consume the smallest quantity, are cold blooded.® The herbivorous Mammalians are generally not remarkable for any artificial means of procuring their food. Providence has spread a table before them, and invites them to partake of it, without any other trouble, than bending their necks to eat it; but the carnivorous ones,—as their destined pabulum is endued with locomotive powers, which enable it often to escape from them, and disappoint their expectations,—must have re- course to stratagems, and lie in wait for their prey ; these, however, consist chiefly in concealing themselves and springing suddenly upon it. The fox, of all quadrupeds, is the most celebrated for his stratagems and finesse in entrapping his game, and his patience is equal to his craft. Some have doubted whether this animal can fascinate poultry, as has been often asserted, but IE know one instance which fully confirms it. A friend of mine one night hearing a noise, upon looking out in its direction, saw a fox under the hen-roost, peering up at the hens, which both he and his wife, who told me the story, saw, as they did also the fox running away, in spite of their shouting, with one in his mouth. Indeed, on any other prin- ciple we cannot account for his depopulating the hen-roosts in the night. The birds are less noted, than even the quadrupeds, for their stratagems, or any remarkable means of providing food for themselves or their young. Those of prey boldly attack and seize their destined food wherever they find it; the owls, indeed, like the cats, their analogues, seem to use artifice as much as strength to attract the mice. The carrion-feeders, as the vul- tures and crows, soon discover the carcasses of dead animals. Some of the sea-birds, especially the gulls, indicate the approach of bad weather, by leaving the coast, and seeking the interior; and, during the intense frosts of a severe winter, the web-footed 1 See Dr Roget’s excellent statements on these subjects, B. T. ii. chap. ill.—ix. 2 See Dr Wilson Philip in Philos. Trans. 1829. 271, 278. 3 Consolations tn Travel, 196, 197. 4 Roget, B. T. ii. 407. 332 INSTINCT. birds and waders, quitting their summer stations in the more northern regions, fly to the south and seek the unfrozen springs and waters of the inland districts, where they find a supply of food. All these physical actions seem to arise from a physical cause, and easily to be accounted for, without having recourse to any other. With regard to the cold-blooded animals, the fishes and rep- tiles, we know but little of their habits in this respect, or of any particular stratagems to which they have recourse to procure their food. Some of the predaceous fishes, as the pike and perch, appear to lie in wait in deep water, and so dart upon their prey; others, as the shark, with open mouth pursue and devour them ; the fly-catching ones, as the several species of the carp and salmon genus,’ are equally upon the watch, but nearer the surface, to seize a may-fly? or ephemera ; the fish- ing-frog® hangs out its lines in the sea to catch other fishes ; the serpents are said to fascinate the birds ; the enormous boa lies in wait for the antelopes and other quadrupeds, and coiling itself round them in mighty folds, crushes them to render them more fit for deglutition ; the Batrachians, Chelonians, and nu- merous Saurians are on the alert after insects and small game; while the vast and ferocious crocodiles and alligators, looking like trunks of trees, lie basking near the surface of the water, ready to spring upon any large fish, or even man, that may chance to come within reach. Of all animals, insects afford the most numerous instances of instinctive proceedings with this sole end in view; the pit- falls of the ant-lion ;* the webs and nets of the various sorts of spiders spread over the face of nature; and many more, furnish instances of stratagems to secure their daily food; while an infinity of others acquire it, aided only by their senses and natural weapons. Let any one look at the prominent eyes, tremendous jaws, and legs and wings formed for rapid motion on the earth or in the air of the tiger- beetles,$ and he will readily see that they want no other aid to enable them to seize their less gifted prey: and numerous other tribes both on the earth and in the water emulate them in these respects. The pacific or herbivorous insects also are mostly fitted with an extraor- dinary acuteness of certain senses to direct them to their appro- priate pabulum. The sight of the butterfly and moth invaria- bly leads them to the flowers, to suck whose nectar their mul- 1 Cyprinus and Salmo. 2 Phryganea. 3. Lophius. 4 Muyrmeleon. 5 Cicindela. INSTINCT. 333 tivalve tubes are given them. The scent of the dung-beetles and the carrion-flies allures them to their respective useful, though disgusting, repasts. A very numerous tribe of those that derive their nutriment from other animals, neither entrap them by stratagem, nor assail them by violence; but, as the butterfly and the moth deposit their eggs upon their appropriate vegetable, so do these upon their appropriate animal food. Every bird almost that darts through the air, every beast that walks the earth, every fish that swims in its waters, and almost all the lower animals, and even man himself, the lord of all, are infested in this way. Upon the food of the Crustaceans, JMolluscans, and all the lower grades of animals, I have before sufficiently enlarged; I ‘need not, therefore, here resume the subject. Thus we see the Almighty and All-wise manifests his good- ness, as well as his wisdom and power, in providing for the wants of all the creatures that he has made; fitting each with peculiar organs adapted to its assigned kind of food, both for procuring it, preparing it, digesting it, assimilating it, and for rejecting the residuum of all these operations. A physical aC= tion upon each of these organs and systems, fitted by him to receive and respond to it, is all that the case seems tv require in the majority of instances: in those, however, that depend upon artifice and stratagem for their food, the exciting cause is less obvious. These, indeed, belong to the higher instincts considered under the first head. y. That class of Instincts which relates to the feaberuation of animals having been considered in another place,* I shall only observe here, that the action of a physical cause is in no de- partment of the history of animals more evidently made out. My learned friend and coadjutor, Mr Spence, has, in the Introduction to Entomology, produced several facts, as,not easily reconcilable to the hypothesis with respect to the cause of In- stinct which I am now considering; and probably a great many more might be brought forward ; but my object here is merely to consider the general principle ; it would, indeed, be needless and endless to discuss particular cases, and fully to account for all aberrations, which, in the present state of our knowledge, it would not be possible to do. But there is one circumstance of a less confined nature, and upon which a good deal of the question hinges, to which it will be proper to advert. I mean the change that has been observed in the nervous system of some insects in their pass- 1 See above, p. 320. 334 INSTINCT. age from one state toanother. Itis contended that this change has nothing to do with any alterations that then take place in their instincts, but only with those in their organs of sense or motion.* In confirmation of this opinion it is further affirmed, that in three whole Orders,? the structure cf the nervous chord is not altered, and yet they acquire new instincts. But though no change has been noticed to take place in the number of ganglions of these orders, there must necessarily be a development in those that render nerves to the wings and reproductive organs ; so that, though some ganglions may not become confluent, as in the Lepidoptera, yet the range of their nerves is increased. In this respect, they are in much the same situation with the higher animals, though their nervous system, as to its organization, undergoes no material change, yet from the period of their birth, itis gradually more and more developed till they arrive at the age of puberty, when new ap- petites are experienced and new powers acquired, not by meta- physical, but by physical, action upon their several systems. In the three orders referred to by Mr Spence, there is not that difference between the different states of the insects that compose the majority of them, that there is between those whose pupes are not locomotive. The larves of the locust, for instance, are stated to emigrate, as well as the perfect insect, and live upon the same food; the only difference is in the locomotive and reproductive powers of the latter, both of which, as I have just said, must be connected with some change in their nervous system, operated gradually by a physical agent. From what has been stated, with respect to these several classes of instincts, it appears, that, as far as can be judged from circumstances, they have their beginning in consequence of the action of an intermediate physical cause upon the organ- ization of the animal, which certainly renders it extremely probable that such is the general proximate cause of the phe- nomena in question. I would, however, by no means, be un- derstood to assert this dogmatically, but merely that it appears to me the most probable hypothesis, and most consistent with the analogy of the divine proceedings in this globe of ours, as well as with his general government of the heav enly bodies ; and though I have mentioned heat, electricity, and other ele- ments as concerned in the production of these phenomena, yet I do not assert that other physical principles may not be com- missioned to have a share in it. This field is open both to the 1 Introd. to Ent. iv. 27,28. 2 Viz. Orthoptera, Hemiptera, and Neuroptera. INSTINCT. 335 speculatist and experimenter ; they may each assist the other in traversing and exploring it, and the well known adage, Dies diem docet, be verified more and more by their united efforts. Some may still feel disposed to ask,—Is it within the sphere of probability, or even possibility, that by the mere action of physical powers, however subtile, upon the brain and nerves of an animal there should be produced such a wonderful sequence of actions and manipulations as we know to be exhibited by the beaver, the bee, the spider, and the ant? Actions confess- edly above the range of their intellect. But to this I would answer, we know that with God all things are possible that do not imply a contradiction; and His Wisdom, Power, and Good- ness, may be as evidently, and more evidently, manifested, by the infinite varieties in the organization necessary to excite the appetite for such and such instinctive employments and opera- tions; and to stimulate animals always to run the same pre- scribed routine of action from day to day, and year to year; than if he did it by his own immediate action upon them, or that of his ministering, or other, spirits. When we examine a time-piece contrived by a skilful artist,. containing within it various wheels and other movements, all acted upon by one main spring or pendulum; by means of which, influencing all, seconds, minutes, and hours are indi- cated as they pass; and the latter are struck successively, and repeated if required: we admire the work, but more the art and hand that contrived and executed it; but our admiration would be much diminished, if, instead of these effects being produced by the action of a main spring or pendulum upon its organization, if I may so call it, it was necessary that the maker of the machine, or one of his operatives, should always be present to move the hands or strike the hours. So it seems most to magnify the Power and Wisdom of the Creator, if we suppose him to act by physical means in all cases above the intellect of the animal. If he governs the physical universe by such means, is it much to suppose, that by the same he moves a bird, or a bee, to glorify him by their admirable in- stincts ! Where action is indeed from the Deity upon spirit, as upon the soul of man, in a certain sense, it is by spirit ; either immediately as by the Holy spirit; or mediately as by an an- gelic nature; but below spirit, it is surely most consonant to every thing that we see and know, that it should be by an agent below spirit. 3. Iam now arrived at the last supposition or hypothesis— 336 INSTINCT. that the cause instinct may be compound or mized—in some respects physical, in others metaphysical. In this case it will be subject occasionally to variations from the general law when the intelligent agent sees fit. But upon this head I shall not be very long, and I only in- troduce it here, to show that. the Deity sometimes dispenses with the general law of instinct, or permits it occasionally to be interfered with by the will of the animal, orotheragency. All animals that exercise instinctive operations, have in their seve- ral organs of sensation, certain guides given to enable them to fulfil those instincts so as to bring about the purposes of Provi- dence. Sight, hearing, scent, taste, touch, perception, influence the will, and direct each animal to the points in which its instine- tive actions are to commence; and so far instinct is, as it were, mixed with intellect. I have seen it somewhere observed— that instinct in conjunction with a principle of limitation,— the intellectual faculties,—rules the actions of all sentient and or- ganized beings; just as gravity with the principle of counter- action—vepulsion—determines the place and composition of all inorganic bodies. With regard to the Deity, he retains in his hands the power of suspending or altering the action of the laws that have re- ceived his sanction ; and permits other metaphysical essences to do the same. When females overcome that storge or in- stinctive love for their offspring, either from the dread of shame, or worse motives, and destroy them, in common parlance, we say that they were tempted by an evil spirit to commit the crime. Mr Bennet, in his interesting Wanderings in New South Wales, &c., relates that it is common for the females of the oboriginal tribes, if they experience much suffering in their labour, to threaten the life of the poor infant, which when born they barbarously destroy.* | This is a fearful counteraction of instinct flowing from an evil source. The Deity himself, doubtless when there is—Dignus vindice nodus—sometimes suspends the action of an instinct. It is related in the Holy. Scripture, that when the ark of God was taken by the Philistines, in order to ascertain whether the plagues that were sent upon them were from God, they yoked two milch kine that had calves to the cart in which it was sent to Bethshemesh, and the kine went straight to that place, their instinct being mastered by a strong hand, though they went lowing after their calyes all the way.” Here the Deity ruled “1,122. 2 1 Sam. vi. 7. 12. INSTINCT. 337 the instinct. God interferes with the instincts of animals also when he prescribes their course and sends them in any par- ticular direction to answer his purpose: as in the case of the prophet Jonah. Properly speaking, those interpositions of the Deity by which the law of instinct is suspended, to answer a particular purpose of his Providence, like that just related, must be regarded as miraculous ; but yet, though unrecorded, they may happen oftener than we are aware in the course of his moral government ; sometimes perhaps also to remedy some physical evil. This appeared therefore a proper place to advert to them. 1 See above, p. 142. = 8S CHAPTER XIX. Functions and Instincts. Arachnidan, Pseudarachnidan, and Acaridan Condylopes. Havine wandered long enough, perhaps too jong, in a wide and mazy field, but fertile everywhere in proofs of the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of the Creator, it is time to return to the high road from which we diverged. The Class of animals which led me into this digression were the Myriapods, concerning which I observed, when I com- menced my account of them, that on quitting the Crustaceans, the way seemed to branch off from the long-tailed Decapods by them, and from the short-tailed ones by the Arachnidans. We are now then to give a history of the latter Class. Latreille, in which he has been followed by most modern Arachnologists, in his work in aid of Cuvier’s last edition of the Regne Animal,’ divides his Arachnidans into two Orders, Pul- monaries, or those that breathe by gills, and Trachearies, or those that breathe by spiracles in connection with trachee. In his latest work,? which he did not live to finish, he added a third Order, including some parasites, infesting marine animals, such as the whale louse.* These, from their having no apparent respiratory apparatus, he named, porobranchians. As the pulmonary 4rachnidans of Latreille differ from the Trachearies, &c., not only in having their body divided into two sections, but likéwise both in their respiratory organs and those of circulation, I have always regarded them as forming a distinct Class.* The following characters distinguish this Class: Bony covered by a coriaceous or horny integument, divided into two segments. Head and trunk confluent so as to form a single segment, denominated the Cephalothorar. Eyes, 6—8. “hy L Les Crustacés, les Arachnides, ot les Insectes. 2 Cours D' Entomologic. 3 Nymphon grossipes. 4 Introd. to Ent, iii. 19. 24. ARACHNIDANS. 839 Legs, 8. Spinal chord, knotty. A heart and vessels for circu- lation. Respiration by gills. Sexual organs, double. This Class consists of two Orders. 1. Araneidans. Integument coriaceous. Mandibles, alse called cheliceres, consisting of a single joint, armed with a claw, perforated near the apex for the transmission of venom, and when unemployed folding upon the end of the mandible. Gills, 2—4. Abdomen united tothe trunk by a foot-stalk. nus furnished with 4—6 spinning organs. 2. Pedipalps.t Integument horny. eelers extended before the head, armed with a forceps or didactyle claw. Abdo- men sessile. Gills, 4—8. 1. Araneidans, or spiders. No animals fall more universally under observation than the spiders ; we see them everywhere, fabricating their snares or lying in wait for their prey, in our houses, in the fields, on the trees, shrubs, flowers, grass, and in the earth; and, if we watch their proceedings, we may sometimes see them, without the aid of wings, ascend into the air, where, carried by their web as by an air-balloon, they can elevate themselves to a great height. ‘The webs they spin and weave are also equally dis- persed; they often fill the air, so as to be troublesome to us, and cover the earth. M. Mendo Trigozv? relates, that at Lis- bon, on the 6th of November 1811, the Tagus was covered, for more than half an hour, by these webs, and that innumer- able spiders accompanied them which swam on the surface of the water. I have in another place® given an account of the instruments by which they weave them; and shall now say a few words upon those by which their Creator has enabled them to produce the material of which they are formed. At the posterior extremity of the abdomen, formed usually by a prominence, is the anus, immediately below which, planted in a roundish depressed space, are four or six jointed teat-like organs, of a rather conical or cylindrical shape. The exterior pair is the longest, consisting of three joints; but these have no orifices at their extremity for the transmission of threads: the other four* consist each of two joints, and are pierced at their extremity with innumerable little orifices, in some species amounting to a thousand from each, from which their web 1 Manipalps would be a more proper term, as the feelers are used for pre- hension, not for walking. 2 Latr. Cours. D’ Ent. i. 497. 3 See above, p. 286. 4 Mammule, Introd. to Ent. iii. 391. 340 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. issues at their will, or bristled with an army of infinitely minute biarticulate spinnerets,* each furnishing a thread at their ex- tremity. These teats are connected with internal reservoirs, which yield the fluid matter forming the thread or web. These reservoirs in some species consist of four, in others of six vessels folded several times, and communicating with other vessels in which the material that forms their web is first ela- ‘borated.* Such are the organs which furnish the material of those wonderfui and diversified toils which the spiders weave to entrap the animals that form their food. The threads, after they issue from these organs, are united, or kept separate, according to the will or wants of the animal; and it is stated, that from them certain spiders can spin three kinds of silk.* Their ordinary thread is so fine, that it would require twenty-four united to equal the thickness of that of the silkworm. These threads, fine as they are, will bear, without breaking, a weight sextuple that of the spider that spins them. They employ their web, generally, for three different purposes; in the construction of their snares, of their own habitations, and of a cocoon to contain their eggs. Spiders were divided by the older Arachnologists, after Lis- ter, into families according to the mode in which they entrap or seize their prey. More modern writers‘ on the subject, have taken their respiratory organs as regulating the primary division of the Order: upon this principle, the spiders are formed into two tribes, those that have two pairs of gills ;> and those that have only one pair.6 M. Walckenaer, who has studied the Order more than any man in Europe, has not only divided the above two tribes into genera, &c., from characters taken from their form and organization; but has also considered them with respect to their habits, and under this head, divides them into four sections: 1. Hunters, wandering incessantly to entrap their prey. 2. Vagrants, watching their prey, concealed or inclosed in a nest, but often running with agility. 3. Sedentaries, forming a web in which they remain im- movable. 4. Swimmers, swimming in the water to catch their prey, and there forming a web. Fusi, Introd. to Ent. iii. 392. 2 Latr. Cours D’ Ent. i. 496. Blackwall, in Linn. Trans. xvi. 479. 4 L.Du Four. Latreille. Tetrapneumones. Latr. Theraphosa, &c. Walck. Dipneumones. Latr. Aranea. Walck. excluding Dysdera. Qa og = a] ARACHNIDANS. SAl To the first tribe, those, namely, with four gills, some spiders belong, the instincts of which are very remarkable. One of the largest, and most celebrated, is the bird-spider.t It forms the tube which it inhabits of a white silk like muslin, which it fixes amongst leaves, and in any cavities, and there watches its prey; it is accused by some of destroying even birds, whence its name, especially the humming-bird :* but this rests upon questionable authority ; and writers are not agreed as to its general habits. Probably several species are confounded under the same name. I shall not therefore enlarge further on its history ; I mention it merely as the largest spider known. The proceedings of those called the trap-door spiders® are better authenticated, as those of the mason-spider by the Abbé Sauvages,* and those of another species very recently, in the annals of the French Entomological Society, by M. V. Audoin, one of the most eminent of modern entomologists, under the name of the pioneer ;* of his interesting memoir, I shall here give a brief abstract. Some species of spiders, M. Audoin remarks, are gifted with a particular talent for building: they hollow out dens; they bore galleries; they elevate vaults; they build, as it were, subterranean bridges: they construct also entrances to their habitations, and adapt doors to them, which want nothing but bolts, for without any exaggeration, they work upon a hinge, and are fitted to a frame.® The interior of these habitations, he continues, is not less remarkable for the extreme neatness which reigns there; what- ever be the humidity of the soil in which they are constructed, water never penetrates them; the walls are nicely covered with a tapestry of silk, having usually the lustre of satin, and al- most always of a dazzling whiteness. He mentions only four species of the genus as at present known. One which was found in the Island of Naxos ;7 another in Jamaica;® a third in Montpellier ;° and a fourth, that which is the subject of his Memoir, in Corsica ; to which I may add a fifth species, found frequently by Mr Bennet, in different parts of New South Wales.?° The habitations of the species in question are found in an 1 Mygale avicularia. 2 Trochilus. 3 Cteniza. 4 Ct. Sauvagesii. 5 Ct. fodiens. 6 The French word is féyure, which I cannot find in the dictionaries, but it means, the circular frame of the mouth of the tube which receives the door. 7 Cteniza ariana. 8 Ct. nidulans. 9 Ct. cementaria. 10 Wanderings in N. S. Wales, &c. i. 328. 342 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. argillaceous kind of red earth, in which they bore tubes about three inches in depth, and ten lines in width. The walls of these tubes are not left just as they are bored, but they are covered with a kind of mortar, sufficiently solid to be easily separated from the mass that surrounds it. If the tube is divided longitudinally, besides this rough cast, it appears to be covered with a coat of fine mortar, which is as smooth and regular as if a trowel had been passed over it; this coat is very thin, and soft to the touch ; but before this adroit workman lays it, she covers the coarser earthy plaster-work with some coarse web, upon which she glues her silken tapestry. All this shows that she was directed in her work by a Wise Master ; but the door that closes her apartment is still more remarkable in its structure. If her well was always left open, she would be subject to the intrusion of guests that would not, at all times, be welcome or safé; Providence, therefore, has instructed her to fabricate a very secure trap-door, which closes the mouth of it. To judge of this door by its outward appear- ance, we should think it was formed of a mass of earth coarsely worked, and covered internally by a solid web; which would appear sufficiently wonderful for an animal that seems to have no special organ for constructing it: but if it is divided verti- cally, it will be found a much more complicated fabric than its outward aspect indicates, for it is formed of more than thirty alternate layers of earth and web, emboxed, as it were, in each other, like a set of weights for small scales. If these layers of web are examined, it will be seen that they all terminate in the hinge, so that the greater the volume of the door, the more powerful is the hinge. The frame in which the tube terminates above, and to which the door is adapted, is thick, and its thickness arises from the number of layers of which it consists, and which seem to correspond with those of the door; hence, the formation of the door, the hinge, and the frame, seem to be a simultaneous operation; except that in fabricating the first, the animal has to knead the earth, as well as to spin the layers of web. By this admirable arrange- ment, these parts always correspond with each other, and the strength of the hinge, and the thickness of the frame, will always be proportioned to the weight of the door. The more carefully we study the arrangement of these parts, the more perfect does the work appear. If we examine the circular margin of the door, we shall find that it slopes inwards, so that it is not a transverse section of a cylinder, but of a cone, and on the other side, that the frame slopes outwards, so that the door exactly applies to it. By this structure, when the door ARACHNIDANS. 3438 is closed, the tube is not distinguishable from the rest of the soil, and this appears to be the reason that the door is formed with earth. Besides, by this structure also, the animal can more readily open and shut the door ; by its conical shape it is much lighter than it would have been if cylindrical, and so more easily opened, and by its external inequalities, and mixture of web, the spider can more easily lay hold of it with its claws. Whether she enters her tube, or goes out, thedoor will shut of itself. This was proved by experiment, for though resistance, more or less, was experienced when it was opened, when left to itself, it al- ways fell down, and closed the aperture. The advantage of this structure to the spider is evident, for whether it darts out upon its prey, or retreats from an enemy, it is not delayed by having to shut its door. The interior surface of this cover to its tube is not rough and uneven like its exterior, but perfectly smooth and even, like the walls of the tube, being covered with a coating of white silk, but much more firm, and resembling parchment, and remarka- ble for a series of minute orifices,* placed in the side opposed to the hinge, and arranged in a semicircle; there are about thirty of these orifices, the object of which, M. Audoin conjectures, is to enable the animal to hold her door down, in any case of emergency, against external force, by the insertion of her claws into some of them. The principal instruments by which this little animal per- forms her various operations, are her mandibles or cheliceres, and her spinners. The former, besides the two rows of tuber- cles, between which, when unemployed, her claw, or sting, is folded, has at the apex, on their inner side a number of strong - spines. As no one has ever seen her at work upon her habi- tation, it cannot be known exactly how these organs, and pro- bably her anterior legs, are employed in her various manipula- tions. I have, in my collection, a tube or nest of the Jamaica trap-door spider, consisting merely of the web, which is much larger than that just described, being more than six inches long, and three quarters of an inch in diameter in the narrowest part, but near the mouth more than an inch. In this species the trap-door is semicircular, having a sloping margin; it is lined, as well as the upper part of the tube, with a strong close 1 Puate XI. B. Fie. 2. a. 2 Observations sur le nid dune Araignéc lu al’ Acad. des Sc. le 21 Juin 1830, par M. Victor Audoin: and Ann. de la Soc. Ent. de France. ii. 69. 3 Prare XI.B. Fie. 4. $44 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. web, resembling parchment. I can detect in it no series of orifices, but I see here and there little holes where the claws appear to have been inserted. This door is entirely formed of layers of web, without any intermixture of earth. Mr Bennett, in his Wanderings, &c.* gives some interesting aad a of the species discovered by him in New South Wales. He describes the tube, as about an inch in diameter at the mouth, and the lid as formed of web incorporated with earth, and exactly fitting the mouth of the tube, in this resem- bling the pioneer. He heard of a person who used to amuse himself with feeding one of these insects: when its meal was finished, it would re-enter its habitation, and pull down the lid with one of its claws. He further hesteee: that to discover their habitations when the lid is down, from its being so accu- rately fitted to the aperture, was very difficult. Though the particulars I have here stated, of the history and habits of these subterranean spiders, demonstrate, i In every respect, as far as we know them, the adaptation of means to an end, far above the intelligence of the animal that exhibits them; yet fully to appreciate the Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness, that fabricated her, and instigated her to exercise these various arts, and to employ her power of spinning webs, in building the structures necessary for her security, as well as for the capture of her prey, we ought to be witnesses to all her proceedings, which would probably instruct us more fully why she forms so deep a tube, and one so nicely covered with a peculiar tapestry from the mouth to the bottom. One of these ends, is, doubt- less, to keep her tube dry. 2. Various are the modes of capturing their prey, exercised by the second Tribe of spiders, which have only two gills, some fabricating webs of various kinds for that purpose, and others lying in wait for them, and catching them by mere agility. The first of these are called weavers,* and the last, hunters®. Some of the former construct silken tubes of an irregular texture, open at both ends, in which they conceal themselves. Of this description is one, remarkable for having only six eyes,* which sits at the mouth of her tube, with her four an- terior legs out of it, reposing by their extremity upon as many fine threads, which diverge from the mouth of the tube as from a centre, and probably contribute to form the toils, or are con- nected with them, which De Geer observed her to construct in front of her den* and in which large flies are taken, which, by L 3..328. 2 Arancidea textorie. 3. A. venatorie. 4 Segestria senoculata. 5 vii. 261. ¥ ARACHNIDANS. $4¢ means of her stout mandibles, she soon kills, and then sucks their juices.’ Another species,? which spins a similar web with diverging threads, forming so many snares, is remarkable for the perti- nacity wito whichit clings to its tube. The most effectual way to expel it, is to put in a live ant: scarcely has it entered, when the spider, in a violent agitation, uses its utmost efforts to frighten the intruder ; if the ant disregards its menaces, it rushes out precipitately, and does not stop till it is two or three inches distant, when it halts to watch the motions of the ant, which, usually, when disengaged from the web, falls to the pound; upon this taking place, the former re-enters its tube backwards. This species, though driven from its habitation by so small an insect, will fearlessly attack the ees flies, and it has been seen even to seize a very active wasp.° The webs of the retiary or geometric spiders, which belong to another division of the weavers, are so well known that it is not necessary to give a very detailed account of their proceed- ings; but as Mr. Blackwall, in a very interesting Memoir in the Zoological Journal,* has added much to our previous know- ledge on this head, especially with respect to the spiral circum- volutions that distinguish the webs of the tribe in question, I shall abstract, as briefly as I can, the main features of his account. Having formed the foundation of her net, and drawn the skeleton of it, by spinning a number of rays converging to the centre, she next proceeds, setting out from that point, to spin a spiral line of unadhesive web, like that of the rays, which it intersects, and to which she attaches it, and after numerous circumvolutions, finishes it at the circumference. This line, in conjunction with the rays, serves as a scaffolding for her to walk over, and it also keeps the rays properly stretch- ed. Her next labour is to spin a spiral or labyrinthiform line from the circumference towards the centre, but which stops somewhat short of it; this line is the most important part of the snare. It consists of a fine thread, studded with minute viscid globules, like dew, which by their adhesive quality re- tain the insects that fly into the net. The snare being thus finished, the little geometrician selects some concealed spot in its vicinity, where she constructs a cell, in which she may hide herself, and watch for game ; of the capture of which, she is informed by the vibrations of a line of communication be- tween her cell and the centre of her snare. 1 Walck. Araneid. de France. 195. 2 Segestria perfida. 3 Walck. Araneid. de France. 202. 4 v. 181. iy 346 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. The insects that frequent ssa waters require predaceous ani- mals to keep them within due limits, as well as those that in- habit the earth, and the water-spidert is one of the most remark- able upon whom that office is devolved by her Creator. To this end her instinct instructs her to fabricate a kind "of diving- bell in the bosom of that element. She usually selects still waters for this purpose. Her house is an oval cocoon, filled with air, and lined with silk, from which threads issue in every direction, and are fastened to the surrounding plants; in this cocoon, which is open below, she watches for her prey, and even appears to pass the winter, when she closes the opening. It is most commonly, yet not always, entirely under water ; but its inhabitant has filled it with air for her respiration, which enables her to live init. She conveys the air to it in the following manner: she usually swims upon her back, when her abdomen is enveloped in a bubble of air, and appears like a globe of quicksilver ; with this she enters her cocoon, and dis- placing an equal mass of water, again ascends for a second lading, till she has sufficiently filled her house with it, so as to ° expel all the water. The males construct similar habitations, by the same manceuvres. How these little animals can enve- lope their abdomen with an air-bubble, and retain it till they enter their cells, is sull one of Nature’s mysteries that have not been explained. We cannot help, however, admiring and adoring the Wisdom, Power, and Goodness manifested in this singular provision, enabling an animal that breathes the atmos- pheric air, to fill her house with it under the water; and which has instructed her in a secret art, by which she can clothe part of her body with air, as with a garment, which she can put off when it answers her purpose.. This is a kind of attraction and repulsion that mocks all our inquiries. Amongst the spiders called the hunters, and the vagrants, some seize their prey like the lion or the tiger, with the aid of few or no toils, by jumping upon them, when they come within their reach. I have often observed a white or yellowish species - of crab-spider?—a tribe so called because their motions resem- ble those of crabs—which lies in wait for her prey in the blos- soms of umbelliferous and other white-blossomed plants, and can scarcely be distinguished from them, which when a fly or other insect alights upon the flower, darts upon it before she I is perceived. There is a very common black and white spider,* amongst 1 Argyroneta aquatica. 2 Related probably to Thomisus citreus. 3 Salticus scenicus. ARACHNIDANS. 847 the vagrants, which may always be seen in summer, on sunny rails, window-sills, &c.: when one of these spiders, ‘which are always upon the watch, spies a fly or a gnat at a distance, he approaches softly, step by step, and seems to measure the in- terval that separates him from it with his eye ; and, if he judges that he is within reach, first fixing a thread to the spot on which he is stationed, by means of his fore-feet, which are much longer and larger than the others, he darts upon his vic- tim with such rapidity, and so true an aim, that he seldom misses it. Whether his station is vertical or horizontal is of little consequence, he can leap equally well from either, and in all directions. He is prevented from falling, by the thread just mentioned, which acts asa kind of anchor, and enables him to recover his station, when without such a help he would be, as it were, driven out to sea. We see in these latter instances, that though the art and means of weaving snares to entrap their prey have not been granted to these hunters and vagrants, yet that their Creator has endowed them with increase of agility, and the power of moving, without turning round, in all directions, which fully make up to them for that want. Before I conclude this history of spiders, I must mention a very remarkable one, described and figured by Freycinet, un- der the name of Aranea notacantha,* but which appears to belong tono known genus of the Order. It is stated to have at its posterior extremity a long cylindrical tube, terminated by two eyes!! But this, surely, must be a mistake. At the anterior part of the thorax are four eyes, In a square, and one on each side. The form of the abdomen and its tube are very remark- able. This spider was found in a small island near Port Jack- sony in an irregular web attached to the shrubs. 2. The Pedipalps, forming the second Oudee of Arachnidans, will not detain us long. The principal animals belonging to it, are the scorpions, which are not only remarkable for the powerful organs by which they are enabled to seize their prey, but also for their jointed tail terminating ina deadly sting. Their aspect alone, when they are moving with their open for- ceps advanced before their head, and their tail turned over it, is enough to create no little alarm in the beholder; and if he were told that one genus of the tribe goes by the name of man- killer? and should read in Aristotle, that though some were 1 Pratt XI. Fie. 2. ; 2 Androctonus. 348 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. harmless, the sting of others was fatal both to man and beast, the degree of his alarm would not be diminished. But though the venom of these creatures, when provoked and put upon self-defence, may sometimes prove fatal to man and the higher animals, yet this is not the main purpose for which their Cre- ator has given them such means of annoyance. Their food consists of various beetles and other insects, arachnidans, and wood-lice ; many of which they could not easily master and devour, after they have seized them with their forceps, with- out the aid of their tail and its sting ;? this they can turn over their head, and moving it in any direction, immediately kill their prey, however strong and active, by the fatal venom it instils. Our Saviour alludes to the scorpion as one of the symbols of the evil spirit: and as a zodiacal sign with the Egyptians, it represented Typhon, which seems to prove that our Saviout’s application of it was in conformity with a current opinion. The other Pedipalps,* though one of them has a jointed tail like the scorpions,* are not armed with a sting. Probably the animals that they feed upon offer less resistance than the prey of the latter. % With regard to the Arachnidans in general, the object of their creation appears to have been to assist in keeping within due bounds the insect population of the globe. The members of this great and interesting Class are so given to multiply beyond all bounds, that were it not for the various animals that are directed by the law of their Creator to make them their food, the whole Creation, at least the organized members of it, would suffer great injury, if not total destruction, from the myriad forms that would invest the face of universal nature with a living veil of animal and plant devourers. To prevent this sad catastrophe, it was given in charge to the spiders, to set. traps everywhere, and to weave their pensile toils, from branch to branch, and from tree to tree, and even to dive under the waters. And, more particularly, to them we are mainly indebted for our deliverance from a plague of flies of every de- scription, which, if the spiders were removed, of which they form the principal food, would subject us to incredible annoy- ance.5 The scorpions, and other Pedipalps, are found only in warm climates, where they are often very numerous, and, like the centipedes, creep into beds.* Insects multiply, beyond con- 1 Hist. Animal. 1. viii. c. 39. Comp. NV. D. D’ Hist. Nat. xxx. 431. 2 See above, p. 312. 3 Phrynus, Se. 4 Thelyphonus. 5 See above, p. 225. ARACHNIDANS. 349 ception, in such climates, and unless Providence had reinforced his army of insectivorous animals, it would have been impossible to exist in tropical regions. The animals we are speaking of, not only destroy all kinds of beetles, grass-hoppers, and other insects, but also their larves, and even eggs. Pseudarachnidan Condylopes. This Class, which is formed from the Tracheary Mrachnidans of Latreille, differs from the preceding principally in the organs of Respiration and Circulation. Bopy coriaceous, or crustaceous. Spiracles connecting with trachee for respiration. Circulation obscure. Eyes 2—4. Legs 6—8. Sexual ogans single. The Class consists of two Orders, perfectly analogous to those of the Arachnidans, which may be denominated, Pseudo- scorpions and Phalangidans. 1. Pseudo-scorpions. Bony oblong, divided into several seg- ments. Eyes 2—4. Legs 6—8. 2. Phalangidans. Bopy consisting of one segment, with the analogue of the abdomen consisting of folds. Hyes 2. Legs 8, elongated. 1. I have already given an account of the most interesting genus of this Order, the Solpuga, on a former occasion ;} and there is little known of the history of the book-crabs,? except panies are often found in books; I have also occasionally met With them in the drawers of my insect cabinets, moving slowly on, with their arms expanded, probably they were in search of the mite that is so injurious to specimens of insects; they are also often found upon flies. One genus,’ in this tribe, has four eyes, all the rest of the Class have only two. 2. The most remarkable genus* of the second Order of Pseu- darachnidans is one described in the Linnean Transactions,? in which the posterior legs exhibit a raptorious character, and seem fitted either to seize or retain their prey. The common Phalangidans, or harvest-men, have been treated of in another place.® The animals of this class seem to be universally insectivor- ous, though fabricating no snares. 1 See above, p. 234. 2 Chelifer. 3 Obisium. 4 Gonyleptes. K. 5 xi. 450. ¢. xxij. fi 16. 6 See above, p. 237. 350 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Acaridan Condylopes. We are now arrived at a Class of Condylopes, that, with respect to their food, have a much more extensive commission than those which we have lately considered, the Arachnidans, and Pseudarachnidans. Under the name of mites they are universally known, and when some of our most essential arti- cles of food, as cheese and flour, get old, or in any degree musty, they soon swarm with these minute animals, which, wherever they are established, multiply beyond conception ; mites also attack fot only decaying substances, but also living ones; in man they are the cause of a most revolting distem- per ;, under the name of ticks they attack dogs and other ani- mals, and few insects altogether escape from their annoyance ; and they not only infest the inhabitants of the earth and air, but are also found swimming in every pool ; so that their field of action seems to be the whole creation of organized beings. The class may be thus characterized : Bopy without any insection or impression marking out its parts, consisting of a single segment, and without folds. JMouth and organs various. Eyes 2. Legs 6—8, short. Latreille has divided this Class, including in it the preceding one, into seven Families ; but perhaps it would be better to con- sider it as divided into two Orders, mites,? and ticks,® or those that do not suck their food, and those that are fitted with an organ adapted to suction. I shall select an instance or two from animals of this Class, which show the care of the Creator, for these little beings ap- parently so low in the scale of Creation ; His foresight of iis circumstance in which they would be placed; and His adapta- tion of their structure to their assigned station. This is particularly conspicuous in the case of a species of bat-mite,* which was first noticed by one of our most cele- brated microscopical observers, Mr Baker, and has since fallen under the notice of M. VY. Audoin, well known for his acute investigation of the external parts of Insects, who kindly sent me a memoir of his on this and other Acaridans, extracted from the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for the year 1832. If we consider the animal that this mite inhabits, the bat, and that it affords much less shelter than the birds, to any parasite that may be attached to it, especially as the species that I am 1 See The Lancet, i, 1834-5. 59. 2 Acari. 3 Ricint. 4 Pteroptes. ARACHNIDANS. | 351 speaking of is stated usually to fix itself to the membrane of the wings, which being a naked meimbrane, would seem to expose it to be easily shaken off when the animal is flying: we easily comprehend that it stands in need of some particular provision to counteract this circumstance. Like those of many other mites, its feet are furnished with a vesicle which is capable of contraction and dilatation, and which the animal can probably use as a sucker to fix itself; bat if by any sudden jerk it is unfixed, to prevent its falling, it is gifted with the power of turning upwards, in an instant, two, four, six, or even all its legs, according to circumstances, + sufficiently to support itself, and can walk in this position, as it were upon its back, as well as it does in the ordinary way with that part upwards; it may be often seen with four turned upwards while it walks upon the other four,* so that it is ready, upon any accident, instantaneously to use them, and to lay hold of the wing. The bat is infested by another parasite, placed by Dr Leach at the end of the Acariduns, and by Latreille, but not without hesitation, after the Diptera. I may therefore be justified in introducing the animal in question here, since, inhabiting the same subject, their proceedings will serve to illustrate each other, and to demonstrate the agency and design of the Su- preme Cause in the concurring structure of these parasites. The one I here allude to may be called the bat-louse.* La- treille, who bas described very minutely a species of this genus,? informs us that their head is implanted in a singular situation, the back of the thorax, between the middle and the anterior extremity,* immediately behind the part to which the anterior legs are atiched. The middle of the back, in the common species, presents a cavity, which terminates posteriorly in a kind of pouch,® so that the head can be thrown back and its extremity received by if. From this situation, it is evident that the animal cannot take its nutriment from the bat in the ordinary position, with the back upwards; it must, therefore, necessarily stand with it downwards when engaged in suction. When under the forming hand of the Almighty Creator, its legs were planted, it was not on the lower side of the trunk, as they ‘usually are in other hexapods, but on the upper side or margin ‘of that part.® Colonel Montague observes,—* So strange and Baker on Micr. il. 407. t. xv. f. E. F. G. Nycteribia, Lat. 3 N. Blainvilliz. See Montague. Linn. Trans: xi. t. iii. f. 5 N. Verpertilions. 6 N. D. D' Hist. Nat, xxxiii. 131, 132. Or wv 352 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. contradictory to experience is the formation of this Insect, that were it not for the structure of the legs, no one could doubt that the upper was actually the under part of the body.t From the account given by the lastacute and indefatigable naturalist, the motions of this little creature are so rapid as to be almost like flight, and it can fix itself in an instant wherever it pleases. Putting some into a phial, their agility was inconceivable; not being able, like other Dipterous insects, to walk upon the glass, their efforts were confined to laying hold of each other, and during the struggle they appeared flying in circies.”? Their head*is furnished with antennz and feelers, imme- diately below the insertion of the former, on each side, is a slightly prominent eye, so that they have sight to guide them in their motions, which the bat-mite appears to be without. I may conclude this account with the pious reflection of the worthy author lately mentioned. The very singular structure of this insect, which, at first, appears to be a strange deformity in nature, and excites our astonishment, will, like all other creatures, constructed by the same Omnipotent hand, be found to be most admirably contrived for all the purposes of its crea- tion; and the scrutinizing naturlist will soon discover this unusual conformation to be the character which at once stamps its habits and economy.°® One of the most singular animals of this Class is one called the vegetating mite.* These are fixed fora time, by an anal thread, to certain beetles, by means of which, as by an umbi- lical chord, they derive their nutriment from them. After a certain time, they disengage themselves, and seek their food in the common way of their tribe. & It is difficult to say where Latreille’s Order of Aporobran- chians® should properly be placed. Savigny considers them as leading from the Crustaceans to the Arachnidans by Phalan- | gium. If they are parasitic upon marine animals, as there is reason to believe, might they not, in some sort, be regarded as one of those branches, which, without going by the regular road, form a link between tribes apparently distant from each other? They seem, in some respects at least, to present an analogy, if not an affinity, to the Hexapod parasites, the bird-_ louse,”? &c. I offer this merely as a conjecture. 1 Linn. Tr. xi. 12. 2 Ibid. 13. 3. Ibid. 4 Uropoda vegetans. 5 Nymphon. Pycnogonum, &e. 6 See above, p. 198. 7 Mrmus. CHAPTER XxX. Functions and Instincts. Insect Condylopes. THE animals of the class we are next to consider, have been regarded by many modern Zoologists, especially of the French school, as inferior both to Crustaceans and Arachnidans, on account of their having only, as it were, a rudimental heart, exhibiting indeed a kind of systole and diastole, but unaccom- panied by any system of vessels by which the blood might cir- culate in them. A learned and acuie writer, and eminent zoologist, amongst our own countrymen, has with great force controverted the justice of this sentence of degradation pro- nounced upon Insects; an opinion which has also been em- braced by many other modern writers on the subject, and con- siderable doubt has been shown to rest upon the main founda- tions upon which the illustrious and lamented Baron Cuvier, who was the father of the hypothesis, had built it.? But the important discoveries of Dr Carus, who first proved that a circulation really exists in various larves of Insects, and afterwards that it is also discoverable in several perfect ones,? have placed the matter beyond alldoubt. Taking, therefore, into consideration the nervous system of Insects, as well as those of circulation and respiration, as ought, in all reason, to be done —for upon comparison of these three systems so intimately connected with life and sensation, surely the first place is due to that by which alone the animal is conscious of its existence and that of the world it inhabits, and is enabled to run the race appointed by its Creator; surely if even no Carus had appeared to demonstrate the existence of a circulation in these animals, still the perfection of their nervous system, compared with that of the Molluscans, in determining their respective stations, would be a sufficient counterpoise to a heart and vas- cular system for circulation ; and if to this superiority we add 1 Mac Leay, Hor. Entomolog. 204, 297. 2 Introd. to Comp. Anat. E. T. by Gore, ii. 392. Act. Acad. Cas Nat. Cur. Xv, il. UU 354 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. the number and nature of the several organs by which this system acts, and the fruits of such agency in the activity and various instincts of the animals endowed with it, embodying the moving will, the informing sense, the impelling appetite, compared with the inertness and sluggish motions, and apa- thetic existence, and paucity of instinctive actions in the great majority of the Molluscans,—who is there that will hesitate to conclude that he who created the Insect world, gifted them with so many and such wonderful instincts, inspired them with such incessant activity, fitted them with such various organs for such a diversity of Jocomotions under the earth, on the earth, in the air and in the water, meant to place them far above the headless Oyster, with scarcely any organs of sensa- tion, and scarcely any motion but that of opening and shutting its shell, or even than the Cutile-fish, though furnished with eyes, and even three hearts, and a very extraordinary animal, yet destitute of many organs of the senses and of locomotion found in Insects, and most of those that they have not formed upon the plan of the higher animals, but rather borrowed from the confessedly lower Classes of Polypes and Radiaries 4 With regard to the Crustaceans and rachnidans, setting aside the superiority of Insects in their instincts, the single cir- cumstance of the reproduction of mutilated organs in the former seems to prove an inferiority of rank and a tendency towards the Polype.2 When we consider attentively these little beings, the infinite variety of their forms, the multiplicity and diversity of their organs, whether of sense or motion, of offence or defence, for mastication or suction; or those constructed with a view to their several instincts, and the exercise of those functions de- volved upon them by the wisdom of their Creator ; the differ- ent kinds also of sculpture which is the distinction of one tribe, and of painting, which ornaments another, the brilliant colours, the metallic lustre, the shining gold and silver with which a liberal and powerful hand has invested or bespangled numbers of them ; the down, the hair, the wool, the scales, with which He, who careth for the smallest and seemingly most insignificant works of his hand, hath clothed and covered them; when all these things strike upon our senses, and become the subject of our thoughts and reflection, we find a scene passing before us far exceeding any, or all of those, that we have hith- erto contemplated in our progress from the lowest towards the highest members of the animal kingdom, and which for its 1 See above, p. 163. 2 Mac Leay, Hor. Ent. 206, 298. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 855 extent, and the myriads of its mustered armies, each corps dis- tinguished as it were by its own banner, and under its proper leaders, infinitely outnumbers all the members of the higher Classes, which stand as it were between aquatic and terres- trial animals, many of its tribes under one form inhabiting the water, and under another the earth and the air. The following characters distinguish this great Class : Bopy, covered with a horny or coriaceous integument. Spi- nal chord knotty, terminating anteriorly in a bilobed brain; a heart and imperfect circulation, sometimes vascular, and some- times extra-vascular ; respiration by trachee, receiving the air by spiracles ; legs jointed, in the perfect insect always siz. The Class of Insects may be divided into two Sub-classes,* viz. Ametabolians, or those that do not undergo any metamor- phosis, and have no wings; and Metabolians, or those that un- dergo a metamorphosis, and are usually fitted with wings in their final state. Sub-class 1.—Ametubolians are further subdivided into two Orders, Thysanurans and Parasites. Order 1.—The Thysanurans are remarkable for their anal appendages, which consist either of jointed organs resembling antenne, and approaching very near to the caudal organs of the cockroach,? the use of which is not certainly known; or of an inflexed elastic caudal fork bent under the abdomen, which enables them to leap with great agility. To the first of these tribes belongs the common sugar-louse,* and to the last the spring-tails.*. ‘ It must be observed, however, that this is not a natural Or- der, for there is no analogy between the jointed tails of the sugar-louse, which some have supposed to belong or approach to the Orthoptera, and the unjointed leaping organ of the spring- tail. The latter animals, indeed, seem to form an osculant tribe, without the pale of the Class of Insects, and perhaps having some reference to the Chilopodans amongst the Myria- pods, with which they agree, in having only simple eyes, like spiders, on each side of the head. Those of the spring-tails consist of eight such eyes, arranged in a double series, and planted in an oval space, in shape resembling an Insect’s eye. The Chilopodans have only four on each side. The Insects of this Order probably feed upon detritus, whether animal or 1 See above, p. 198. 2 Blatta. 3 Lepisma. 4 Podura, Sminthurus. 356 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. vegetable, their masticating organs being very weak, and fitted to comminute only putrescent substances. Order 2.—The Order of Parasites—consisting of the most unclean and disgusting animals of the whole Class, infest both man, beast, and bird, and no less than four’ species, accounted by Linné, &c. as varieties, being attached to the former—may be divided into two sections, those that live by suction, and those that masticate their food. To the first of these belong the human and the dog-louse, and to the other the various lice that inhabit the birds,? of which almost every species has a peculiar one. I have, on a former occasion, alluded to the Order of Para- sites, when speaking of punitive animals :* here I must observe, that like other instruments employed by God to visit the sins of mankind, they are intended to produce a sanative effect, as well as to punish.* It is generally known that they abound only on those whose habits are dirty, in whom they may pre- vent the diseases which such habits would otherwise generate, as well as stimulate them to greater attention to personal clean- liness. The bird-louse is probably useful to birds in devouring the sordes which must accumulate at the root of their plumes. Sub-class. 2.—J/Vetabolians, by most modern writers on In- sects, are considered, from their oral organs, as constituting two Sections, which are denominated Haustellate and Mandibu- late Insects. I may here observe that the instrument of suc- tion in a Haustellate mouth consists of pieces, though differently circumstanced, precisely analogous to those employed in mas- tication in a Mandibulate one, which has been most satisfac- torily demonstrated, and with great elegance, by M. Savigny, in the first part of his Animaue sans Vertebres.® As there are several Orders called Osculant, that are inter- mediate between these Sections, I shall arrange the whole in three columns. OSCULANT ORDERS, 1. Aphaniptera. 2. Homaloptera. 3. Trichoptera. 4. Dermaptera. 5. Strepsuptera. 1 Pediculus, Capitis, Corporis, Nigritarum, and Phthirus Pubis. 2 Nirmus. 3 See above, p.7. See Introd. to Ent, i. 83. 4 Ibid, p. 253. 5 t. i-iv. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 357 HAUSTELLATE ORDERS. MANDIBULATE ORDERS. 6. Diptera. 10. Hymenoptera. 7. Lepidoptera. 11. Neuroptera. 8. Homoptera. 12. Orthoptera. 9. Hemiptera. 13. Coleoptera. With regard to the characters of these Orders: Order 1.—The Aphaniptera (Flea, Chigoe) are apterous and parasitic, but differ from the Order of Parasites by undergoing a metamorphosis. ‘They connect the Suciorious Parasites with the Diptera. Order 2.—The Homaloptera (Forest-fly, §c.) called also Pu- pipara, because their eggs are hatched in the matrix of the mother, where they pass their larve state, and are not excluded till they have become pupes. Most of them have two wings, but one genus is apterous :* these seem intermediate between certain Acaridans, as the bat-mite, and the Diptera; they seem also, in some respects, to connect with the Arachnidans, whence they have been called spider-flies. — Order 3.—The Trichoptera (Caseworm-flies) have four hairy membranous wings, in their nervures resembling those of Le- pidoptera, the under ones folding longitudinally. Thé mouth has four palpi, but the masticating organs are merely rudi- mental. Their place seems to be somewhere between the saw-flies and those moths whose caterpillars clothe themselves with different substances. Order 4.—The Dermaptera (Earwigs) have two elytra and two wings of membrane, folded jongitudinally, and their tail is armed with a forceps. They appear to be between the Cole- optera and Orthoptera. Order 5.—The Strepsiptera (Wild bee-fly, Wasp-fly), para- sitic animals, that have two ample wings, forming the quad- rant of a circle, and of a substance between coriaceous and membranous, and two elytriform subspiral organs, appendages of the base of the anterior legs. Their place is uncertain, some placing them between the Coleoptera and Dermaptera; and others between the Lepidoptera and Diptera. Order 6.—The Diptera (Two-winged Flies and Gnats, &c.), as their name indicates, have only two membranous wings, usu- ally accompanied by two winglets, representing the under wings of the Tetrapterous Orders, and two poisers, which appear con- nected with a spiracle. 1 Melophagus. 'The Sheep-louse. 358 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Order '7.—The Lepidoptera (Butter flies'and Moths) have four membranous wings, covered with minute scales, varying in shape. Order 8.—The Homoptera (Tree-Locusts, Frog-hoppers, Froth- hoppers) have four deflexed wings, often of a substance between corlaceous and membranous. Order 9.—The Hemiptera (Bugs, &c.) have four organs of flight, the upper pair being horny or coriaceous, but tipped, in the generality, with membrane, the lower pair being mem- branous. Order 10.—The Hymenoptera (Saw Flies, Gall Flies, Ichneu- mon Flies, Bees, Wasps, Ants, &c.), which are the analogues of the Diptera, have four membranous wings, and the tail of the female is usually armed with a sting, or instrument useful in laying their eggs. Order 11.—The WNeuroptera (Dragon Flies, Lace-winged Flies, Ephemeral Flies, White Ants, &c.) have four membranous wings, usually reticulated by numerous nervures, but_no sting or ovipesitor. ‘They are analogues, especially scalaphus, of the Lepidoptera. Order 12.—The Orthoptera (Cockroaches, Locusts, Praying- insects, Spectres, Grasshoppers, Crickets, &c.) have mostly two tegmina, or upper wings, of a substance between coriaceous and membranous, and two under ones, formed of membrane, and folded longitudinally when unemployed. These are ana- logues of the Homoptera. Order 13.—The Coleoptera (Beetles) have two upper organs, of a horny or leathery substance, called elytra, to cover their two membranous wings, which are folded longitudinally and transversely. ‘These are analogues of the Hemiptera, especially those with no apical membrane. In considering the three descriptions of Orders here enume- rated and characterized, it must be recollected that we are not following the usual order of arrangement in systems, that of descending from the highest to the lowest; but that we are ascending in an inverse direction, consequently that, in the above tables, the lowest numbers indicate the lowest and not the highest Orders. I shall now make some remarks, as to their funetions and uses, upon the animals constituting these several Orders, en- INSECT CONDYLOPES. 359 livening them occasionally with such histories, not before pro- duced, or not well known, as may interest the reader and an- swer the great end of this treatise, the glory of God, as mani- fested in the history and instincts of animals. Before, however, I enter upon the separate consideration of these Orders, I must premise a few remarks upon the circum- stance which distinguishes them from the preceding Sub-class, their metamorphoses. I have, on a former occasion,* mentioned some beneficial effects resulting from this law of the Creator ; and its action and the results of it have been so ably explained and illustrated in another treatise,’ that it is quite unnecessary for me to enter largely into the subject. The striking remarks made upon the developments of the higher animals, towards the close of the treatise alluded to,? merit particular attention. It has been observed by an ingenious and learned writer* on this subject—that every species of plant, in the course of the year, exhibts itself in different states. First are seen the’suc- culent stems adorned with the young foliage, next emerge the buds of the flowers, then the calyx opens, and permits the ten- der and lovely blossoms to expand. The insects destined to feed upon each plant must be simultaneous in their develop- ment. Ifthe butterfly came forth before there were any flowers, she would in vain search for the nectar that forms her food ; and if the caterpillar was hatched after the leaves had begun to fade and wither, she could not exercise her function. In another passage he thus illustrates this analogy between the metamorphoses of the insect and the successive developments of the plant. If we first place an egg, says he, next to its cater- pillar, further on its chrysalis, and lastly the butterfly ; what have we but an animal stem, an elongation perfectly analogous to that of the plant proceeding from its seed, by its stem and its appendages to the bud, the blossom, and the seed again 2° For the different kinds and forms of larves and pupes I must refer the reader to another work,’ merely observing that, in their forms, the larves seem to represent all the preceding Classes of Condylopes, and also some Annelidans and Mollus- cans. The great majority of pupes are not locomotive, and take no food, while the rest are locomotive and continue to feed. This circumstance sometimes exposes the former to the attacks of their enemies, the ichneumons, and thus numbers are destroyed which would otherwise escape; but though, in 1 See above, p. 201. 2 Roget. B. T. i. 302—316. 3 Ibid. ii. 631- 4 Dr Virey. 5 WN. D. DH. N. xx. 348. 6 Ibid. 355. 7 Introd. to Ent. iii. Lett, xxx. xxxi. 360 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. this state, they are thus exposed to the attack of one enemy, they are more effectually concealed from those of another, the insectivorous birds. Those that bury themselves in the earth seem still more privileged from attack. Orders 1, 2, and 6. There is so close a connection between the fleas, the pupiparous insects, and the two-winged flies, that it will be best to consider them under one head. The former of these, the fleas,t the mosquitoes, or gnats? and the horse-flies,* all suck the blood of man, as well as that of beast or bird.* The wonderful strength and agility of the flea are well known,’ and it appears to have been endowed with those faculties by its Creator, to render its change of station from one animal to another, and means of escape, more easy ; and though the bite of mosquitoes, and other blood-suckers, is, at certain times of the year and in certain climates, an almost intolerable an- noyance ;® yet, doubtless, some good end is answered by it; with regard to cattle, it is evident that, while they are suffering from the attack of these blood-letters, their feeding is more or less interrupted ; a circumstance which may be attended by beneficial effects to their health ; and probably even to man, the torment he experiences may be compensated, in a way that he is not aware of, on account of which, principally, a wise Physician prescribed the painful operation, and furnished his chirurgical operators with the necessary and indeed most curi- ous knives and lancets. Another group connecting the bat-mite and bat-louse, and the “lrachnidans, perhaps, with the Diptera, are those two-winged insects, called pupiparous or nymphiparous, because their young when extruded from the abdomen of the mother, though ap- pearing like eggs, are really in the state of nymph or pupe. It is remarked of this group, which is parasitic upon beasts and birds, that its internal structure is particularly accommodated to this circumstance ; it is furnished with a regular matrix, consisting of a large musculo-membranous pocket, and with ovaries totally different from those of other insects ; but, by their configuration and position, exhibiting a considerable resem- blance to those of a woman.” The reason of this singular aberration from the gestation of other Diptera, which, with few exceptions, are oviparous, seems connected with their peculiar 1 Pulex. 2 Culez. 3 Tabanus. Stomoxys. 4 Introd. to Ent. 1. 100, 109, 112, &c. 5 Ibid. ii. 310. iv. 195. 6 Ibid. 113. 7 Latr. Crust. Arachn. et Ins. ii. 542. “ INSECT CONDYLOPES.. 361 habits: in their perfect state they are usually winged, and at- tach themselves externally to horses, oxen, &c. ; it may there- fore be the means of preserving the race from extinction, that they are supported in the womb of their mother, in some in- scrutable way, during their grub state, and only leave her when their next change will enable them readily to attach themselves to their destined food. The gad-flies,* though they do not, like the forest flies, nour- ish their young in their own womb; yet their Creator instructs some of them to deposit their eggs it’ a situation where means are provided for ther conveyance to a more capacious matrix, ministering to them a copious supply of lymph, which forms their nutriment, in the stomach and intestines of the horse, for this animal, with its own mouth, licks off the eggs, wisely at- tached, by this fly, to the hairs of its legs in such parts as are exposed to this action; and thus unwittingly, itself conducts its foes into its citadel: others of the same genus undermine the skin of the ox, of the sheep, and in some countries, even of man himself. The grubs, by their action in their several stations, produce a purulent matter, which they imbibe, and which is stated by those who have studied them, to be beneficial to the animals they attack.? Another tribe of this Order, the flesh- Jlies,? lay their eggs on dead bodies, and soon remove those nuisances, and the putrid and pestilential miasmata which they occasion, from the face of our globe. This function is of such importance to the welfare of our species, that some of these flies, in order that no time may be lost, are viviparous,* and bring forth their young in a state in which they can begin their work as soon as they are born. The aphidivorous flies’ have another function, in conjunction with the lace-winged flies,° lady-birds,’ and some other insects, to reduce and keep within due limits the infinite myriads of the plant-lice,®? which, in these climates, are the universal pests of the garden, the orchard, and the field. There are also flies® that lay their eggs in the combs of humble-bees, which, as it were, wear their livery, for the hairs that clothe their body are so disposed and coloured, as to imitate that of the bee, whose nests they frequent; so that, probably, they are often mistaken 1 Estrus, &c. 2 The species of gad-flies here alluded to are Gastrus Equi, and ru. © Bovis, GE. Ovis and CL. Hominis. . 3 Sarchophaga. 4 Se-vivipara. 5 Syrphus, &c. 6 Hemerobius. 7 Coccinella. 8 Aphides. 9 Volucella, &-c. VV a ~ > * 362 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. for members of the family, and effect their mischief unmo- lested. Another tribe of flies, called hornet-flies,t with some others related to them,’ like a hawk or other predaceous bird, seize their prey with their legs, or their beak,*® but it can only be with the view of sucking its juices, as they have no masticat- ing organs. Dipterous insects, however, are not confined to animal food, whether living or putrescent, many also subsist upon a vegeta- ble diet. Mushrooms and other agarics sometimes swarm with the grubs of certain flies or gnats ;* others pass their first states in decaying timber; the narcissus and onion flies® feast upon the bulbs from which they take their name; and a little gnat,® when a grub, feeds upon the pollen of the flowers of the wheat. | To these may be added those flies, that in their first state, may be regarded as purifiers of stagnant waters, and other offensive fluids or semi-fluids. The larves of the gnat or mos- quito are aquatic animals which may be seen either suspended at the surface, or sinking in most stagnant waters, compensate in some degree, for the torment of their blood-thirsty attacks, by discharging this function, and assisting to cleanse our stag- nant waters from principles that might otherwise generate in- fection. A variety of others contribute their efforts to bring about the same beneficial purpose. Almost all the Diptera, in their perfect state, even the blood-suckers, emulate the bees, in imbibing the nectar from the various flowers with which God has decorated the earth, and thus assist in keeping with- in due limits, the, otherwise suffocating, sweets that they ex- hale. From the statement here given, we see that the Creator has provided the members of this Order with a very diversified bill of fare, and that their efforts in their several states, and various departments, are of the first importance, as scavengers and depurators, to remove or mitigate nuisances, that would otherwise deform and tend to depopulate our globe. What they want in volume, is compensated for by numbers, for per- haps the individuals of no Order are so numerous. It is true, in particular periods, the locusts and aphides seem to outnum- a. ; yet, ordinarily, the two-winged race, are those which Asilus. 2 Empis. Introd. to Ent. i. 274. 4 Mycetophila, &c. Eristalis Narcissi, and Scatophaga Ceparum. Cecidomyia Tritici. oS Olt INSECT CONDYLOPES. 363 everywhere most force themselves upon our attention; during nearly three-fourths of the year we bear their hum, and see their motions, in our apartments, and even in the depth of winter, in sunny weather, by their myriads, dancing up and down under every hedge, they catch our attention in our walks. Order 10.—If we next turn our attention to the mandibulate Order, which stands most in contrast with the Diptera, the Hymenoptera immediately occurs to us, in which we find a variety of forms, which seem made to imitate those of flies, or vice versa. Thus there are flies* that resemble saw-flies ; others that simulate the ichneumonidan parasites; others again that resemble wasps, bees, and humble-bees. Though the Insects belonging to this Order are included in the mandibulate Section ; for their mouth is furnished with mandiblesand maxillz ; yet they do not generally use them to masticate their food, but for purposes usually connected with their sequence of instincts, as the bees in building their cells ;? the wasps in scraping particles of wood from posts and rails for a similar purpose, and likewise to seize their prey; but the great instrument by which, in their perfect state, they collect their food is their tongue, this, the bees particularly have the power of inflating, and can wipe with it both concave and con- vex surfaces; and with it they, as it were, lick, but not suck, the honey from the blossoms, for, as Reaumut has proved, this organ acts as a tongue and not asa pump. In the numerous tribes that compose this most interesting of the Orders, the tongue is lambent, and varies considerably in its structure, but in the great majority it is a flattish organ, often divided into several lobes. Some entomological writers have bestowed upon the mem- bers of the present Order the title of Principes, as if they were the princes of the Class of Insects, and if we consider the con- spicuous manifestation of the Divine attributes of Power, Wis- dom, and Goodness, exhibited in the wonderful instincts of those of them that are gregarious, we shall readily concede to them this title. If superior wisdom and devoiedness to the general good are the best titles to rank and station; the labo- rious and indefatigable ant, and the bee, celebrated from the earliest ages for its wonderful economy, its admirable struc- tures, and its useful products, are surely entitled to it, though they cannot vie with the insects of many of the other Orders 1 Aspistes, Meig. 2 See above, p. 288. 3 Mem. &c. v. 322. 364 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. in size, and in the brilliancy and variety of their colours, and the pencil of the Creator has not decorated their wings with the diversified paintings which adorn those of the butterfly. The functions which are given in charge to the several members of this Order are various. Some, like the predaceous and carnivorous tribes of the Diptera, appear engaged in per- petual warfare with other insects; thus the wasps and hornets seize flies of every kind that come in their way, and will even attack the meat in the shambles ; the caterpillar-wasp* walks off with caterpillars, the spider-wasp? with spiders, and the fly- wasp® with flies. But the motive that influences them, will furnish an excuse for their predatory habits. They do not commit these acts of violence to gratify their own thirst for blood, like many of the flies, but to furnish their young with food suited to their natures. The wasp carries the pieces of flesh she steals from the butcher to the young grubs in the cells of her paper mansion. The other wasps I mentioned each commit their eggs to the animal they are taught to select, and then bury it; so that the young grub when hatched may revel in plenty.4 Some of the Hymenoptera prefer a vegetable diet, and assist the Lepidoptera in their office. The caterpillars which infest many species of willow are hatched from the eggs of the saw- flies ;§ one genus® nearly related to them confines itself to timber, to which it is sometimes very destructive. Another tribe affect plants in a very remarkable manner. Their egg-placer, like a magician’s wand, is gifted with the privilege, by a slight puncture in the twig or leaf of any shrub or tree, or the stalk of any plant, to cause the production of a wonderful and monstrous excrescence, sometimes resembling moss, as in the Bedeguar of the rose, at other times, a kind of apple, or a transparent berry, both of which seeming fruits, the oak, when touched by two of these little gall-flies of different species, produces as well as acorns: various other forms? their galls assume, which need not be here mentioned. It is to be observed that the eggs of these gall-flies grow after they are laid, and perhaps these singular productions are more favoura- ble to their growth, being softer and more spongy and succu- lent than the twigs themselves would be. Even here Creative Power, Wisdom, and Goodness are conspicuously manifested, Ammophila. 2 Pompilus. Bembex. 4 See Introd. to Ent. i. 346. Cimbex, Tenthredo, Lyda, &c. See Introd. to Ent. i. 255. Siren. 7 Introd. to Ent. i. 446. oO od = INSECT CONDYLOPES. — 365 in providing such wonderful nests for these little germ-like egos; these excrescences, indeed, instead of deforming the plants they are produced from, are often ornamental to them ; and besides this are also, some of them, of the highest utility to mankind—-witness the Aleppo oak-gall,* to which learning, commerce, the arts, and every individual who has a distant friend, are so deeply indebted. Another tribe is equally useful in a different department; 1 allude to those Hymenoptera that are parasitic upon other In- sects, particularly upon the destructive hordes of caterpillars that are often so injurious both tothe horticulturist and agriculturist. These insects are denominated by Latreille Pupivorous, not, as some may suppose, because they devour insects in their second, or pupe state, but from the classical meaning of the word, because they devour them before they are arrived at their perfect or adult state. This tribe may be considered as divided into two great bodies, one represented by the proper Ichneumons of Linné, which have, usually, veined wings, and the abdomen connected with the trunk by a footstalk ; the other forming the Minute Ichneumons of that great reviver of Natural History, distinguished, usually, by having wings with few or no veins on their disk, and by a sessile abdomen. These attack eggs and chrysalises, as well as caterpillars. Though the latter are the principal, yet they are not the only object of the great Ich- neumonidan host, for they attack insects of every order indis- criminately ; they seem, however, to annoy beetles, grasshop- pers, bugs, and froghoppers, less than others. They may, with great propriety, be called conservatives, since they keep those under that would otherwise destroy us.?_ A little fly, before alluded to in these pages,* which appears very destructive to wheat when in the ear, isrendered harmless, by the goodness of Providence, by not less than three of these little benefactors of our race.* Connected with the subject of parasites is a singular history communicated to me by the Rev. F. W. Hope, one of the most eminent entomologists of the present day. In the month of August 1824, in the nest of a species of wasp,’ he found more than fifty specimens of a singular little beetle, which may be called the wasp-beetle,® long known to frequent wasps’ nests. From their being found in cells which were closed by a kind of operculum, he conjectures that they lay their eggs in the 1 Cynips Scriptorum. 2 Introd. to Ent. i. 267. 3 See above, p. 362. 4 Linn. Trans. v. 107. 5 Vespa rufa. 6 Ripiphorus paradozus. 366 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. grub of the wasp, upon which they doubtless feed. Subse- quent to this, upon opening some of the cells, he was surprised to find, instead of the beetles, several specimens of an Ichneu- mon belonging to Jurine’s genus, Anomalon.t Upon another examination, some days after this, no more of these last in- sects appearing, he discovered that they had been pierced, in their chrysalis state, bya minute species belonging to the family of Chalcididans, of which he found no less than twenty speci- mens flying about in search of their prey. ‘From the above facts,” Mr Hope remarks, “we have a convincing proof, if such were wanted, of a Superintending Power which ordains checks and counterchecks to remedy the superfecundity of the insect world.” First the wasp, a great destroyer of flies and various other insects, and often a trouble- some pest and annoyance to man himself, is prevented from becoming too numerous, amongst other means, by the wasp- beetle ; then, lest it should reduce their numbers so as to inter- fere with their efficiency, this last is kept in check by the Ano- malon, which, in its turn, that it may obey the law, Thus far shalt thou come, and no further, becomes the prey of another de- vourer. Mr Hope observed, and the fact is curious, that the specimens of the wasp-beetle obtained from the female wasps were about one third larger than the others. But of all the Hymenopterous, or indeed any other Insects, there are none, as I before observed, that illustrate the pri- mary attributes of the Deity more strikingly than those that are gregarious, which build for the members of their societies spacious colleges, if I may so call them, capable often of con- taining many thousand inhabitants, and remarkable for the pains they bestow upon the nurture and education of their young. There are three great tribes in the present Order, distinguished by this instinct,—the wasps and hornets, the bees and humble-bees, and the ants. The wasps and hornets are remarkable for the curious papier- maché edifices, in the construction of which they employ fila- ments of wood,—scraped from posts and rails with their own jaws,—mixed with saliva, of which the hexagonal cells, in which they rear their young, are formed, and often their combs are separated and supported by pillars of the same material ; and the external walls of their nests are formed by foliaceous layers of their ligneous paper.* Latreille mentions a Brazilian species that makes an abundant provision of honey. 1 Latrelle is of opinion that this is not a natural genus. WV. D. DH. N. ii. 128. 2 See Introd. to Ent. i. 501. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 367 In the book of Joshua we are informed that God, by means of some animal-of this genus, drove out the two kings of the Amorites from before the Children of Israel. In the second volume of Lieut. Holman’s Travels—in whom the loss of sight has been compensated by a wonderful acuteness of mental vi- sion—the following anecdote is related illustrative of this fact.? “Hight miles from Grandie ————, the muleteers sud- denly called out ‘ Marambundas, Marambundas !’ which indi- cated the approach of a host of wasps. In a moment all the animals, whether loaded or otherwise, laid down on their backs, kicking most violently; while the blacks, and all per- sons not already attacked, ran away in different directions, all being careful, by a wide sweep, to avoid the swarms of tor- mentors that come forward like a cloud. I never witnessed a panic so sudden and complete, and really believe that the bursting of a water-spout could hardly have produced more commotion. However it must be confessed that the alarm was not without a good reason, for so severe is the torture inflicted by these pigmy assailants, that the bravest travellers are not ashamed to fly the instant they perceive the terrific host approaching, which is of no uncommon occurrence on the Campos.” . I shall now turn to those admirable creatures, which though, as a wise man observes, they are little among such as fly, their fruit is the chief of sweet things,® those Heaven-instructed mathe- maticians, who before any geometer could calculate under what form a cell would occupy the least space without dimin- ishing its capacity, and before any chemist existed to discover how wax might be elaborated from vegetable sweets, instructed by the Fountain of Wisdom, had built their hexagonal cells of that pure material, had closed them at the bottom with three rhomboidal pieces, and were enabled, without study, so to con- struct the opposite story of combs, that each of these rhomboids should form one of those of three opposed cells,* thus giving strength to the structure that, in no other place, could have been given toit. Wise in their government, diligent and ac- tive in their employments, devoted to their young and to their queen, they read a lecture to mankind that exemplifies their Oriental name—she that speaketh. Whoever examines their external structure, as has been before observed,° will find every part adapted to their various employments. 1 xxiv. 12. 2 Quoted in Lit. Gazette, Jan. 3, 1835, p. 4. 3 Ecclus. xi. 3. 4 Puate XI. Fie. 3. 5 See above, p. 288, and Introd. to Ent. i. 481—497, and ii. Lett. xix. xx. 368 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. These valued animals, so worthy of the attention of the sage, as well as the culture of the economist, are almost the only ones of the Order that are guilty of no ‘spoliation, and injure no one: they take what impoverishes none, while it enriches them and us also, by the valuable products which are derived from their skill and labour—true emblems of honest industry. I shall merely mention the humble-bee,* and their subterra- nean habitations, which are of a much ruder architecture than those of the hive-bee: the cells, however, are made of a coarse kind of wax, but placed very confusedly, not exhibiting the geometrical precision observable in the latter.? I may here observe that all insects of this Order, in their perfect state, imbibe the nectar from the flowers, but none, the hive and humble-bees and one species of wasp excepted, with the view of storing it up for future use. The last Hymenopterous tribe® includes the ants, and is almost equally interesting with the preceding one, for the won- derful industry of the animals just mentioned. They are uni- versal collectors ; every thing that comes in their way, whether animal or vegetable, living cr dead, answers their purpose ; and the paths to their nests are always darkened with the busy crowds that are moving to and fro. Their great function seems to be to remove every thing that appears to be out of its place, and cannot go about its own business. I have seen several of them dragging a half-dead snake, about the size of a goose- quill. They do not, however, like the bees, usually store up provisions, but they will imbibe sweet juices from fruits and also from the plant-lice, which may be called their cows.* However, almost all their cares and labour are connected with the nurture and sustenance of their young. I am indebted to the kindness of laieutanantaGlel Sykes, of the Bombay army—well known for the zeal and ability with which he investigated the animal productions of the west- ern provinces of India—for some interesting observations upon three species of ants, particularly one, which, from making its nests on the branches of trees, is called the Tree-ant, singu- larly exemplifying the extraordinary instincts of these labo- rious and provident insects, and which I have his permission to insert in this work. The Tree-ant® inhabits the Western Ghauts, in the collecto- rate of Poona, in the Deccan, at an elevation of from 2,000 to 1 Ibid. Lett. xviii. 2 See Linn. Trans. vi, t. XXVii. 3 Heterogyna. Latr. See Introd. to Ent. i. 476—481. ii. Lett. xvii. 4 Ibid. ii. 87—91. 5 Myrmica Kirbit. Sykes. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 569 4,000 feet from the level of the sea. It is of a ferruginous colour, two-tenths of an inch in length; head of the neuter disproportionably large ;* the thorax is armed posteriorly with two sharp spines: When moving the insect turns the abdo- men back over the thorax,? and the knotty pedicle lies in a groove between the spines. The male is without the spines.® These ants are remarkable for forming their nests,* called by the Marattas moongeeara, on the boughs of trees of different kinds; and their construction is singular, both for the material and the architecture, and is indicative of admirable foresight and contrivance: in shape they vary from globular to oblong, the longest diameter being about ten inches, and the shortest eight. The nests consist of a multitude of thin leaves of cow- dung, imbricated like tiles upon a house, the upper leaf formed of one unbroken sheet, covering the summit like a skull-cap. The leaves are placed one upon another, in a wavy or scallop- ed manner, so that numerous little arched entrances are left, and yet the interior is perfectly secured from rain. They are usually attached near the extremity of a branch, and some of the twigs pass through the nest. A vertical section presents a number of irregular cells, formed by the, same process as the exterior. ‘Towards the interior the cells are more capacious than those removed from the centre, and an occasional dried leaf is taken advantage of to assist in their formation. The nurseries for the young broods in different stages of develop- ment are in different parts of the nest. The cells nearest the centre are filled with very minute eggs, the youngest members of the community; those more distant, with larger eggs,> mix- ed with larves; and the most remote, with pupes near disclo- sure. In fact, in these last cells only were found winged in- sects. The female isin a large or royal cell, near the centre of the nest: she is about half an inch long, of the thickness of a crow-quill, white, and the abdomen has five or six brown ligatures round it, like the female of the white ants; the head is very small, and the legs mere rudiments: she is kept a close prisoner, and incapable of motion in her cell, a circumstance in which these appear to approach the white ants, and which in- dicates that they should form a distinct genus. There was no store of provisions in the nests; they were indebted therefore for their support to daily labour. We may gain some idea of their perseverance when we consider that 1 Prare XI. c, Fic. 1,3 2 Prarte XI. Fie. 3. 3 Ibid. Fie. 2. 4 Ibid. Fia. 4. 5 It should seem from this that the eggs grow. ww 370 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. the material of which the nest is formed—cow-dung——must have been sought for on the earth, and probably carried froin a considerable distance up the trees. | Colonel Sykes related to me another anecdote with regard to an Indian species of ant, which he calls the large black ant, instancing, in a wonderful manner, their perseverance in at- taining a favourite object, which was witnessed by himself, his lady, and his whole household. When resident at Poona, the dessert, consisting of fruits, cakes, and various preserves, always remained upon a small side-table, in a verandah of the dining- room. To guard against inroads the legs of the table were immersed in four basins filled with water; it was removed an inch from the wall, and, to keep off dust through open windows, was covered with a table-cloth. At first the ants did not at- tempt to cross the water, but as the strait was very narrow, from an inch to an inch and a half, and the sweets very tempt- ing, they appear at length to have braved all risks, to have committed themselves to the deep, to have scrambled across the channel, and to have reached the object of their desires, for hundreds we found every morning revelling in enjoyment: daily vengeance was executed upon them without lessening their numbers; at last the legs of the table were painted, just above the water, with a circle of turpentine. This at first seemed to prove an effectual barrier, and for some days the sweets were unmolested, after which they were again attack- ed by these resolute plunderers; but how they got at them seemed totally unaccountable, till Col. Sykes, who often passed the table, was surprised to see an ant drop from the wall, about a foot above the table, upon the cloth that covered it; another and another succeeded. So that though the turpentine and the distance from the wall appeared effectual barriers, still the resources of the animal, when determined to carry its point, were not exhausted, and by ascending the wall to a certain height, with a slight effort against it, in falling it managed to land in safety upon the table. Col. Sykes asks,—is this in- stinct? [should answer, no: the animal’s appetite is greatly excited, its scent probably informs it where it must seek the object of its desire; it first attempts the nearest road; when this is barricaded it naturally ascends the walls near which the table was placed, and so succeeds by casting itself down,— all the while under the guidance of its senses.* It is observed, in the Introduction to Entomology, that though ants, “during the cold winters, in this country, remain in a 1 See above, p. 315, 336, and Intred. to Ent. ii. 62. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 371 state of torpidity, and have no need of food, yet in warmer re- gions, during the rainy seasons, when they are probably con- fined to their nests, a store of provisions may be necessary for them.t | Now, though the rainy season, at least in America, as has been stated on a former occasion,? is a season in which insects are full of life, yet the observation, that ants may store up provisions in warm countries, is confirmed by an account sent me by Col. Sykes, with respect to another species which appears to belong to the same genus as the celebrated ant of visitation,® by which the houses of the inhabitants of Surinam were said to be cleared periodically of their cock-roaches, mice, and even rats.* The present species has been named by Mr Hope, the provident ant. These ants, after long continued rains during the monsoon, were found to bring up and lay on the surface of the earth, ona fine day, its stores of grass seeds, and grains of Guinea corn, for the purpose of drying them. Many scores of these hoards were frequently observable on the extensive Parade at Poona. This account clearly proves that, where the climate and their circumstances require it, these in- dustrious creatures do store up provisions. : From these very interesting communications we may re- mark how the functions of animals are varied, the same func- tion being often given in charge to tribes perfectly different in different climates. In temperate regions, the principal agents in disinfecting the air by devouring or removing excrement, belong to the Order of beetles, but in India, where probably more hands are wanted to effect this purpose of Providence, the free-ants are called in to aid the beetles, by building their nests of this fetid mortar, and thusclear the surface of innumer- able nuisances, which probably soon dry and become scentless. In Europe, again, no ants are found to verify Solomon’s obser- vation, literally interpreted, but in India we see, and probably it may also be the case in Palestine, provision for the future is not stored up solely by the bees, but the ants, where it is necessary, are gifted with the same admirable instinct. A circumstance here requires notice, which is almost pecu- liar to the gregarious Hymenoptera dwelling in a common ha- bitation; in all their communities, besides one or more prolific females and males, there is an order of sterile females, which have no connexion with the other sex, and are solely employed in labours and pursuits beneficial to the community at large 1 See above, p. 315, 336, and Introd. to Ent. ii, 46. 2 See above, p. 321. 3 Atta cephalotes. 4 De Geer. iii. 607. S A. providens. 372 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. to which they belong, especially the care and nurture of the young. The wisdom and beneficial effects of this law, by which the Creator has regulated their communities, and prescribed to all their duties and functions, must be evident to every one. It sets free the majority of the community to give their whole attention to those labours upon which the welfare and existence of their several associations depend. Indeed, if they were all to be prolific, their societies would soon be dissolved, or de- stroyed by the evils attendant upon an overabundant popula- tion; or their increase would be so rapid, that the whole earth would soon be covered by them, to the great annoyance, if not destruction, of the rest of its inhabitants. Now I am upon this subject, I may add a few remarks upon the kindred societies of white-anis, which, though they belong to a different Order, are, in many respects, analogous to those of the true ants; and the differences observable between them arise from a marked diversity in the nature of their meta- morphosis; namely, that in the last named insects, both larves and pupes are incapable of locomotion, and all the labours of the society, as well as its defence and the care and nurture of the young, are devolved upon a description of its mem- bers that are not gifted with the faculty of reproduction: whereas, in the former, the white ants, the larves and pupes, in conformity to the law which, in this respect, regulates the Class to which they belong, are locomotive and more active in those states than in the last or reproductive one, and are there- fore fully qualified to act in all the working departments, and to transact the general business of the society; but as this, in. their case, required a conformation of the head and oral or- gans inconsistent with their use as offensive weapons, another order was necessary to act as sentinels, and to be entrusted with the defence of the nest or termitary, as it is called, and its inhabitants. That such an order exists, we learn from the statements of Smeathman and Latreille, who, both of them, had means of personal investigation, and the latter of whom brought to the investigation the deepest insight into his sub- ject, and the most extensive knowledge of insects and their history possessed by any man in Europe. Upon the accuracy of his statements, therefore, the most entire reliance may be placed. The species* he investigated was discovered by him- self, in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, inhabiting the trunks of firs and oaks, immediately under the bark, where, without 1 Termes lucefuga. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 373 attacking the bark itself, they formed a great number of holes and irregular galleries. In these societies he discovered, at all times, two kinds of individuals, which were without wings, elongated, soft, of a, yellowish white, with their head, trunk, and abdomen distinct; they were active, furnished with six legs, their head large, and the eyes very small, or altogether wanting; but, in one of these kinds of individuals, which com- pose the bulk of the society, the head is rounded and the man- dibles not extended ; while in the others, which form not more than one twenty-fifth of the population, the head is much larger, elongated, and cylindrical, and terminated by mandibles that extend from it and cross each other ; these Latreille always found stationed at the entrance of the cavities where the others were assembled in greatest numbers: towards the end of the winter and in the spring, he discovered individuals exactly re- sembling those first mentioned, but having the rudiments of four wings, and in June, the same individuals had acquired four ample wings, had become of a blackish colour, and con- sisted of males and females; a month later a few only were found in the termitary, which had lost their wings, and eggs now begun to apppear laid up in certain labyrinths of the wood.’ It is clear from this account that those with a round head and short mandibles are larves, which go through the usual metamorphosis of their tribe, not changing their form, but ac- quiring wings, first packed up in cases, and afterwards devel- oped. The second description, with the elongated head and crossed mandibles, never acquired wings, and therefore corres- pond precisely with the neuters amongst ants, only as Provi- dence always economizes means, and wills that nothing be lost or wasted, he has decreed that these locomotive larves and ‘pupes should not live in idleness. Order '7.—We now come to an Order, taking their food by suction, which appear to have been formed to deck our fields and groves with various beauty ; but which in their first state, when they masticate their food, they mar and destroy, often stripping the trees of their leaves, and covering our hedges with their webs full of crawling myriads of devastators. It will be seen that I am speaking of the Lepidopterous Order, consisting of three great phalanxes, the diurnal fliers, or but- terflies,? the crepuscular fliers, or hawkmoths,? the nocturnat 1 Latreille in V. D. DH. N. xxxiii. 90. 2 Papilio. L. 3 Sphnz. L. Eo 874 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. fliers, or moths,t each divided into several genera. Their caterpillars most generally feed upon the foliage of vegetables of every description ; but those of some of ‘the lower tribes? of moths devour animal substance, such as wool, fur, leather, grease, and the like; some even enter the bee-hive and devour the combs, others the cabinet of the entomologist to prey upon his insects, others even attack the books of the scholar. Their office seems to be to keep in check too luxuriant vegetation, and, in many of the latter instances, the removing of dead ani- mal matter, and every thing putrescent from the surface of the globe. But this is not the whole, they likewise help to maintain, as has been before observed,? half the birds of the air, forming a principal portion of their food ; and in some countries, as well as the locusts and white ants,* they are eagerly devoured by man himself. There is a certain mountain, in New Holland, as we are informed by Mr Bennett, called Bugong mountain, from multitudes of small moths, called Bugong by the natives, which congregate at certain times, upon masses of granite, on this mountain. The months of November, December, and January, are quite a season of festivity amongst these people, who assemble from every quarter to collect these moths. They are stated also to form the principal summer food of those who inhabit to the south of the snow mountains. ‘To collect these moths, or rather butterflies,® the natives make smothered fires under the rocks on which they congregate ; and suffocating them with smoke, collect them by bushels, and then bake them by placing them on heated ground. ‘Thus they separate from them the down and the wings, they are then pounded and formed into cakes resembling lumps of fat, and often smoked, which preserves them for some time. When accus- tomed to this diet they thrive and fatten exceedingly upon it.” Millions of these animals were observed also, ou the coast of New Holland, both by Captains Cook and King.* Thus hasa kind Providence provided an abundant supply of food for a race that, subsisting solely by hunting or fishing, must often be re- duced to great straits. Orders 3 and 11.—The masticating tribe, which present the most striking analogy to the scaly-winged lepidopterous insects, Phalena. L. See above, p. 202. Wanderings, &c. i. 265, Bennett, wbi supr. 271. Tineide. Introd. to Ent. i. 303, 307. Euplea hamata. M’L. Ibid. 209, note *. “EOI GS cn & ~w INSECT CONDYLOPES. 875 is one of very different habits; mostly bold, rapacious, and sanguinary, they are perpetually chasing other insects, and devouring them, and this they do, not in one, but in all their states. I am speaking here of the Neuropterous Order, espe- cially the dragon flies, those insects of vigorous wing and indomitable force. Every one who compares these with the Heliconian butterflies, the wings of which are sometimes, more or less, denuded of their scales,* will perceive that they are analogues of each other ; and one of this Order, the Ascalaphus, resembles a butterfly so strikingly, both by its wings and an- tenne, that it has been described as one by a very eminent entomologist.2_ The Ant-lions, and lace-winged flies, in the port of their wings, resemble several moths; and the Trichoptera, an osculant Order, but still reckoned amongst the Neuroptera by Latreille, in its habit of clothing itself with a case made of various articles, imitate the clothes-moth, and others of that tribe, which invest themselves with cases made of wool, fur, and similar materials. The dragon-flies in their two first states, by means of their wonderful mask,’ destroy a vast number of aquatic insects, and in their last an equal number in the air. The white-ants,* and some kindred insects, like the ants de- vour every thing but metal, that is exposed to their attacks, particularly timber. A deserted African village is soon re- moved by them, working under their covered ways; and, in tropical regions, a forest quickly springs up where a busy popu- lation ran to and fro a few years before. So that they are amongst the instruments in the hand of Providence, that the places deserted by man shall be restored again to the vegetable and animal races that were in possession before he cleared it for his own habitation. The white ants seem to connect this Order with the Hymenoptera by means of the common ants; which, however, as Colonel Sykes informs me, bear the most rooted enmity to them, and destroy them without mercy. In digging up some white ants’ nests, in his garden at Poona, he once found two queens in one cell, a remarkable anomaly in their history. In the course of the present year I received a letter signed P. T. Baddeley, inclosing a drawing and speci- mens, of a singular species of white ant, with a head precisely resembling that of an elephant, except that there was no representation of the tusks. The head, which is enormously 1 E. G. Heliconius Quirina, Hippodamia, &c. 2 Scopoli, N. D. DH. N. ii. 580. 3 Introd. to Ent. iii. 125. 4 Termes. —— 376 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. large compared with the size of the animal, terminates in a long proboscis. Mr Baddeley found it in great numbers about two years ago, under some teak timber; the only circumstance which he mentions of its habits. Orders 8 and 9.—There are two Orders taking their food by suction, the Homoptera and Hemiptera, which perhaps should rather be regarded as Sub-orders, as Latreille considers them, and which were included by Linné in the same order with the Orthoptera of mcedern entomologists, to which, in fact, they are contrasted more or less. I shall therefore consider them to- gether, The Homoptera are herbivorous, sucking the sap of trees and plants,’ and the principal tribe of them was celebrated of old, both by Grecian and Roman bards, under the names of Tettix and Cicada, for the far-resounding song of its males. This order contains some of the most singular monstrosities that the insect world produces; animals armed with strange appendages and horns, which in the majority, are processes of the trunk; but, in the lanthorn-flies, of the head: the latter have been regarded, as their name imports, as a kind of lan- thorn, given to the animal to afford it light; but considerable doubt has been thrown upon the fact. The use of the arms and processes of the trunk, which are found chiefly in the male, as well asin many male Lamellicorn beetles,? has not been satisfactorily ascertained; but probably, like the horns of quadrupeds, and the spurs of male gallinaceous birds, they use them in their mutual battles. One of these animals, as producing the manna of the Phar- macopeia, may be regarded as of some use to mankind. And perhaps, in general, the tribe, in their perfect state, in which they imbibe the juice of plants and trees, if not too numerous, are probably of use to trees that are over vigorous, and full of sap. In their grub state, in America, they are very injurious to timber, and fruit trees, into which they introduce their eggs by a remarkable organ or ovipositor. The proper Hemiptera, so called because their wing-covers at the base are of a substance resembling horn or leather, and are membranous at the tip, form the last suctorious Order; they are carnivorous, or more properly, animal-suckers ;* for though many of them are found on particular trees and plants, it is not the juices of these that they usually imbibe, but those 1 Phytomyza, plant-suckers. 2 Dynastes, Onthophagus, Copris, &c. 3 Zoomyza. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 377 of the insects that frequent them; there is one, however, too well known in this country, the bed-bug,+ which is more am- bitious, extending its attacks, like the flea, to the higher ani- mals, being often found upon pigeons, upon rabbits, and more commonly infesting man himself, during his hours of repose. This Sub-order also presents a great variety of forms, and the bite of some is very venomous. ; The functions of these are similar to those of other Insects, that derive their nutriment from the higher animals by sucking the blood or juices; but the bugs, being generally Insect-suck- ers, wilh their juices also suck away their lives, and so are employed to diminish their numbers. The water-bugs® attack other aquatic animals as well as Insects, such as fishes, Mol- luscans, &c. Order 12.—The Orders that are placed as parallels to the Homoptera and Hemiptera, are the Orthoptera and Coleoptera. The former includes within its limits Insects of various habits, which may be divided, respect being had to their food, into three tribes:—those that are herbivorous, those that are carnivo- rous, and those that are omnivorous. The first of these tribes includes all those Insects known by the common name of grasshoppers, and locusts ;* several of those whose wing-covers and wings resemble leaves or flowers;* be- sides other kinds, which I need not mention. The ravages of those first mentioned, especially the locusts, are so well known,® that I shal! not enlarge upon them. The second tribe consists of what, from the posture they as- sume, have been called praying-insects,® some of which also re- semble leaves. These are as ferocious and cruel as any of the insect tribes.” The last tribe consists principally of the crickets’ and cock- roaches,® animals that make their appearance only in the night, and feed both on animal and vegetable substances. It has been suggested to me by an eminent and learned Prelate, that the Egyptian plague of flies, which is usually supposed to-have been either a mixture of different species, or a fly then called the dog-fly,*° but which is not now known, was a cock-roach. His Lordship did not assign the reason that led him to adopt 1 Cimez lectularius. 2 Hydrometra, Notoneeta, Nepa, &c 3 Locusta. 4 Pterophylla. Stoll. Saut t. i. 3. 5 See above, p. 48, 6 Mantis. Phyllium. 7 Introd. to Ent. i. 278. 8 Gryllus. Gryllotalpa, &c. 9 Blatta. 10. Gr. xuyopuse. XxX 378 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. this opinion, but the Hebrew name of the animal, which is the same by which the raven also is distinguished, furnishes no slight argument in favour of it. The same word also signifies the evening. Now the cock-roach at this time found in Egypt* is black, with the anterior margin of the thorax white, and they never emerge from their hiding places ull the evening, both of which circumstances would furnish a reason to the name given it; and it might be called the evening Insect, both from its colour and the time of its appearance. There appears to be a striking analogical resemblance be- tween the bulk of the Orthoptera and Homoptera to the Reptiles, particularly the Batrachian ; their leaping and song are the principal points in which they agree, whence the members of the latter Sub-order have usually been called frog-hoppers, but in some of the grass-hopper tribe there is also a singular coinci- dence in their form.? Order 4.—The earwigs? form a truly osculant Order, between the Orthoptera and Coleoptera, and partaking of the characters of both, but their habits are so well known that it is not neces- sary to dwell upon them. Order 13.—Of all the insect Orders which God has created and employed to work his will upon earth, by removing what- ever deforms or defiles the face of nature, there is none more remarkable, both for its numbers, the diversities of form and aspect that it exhibits, and of armour both defensive and of- fensive, and also of its organs of various kinds, and for various uses, than that of which I am now, in the last place, to give some account, the beetles, namely, forming the Order Coleoptera. The parallel to this Order amongst the suctorious insects, appears to be the Hemiptera Sub-order, the wing-covers of some of which,* having scarcely any membrane at their extremity, represent the elytra of the Order in question ; indeed the sub- stance of the base of these organs, in the generality, also cor- responds with that of the beetles. Of al! the mandibulate Orders there is none that appears to have so universal an action upon every substance, both vege- table and animal, both living and dead, as the one before us, but it is difficult to class them according to their food without breaking up natural groups; thus in the great tribe of Lamel- licorn beetles, forming Linné’s genus Scarabaus, we find in- 1 Stoll. Saut. t. viii. b. f. 29. 2 Forficula. 3 Lygeus apterus, brevipennis, &c. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 379 sects that feed upon a great variety of vegetable food, both liquid and solid ; green and putrescent; the feces of animals ; and in a few instances, on their flesh. A very considerable number of this Order are predaceous in their habits, and devour without pity, any small animal they can seize and overpower. Of this discription is the whole tribe of ground-beetles, called by old writers clocks and dors, considered by Linné as forming one genus,* but now divided into more than a hundred. One of the most remarkable of this tribe is the spectre-bee- tle? described by Hagenbach, which is found both in Java and China. In its general aspect, though evidently belonging to the Carabidans, it seems to represent the praying-insects, and the spectres ;° and, from its great flatness, it probably insinuates itself into close places, either for concealment or to lie in wait for its prey. The splendid tribe of tiger-beetles,* as they indicate by their fearful jaws, have the same habits, adding a swift flight to the rapid motions on foot which distinguish the other. The grubs of these emulate spiders in some respects, lying in wait for their prey in burrows in which they curiously suspend themselves.* In the waters a considerable tribe of Beetles pursue various aquatic insects, and by means of their oary hind legs swim very swiftly, often suspending themselves at the surface by their anal extremity, near which are two large spiracles. for respiration, for they do not respire the water like fishes and the grubs of Dragon-tlies. Their larves are armed with tremen- dous sickle-shaped jaws, through which they pump the juices from fishes as well as insects. Besides those that are indiscriminate devourers, others con- fine themselves to particular tribes or species. ‘Thus one of the most splendid of the, so called, ground-beetles, named the sycophant,® ascends the trees and shrubs after the caterpillars which are its destined food, and probably other species of the genus have the samecommission. The rove-beetles’ bury them- selves in excrement in order to devour the grubs that frequent it. I have before mentioned® the wasp-beetle ; there are others which, in the same way, attack those of the hive and other bees.° Another has.a more remarkable instinct, by which it Mormolyce. Prats XI. Fre. 1. Cicindela, Manticora. Calosoma Sycophanta. See above, p. 366. Carabus. Phasma. Introd. to. Ent. iii. 152. Staphylinus. L. Clerus apiarius, and alvearius. oN O1G = ons Ww 380 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. is impelled to seek its nutriment in the slimy snail.* There is an insect much resembling a bird-louse that is parasitic on wild-bees, which has been thought to be produced from the eggs of the great oil-beetle,? but some doubt still hangs on the fact.3 Another tribe of beetles have a different commission from their Creator, and instead of living ones, feed upon dead animals, of every description. To this tribe belong the burying beetles, long celebrated for the manner in which they bury pieces of flesh to which they have committed an egg ;* other carrion beetles> may be found in considerable numbers of various spe- cies and kinds, under every carcass ;° even bones, after they are denuded of the flesh, are attended by certain insects of this Order, by whose efforts they are completely stripped of every remnant of muscle.’ Some even find their nutriment in the interior of horns.§ Lacordaire observes that the carcasses dry so rapidly in South America, that few necrophagous insects are found there: and that even in the Pampas, and at Buenos Ayres, where animals decompose asin Europe, there are but few of these insects: but their place is supplied by innumerable birds of prey. As soon as an animal is killed, they fly in crowds from every part of the horizon, though one before was not to beseen. ‘The most destructive beetles in these countries are those that attack leather or skins. ‘Two species of the same genus® commit dreadful ravages in the magazines of this article: and in spite of the constant pains that are bestowed to get rid of these in- sects and their grubs, great losses are suffered. Another unsightly substance is removed by numberless beetles, whose office is that of scavengers ; the celebrated Sca- rabeus of the Egyptians,” the symbol, as it is supposed, of the sun, is of this description ; the pill-beetle also,** equal in fame to the burying one, for trundling its pills, each contaming an egg, with the aid of his co-species : many of a smaller type are - likewise devoted to the same office.*? It is worthy of remark that all these feed only on the excre- ment of herbivorows animals; none having been recorded, I 1 Cochleoctonus. 2 Meloe. 3 See Introd. to Ent. iii. 162. note 6. 4 Introd. to Ent. i. 352. 5 Silpha. L. 6 Dermestes. Byrrhus, &e. 7 Nitidula, &c. hi C | Then, 9 Dermestes cadaverinus et vulpinus. 10 Scarabeus sacer. 11 Ateuchus pilularius. Introd. to Ent. i, 251. 12 Spheridium, &c. INSECT CONDYLOPES. $81 believe, that feed on that of carnivorous ones, except a single species* that inhabits human excrement solely, but forms no burrow under it. Others of the order make a transition to the vegetable king- dom, by attacking various kinds of fungi, as agarics, Boleti, puff-balls, and the like, which in fact seem to exhibit, in their substance, some analogy to flesh. Fabricius has given the name of Agaric-eater® to a genus that is chiefly found in the “Boletus ; another beetle, however, devours agarics, and is found, I believe, in no other fungus ;* and the puff-ball affords a favourite nutriment to others.* Some beetles, or tribes of beetles, are both predaceous, car- nivorous, coprophagous, and fungivorous. The Histers will devour catrion, dung, funguses, and putrescent wood: I once found the autumnal dung-beetle® in considerable numbers ina dead bird, and Lacordaire mentions others that are carnivorous: he says that the habitsof Troz approach those of the necro- phagous beetles, it being always found under half-dried car- casses, of which they gnaw the tendinous parts. It is found also in the excrements of man and herbivorous animals. Pha- neus JMilon he observed principally under putrescent fishes on the shores of the River Plate.® We have thus had a regular transition, with regard to their food, leading the beetle tribes through the animal to the vege- table world. Vegetable feeders are innumerable amongst them, the gold,’ tortoise,*® and flea-beetles® all devour plants in both their active states, and some of these are extremely injurious to the farmer*® and gardener. Many are destructive to seeds, fruits, and roots, numbers of the weevil tribe, and all the Bruchi are of this description.** But of all the beetle tribes the timber-devourers are the most numerous; one of the most splendid and brilliant of the whole Order, the Buprestidans, belongs to this department, and the still more numerous and more varied Capricorn beetles,” though less refulgent with metallic splendour, add a vast momentum in the interminable forests of tropical regions, and must be of the greatest use in gradually reducing trees that have been 1 Hybosorus geminatus. 2 Mycetophagus. Boletaria. Marsh. 3 Oxyporus mazxillosus. 4 Lycoperdina. 5 Geotrupes autumnalis. 6 Ann. des Sc. Nat. xx, 263. 265. 7 Chrysomela, &c. 8 Cassida. 9 Haltica. 10 Introd. to Ent. i. 187. 207. 11 Ibid, 172. 176, &c. 12 Cerambyr. L. 882 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. uprooted by tornadoes, or any other cause, to a state of putridity, and finally to dust. Other beetles, of smaller dimensions, and of a cylindrical form, which take their station between the bark and the wood, are instrumental in separating them so as to jet in the wet,* and expose the timber more effectaally to the action of the elements. ; The great majority, indeed, of this interesting Order derive their nutriment, in their first and last states, from the vegetable kingdom. The Lamellicorns afford a conspicuous instance of . this. Even those of them that are coprophagous, feed upon vegetable detritus in some degree animalized ; and some are stated to feed indifferently both on excrement and leaves.? The giants of the Order, the mighty Dynastidans,? appear to feed upon putrescent timber, burrowing in it as well as in the earth. The Melolonthidans, in their first state, devour the roots of grass, &c., whence one of the modern genera into which they are divided is named the root-eater ;* in their per- fect state, they emerge from their subterranean dwellings, and attack the leaves of trees and shrubs, and are sometimes very injurious to them. Again, there are others, which, as it were, disdaining such coarse food, devour the blossoms themselves, whence Latreille calls them Anthobians : and lastly, the lovely tribe of Cetoniadans, to which the rose-beetle® belongs, imbibe the nectar of the flowers they frequent. Many of the weevil tribes are very destructive to stored grain ;° and others equally so to certain fruits.” Though the Hymenoptera and Neuroptera Orders are most celebrated for the associations which certain tribes instinctively form, this principle does not act in them solely, other Insects have their swarms at certain seasons, as in the case of the New Holland butterflies before noticed; and the beetles afford several instances of it. About the time of the summer solstice, the solstitial beetle® may be seen and heard buzzing in vast num- bers over the trees and hedges, and a little earlier the cock- chafer? does the same, and many others of the same family.” Lacordaire observed, in Brazil, that two species of diamond bee- 1 Introd. to Ent. i. 235. 260. 2 Lacordaire, Ann. des Se. Nat. xx. 260. 3 Dynastes. M’Leay. 4 Rhizotrogus. 5 Cetonia aurata. 6 Calandra. 7 Cordylia Palmarum 8 Rhizotrogus solstitialis. 9 Melolontha vulgaris 10 Hoplia, &c. INSECT CONDYLOPES. 383 tlest clustered so on some kinds of Mimosa, that the branches bent under the weight of their glittering burthen.? The same author mentions a curious distinction between the luminosity of the glow-worms and fire-flies in Brazil, which has been confirmed to me by a gentleman sometime resident in that country. In the former, he says the light perpetually scintillates, but in the latter it is constant ;° the kind of glow- worm most common in that part of America, belongs to a tribe in which the shield of the thorax does not cover the eyes, and the females is winged as well as the male.* Thus in these little illuminators of tropical nights we have a kind of mimic stars and planets, the former of which are so numerous as to fill the air with their scintillations. The immediate object of this faculty, in these beetles, and in other insects, has not been clearly ascertained; as the fe- males are usually most luminous, it may be to allure the male; or, as most insects fly to the light, it may also bring their prey within their reach; or, again, it may be a defence from their own nocturnal enemies;> but whatever be its object with re- spect to the animals themselves that are gifted with this faculty, they give man an opportunity of glorifying his Creator, not only for the starry heavens, but also for these little flying stars that render night so beautiful and so interesting, where they occur. In considering the great Class of Insects with reference to their office, the first thing that strikes us is their infinite num- ber, not only of individuals of the same species, but of different species and even genera, and the vast variety of forms and structures that they necessarily include. When we began the present subject, and, dipping under the waves of ocean, visited the vast world of waters, to survey their various inhabitants; even amongst those that can be seen only by the assisted eye, we saw no traces of such diversity; the number of individuals, it is true, were incalculable, but though they have been the objects of research, with so many inquirers, and for so leng a period, the number of species known fall short of half a thou- sand, while the number of Insects already in cabinets are stated to be more than two hundred times that number, and 1 Entimus imperialis, and nobilis. 2 Ann. des Sc. Nat. xx. 161. 3 Ann. des Sc. Nat xx. 247. 4 In the Introduction to Entomology, (ii. 407) this genus is named Pygo- lampis, after Aristotle, Hist. Anim. 1. iv. ¢. 1. 5 See above, p. 308. 384 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. even, in our own country, more than ten thousand have been enumerated and named. The momentum of so vast a body of animals, everywhere dispersed, and daily and hourly at work in their several depart- ments, must be incalculable; and this momentum must be doubled by the circumstance that so singularly distinguishes a large proportion of them; I mean that the different periods of their existence are passed under different forms, during which they have quite different functions assigned them, and are fitted with different organs, being, when they are first disclosed from the egg, masticators of solid and grosser food, and in their last state imbibing nectareous fluids. ‘The connection of the first is with the leaves of the plant, to them they are committed by the mother as soon as they are extruded from her matrix, and they supply them with their earliest and latest food; but when she is disclosed in all her beauty, dressed as it were in her bri- dal robes, the connection is between her and the flower, her lovely analogue, from them she imbibes the sweet fluid which their nectaries furnish, and now, instead of a devourer, she ab- stracts merely what is redundant, which, while it contributes to her own enjoyment and support, in the case of the bee, en- riches man himself. We behold, then, this immense army of devourers, varying so infinitely in their instincts, as well as their forms, supplying many animals with the whole of their subsistence, and forming a considerable portion of that of others, and feel convinced that Providence has not placed them in their position, and given them such a variety of organs, except with the view to some great general benefit to those animals amongst whom he has placed them; and this benefit is not so much perhaps the reducing the numbers of their own class within due limits, though that is a most important object, as removing nusiances, which would deform, or in any way infect the earth and its inhabitants. For this the Insect world is principally distin- guished as to its functions. It consists of the scavengers of the earth, and the pruners of its too luxuriant productions. With respect to ornament and pleasurable sensations, which were certainly the object of our beneficent Creator, as well as our profit and utility—next to the birds, nothing adds more to the life of the scene before us, during the diurnal hours, and even sometimes the nocturnal, than the vast variety of insects that are flying, running, and jumping about in all directions, all engaged in their several pursuits,—the bees humming over the flowers; the butterflies opening and shutting their painted wings to the sun; the gnats, and gnat-like flies, rising and INSECT CONDYLOPES. 385 falling alternately in the sunbeams; the beetle wheeling his droning flight; others coursing over the ground; the grasshop- per chirping in every bank,—all adding to the general har- mony, and combining to make the general picture one of life and Love; and speaking, each in different sort and manner, the praises of its Creator, and calling upon man to join in the general hymn. yY CHAPTER XXI. Functions and Instincts. Fishes. Tuer animals we have hitherto considered have been destitute of an internal jointed vertebral column and its bony appen- dages ; and though some, as the Cephalopods and some slugs,* have a kind of internal bone, and in one Order of Polypes? the axis is sometimes articulated, yet these, especially in the latter instance, merely indicate an analogical relation, but no affi- nity. In none of these instances is this internal bone perforated for the passage of a spinal marrow, as in a real vertebrated column; we now, however, enter that superior section of the animal kingdom, the individuals belonging to which, with scarcely any exception, are built upon the column in question, incasing a spinal marrow, and terminated at its upper extremity by a bony casket, calculated to contain and protect the most precious and wonderful of all material substances, the cerebral pulp, by which the organs of sense perceive; the will moves the members; the mind governs the outward frame; and, in the king of animals, an immortal spirit, is enabled to seek and secure a higher destiny. This change in the structure of animals was rendered neces- sary by an increase in their bulk, for though there are some of the invertebrated Sub-kingdom, as the fixed Polypes and several of the Cephalopods, that are of as large dimensions, and a few of the vertebrated, as the humming birds,® and the harvest mouse,* that are not so large as some insects; yet the gene- rality of those distinguished by a vertebral column form a strik- ing contrast, as to magnitude, with those that are not. Besides this, as these animals, by the will of their Creator, were to be - endowed as they ascended in the scale, with gradually increas- ing intellectual faculties, it was necessary that the principal seat of those faculties should be differently organized. A dif- ferent organ of respiration also, as well as of circulation, in the 1 See above, p. 164. 2 Ibid. p. 94. 3 Trochilus. 4 Mus messorius. FISHES, 387 great body of vertebrates, required an internal cavity defended from the effects of pressure. Having premised these general observations, we are next to consider what animals form the basis of the vertebrated Sub- kingdom. Most modern zoologists appear to be of opinion that the Fishes occupy this position, and, taking all circumstances into consideration, this seems the station assigned to them by their Creator ; still there are characters in some of the Reptiles that seem to connect them more immediately with the Insects. The mwetamorphoses, particularly of the Batrachian Order, are of this description ; as is likewise the carapace, or shell of the Chelonians, of which the vertebral column and ribs form the basis. Those extraordinary animals, the hag*t and the lam- prey,* half worms and half fish, by. means of the leech, evi- dently connect the Fishes with the Annelidans.® Perhaps those butterflies of the ocean, the flying fishes,* with their painted wing-fins with branching rays, may look towards the Lepidop- tera amongst Insects, but there is no direct connection at pre- sent discovered between the two Classes. ‘The characters of the Class of Fishes are—Body with a ver- tebral column, covered with scales, and moved by fins. Respi- ration by permanent gills. Heart with only one auricle and one ventricle; blood red, cold. Fishes are distinguished from the other vertebrated animals, especially birds and beasts, by their mode of respiration ; the latter breathing the atmospheric air, are furnished with lungs, which receive that element, oxygenate the blood, and again expel it in a different state; ‘while the former, which must de- compose the water for respiration, breathe by means of gills, found also in many invertebrates ; these are usually long, point- ed plates, disposed like the plumules of a feather, or teeth of a comb, in fishes attached to bony or cartilaginous bows; each of them, according to Cuvier, covered by a tissue of innume- rable blood-vessels ; but, according to Dr. Virey,® having a minute vein and artery. In the gill of a cod-fish, which I have just examined under a microscope, a vein and artery traverse each plate longitudinally at the margin, which appear to be pectinated, at right angles on each side, with innumera- ble minute branches, and resemble, in this respect, the gills of Crustaceans.® Thus the blood is oxygenated by the air mixed 1 Gastrobranchus. (Myzine. L.) 2 Pteromyzon. 3 Sir E. Home, Philos. Trans. 1815, 265. 4 Exocetus volitans, &c. 5 WN. D. DH. N. iv. 330. 6 Latr. Cours. D’ Ent. t. 2. f. 2. —E 388 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. with the water, and carried to the heart, whence it is distri- buted to the whole body. So that the aérated water produces the same effect upon the blood in the branchial vessels, as the air does upon that in our lungs. We know, by experience, how soon an animal that breathes by lungs, if it remains only a few minutes under water, and is cut off from all communication with the atmosphere, is suffo- cated and dies; and that all aquatic animals that have not gills, or something analogous, as all the water-beetles, the larves of gnats, &c. are obliged, at certain intervals, to seek the surface for respiration. Whence we may learn what an admirable contrivance of Divine Wisdom is here presented to us, to enable the infinite host of fishes to breathe as easily in the water as we do in the air. When we sum up all the diagnostics of the Class we are considering, we can trace, at every step, so that, almost, he that runs may read, Infinite Power in the construction, Infinite Wisdom in the contrivance and adaptations, and Infinite Good- ness in the end and object of all the various physical laws, and in all the structures and organizations by which they are severally executed, which strike the reflecting mind in this globe of ours. What else could have peopled the waters, and the air, with a set of beings so perfectly and beautifully in con- trast with each other, as the fishes and the birds. Sprung originally from the same element, they each move, as it were, in an ocean of their own, and by the aid of similar, though not the same, means. The grosser element they inhabit re- quired a different set of organs to defend, to propel and guide, and to sink and elevate the fish, from what were requisite to effect the same purposes for the bird, which moves in a rarer and purer medium; yet as both were fluid mediums, consisting of the same elements, though differently combined; analogous organs, though differing in substance, structure, and number, were required. For what difference is there between swim- ming and flying, except the element in which these motions take place? The fish may be said to fly in the water, and the bird to swim in the air; but perhaps the movements of the aquatic animal, from its greater. flexibility and the number of its molive organs, is more graceful and elegant than those of the aérial. The feathers of the one are analogous to the seales of the other; the wings to the pectoral fins; and the tail of both acts the part of a rudder, by which each steers itself through the waves of its own element. One distinctive character of fishes is taken from the scales that cover and protect their soft and flexile forms from injury. FISHES. | 389 Scales, however, are not peculiar to fishes, since many reptiles, as the Saurians, and some quadrupeds, as the Pangolin,* are armed by them. Scarcely any species of fish is really without them. In some, upon which when living they are not discover- able under a microscope, when they are dead, and the skin is dry, scales are readily detected and detached. These organs vary greatly in form : sometimes they resemble spines, at others they are tuberculated ; but most commonly they are plates, often carinated, and varying in shape, some being round, others oval, others again angular; sometimes also they are finely den- ticulated. In some fish they are separated, in others they touch, often so as to form together the resemblance of a beauti- ful piece of mosaic, and in many they are imbricated.? In those that rarely approach the shore, and are exposed only to slight friction, they are fastened by a smaller portion of their circum- ference ; but in in-shore fishes they are more firmly fixed, and covered partly by the epidermis, which, in those that live and burrow in the mud, almost entirely envelopes them. Some fishes set up their spines like a hedgehog; and most, when alarmed, seem to have the power of erecting them more or less. Had we the means of ascertaining the situation and cir- cumstances of every individual, we should find that, in every case, the figure and connexion, and substance of the scales, was ruled by them. A proof of this may be seen in those fishes whose integument consists of hard scales, united together so as to form a tesselated coat of mail. I allude to the Ostracions, whose organs of locomotion seem not calculated to effect their escape when pursued ; the want of speed, however, is compen- sated by a covering that the teeth of few of their enemies can penetrate: the same remark applies to those fishes that can in- flate themselves into a globe,* in some of which the fins are so minute, as to be scarcely discoverable. In these the scaly spines, when erected, assist in preventing the attack of ene- mies. I have given a detailed account of the fins of fishes on a for- mer occasion.* I shall therefore here only consider the tno- tions of which they are the organs, and their theatre. Though the birds—if we consider the whole atmosphere of the globe, whether expanded over earth or sea, as their domain —may perhaps have a wider range than the fishes, yet when we further consider that, besides the whole extent of the ocean, and the seas in connexion with it, with all its unfathomable 1 Mans. 2 Roget, B. T. i. 116. 3 Roget, B. T. i. 433. 4 See above, p. 261. 390 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. depths and abysses, and all the rivers that flow into it—all the innumerable lakes also, and other stagnant waters, on moun- tains, and at every other elevation, that the earth’s surface contains, belong to the fishes, and compare at the same time the greatest depth to which they descend with the greatest height to which birds ascend, we may conclude thai, with re- gard to its extent, their habitable world may be nearly commen- surate with that of their rivals or analogues. As to their motions, in their element, birds of the most rapid and unwearied wing must yield the palm to them; the eagle to the shark, and the swallow to the herring and salmon. The form of fishes, generally speaking, is particularly calculated for swift and easy motion ; and the resistance of the fluid in which they move seems never to impede their progress. While birds that undertake long flights are often obliged to alight upon vessels for some rest and renovation of strength, fishes never seem exhausted by fatigue, and to require no respite or repose. Sharks have been known to keep pace with ships during long voyages ; and, like dogs, they will sport round vessels going at several knots an hour, as if they had plenty of spare force.* The thunny darts with the rapidity of an arrow, and the her- ring goes at the rate of sixteen miles per hour. But though many fishes thus pursue an unwearied course without any in- tervals of repose, yet there are some that often appear to sleep. Inflating its natatory vesicle, our fresh-water shark, the pike, in the heat of the day, rises nearly to the surface, and there remains perfectly motionless and apparently asleep: at this time he is easily snared, by passing a running noose of wire over his tail, and by a sudden jerk bringing him on shore. The eye of fishes is like that of the higher animals, but of a substance that makes the access of the water to it no more troublesome than that of the air to terrestrial animals. Gene- rally speaking, it is protected by no eyelid or nictitant mem- brane. One genus, however, removed from the gobies,? has the former; and a species of bodian,® from the equaterial seas, has a movable membranous valve above each eye, with which, at will, it can cover it, that seems analogous to the latter. The eye of the eel, and other serpentiform fishes, which are usually buried and move about in the mud, is covered, through. the provident care of their Creator, by an immovable mem- brane ; and in several species the organ can be withdrawn to the bottom of the socket, and even concealed, in part, under 1 WN. D. D Hist. Nat. xxvii. 247. 2 Periophthalmus. 3. B. palpebratus. FISHES. 391 its margin. But the most singular kind of eye in the Class, and that in which the forethought of the Deity is most conspi- cuous, is that of the Anableps, a viviparous fish, inhabiting the rivers of Surinam, and called by the natives the four-eyed fish. If the cornea of this eye be examined attentively it will be found that it is divided into two equal portions, each forming part of an individual sphere, placed one above and the other below, and united by a little narrow membranous, but not dia- phanous, band, which is nearly horizontal when the fish is in its natural position ; if the lower portion be examined, a rather large iris and pupil will be seen, with a crystalline humour under it, and a similar one with a still larger pupil in the upper portion. The object of Divine Wisdom in this unparallelled structure, if we may conjecture from the circumstances of the animal, is to enable it to see near and distant objects at the same time—the little worms below it that form its food, with one pupil and iris, and the great fishes above it or at a distance, which it may find it expedient to guard against, with the other. The senses of smell and hearing have no external avenue in fishes. The former is the most acute of all their senses. Lacepede says it may be called their real eye, since by it they can discover their prey or their enemies at an immense dis- tance ; they are directed'by it in the thickest darkness, and the most agitated waves. The organs of this sense are between the eyes. The extent of the membranes on which the olfac- tory nerves expand, in a shark twenty-five feet long, is calcu- lated to be twelve or thirteen square feet. The teeth of fishes may be divided into the same kinds as those of quadrupeds ; they have their laniary, incisive, and molary teeth ; they are differently distributed, according to the species and mode of life; some are almost immovably fixed in bony sockets, others in membranous capsules, by which means they can be elevated or depressed at the will of the animal. They not only have often many rows of teeth in their mouth, but even their palate, their throat, and their tongue are some- times thus armed.* And this accumulation of teeth is not confined to the fiercest monsters of the deep, but even some herbivorous fishes have several rows of molary teeth. An in- stance of this is afforded by a jaw of some unknown fish, per- haps a Siluridan, in my possession, in which there are six rows of such teeth, the anterior ones being somewhat conical. This specimen was found on the shore of one of the lakesin Canada, 1 Puate XIII. Fie. 3. ee 392 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. and belonged to a fish, which the friend who gave it to me stated was much relished by the Indians. Many of the organs of the members of this Class are more independent of each other than those of warm-blooded animals ; they seem less connected with common centres, in this respect resembling vegetables, for they may be more materially altered, more desperately wounded, and more completely destroyed, without any mortal effect. Many of their parts, as the fins, if mutilated, can be reproduced. Indeed a fish, as well as a reptile, can be cut, torn, or dismembered without appearing to suffer materially. The shark, from which a harpoon has taken a portion of its flesh, pursues his prey with the usual avidity, if his blood has not been too much exhausted. We see in this a merciful provision, that animals so much exposed to injury should suffer less from it than those which are better protected, | either by their situation or structure. Fishes are amongst the most long-lived animals. A pike was taken, in 1754, at Kaiserslautern, which had a ring fast - ened to the gill-covers, from which it appeared to have been put into the pond of that castle by the order of Frederick the Second, in 1487, a period of two hundred and sixty-seven years. It is described as being nineteen feet long, and weighing three hundred and fifty pounds ! ! ' Though the animals of the Class under consideration are not generally remarkable for their sagacity, yet they are capable of instruction. Lacepede relates that some, which for more than a century had been kept in the basin of the Tuilleries, would come when they were called by their names ; and that in many parts of Germany trout, carp, and tench are summoned to their food by the sound of a bell.* | At the first blush it seems as if fishes took little care or thought for their offspring ; but when we inquire into the sub- ject, we find them assiduous to deposit their eggs in such situa- tions as are best calculated to ensure their hatching, and to supply the wants of their young when hatched; but sometimes they go further, and prepare regular nests for their young. Two species, called by the Indians, though of different genera,” by the name of the flat-head and round-head hassar, have this instinct, and construct a nest, the former of leavesand the latter of grass, in which they deposit their eggs, and then cover them very carefully ; and both sexes, for they are monogamous, watch and defend them till the young come forth. General 1 Hist. des Poiss. Introd. cxxx. 2 Doras and Callicthys. FISHES. 393 Hardwicke mentions a parallel instance in the goramy,' of the Isle of France, a fish of the size of the turbot, and superior to it in flavour, cultivated in the ponds of that island. It has been observed that some fishes, when dead, emit a phosphoric light, I have particularly noticed this in the mack- arel, but others do this when living. The sun-fish? which sometimes has been found of an enormous bulk,? when swim- ming yields a light, which looks like the reflection of the moon in the water, whence it has also been called the moon-fish— and the spectator in vain searches for that planet in the heavens, Sometimes many individuals swim together, and by their mul- tiplied luminous disks, generally at some distance, compose a singular and startling spectacle; and if we take into considera- tion the magnitude of these animals,* we may conceive the wonder and amazement that would agitate the mind of any one when he first beheld such an army of great lights moving through the waters. For what purpose Providence has gifted the sun-fish with this property, and how it is produced, has not heen ascertained. It may either be for defence or illumination. Few animals, with regard to magnitude, present to the eye such enormous masses as some fishes ; leaving the whale out of the question, which though aquatic, belong to another Class, what quadruped can compete with the shark, which is also a phosphoric fish. That tribe called by the French Requins,5 which is thought to be synonymous with the Carcharias of the Greeks, and one of which was probably the sea-monster, mis- translated the whale, which swallowed the disobedient prophet —are stated to exceed thirty feet in length ; another® of a dif- ferent tribe, is still larger, sometimes extending’to the enor- mous length of more than forty feet!!7 Next to the sharks, the rays, nearly akin to them, exceed in their magnitude; they are sometimes called sea-eagles, because in their rage and fury they occasionally elevate themselves from the water, and fall again with such force as to make the sea foam and thunder. An individual of a species® of this tribe, called by the sailors the sea-devil, taken at. Barbadoes, was so large, as to require seven pairs of oxen to draw it on shore ! !° 1 Osphromenus olfax. -2 Mola. 3 One is said to have been caught in the Irish sea twenty-five feetlong !! —Lacep. Hist. 511. 4 Hist. of Waterford, 271. Borlase, Cornw. 267. 5 Carcharias. Cuv. 6 Squalus maximus. 7N D. D'H. N. xxix. 192. xxxii. 74. 8 Raia Banksiana. 9 Lacep. Hist. des Potss. ii. 116. ZZ : ——<—_ >i -—. oe eee ee 394 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. If we consider the vast tendency to increase of the oceanic tribes, that where a terrestrial animal gives birth to a single individual, a marine one perhaps produces a million, we may conceive that if no check was provided to keep their numbers within due limits, they would so fill the waters as to interfere with each other’s and the general welfare. The Cod-fish alone, which, according to Leeuwenhoek and Lacepede,* pro- duces more than nine millions of eggs in one year, if neither man, nor shark nor other predaceous fish, made it their food, would so fill the ocean in congenial climates, in the course of no long period of time, that there would scarcely be space for the motions or life of any other marine animal: the same may be said of almost all the migratory fishes. In these circum- ‘stances we see the reason why such enormous monsters were created that could swallow them by hundreds, why their yawn- ing mouth and throat were planted with teeth and fangs of different descriptions, fixed and movable, arranged in many a fearful row of bristling points, and why this tremendous array has been mustered in the mouth of animals of such never-sated voracity, and of such unmitigated cruelty and ferocity. Still though the scene is one of blood and slaughter, yet He whose tender mercies are over all his works, has fitted the creatures exposed to it for their lot. Cold-blooded animals, as I lately observed, do not suffer from the various dismember- ments to which their situation exposes them, like those of a higher and warmer temperature, whence we may conclude, that great pain and anguish are not felt by them. Another function of these tremendous animals is to devour all carcasses, which, from whatever cause, are floating in the water, thus they act the same part in disinfecting and purify- ing the ocean, that the hyznas and vultures, their terrestrial analogues, and other animals do, upon earth. Another lesson may be learned from the existence of these terrible monsters; for if God fitted them to devour, he fitted them also to instruct. The existence of creatures so evil, and such relentless destroyers of his works in the material world, teach us that there are probably analogous beings in the spiri- tual world; and what occasion we have for watchfulness, to es- cape their destructive fury. There is nothing more remarkable in the Class we are con- sidering than the infinite variety and singularity of the figures and shapes of fishes. It has been thought that the ocean con- tains representatives of every terrestrial and aérial form. How- 1 Leeuwenh. Epist. iii. 188. Lacep. Hist. Ibid. 393. FISHES. 395 ever this be, it may be asserted that the forms of fishes are more singular and extraordinary, more grotesque, and mon- strous, than those of any other department of the animal king- dom ; but on this subject I need not enlarge. Having made these general remarks upon fishes, I shall next say something on their Classification. Of all the Classes of animals, that of fishes, as Baron Cuvier observes, is the most difficult to divide into Orders. Linné considered what have been usually denominated Cartilaginous Fishes, as forming a section of his Amphibians :* but the former illustrious naturalist has very judiciously arranged them with the fishes. Ichthyol- ogists in general agree with Cuvier in dividing this Class to two Sub-classes—viz. Osseans, in which the skeleton is bony and formed of bony fibres; and Cartilagineans, in which it is cartilaginous and formed of calcareous grains. Lacepede, the most eminent of modern Ichthyologists, has observed that there is a striking resemblance or analogy between certain points of these two Sub-classes, of which he has given a table drawn up in a double series, which I shall here subjoin. CARTILAGINEANS. OSSEANS. Petromyzon. Gastrobranchus. . . , « «= Cecilia. Murena. Ophis. Raia SARTRE SRSA ES Re Bo) Pleuronectes. Squalus Ahh gM direy Bd Nat Pl fide ty wk i-: NSOmes Te el wat hn a act UF af: |), Veta Denar OLDE AUMUS GY er we a a ay he oly CSU EEA, Pegasus 3 a POPE Ls Ei ke oe BS EMR REO! | 0172 Torpedo. Tetrodon. s. migey thay Naar Es. Sp sur ihe Len» favre rte Oar ees. Cuvier also remarks, with respect to the animals of the pre- sent Class, that they form two distinct series,? which in another place he says, cannot be considered as either superior or inferior to each other. Many genera of the Cartilagineans, he thinks, approach the Reptiles by some parts of their organization, whilst it is almost doubtful whether others do not belong to the Invertebrates.* He has made no remark with respect to the connection of the Osseans with the above Class: though his thirteenth Family consists of fishes that have always gone by the name of fishing- frogs,* from the resemblance which they exhibit to that animal, and from their pectoral fins assuming the appearance of legs.® The species of one genus® resemble a fish with a lizard on its 1 Nantes. 2 Régne Anim. ii. 128. 3 Ibid. 376. 4 Lophius. L. S Prarte XIII. Fie. 1. 6 Malthus. 396 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. back, the head being overshadowed by a conical horizontal horn, in the sides of which the eyes are fixed, so that the lower lobe simulates the head of a fish, and the upper one that of a lizard.* This family of fishes, as well as the lump-fish,? in his Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, Cuvier classed with the Car- tilagineans. It is not to be expected that I should be able to thread my way through a labyrinth, in which this great man confesses himself to be at a loss ; and therefore I shall not attempt any alteration of his system, though confessedly the reverse of natu- ral with respect to the Orders into which he divides it, but leave the subject to an abler hand, M. Agassiz, who is reported to have undertaken it, and in the mean time, give a popular summary of Baron Cuvier’s Orders, as I find them in the last edition of the Regne Animal. Sub-class 1.—The Cartilagineans, which, as allied to the Annelidans, I shall place first, are divided by Cuvier into three Orders,’ viz. the Cyclostomes, or suckers; the Selacians ; and the Sturionians. Order 1.—The Cyclostomes, or suckers, with regard to their skeletons, are the most imperfect of all the Vertebrates. They have neither pectoral nor ventral fins. Their body, apparently headless and eyeless, terminates anteriorly in a circular or semicircular fleshy lip, supported by a cartilaginous ring. Their gills consist of pouches instead of pectinated organs. By means of their mouth, which, as well as the tongue, is armed with teeth, they fix themselves to fishes, and derive their nutriment from them. The lamprey,* lamperne,° and hag, &c. belong to this Order. Order 2.—The Selacians have gills, fixed by their outer margin, and not disengaged as in the Osseans, and they ex- pel the water by lateral openings. To this Order the sharks and the rays belong. Order 3.—The Sturionians agree with the Ossean Fishes in their gills, but their skeleton is cartilaginous. They have only a single orifice, covered with an operculum. The sole genera included in this Order are the Sturgeon® and the Sea-ape.” Sub-class 2.—The Osseans Cuvier divides in four Orders, 1 Prare XIII. Fic. 2 2 Cyclopterus. 3 Ubi supr, 128. where Cuvier arranges them in the Order here adopted, but when he gives the details of the Sub-class, he reverses it. Ibid. 378. 4 Petromyzon fluvialis, &c. 5 P. branchialis ? 6 Acctpenser. 7 Chimera monstrosa, - FISHES. 397 viz. Acanthopterygians, WMalacopterygians, Lophobranchians, and Plectognathians. These Orders, for reasons before assigned,? I shall reverse. Order 1. (Cuv. 6.)—Plectognathian Fishes. Gill-covers con- cealed under a thick skin. Ribs rudimental. Ventral fins wanting. To this Order belong the Coat of JMail-fish,? the Sun-fish,> and the Bladder-fish.* Order 2. (Cuv. 5.)—Lophobranchian Fishes. So called be- cause their gills are not pectinated, but disposed in tufts, as is the case likewise with some Annelidans ;5 body ridged longitu- dinally, covered with hard scales, united to each other; mouth elongated. To this Order belong those singular animals— the dragonet,® the horse-head,’ or sea-horse, and the sea-needle.® Order 3. (Cuv. 2.)—Malacopterygian, or soft-rayed Fishes. Rays not spiny, except sometimes the first of the dorsal or pec- toral fins. This great Order Cuvier divides into three Orders, or rather Sub-orders, which I shall give inversely. Sub-order 1. (Cuv. 4.)—Apode Malacopterygians. Body ser- pentiform, elongated; skin thick, soft, and slimy. To this Sub-order belong the common-eel,® the conger-eel,*° and the elec- tric-eel,** which have many points in common with the cyclos- _ tomous fishes of the preceeding Sub-class, and with respect to their form seem to look both towards the Annelidans, and more especially to the Ophidian Reptiles. Sub-order 2. (Cuv. 3.)—The Sub-brachian Malacoptery- gians. Ventral fins attached under the pectoral. In this Order we find the sucking-fish,” the lump-fish,* the flat-fishes, and the cod-fish,“* which seems an heterogenous mixture ; the flat-fishes seem clearly entitled to rank as an Order. Sub-order 3. (Cuv. 2.)—Abdominal Malacopterygians. Ven- tral fins attached under the abdomen and behind the pectoral. Here, as we ascend, we meet with the sprat,** the herring,*® the hassar,*” the salmon,** the anableps, the roach, tench,” and carp.™ Order 4. (Cuv. 1.)—The Acanthopterygians, or spiny-rayed 1 See above, pp. 78, 358. 2 Ostracion. 3 Mola. 4 Diodon. 5 See above, p. 257. 6 Pegasus. 7 Hippocampus. ; 8 Syngnathus. 9 Murena Anguilla. 10 M. Conger. 11 Gymnotus. 12 Echeneis. 13 Cyclopterus, 14 Gadus. 15 Clupea Sprattus. 16 C. Harengus. 17 Doras. Callicthys. 18 Salmo. 19 Cyprinus rutilus 20 C. Tinea. 21 C. Carpio. 398 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Fishes. First rays of the dorsal fin, or of the first dorsal fin, spiny, or dorsal spines in the place of dorsal fins. Under this vast Order are arranged an infinity of families and genera, which Cuvier seems to lament that he was obliged to leave together.* The tobacco-pipe-fish,? the razor-fish,? the fishing- frogs,* the lyre-fish,° the John Dory,® the sword-fish,? the mack- arel,® the gurnard,® the mullets,*° and the perch,** are amongst those that belong to this Order. It is impossible to consider the Orders of Fishes as we have done those of Insects, and give any satisfactory account of the functions and instincts of the several families and tribes that compose them. We cannot dip beneath the waves, to visit the depths of the ocean, that we may investigate their man- ners and history, but, doubtless, we may conclude, that the same Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, which we find so visibly manifested in the structure and operations of all the animals that are under our eyes and inspection, have equal place and are equally conspicuous, when brought into view, in the ma- rine and other aquatic animals. We know by experience that a large portion of them are of the greatest benefit to mankind, and the rest, from the gigantic shark to the pigmy minnow, each in their place, and engaged in the fulfilment of their sev- eral functions, are, we may conclude, equally beneficial, though in a way that we cannot fully appreciate. I have had more than one occasion to enlarge upon some of those parts of the history of fishes with which we are acquaint- ed,*? I shall therefore only add here some particulars with re- spect to the habits of a few individuals which may throw some light upon their history. Amongst the Cyclostomous Cartilagineans the hag is dis- tinguished by a singular means of escape from its enemies. This animal adheres to fishes by creating a vacuum by means of its lips ; this effected, it lacerates them with its teeth, without their being able to shake it off, and then, like the leech, it sucks their blood and juices ; but since, when thus fixed and employed, it might easily become the prey of other fishes, Providence has enabled it to conceal itself from them, by means 1 Régne Anim. ii. 131. 2 Fistularia. , 3 Coryphena. 4 Lophius. Malthus, Batrachus- 5 Callionymus Lyra. 6 Zeus. Faber. 7 Xiphias. 8 Scomber Scombrus. 9 Trigla Gurnardus 10 Maullus. 11 Perca. 12 See above, pp. 57—66. FISHES. 399 of the excrement which, when in danger, it emits, and which remains for a time near it, detained by the slime which exudes from its pores. ‘This is so abundant that Kalm, having put one in a large tub of sea water, it became like a clear transpa- rent glue, from which he could draw threads, even moving the animal with them. A second water, upon its being again immersed, in a quarter of an hour, became the same. Sir E. Home was of opinion that these animals are hermaphrodites. Amongst all the diversified faculties, powers, and organs, with which Supreme Wisdom has gifted the members of the animal kingdom to defend themselves from their enemies, or to secure for themselves a due supply of food, none are more remarkable than those by which they can give them an elec- tric shock, and arrest them in their course, whether they are assailants or fugitives. That God should arm certain fishes, in some sense, with the lightning of the clouds, and enable them thus to employ an element so potent and irresistible, as we do gunpowder, to astound, and smite, and stupify, and kill the inhabitants of the waters, is one of those wonders of an Al- mighty arm which no terrestrial animal is gifted to exhibit. For though some quadrupeds, as the cat, are known, at certain times, to accumulate the electric fluid in their fur, so as to give a slight shock to the hand that strokes them, it has never been clearly ascertained that they can employ it to arrest or bewilder their prey, so as to prevent their escape. Even man himself, though he can charge his batteries with this element, and again discharge them, has not yet so subjected it to his domin- ion, as to use it independently of other substances, offensively and defensively, as the electric fishes do. The fishes hitherto ascertained to possess this power belong to the genera Tetrodon, Trichiurus, Malapterurus, Gymnotus,* and Raia.* The most remarkable are the three last. The faculty of the Torpedo to benumb its prey was known to Aristotle,* and Pliny further states,* that conscious of its power, it hides itself in the mud, and benumbs the unsuspecting fishes that swim over it. The Arabians, when they cultivated the sciences so successfully, had observed this faculty both in the Torpedo and the Malapterurus, and perceiving an affinity be- tween the electric fluid of the heavens and that of these fishes, called them Raash, a name signifying thunder. 1 The trivial name of the first four of these species is electricus. 2 R. Torpedo. 3 Hist. An. l. ix. c. 37. A Hist. Nat. 1. ix.c. 42. ; , 400 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. The electric organ in the Malapterurust extends all round the animal, immediately under the skin, and is formed of a mass of cellular tissue, so condensed and thick as, at first, to look like bacon; closely examined, it is found to consist of tendinous fibres, which are interlaced together, so as to form a net work, the cells of which are filled with a gelatino-albuminous sub- stance, the whole accompanied by a nervous system, differing from that of the Torpedo and Electric-eel, and similar to that of other fishes.? This organ is divided into two portions by a longitudinal septum. The Torpedo is the most celebrated of the electric fishes. In this the organ of its power extends, on each side, from the head and gills to the abdomen, in which space it fills all the interior ofthe body. Each organ is attached to the parts that surround it, by a cellular membrane and by tendinous fibres. Under the skin which covers the upper part of these organs, are two bands, one above the other, the upper one consisting of longitudinal fibres, and the lower of transverse ones. ‘The latter continues itself in the organ by means of a great number of membranous elongations, which form many-sided vertica! bodies, or hollow polygonal tubes, some hexagonal, others pentagonal, and others quadrangular; each of these tubes is divided, internally, by a fine membrane into several dissepiments, connected by blood- vessels. In each of the organs, from two hundred to twelve hundred of these tubes have been counted in individuals of different age and size, some regular but others irregular, which may form electric batteries. Each organ is also traversed by arteries, veins, and nerves, in every direction, which last are remarkable for their size. The tubes, like those above men- tioned, are also found in the non-electric Rays, but these ter- minate in pores without the skin, which are so many excretory organs of the matter contained in their interior; in the Torpedo, on the contrary, the tubes are completely closed, not only by the skin which is no where perforated, but farther by the apon- euroses, or tendinous expansions of the muscles, which extend all over the electric organ; the gelatinous matter not being able to expand itself externally, is forced to accumulate in these tubes, from whence doubtless arises their size and their pro- gressive numerical increase. The two surfaces of the electric organ are supposed to be one positive and the other negative. Reaumur observed that the back of the animal is rather con- vex, but when about to strike its convexity diminishes, and it becomes concave, but after the stroke it resumes its convexity. 1 Stlurus. -L. 2 Geoff. St. Hil. Ann. du Mus. i. 402. FISHES. 401 These organs not only affect the animals upon which they act, by an agency imperceptible to the eye, but they are also stated to emit sparks; and they can strike at some distance, as well as by immediate contact. The author last named put a torpedo and a duck into a vessel filled with sea water, and covered it to prevent the escape of the latter, which, after about three hours, was found dead. These wonderful and complex organs, and their many-phialed batteries, the effect of which has at- tracted the notice of scientific men for so long a period, were doubtless given to these animals by their Creator, in lieu of the offensive and defensive arms which enable the rest of their tribe to act the part assigned to them, that they might procure the means of subsistence, and to defend themselves when in danger. Almost always concealed in the mud, like most of the rays, they can by this weapon kill the small fishes that come within the sphere of their action, or benumb the large ones; if they are in danger of attack from any voracious fish, they can disable him by invisible blows, more to be dreaded than the teeth of the shark itself. The Gymnotus, or electric eel, is a still more tremendous as- sailant, both of the inhabitants of its own element, and even of large quadrupeds, and of man himself if he puts himself in its way. Its force is said to be ten times greater than that of the torpedo. This animal is a native of South America. In the immense plains of the Llanos, in the province of Caraccas, is a city called Calabozo, in the vicinity of which these eels abound in small streams, insomuch that a road formerly much _ frequented was abandoned on account of them, it being neces- sary to cross a rivulet in which many mules were annually lost in consequence of their attack. They are also extremely com- mon in every pond from the equator to the 9th degree of north latitude. Contrary to what takes place in the torpedo, the electric organs of the Gymnotus are placed under the tail, in a place removed from the vital ones. It has four of these organs, two large and two small, which occupy a third of the whole fish: each of the larger organs extends from the abdomen to the tail ; they are separated from each other above by the dorsal mus- cles, in the middle of the body by the natatory vesicle, and below by a particular septum. The small organs lie over the great ones, finishing almost at the same point; they are pyra- midal, and separated from the others by membrane. The in- terior of all these organs presents a great number of horizontal septa, cut at right angles by others nearly vertical. John Hunter counted thirty-four in one of the great organs, and 3A 402 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. fourteen in ove of the small ones, in the same individual. The vertical septa are membranous, and so close to each other that they appear to touch. It is by this vast quadruple apparatus, which sometimes in these animals is calculated to equal one hundred and twenty-three square feet of surface, that they can give such violent shocks. Mr Nicholson thought that the Gymnotus could act as a battery of 1,125 square feet. Hum- boldt says that its galvanic electricity produces a sensation which might be called specifically different from that which the conductor of an electric machine, or the Leyden phial, or the pile of Volta, cause. From placing his two feet on one of these fishes just taken out of the water, he received a shock more violent and alarming than he ever experienced from the discharge of a large Leyden jar; and for the rest of the day he felt an acute pain in his knees, and almost all his joints. Such a shock, he thinks, if the animal passed over the breast and the abdomen, might be mortal. It is stated that when the animal is touched with only one hand the shock is very slight; but when two hands are applied at a sufficient distance, a shock is sometimes given so powerful as to affect the arms witha paralysis for many years. It is said that females, under the influence of a nervous fever, are not affected. Humboldt gives a very spirited account of the manner of tak- ing this animal, which is done by compelling twenty or thirty wild horses and mules to take the water. The Indians sur- round the basin into which they are driven, armed with long canes, or harpoons; some mount the trees whose branches hang over the water, all endeavouring by their cries and instruments to keep the horses from escaping: for a long time the victory seems doubtful, or to incline to the fishes. The mules, disabled by the frequency and force of the shocks, disappear under the water; and some horses, in spite of the active vigilance of the Indians, gain the banks, and overcome by fatigue, and be- numbed by the shocks they have encountered, stretch them- selves at their length on the ground. There could not, says Humboldt, be a finer subject for a painter: groups of Indians surrounding the basin; the horses, with their hair on end, and terror and agony in their eyes, endeavouring to escape the tem- pest that has overtaken them; the eels, yellowish and livid, looking like great aquatic serpents, swimming on the surface of the water in pursuit of their enemy. In a few minutes two horses were already drowned: the eel, more than five feet long, gliding under the belly of the horse or mule, made a discharge of its electric battery on the whole extent, attacking at the same instant the heart and the FISHES. 403 viscera. The animals, stupified by these repeated shocks, fall into a profound lethargy, and, deprived of all sense, sink under the water, when the other horses and mules passing over their bodies, they are soon drowned. The Gymnoti having thus discharged their accumulation of the electric fluid, now become harmless, and are no longer dreaded: swimming half out of the water, they flee from the hosses instead of attacking them ; and if they enter it the day after the battle, they are not.mo- lested, for these fishes require repose and plenty of food to enable them to accumulate a sufficient supply of their galvanic electricity. It is probable that they can act at a distance, and that their electric shock can be communicated through a thick mass of water. Mr Williams, at Philadelphia, and Mr Fahl- berg, at Stockholm, have both seen them kill from far living fishes which they wished to devour: Lacepede says they can do this at the distance of sixteen feet. They are said also to emit sparks. Of all the Gymnoti the electric is the only species in which the natatory vesicle extends from the head to the tail; it is in that species of the extraordinary length of two feet five inches, and one inch and two lines wide, but the diameter diminishes greatly towards the tail: it reposes upon the electric organs. It has been asserted that this fish is attracted by the loadstone, and that by contact with it it is deprived of its torporific powers. + It is singular that in the three principal animals which Pro- vidence has signalized by this wonderful property, the organs of it should differ so much, both in their number, situation, and other circumstances; but as there appears to be little other connection between them, it was doubtless to accommodate them to the mode of life and general organization of the fishes so privileged. There is another little fish, of a very different tribe, which emulates the electric ones, in bringing its prey within its reach, by discharging a grosser element at them. It belongs to a genus,” the species of which are remarkable for the singularity of their forms, the brilliancy of their colours, and the vivacity of their movements. The species I allude to* may be called the fly-shooter, from its food being principally flies, and other insects, especially those that frequent aquatic plants and places. 1 The authors from whom my information on the electric fishes is chiefly derived are, Rudolphi, 4natomische Bemerkungen, &c. 1826; Geoffroy, Ann. du Mas. i.; Lacepede, Hist. des Poissons ; Humboldt, Observations de Zoolo- gie et d’ Anatomie comparée ; and Bosc, in N. D. D’ Hist. Nat. xii. xiv. xxiv. 2 Chetodon. 3 C. rostratus. 404 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. These, as Sir C. Bell relates,* it, as it were, shoots with a drop of water. In a former part of this treatise I have given an account of those American fishes, which, when the water fails them in the streams they inhabit, by means of a movable organ, repre- senting the first ray of their pectoral fin,? are enabled to travel over land in search of one whose waters are not evaporated. An analogous fact has been observed in China, by a friend and connexion of mine,? who paid particular attention to every branch of zoology when in the East. At Canton he informed me there is a fish that crosses the paddy fields from one creek to another, often a quarter of a mile asunder. The Chinese told him that this was done by means of a kind of leg. I shall close this history of Fishes with some account of the tribe to which the fishing-frog* belongs. I have before alluded to their connection with the Reptiles ;° in some points also they look to the rays and the sharks. The attenuated tail of all,® and the enormous swallow of others,’ give them this resem- blance, especially to the first, so that the French call them fisf- ing-rays.® ‘The best known of them is that called, by way of eminence, the fishing-frog. This is a large fish, sometimes seven feet long; itis found in all the European seas, and is often called the sea-devil. ‘‘'This fish,” says Lacepede, ‘* hav- ing neither defensive arms in its integuments, nor force in its limbs, nor celerity in swimming, is, in spite of its bulk, con- strained to have recourse to stratagem to procure its subsist- ence, and to confine its chase to ambuscades, for which its conformation in other respects adapts it. It plunges itself in the mud, covers itself with sea-weed, conceals itself amongst the stones, and lets no part of it be perceived but the extremity of the filaments that fringe its body, which it agitates in dif- ferent directions, so as to make them appear like worms or other baits. The fishes, attracted by this apparent prey, ap- proach, and are absorbed by a single movement of the fishing- frog, and swallowed by his enormous throat, where they are retained by the innumerable teeth with which it is armed. Another animal of this tribe is furnished only with a single bait, just above the mouth.® We see by this singular contrivance that fertility of expedi- 1B. T. 200. . 2 Prare XII. Fre. 2. 3 Robert Martin, Esq. F.Z.S. 4 Lophius Piscator. 5 See above, p. 395. 6 Prare XIE. Fre. 1, 3. 7 Ibid. Fic 3. 8 Raie pécheresse. 9 Malthus Vespertilio, Puarr XU. Fie. 1, 2, a. FISHES. 405 ent by which the Beneficence, and Wisdom, and Power of the Creator have remedied the seeming defects which appear inci- dent to almost every animal form. If it cannot pursue and overtake and seize its prey, it is enabled, as in the case of the electric fishes, the fly-shooter, and the fishing -frogs, in a way we should not expect, to ensure its subsistence; and, while it is doing this, discharging, if I may so speak, its official duty, and acting that part, on its own theatre, by which it best contri- butes to the general welfare. Doubtless the infinite forms of the Class we are considering, that inhabit the, so called, element of water, and of which pro- bably we may still be unacquainted with a very large propor- tion, all bear the same relation to each other, and- are organ- ized with a view to a similar action upon each other, that we see takes place upon the earth. There are predaceous fishes to keep the aquatic population of every description within due limits; there are others whose office it is to remove nuisances arising from putrescent substances, whether animal or vegeta- ble; and lastly, there are others which, like our herds and flocks, are peaceful and gregarious, and graze the herbage of sea-weeds that cover the ocean’s bed. All these, in their sev- eral stations, and by their several operations, glovify their Al- mighty Author by fulfilling his will. CHAPTER XXII. Functions and Instincts. Reptiles. in the whole sphere of animals, there are none, that, from the earliest ages, have been more abhorred and abominated, and more repudiated as unclean and hateful creatures, than the majority of the Class we are next to enter upon,—that of Rep- tiles. One Order*‘of them, indeed, consisting of the turtles and tortoises, and some individuals belonging to another,’ are exempted from this sentence, and are regarded with more fa- vourable eyes ; but the rest either disgust us by their aspect, or terrify us by their supposed or real power of injury. In Scripture, the serpent; the larger Saurians, under the names of the dragon and leviathan; and frogs are employed as symbols of the evil spirit, of tyrants and persecutors, and of the false prophets that incite them.® Yet these animals exhibit several extraordinary characters and qualities. They are endued with a degree of vivaciousness that no others possess: they can endure dismemberments and privations which would expel the vital principle from any crea- ture in existence except themselves. Their life is not so con- centrated in the brain, which with them is extremely minute, but seems more expanded over the whole of their nervous sys- tem: take out their brain or their heart, and cut off their head, yet they can still move, and the heart will even beat many hours after extraction ; it is also stated that they can live with- out food for months, and even years.* But though gifted by their Creator with such a tenacity of life, yet is that life often raised a very few degrees above death. Many of them select for their retreats damp and gloomy cav- erns and vaults, shut out from the access of the light and air. In allusion to this circumstance, Babylon, the imperial city, she, who in ancient times subjected the eastern world to her 1 The Chelonians. 2 The Gecko, Monitor, Chameleon, &c. amongst the Saurians. 3 Job, xli. 34; Psl. xxvii. 1; Ezek. xxv. 3; Rev. xx. 2, xvi. 13. 4 Cuv. Regn. An. ii. 1.8. Lacep. Quad. Ovipar. i. 20. REPTILES. 407 domination, was forewarned that she should become heaps, and a dwelling-place for dragons.* Whether the many instances that have been recorded in different countries, of toads found incarcerated alive in blocks of stone or marble, or in trunks of trees, are all to be accounted for by supposing a want of accurate observation of the con- comitant circumstances in those that witnessed their discovery, I will not take upon me to say; but they are so numerous, as to leave some doubt upon the mind whether some of these creatures may not have been accidentally interred alive, as it were, when in a torpid state, and continued so, till, their grave being opened, and the air admitted to their lungs again, their vital functions have been resumed, to the astonishment of those who witnessed the seeming miracle. Though so given to withdraw themselves into dark and dismal retreats, yet many of them are fond also of basking in the sun-beam, particularly the serpents and the lizards. Zoologists seem not even yet fully to have made up their minds with regard to the classification of Reptiles. Linné placed them in the same Class? with the Cartilaginous Fishes, of which they form his first and second Orders ; but subsequent zoologists, with great propriety, have generally considered them as forming a Class by themselves, under their primeval name of Reptiles. This Class M. Brongniart divided into four Or- ders, viz. Chelonians, Saurians, Ophidians, and Batrachians : and Baron Cuvier has followed this arrangement in his Regne Animal. Latreille, adopting the Group, has divided it into two Classes, Reptiles and Amphibians. The Reptiles he considers as forming two Sub-classes, viz. Cataphracta, containing the Chelonians, and Crocodiles, and Squamosa, containing the re- maining Saurians and the Ophidians. His second Class, the Amphibians, consisting of the Batrachians of Brongniart, with the addition of the Proteus, Siren, &c. he divides into two Tribes, viz. Caducibranchia, or the proper Batrachians, and Pe- rennibranchia,-or the Proteus, Siren, Axolot, &c. This classifi- cation is adopted by Dr Grant,* except that he does not sub- divide the Reptiles into two Sub-classes; and Latreille’s two Tribes of Amphibians he properly denominates Orders. That Reptiles, in the larger sense of the term, form a na- tural Group, will be generally admitted, when it is considered that the salamanders, or naked efts, evidently connect the Ba- trachians with the Saurians, and were formerly considered as 1 Jerem. li. 37. 2 Amphibia. 3 Outlines of a Course of Lectures, &c. 14—16. EN ————eaaEaEaEeEeEeEEeEeEeEeEeEeeEeEeeEeeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEEOEeeeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeeeaEeaeSe=EEEEe—_OEOEeeEeEeEeEeEeEe_eeeee 408 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. a kind of lizard ; it seems to me therefore more consistent with nature to consider the Reptiles as forming a single Class. This opinion has received strong confirmation from a cir- cumstance communicated to me by my kind friend Mr Owen, well known as one of our most eminent comparative anatomists. In a letter received from him, since I wrote the preceding para- graph, in reply to some queries I had addressed to him, he says,—‘I lose no time in replying to your very welcome let- ter, because I have a statement to make which justifies your disinclination to regard the Reptilia of Cuvier as including two distinct Classes. Not any of the Batrachia have a single auri- cle; for though the venous division of the heart has a simple exterior, it is in reality divided internally into two separate auricles, receiving respectively, the one, the carbonized blood of the general system, the other and smaller, the aérated, or vital, blood from the lungs. This I have found to be the case successively in the frog and toad, the salamader and newt, and lastly, in the lowest of the true Amphibia, the Siren lacer- tina, which in its persistent external branchiz comes nearest, I apprehend, to the Fishes.” By this statement it appears that those characters, which have been deemed sufficient to warrant the division of the Reptiles into two distinct Classes, exist only in appearance. I shall consider them therefore as forming only one, of which the following seem to constitute the principal diagnostics. Reptitia. (Reptiles.) Animal, vertebrated, oviparous, or ovoviviparous. Eggs, hatched without incubation. Heart, really biauriculate, though in some the auricles are not externally divided. Blood, red, partially oxygenated, cold. Brain, very small ; vitality, in some degree, independent of wi Integument, various. As the two Orders into which the Batrachians of Cuvier are divided by Dr Grant, differ from the rest of the Class not only in their respiratory organs, but also in other important particu- lars, indicating that they forma group of greater value than the other three Cuverian Orders, I shall therefore consider the Class of Reptiles as further divided into two Sub-classes, which I propose to denominate, from the difference of their integu- ment, Malacoderma and Scleroderma. Sub-class 1.—Reptilia Malacoderma. (Soft-coated Reptiles. ) REPTILES. 409 Heart, with two auricles, externally simple, but internally di- vided. Integument, soft, naked. Eggs, impregnated, after ex- trusion. This Sub-class consists of the two Orders called, by Latreille and Dr Grant, as above stated, Caducibranchia and Perenni- branchia ; but considering the Reptiles as forming a single Class, for the sake of concinnity of nomenclature, [ think it wouid be better to restore to the first their old name of Batra- chians ; and, as the animals that form the second, as Cuvier observes, are the only true Amphibians,’ to distinguish them by the name that strictly belongs to them alone. Sub-class 2.—Reptilia Scleroderma. (Hard-coated Reptiles.) Heart, with two auricles. Integument, hard, often scaly. Eggs, impregnated before extrusion. ORDERS. Sup-cxass 1. Sus-ciass 2. 1. Amphibians. 3. Ophidians. 2. Batrachians. 4. Saurians. 2. Chelonians. : Order 1.—Amphibians. (Siren, Proteus, Axolot, &c.) Respiration, double, by gills in the water, and by pulmonary sacs in the air. Gills, permanent. Legs, 2—4, Order 2.—Batrachians. (Amphiuma, Triton or Water-newt, Salamander, Toad, Frog, &c.) Respiration, at first by gills, and afterwards by lungs. Gills, temporary. Ribs, rudimental. Legs, four. Undergoes a me- tamorphosis. Order 3.—Ophidians. (Snakes and Serpenis.) Body, covered with scales, without legs. Ribs, movable. Mouth, armed with teeth. Cast their skin. Order 4.—Saurians. (Two-footed and four-footed Lizards, of various kinds ; Crocodiles, Alligators, &c.) Body, covered with scales, or scaly grains, terminating in a tail. Ribs, movable ; mouth, armed with teeth. Legs, 2—4. Order 5.—Chelonians. (Turtles and Tortoises.) Body, protected above by a carapace, or shield, formed by the ribs, and below by a plastron, or dilated sternum. Mouth, without teeth. Mandibles, rostriform. Legs or paddles, four. Though the Malacoderm, or soft-coated Reptiles, appear the 1 Régne Anim. ii. 117. 3B 410 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. legitimate successors of the Fishes, yet there are some others in the higher Orders that seem to lead off towards them also, for the Ophidians and Apod fishes evidently tend towards each other. The Cecilia, or blind serpent, too, is almost uniauricu- late, and has only some transverse rows of scales between the wrinkles of its skin.* From this statement, it seems that the Class of Reptiles is connected with the Fishes, not by those at the top of the lat- ter Class, but by those at its base ;. with the Osseans by the Apods, and with the Cartilagineans by the Cyclostomes ; so that they may be almost regarded as forming a parallel line with them, instead of succeeding them in the same series. Even the proper Batrachians seem to tend to the Chelonians, while the Salamanders look to the Saurians. The great body of the Class are predaceous, subsisting upon various small animals, especially insects, and some Ophidians upon large ones; but the Chelonians seem principally to derive their nutriment from marine and other vegetables, though some of these will devour Molluscans, worms, and small reptiles: the Trionyx ferox will attack and master even aquatic birds. Cuvier says, after Catesby, that the common Iguana subsists upon fruit, grain, and leaves. Bosc states that it lives princi- pally upon insects ; and that it often descends from the trees after earth-worms and small reptiles, which it swallows whole.* Order 1.—The Siren, or Mud-iguana, occupies the first place in this Order, and seems to connect with the Apod and Cyclos- tomous Fishes, from which it is distinguished by its gills in three tufts, and by having only one pair of legs. It appears to be an animal useful to man, since it is stated to frequent marshes, in Carolina, in which rice is cultivated, where it sub- sists upon earth-wormis, insects, and other similar noxious crea~ tures. But of all the animals which God hath created to work his will, as far as they are known to us, none is more remarkable, both for its situation and many of its characters, than one to which I have before adverted,* as affording some proof, that the waters under the earth, and other subterranean cavities, may have their peculiar population. The animal [ allude to is the Proteus, belonging to the present Order, which was first found thrown up by subterranean waters in Carniola, as we are in- formed by the late Sir H. Davy,* by Baron Zéis. Sir Hum- 1 Régne Anim. ii. 99. 2 Regn. An. ii 44. MN. D. DH. N. xvi. 113. 3 See above, p. 19. 4 Consolat. in Trav, 187. REPTILES.’ All phry himself appears to have found them in the Grotto of the Maddalena, at Adelsburg, several hundred feet below the sur- face of the earth; he also states that they have been found at Sittich, thirty miles distant, and he supposes that those found in both places might be thrown up by the same subterranean lake.* In the year 1833 there were two living specimens in the museum of the Zoological Society, where I had the plea- sure of seeing them; and from one of them the accurate figure at the end of this volume,’ by the kind permission of the So- ciety, was taken by Mr C. M. Curtis. When we look at these animals, there is something so dif- ferent in their general aspect from the tribes to which they are most nearly related, that the idea strikes one that we are view- ing beings far removed from those that inhabit the surface of our globe, and its waters; which, though accidentally visiting these upper regions, may be the outsetters of a population still further removed from our notice, and dipping deeper into its interior. The Proteus is about a foot in length, or something more, and about an inch in thickness ; the body is cylindrical, taper- ing to the tail; its colour is a pale red; its skin is transparent and slimy, so as easily to elude the grasp. It has four short slender legs, the anterior pair placed just behind the head, having three, and the posterior pair, which are shorter, and placed just before the vent, having only two toes without claws. The head terminates in a flat, very obtuse muzzle, somewhat resembling the beak of a duck; its maxille are armed with teeth ; the eyes are extremely minute, and scarcely discernible ; they are concealed, and apparently rendered useless by an opaque skin; but as this animal is said to avoid the light, it is evident that it produces some effect upon them; behind the head, on each side, is an opening like those of fishes, over which are the gills, divided into several branches.* It has, besides, an internal pneumatic apparatus, consisting of two vesicles, below the heart. The tail fis compressed, furnished above and below with a caudal fin, extending to the posterior legs. Its legs, from their having no claws, are, it is probable, principally useful in walking upon the mud, and by means of its caudal fin it can move like an ell or fish in the water. From a small shell-fish being found in the stomach of one, it seems to follow that its food, at least in part, consists of Mol- luscans inhabiting the. same subterranean caves and waters 1 Consolat. in Trav. 183—188. 2 Prats XIV. Fie. 1. 3 Prater XIV. Fic. 1, a. i i ; : ; : | + 412 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. with itself, and probably distinct from any of those to which the atmosphere has free access. Sometimes, elevating its head above the water, it makes a hissing noise louder than could be expected from so small an animal. Before quitting this subject, | may observe that Baron Hum- boldt has given an account of a wonderful eruption of subter- ranean fishes, which sometimes takes place from the volcanoes of the kingdom of Quito. These fishes are ejected in the inter- vals of the igneous eruptions, in such quantities as to occasion putrid fevers by the miasmata they produce: they sometimes issued from the crater of the valcano, and sometimes from lateral clefts, but constantly at the elevation of between two and three thousand toises above the level of the sea. In a few hours, millions are seen to descend from Cotopaxi, with great masses of cold and fresh water. As they do not appear to be disfigured or mutilated, they cannot be exposed to the action of great heat. Humboldt thought they were identical with fishes that were found in the rivulets at the foot of the volcanoes. These fishes belong to a genus separated from Silurus.* Order 2.—This Order begins with two genera, the species of which have been supposed to breathe by lungs only, no traces of gills having yet been discovered in any individual belonging to them. Cuvier thinks that they cast them sooner than the salamanders. One of these is a large animal,* being more than a yard in length; it was discovered by Dr Garden, in South Carolina: like the Proteus, its eyes are covered with a thick tunic, and its toes’ have no claws. The other,® found in New York, comes near the salamanders, and has been called by American writers the giant salamander. Both are found in fresh-water lakes, and similar places. I have mentioned, on a former occasion, a salamander that lays her eggs singly on the leaves of Persicaria, which she doubles down over them,* and which are kept folded by means of the glue that envelopes the egg. Dr Rusconi, to whom we are indebted for this history, observed the whole progress and development of this animal, from its embryo state in the egg. It is at first opaque, formed of a soft homogeneous substance. Almost as soon as it has escaped from its envelope, it becomes gradually transparent, sq that the successive developments, both of itsinternal and external organs, may be discerned—the heart, and its systole and diastole; the stomach, its form and 1 Pimelodus. Humboldt names the species in question P. Cyclopum. Zool, 22. 2 Amphiwma means. 3 Menopoma. 4 See above, p. 329. REPTILES. 413 position ; the intestinal canal, which at first extends in a straight line, from one end of the abdomen to the other, and then be- gins to undulate, and ends by forming many convolutions: next may be seen the liver, the development of which keeps pace with that of the stomach and intestines; and lastly appear the lungs, taking their place and form, always filled with air, and so transparent that one might believe the animal has on each side of the trunk a bubble of air gradually dilating and lengthening. When all these organs have acquired the ne- cessary development, the spectator beholds in the little creature the beginning, as it were, of its animal life. Its former life being merely organic, resembling that of a vegetable, but now its motions are become the result of its sensations and will.* We see in this instance how exactly the rudiments, as it were, of the organs of the future animal, are fitted to respond to the action of the elements upon them, how the germ of every organ begins, if I may so speak, to vegetafe, and grows till it is fully developed, so as to become either a fit instrument of the will or of the vital powers, and adapted to carry the crea- ture through all its destined operations, and to enable and incline it to fulfil all its prescribed functions. These obser- vations, and this interesting little history, will apply to man himself, who, in his embryo state, is the subject of similar developments ; and the words of the divine Psalmist, are a beautiful comment upon this our embryo life: For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect ; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” The salamander, as is reported, says Aristotle, if it goes through fire extinguishes it:* this is repeated by Pliny, who adds, that it extinguishes it likeice. It never appears, he fur- ther observes, except in showery weather, and likewise that it emits a milky saliva, which is’depilatory.* Salamanders, says Bosc, emit from their skin a lubricating white fluid when they are annoyed, and if they are put into the fire, it sometimes happens that this fluid extinguishes it sufficiently to permit their escape; and again—when one touches the terrestrial 1 Rusconi, in Edinb. Philos. Journ. ix. 110—113, on Salamandra platy- cauda. 2 Ps. cxxxix. 13—16. 3 Hist. An. lib, v. chap. 19. 4 Hist. Nat. 1. x. 67. 414 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. salamander, it causes to transude from its skin a white fluid, which it secretes more copiously than its congeners. This kind of milk is extremely acrid, and produces a very painful sensa- tion upon the tongue. According to Gesner, it is an excellent depilatory. It is sometimes spirted out to the distance of sev- eral inches, as Latreille has observed, and diffuses a particu- larly nauseous scent; it poisons small animals, but does not appear to produce serious eflects upon large ones. * I have introduced these ancient and modern statements to show how little they differ, and in confirmation of the truth of them I have a remarkable occurrence to relate, which I give upon the authority of three ladies who witnessed the fact, and upon whose accuracy Icanrely. ‘They were residing at New- bury, where their cellars were frequented by frogs, and a kind of newt, or salamander, of a dull black colour. Several of the frogs were caught one day, and put into a pail; and while the ladies were lookin& at them they were surprised by observing the frogs one after another turn themselves on their backs, and lie with their legs extended quite stiffand dead. Upon exam- ining the pail they found one of these efts, as they called them, running round very quickly amongst the frogs, each of which, when touched by it, died instantaneously, in the manner above stated. They afterwards regarded these efts, as may be sup- posed, with nearly as inuch horror as they would a rattlesnake ; and a few nights afterwards, finding one in the kitchen, it was seized with the tongs, and thrown into a good fire which was burning in the grate. The reptile, instead of perishing, slipped like lightning through the coals, and ran away under the fire- place apparently unhurt. The house, in which these animals were found, was in a remarkably damp situation. If our northern salamanders are gifted with such powerful means of offence or defence, we know not how far those powers may be sublimed in the species of warmer climates; and the fire-quenching and death-doing properties of the Grecian or Roman salamanders may approach nearer to the, supposed, fabulous descriptions of Aristotle and Pliny, than modern Her- petologists seem willing to believe. There appears no small analogy between these properties considered as weapons, and means by which these animals either secure their prey, consisting of earth-worms, insects, and other small game, or disarm and destroy their enemies, and thee related in the Jast chapter, which distinguish the electric fishes. 1 WN. D. DH, N. xxx. 58, 59. REPTILES. 415 Spallanzani, by numerous experiments, has discovered in this tribe of animals, the power of reproducing lost or mutilated organs; Bonnet and others have confirmed his observations. So that it seems proved, if their legs and tail are cut off, and even their eyes plucked out, that in a few months they will be reproduced ; and even a limb thus renewed, if again cut off, will be reproduced again. In going upwards from the salamanders, at first sight, we feel disposed to proceed next to the other animals of a similar form, the lizards and other Saurians, for this way their exter- nal form leads us, but their internal organization is nearer that of the frogs and toads. Upon these last I shall not dwell: all know that they begin life in the water like fishes; that they are at first without legs, or any instrument of motion but a tail, which by its undulations from side to side steers the apparently disproportioned body to which it is appended, and makes its way with rapidity through its native element. Few are igno- rant that they first acquire a single pair of legs; and lastly, that another pair being also acquired, they leave the water by myriads, and appear, without a tail, as four-footed, and, at cer- tain times, noisy reptiles. Order 3.—The general function of the Ophidians seems con- nected with almost the whole animal kingdom. The insects, frogs, and other reptiles, several birds and beasts, up as high as the ruminant and even the carnivorous tribes, become the prey of various species. They act the same part with land animals, that their analogues, the eels and other apod and cyclostomous fishes do with respect to those of the water. Some are analogues of the lion and the tiger, as the Oriental Python and the Occidental Boa, which sometimes exceed thirty feet in length, and are as thick as a man’s body ; while others compete with the minor predaceous beasts in the destruction they occasion amongst the lesser quadrupeds. But while the predaceous quadrupeds, with the exception of the Hyena, leave untouched the skeleton of the animals they devour, the Ophi- dians swallow the entire animal, flesh and bone and skin, and thus completely remove it from the face of nature ; whereas the others, where they abound and are unmolested, make their domain like a charnel] house, and deform the earth with the ghastly relics of their cruelty and voracity. The mechanism of the mouth of these animals is so con- trived by Divine Wisdom, and the pieces that form it so put together, as to enable them to twist and distort and dilate it so enormously that they can swallow animals bigger than their ‘ OO 416 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. own bodies.1. The vertebrae of the great Boa are more nume- rous than those of other serpents, which gives them a greater power of surrounding and strangling their prey with their dreadful voluminous folds, of crushing it, and, with the help of their saliva, rendering it fit for deglutition. With their tail, likewise, they can lay strong hold of a tree, so as to use it as a fulcrum, by which their powers of compression are increased and rendered more available where they have to contend with the struggles of powerful animals. Order 4.—The connection of the Saurians, or the animals forming the next Order with the Ophidians, is very intimate. Cuvier says that many serpents under the skin have the ves- tige of a posterior limb, which in some shows its extremity ex- ternally, in the form of a little claw.? Amongst the lizards is one that has only two fore-legs,’ and another that has only two - hind ones ;* and a third,® in which the legs are so short and so distant, and the body so slender and serpentiform, that they resemble a snake with four legs rather than a lizard. This Order is divided into numerous genera and sub-genera. One of the most celebrated isthe Chameleon. I have already noticed some of its peculiarities, and its mode of catching the insects that form its food. The ancients were of opinion that it lived upon air, led by the power it has of swelling itself to twice its natural size, by inflating its vast lungs, when its body becomes transparent. Cuvier is of opinion that it is the size of the lungs of these animals that enables them to change their colour, not in order to assume that of the bodies on which they happen to be, but to express their wants and passions. He supposes that the blood, being constrained to approach the skin, more or less, assumes different shades, according to the degree of transparency.” The Rev. L. Guilding, however, mentions another genus,® the species of which, when in search of prey, adapt their colour to the green tree or dark brown rock on which they lie in ambush.® As these animals have the power of inflation, at least partially, by assuming a degree of transparency, they may appear of the colour of the substance they are standing upon, a remark which may also apply to the Chameleon. The object of this may be to conceal them- selves from their enemies, as well as from their prey. 1 Cuv. Anat. Comp. iii. 90. 2 Réegne Anim. ii. 71. 3 Chirotes. . 4 Bipes. 5 Seps. See Roget, B. T. i, 448, f. 210. 6 See above, p. 290. 7 Régne Anim. ii. 59. 8 Anolis. 9 Zool. Journ. iv. 165. REPTILES. AI7 The Guanas,' also, are said to change their colour; they are remarkable, as well as the Anolis, for the kind of goitre in their throat, which when irritated or excited they can inflate to a large size. These animals, though their flesh is said to be unwholesome, in the countries they frequent are highly prized for the table, and are often hunted with dogs. Their eggs also are in request. The Monitors, or safeguards, as the French call some of them, deserve notice, because one species? is said to assist in the diminution of the crocodile, since, like the ichneumon, it de- vours its eggs, and even the young ones, on which account it is supposed to be sculptured on the monuments of the ancient Egyptians. This name was given them because they were believed to warn people, by hissing, of the approach of the cro- codile, or venomous reptiles. But the most celebrated of the Saurians, from the earliest ages, is the Crocodile: its history, however, is so well known that I shall only mention a few circumstances, of less noto- riety, connected with it. There has been some difference of opinion as to whether the crocodile can move the upper or lower jaw. Aristotle observes, all animals move the lower jaw, except the crocodile of the river, for this animal only moves the upper.* Denon says the same.* Lacepede, on the contrary, affirms that the lower jaw is the only movable one.*® [ was assured by Mr Cross, when looking at two alligators in his menagerie, then at Charing-cross, that they moved both their jaws; and my friend Mr Martin has observed the same thing in India. M. Geoffroy St Hilaire and Baron Cuvier neatly recencile the two opinions. The head, says the former, moves on the lower jaw like the lid of a snuff-box, that opens by a hinge. By this mechanism they can elevate their nos- trils above the water, which they do with great rapidity for concealment :° and the latter observes, that the upper jaw moves only with the whole head.”? So that the fact seems to be that the lower jaw alone has motion independent of the head, and the upper one can only move with it: but when we consider that the lower one extends beyond the skull, a condyle of which acts in an acetabulum of that jaw, we can easily comprehend that the upper jaw and head forming one piece, may be elevated at any angle, according to the will of the ani- 1 Iguana vulgaris. 2 M. niloticus. 3 Hist. An. lib. i. c. 11. 4 Voyage, &c. i. 185. 5 Mist. Ov. 194. 6 An. du Mus. x. 376. 7 Regn. An. ii. 18. 3c ' 2 reer, eee ree rl rT Ol 418 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. mal; and thus the upper one acquires additional power of ac- tion in attacking its prey in the water and securing it. The nostrils of this animal are at the end of the muzzle, and this structure enables it, by causing the upper jaw to emerge a little, which, as the crocodile cannot remain under water more than ten minutes, enables it to breathe without exposing itself to observation. When on shore it turns itself to the point from which the wind blows, keeping its mouth open. Adanson relates that he once saw in the Senegal more than two hundred of these river monsters swimming together, with their heads only emerging, and resembling so many trees. Were it not for the number of their enemies, great and small, their increase would be so rapid that they would drive man from the vicinity of the great rivers of the torrid zone. The River-horse* attacks them and destroys many—Behe- moth against Leviathan,—for though the Leviathan of the Psalmist is clearly a marine animal or monster,? that of Job® is as clearly the crocodile,* and they are stated to destroy many of them; even the feline race, in some countries, contrive to make them their prey. Though the scales that cover their back are impervious to a musket ball, those on the belly are softer and more easily penetrated ; and here the saw-fish, and other voracious fishes, find them vulnerable, and so destroy them. The Trionyz, also, a kind of tortoise, devours them as soon as hatched. Their eggs are the prey not only of the ich- neumon and the lizard, before mentioned, but of many kinds of apes; and aquatic birds also devour them, as well as man himself. The crocodile has no lips, so that when he walks or swims with great calmness, he shows his teeth as if he was in a rage. When extreme hunger presses him, he will swallow stones and pieces of wood to keep his stomach distended. The heron and the pelican are said to take advantage of the terror which the sight of the crocodile produces amongst the fishes—caus- ing them to flee on all sides—to seize and devour them: there- fore they are frequently seen in his vicinity. Order 5.—The Chelonians, as far as at present known, seem far removed from the Saurians. The turtles, indeed, in their paddles, exhibit an organ which is common to them, and some of the fossil Saurians, as the Icthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus. Cuvier places the Trionyx next above the crocodiles; but it 1 Hippopotamus. 2 Psl. civ. 26. 3 Chap. xli. 4 See above, p. 16. REPTILES. 419 agrees with them only in its fierceness and voracity, and the number of its claws. The importance of the highest tribe of this Order to seamen in long voyages, is universally known and acknowledged, but otherwise there is nothing particularly interesting in their his- tory, or that of the tortoises. A singular circumstance distinguishes the animals of this Class,—very few of them have teeth formed for mastication. The guana is almost the only one amongst the existing tribes that has them. The Chelonians, which seem almost capable of living without food, have none. The teeth of the preda- ceous tribes are fitted to retain or lacerate their prey, but not to masticate it; so that the function of the great majority ap- pears to be the same with that of the Ophidians before men- tioned, the complete deglutition of the animals their instinct compels them to devour. — Insects, which, of all minor animals, are the most numerous, and require most to be kept in check, form the principal part of the food of a large proportion of them. Creatures also that frequent dark and damp places, and that take shelter under stones and similar substances, seem to be particularly appropriated to them by the will of their Creator. Of this description are slugs, earth-worms, and several others : these, therefore, they have in charge to keep within due limits. And thus, in their doleful retreats and hiding-places, they ful- fil each its individual function, instrumental to the general welfare. CHAPTER XXIII. Functions and Instincts. Birds. WE are now arrived at the highest department of the animal kingdom, the members of which are not only distinguished by a vertebral column, but also by warm red blood, and a more ample brain. This department consists of two great Classes, viz. those that are oviparous, and do not suckle their young; and those that are viviparous, which suckle their young till they are able to provide for themselves. ‘The first of these Classes consists of the Birds, and the last of the Quadrupeds, Whales and Seals, called from the above circumstance Mam- malians. Man, though physically belonging to the latter Class, metaphysically considered, is placed far above the whole animal kingdom, by being made in the image and after the likeness of his Creator, receiving from him immediately a reasonable and immortal soul; and entrusted by him with dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Having, in a former chapter, given some account of those animals, to which the waters of this globe are assigned as their habitation and scene of action, I am now to consider those which their Creator has endowed with a power denied to man, and most of the Mammalians—that of moving to and fro in the air as the fishesdo in the water, which, on that account, though they move also on the earth, are denominated, in the passage just quoted, the fowl of the air. The animals of this great Class are rendered particularly interesting to man, not only because many of them form a portion of his domestic wealth, look to him as their master, and vary most agreeably his food ; but because numbers, also, strike his senses by the eminent beauty and grace of their forms, the brilliancy or variety of the colours of their plumage, and the infinite diversity, according to their kinds, of their motions and modes of flight. But of all their endowments, none is more striking, and ministers more to his pleasure and delight, than their varied song. When the time of the singing birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land, who can be dead “BIRDS. 421 to the goodness which has provided for all such an unbought orchestra, tuning the soul not only to joy, but to mutual good- will ; reviving all the best.and kindliest feelings of our nature, and calming, at least for a time, those that harmonize less with the scene before us. I may here offer a few observations upon the voice of animals, especially birds. A distinction is made by physiologists be- tween a voice and a sound, and none but those that breathe by means of lungs are reckoned to utter a voice; others, whatever their respiratory organs, only emit a sound. The voice also is from the mouth alone, the sound from other parts of the body.? The vocal animals, therefore, are confined to the three last classes of vertebrates—the Reptiles, the Birds, and the Jdam- malians. In most of these, also, the voice partakes, in some degree, of the character of speech; it is intended to indicate to another the wishes, emotions, or sufferings of the utterer. The great organ of the voice is the wind-pipe, or tracheal artery, as it is often called, and its parts, which by its bronchial ramifi- cations is so intimately connected with the lungs as to form part of their substance. Birds, of all animals, are best organized with regard to their _ voice. Besides the upper larynx, or throat, which they have in common with Mammalians, at the base of their wind-pipe, where it divides into two branches, rendering to each lobe of the lungs, it has also another larynx, forming a second vocal apparatus. This is produced by a contraction of the organ furnished with muscular fibres, or vocal strings, which by their various tensions and relaxations, modify greatly the tones of the voice ; ascending also in the tube of the wind-pipe to un- dergo another modification at the upper larynx, which, as it were, adds the tube of the horn to that of the reed. Thus, if the head of a duck is cut off, it can produce sounds by means of its lower throat, if I may so call it, which no quadruped could do. Besides this, birds can, more or less, shorten or lengthen the tube of their wind-pipe, so as to modify the sounds they emit. Though the upper larynx, in birds, has no vibratory vocal strings, as in the Mammalians, to modify the sounds, these modificatians taking place at the lower larynx, still they can enlarge or contract it, which may affect the air in its exit, and so produce some diversity. Besides all this, whoever casts an eye over Dr Latham’s and 1 See Introd. to Ent. Lett. xxiv. 422 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Mr Yarrel’s figures of the wind-pipes of various birds,* especi- ally wild-fowl, will see that they vary greatly in their relative length and volume ; that some are partially dilated, and others contracted, with other peculiarities that distinguish individual species, especially in male birds. All these, no doubt, modify the voice, and, by the will of Him who formed them, cause them to utter such sounds, and speak such a language, as are required by the circumstances in which they are placed. The cawing of the rook, the croaking of the raven, the cooing of the dove, the warbling of the nightingale and the other singing birds, are all the result of their oganization according to the plan and will of that Supreme Intelligence, infinite Love, Wis- dom, and Power, which fabricated and fashioned them with this view as well as others, to give utterance to sounds that, mixed or contrasted, would produce a kind of universal concert, delighting the ear by its very discords. It is said by a late writer, that the song of the same ies dual species of birds, in different districts, is differently modi- fied. This, I should think, must be occasioned by a difference in the temperature, and other circumstances connected with the atmosphere. Of all animals, birds are most penetrated by the element in which they move. Their whole organization is filled with air, as the sponge with water. Their lungs, their bones, their cellular tissue, their feathers—in a word, almost every indivi- dual part, adinit it into their interstices.2 Thus giving them a degree of specific levity that no other class of animals is en- dowed with, which however dees not render them the sport of every wind that blows, for, by means of their vigorous wings, formed to take strong hold of the air; of their muscular force, the agility of their movements, and their powers of steerage by means of the prow and rudder of their little vessel, their head and tail, they can counteract this levity ; and by these also, and by their great buoyancy, they can ascend above the very clouds, as well as descend to the earth; they can glide motionless through the air, or skim the surface of the waters ; they can sport, at will, in the vast atmospheric ocean; they can dart forward in a straight line, or like the butterfly, fly in a zig-zag or undulatory one, and with ease take any new direc- tion in their flight that fear or desire may dictate. Enveloped in soft and warm plumage, they can face the cold of the high- est regions of the air; and the denser clad aquatic birds can 1 Linn. Trans. iv. t. ix.—xv. ; xv. t. ix.—xv.; and xvi, t. xvii.—xxi. 2 N. D. D Hist. Nat. xxiii. 352. BIRDS. 423 also sail over the bosom of the waters, or plunge into them, without being wetted by them. All birds, especially those last mentioned, have a gland secreting an oily fluid, with which they anoint their feathers and repel the moisture. There is no part of the history of these animals, in which the care of a fatherly Providence is more signally conspicuous than their love of their young, and their tender care of them till they can shift for themselves. But as I have already adverted to this subject,+ and shall hereafter have occasion to resume it, | shall now say something on the classification of the feathered race. It is singular that two Classes should be placed in apposition to each other, seemingly so opposite in their character and most of their qualities, as the Reptiles and the Birds—the one the most torpid and doleful and hateful of animals, symbols of evil demons; the other the most lively and active, and beloved of all the creatures that God has made, symbols of the angelic host, and calling upon us to look up- wards, and seek those joys that are above us. But in spite of this apparently striking contrast, still there is a real affinity between the Birds. and the Reptiles; and when we recollect that demons are fallen angels, we may apprehend why God has placed their symbols in the same series. Zoologists are not altogether agreed as to which of the Rep- tiles come the nearest to the ee : the beak, and some other characters of the Chelonians, have been thought to indicate that they are entitled to that distinction ;? and, by his placing the latter immediately after the Birds, this appears to be Baron Cuvier’s opinion. Any one, indeed, that looks either at the common,® or the hawk’s bill, turtles,* or a good figure of them,® will see in them a striking resemblance of some sea-bird, espe- cially a penguin ; the anterior elongated paddles imitating the wings, and the posterior dilated ones the webbed feet of such birds. There are other Reptiles, however, that dispute this claim with the Chelonians. Amongst the rest is a remarkable fossil genus, regarded as extinct, which Cuvier has arranged with the dragon of modern Herpetologists, under the name of Pierodactyle.° The carpal and metacarpal bones, and the pha- langes of the fourth toe of the anterior leg are excessively elon- gated, to which it is conjectured a membrane was attached, 1 See above, p. 327—329. 2 Mae Leay, Hor. Entomol. 263. 3 T. Mydas. 4 T. Caretta. DMD DH. N.xxxiy.t. R. 8. f.)1. 2: Z 6 Pterodactylus. Ornithocephalus.. Somm, 424 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. forming a wing for flight. M.Sémmering classes this remark- able animal with the Mammalians, supposing its affinity to be with the Cheiropterans, or Bats; and Dr Wagler considers it as forming, with the Echidna and Ornithorhynchus, an osculant Class, which he distinguishes by the ancient name of Griffins.* But the wing in its structure appears to approach nearer to that of birds, and therefore Blainville seems right in consider- ing it asa Saurian genus leading to them.? Professor Gold- fuss, in his description of a new species,? mentions having found upon it some impressions, looking like those of feathers ; and though he thinks it flies like a bird, seems to regard it as between the crocodile and the monitor. The serrated beak of the mergansers is not very unlike that of the common ptero- dactyle,* though that of the species described by Professor Goldfuss has a few very long dispersed teeth, of different lengths, like those of the crocodile.» The animals of the last named genus, in the structure of their heart, approximate most nearly to birds, and in their general organization are at the head of the Class of Reptiles.® From these statements, it seems as if the Class just men- tioned sent forth several branches towards the Birds; but, all circumstances considered, the pterodactyle, especially if it has feathers, or rather plumiform scales, appears to come the nearest to them, and to prove that the feathers of the Bird are a transition from the scales of the Reptile. Aves. (Birds.) Animal, vertebrated, oviparous, biped. Anterior extremities, organized for flight. Integument, plumose. Eggs, usually hatched by incubation. Lungs, fixed. Respiration and circulation, double. , Blood, red, warm. Ornithologists appear at present undecided as to the division 1 Gryphi. Gray’s Synops. Rept. 78. 2 WN. D. D'H. N. xxviii! 226. 3 Pt. crassirostris. Isis Heft. v. 553. 4 Pt. antiquus. 5 Isis. wht supr. t. vi.f. vii. 6 For these observations, with respect to the crocodile, | am indebted to r Mr Owen. BIRDS. 425 of this great and interesting Class into Orders, as the following synoptical table of systems, differing in this respect, will show: Nitzsch and Schoepss have only 3 Vieillot, Vigors, Mac Leay and Swainson 5 Linné, Cuvier, Dumeril and Carus 6 nal oa ae oy : - ‘ 7 copoli, Lat am, ers an ft) ‘ : q 9 Repcsinek : x : : ; 13 + Orders. Grant. : : b ; : : ‘ 16 Scheffer : : ‘ : : : : : 17 Brisson , ; : 3 4 P 2 : 28 Lacepede ; ; . } : “f'n ihe ; 38 One may iruly say here, “the choice perplexes;” and the young Ornithologist must be puzzled to determine which of these systems he ought to adopt, especially since the several authors of them were amongst the most eminent zoologists of their time. Iam indebted to Mr Owen for my knowledge of the first of these systems, of which, as at present it is little known in this country, I will here give an abstract, without entering into its merits, except that its primary sections, or Orders, forma very natural division of the Class. Orvers.—I. Aerial Birds. Luftvogeln. Sub-Orders.—A. Accipitrines. B. Passerines. C. Pies. — II. Terrestrial Birds. Erdvégeln. A. Columbines. B. Gallinaceans. C. Coursers. — III. Aquatic Birds. Wasservégeln. A. Waders. B. Anserines. In this last Order he includes the Bustards,t which surely ought to form a separate Sub-order. On the present occasion [I shall follow the system of Linné, as improved by Baron Cuvier, in the last edition of his Regne Animal, adopting from Illiger his Order of Cursores, or runners, which appears to be osculant between the gallinaceous Order and that of the waders. That the series ought to begin with the web-footed Birds, as approaching nearest “to the Reptiles, there is no doubt; but which should terminate it, seems not satisfactorily determined. The birds of prey appear naturally to connect with the beasts of ey, rather than with the Cetaceans, next before which Cuvier has placed them ; Carus ends the series with the Gallinaceans, 1 Otis. 3D 426 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. which Linné contrasts with the Ruminants, and Mr W. 8. Mac Leay connects with the Gnawers,* and Illiger and Lacepede end with the Psittaceans, which are analogues of the Quadrumanes, but these are probably mostly analogous forms; there seems amore strict affinity between the web-footed birds and the JMonotremes, the Ornithorhynchus, Echidna, &c, which, in some respects, appear to form an osculant Order, between the birds and the beasts. In fact the Birds, though united into one group with the Beasts by common characters, may be regarded as forming a parallel series with the latter rather than a con- tinuous one, several of the members of which, respectively, represent each other, both as to many of their external features, and their functions. Branches, like those of a tree, seem in- deed to issue from every natural series, whether vegetable or animal, on all sides, and to run in all directions towards those of other series, so as to form together a perplexing labyrinth, to thread which, although in many places there appears an evi- dent clue, in others it becomes evanescent, and the investigator of nature seems lost. But when we reflect that the Author of Nature is infinile in his essence and attributes, we must expect there will be something that indicates their origin from such a Being ; though not a real, there will be in them a seeming in- finity to finite minds. He who made them sees them all at once, and in their several places, and traces simultaneously every series through all its numberless divarications or convo- lutions; whereas man sees only a part of the ways of his Crea- tor. He can have no simultaneous view of things, and must be contented with adding, here a little and there a little, to his stores of knowledge. To investigate the works of his Creator is a laudable exercise of his powers, and to aim as much as possible to discover the system of things that the God of Nature has established by his Wisdom, and upholds by his Power, is to aim at the discovery of Truth ; who will more and more reveal her- self to those that, using the proper means, seek her in sincerity. ORpDERs.” 1. Swimmers. 5. Climbers. 2. Waders. 6. Perchers. 3. Coursers. 7. Raveners. 4. Scratchers. 1 Rodentia. 2 The Latin names of the Orders are,— 1. Natatores. . Scansores. 7c 2. Grallatores. 6. Insessores. 3. Cursores. 7. Raptores.” 4. Rasores. » Raptor milvius. Pheedr. BIRDS. 487 Order 1.—Swimmers. (Web-footed, or Aquatic Birds. This Order includes the Inertes, Palmipedes, and Pinnatipedes of Dr Grant’s catalogue. ) Bopy, closely covered with feathers, and coated with a thick down next the skin. Legs, placed behind the equilibrium. Toes, united by membrane for swimming; membrane sometimes divided. i Order 2.—Waders. (Flamingo, Coot, Avocet, Woodcock, Snipe, Ibis, Spoonbill, Jabiru, Bitlern, Heron, Crane, Stork, Oyster-caicher, Plover, Bustard.—Grallatores. Grant.) Legs consisting of very long tarsi, with the apex of the tibia bare; stretched out in flight. Wings, long. Order 3.—Coursers. (Apteryx, Ostrich, Emeu, Cassowary, Dodo, &c.—Cursores. Grant.) Wings, very short, not used for flying. Legs, robust. Toes, 3—4. Beak, depressed or compressed. Order 4.—WScratchers. (Pigeon, Quail, Partridge, Common Poultry, Guinea-fowl, Pheasant, Turkey, Peacock, &c.—Alectori- des, Galline, and Columbe. Grant.) Upper mandible, vaulted; nostrils, pierced in a membranous space at their base, covered by a cartilaginous scale. Tail- feathers, 14—18. Order 5.—Climbers. (Psittaceans, Toucan, Cuckoo, Wry- neck, Woodpecker, &c.—Chelidones, Alcyones, Anisodactyli, Zy- godactyli. Grant.) Feet with two toes before and two behind. Order 6.—Perchers. (King-fisher, Hoopoe, Humming-bird, Tree-creeper, Nut-haich, Bird of Paradise, Crow, Magpie, Starling, Cross-beak, Gross-beak, Gold-finch, Linnet, Sparrow, Titmouse, Lark, Goat-sucker, Swallow, Taylor-bird, Nightingale, Red- breast, Fly-catcher, Black-bird, Chatterer, Butcher-bird, &c.— Granivore, Insectivore, and Omnivore. Grant.) Toes four: formed for prehension in nidification. External toe united at the base to the internal. Three toes before and one behind. All other characters negative. Order ‘7.—Raveners. (Owl, Secretary-bird, Buzzard, Kite, Sparrow-hawk, Falcon, Harpy, Eagle, Vulture, &c.—Rapaces. Grant.) Beak robust, upper mandible, on each side, armed with a tooth. Legs short, robust. Toes armed with crooked claws. Order 1.—The swimmers, or web-footed birds, form a very important part of the feathered race, both as furnishing man with food, and as ministering greatly to his comfort, by their down and feathers, when he retires to rest; and also by their 428 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. action upon the inhabitants of the waters both of the sea and rivers, which form the principal part of their food. Cuvier remarks, that these are the only birds in which the neck ex- ceeds, and sometimes considerably, the length of the legs. Swimming on the surface, they can thus dip deeper to seize their prey. The same remark may be extended to the Sau- rians, in which, though the majority have a short neck, one fossil animal, which appears to be the analogue of the swan, has a very long one. Other birds, as well as those of the pre- sent Order, are distinguished by the length of the neck; as the peacock, the turkey, and several other Gallinaceans, and the Ostrich and its congeners are still more remarkable in that respect. ‘This structure is probably as useful to them as to the web-footed birds, in enabling them to secure articles of food that would otherwise be out of their reach. The birds at the foot of this Order, and indeed of the whole Class, are the short-winged swimmers, particularly the auk? and the penguin ;* the one having its station in the northern, and the other in the southern seas, reaching to the antartic circle. | The northern one, the auk, seems to rank above the penguin, for its wings have those feathers which, from their office being to propel birds when they fly, are denominated rowing feathers,* and they can flutter and flap their wings, while the penguins have none of these feathers, and cannot use their, so called, wings assuch. The legs of the auk, also, are not placed quite so near the tail as in the southern bird, in which they are close to it, though both stand nearly in a vertical position. But though of no apparent use as wings, their short anterior appen- dages that go by that name, are not given them by their Cre- ator merely for show, for when under water they use them as jis; and when it is recollected that Captain Beechy found them between three and four hundred miles from any land,’ they seem to have occasion for additional rowing organs. One traveller, D. Pagés, says that they also sometimes use their wings as fore-legs, walking on all fours.° Some of them bur- row like rabbits, but how they effect this has not been ascer- tained. In general they are reckoned as the most stupid and foolish animals in the whole Class: in fact most of the web- footed birds exhibit less of the life and spirit and gaiety that distinguish so conspicuously those whose principal theatre of motion is the air: belonging as they do to two elements, they 1 Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus. 3 Aptenodytes. 5 Voyage, i. 16, Alcea. Remiges. N. D. D'H. N. xiii. 306. me BIRDS. 429 may be regarded, in some sense, as half fowl and half fish; and when we call a man, not remarkable for sense, a goose, we admit some such degradation in aquatic birds. But all sea-birds are not of this character; amongst these the frigate-bird* and the albatross? are most conspicuous, emu- lating the eagle and the vulture amongst the terrestrial birds of prey. Ofall the oceanic birds, the frigate-bird comes nearest to the eagle. Its keen sight, its crooked beak, its short, robust, and plumy legs, its sharp claws, the vast extent of its wings, and its rapid flight, all show that it is the oceanic representa-- tive of the king of birds. If the peaceful flying-fish seeks a refuge from the dorados® and bonitos,* its aquatic enemies, by elevating itself from the water into the air, the frigate-bird darts upon it like a thunder-bolt and devours it. If the booby® has caught a fish, like the bald eagle® the frigate-bird often compels it to let go its prey, and seizes it before it reaches the water. Its extent of flight is wonderful, and exceeds that of any other marine bird; for it possesses between the tropics a domain of more than four hundred leagues, over which it directs its course by day and by night; for, as the plumage of the under side of its body is not impervious to the water, it cannot continue long upon it, but prefers to brave the wind and the tempest, and to elevate itself above the storm, and for re- pose retires to lofty rocks and woody islets. The albatross is the analogue of the vulture, and the largest of the sea-birds, and his wings expand sometimes to the extent of twenty feet ; like his prototype, he is occasionally so gorged with food as to lose the power of flying, and when pursued, his only resource is to disgorge his overloaded stomach. Mr Bennet has given a very interesting account of the mode of flight of this bird, to which I must refer the reader.” I observed, in the last chapter, that one of the short-winged family of this Order, the merganser, appears to be connected with the Saurians by its serrated beak; but the penguins, which are at the foot of the same Family and of the Order, seem con- nected with the Chelonians, their rudimental wings and their legs approaching the paddles and webbed feet of the turtles and some of the tortoises. Their plumage, when not analyzed, resembles very much the fur of a seal, or some quadruped. Tachypetes Aquila. 2 Diomedea exulans. Coryphena hippurus. 4 Scomber Pelamis. Sula Bassana. Richardson, F'n. Boreal. Americ. ii. 15. Audubon. Biogr. 162. Wanderings, &c. i, 45—47. NO OW e 430 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Order 2.—I have already noticed several circumstances re- _ lative to the birds of this Order ;* I shall not, therefore. in this place, enlarge much upon them. Their general function is not only to devour the smaller fishes, aquatic Molluscans, and other animals, as well as their spawn, that inhabit the waters of the globe, whether salt or fresh, but also those that are found in their vicinity, as worms, small reptiles, and insects in their different states ; and their form is particularly adapted to their function : very long legs and toes ; naked knees ; a long sharp beak ; where they have to dip under water for their food a long neck ; and as, on account of their great length, they could not | conveniently double their legs in flight, their tail is usually extremely short, so as to permit the legs to be stretched out, and act in some degree as steering organs. The body of these birds, generally speaking, in shape, seems to approach that of the Scratchers, but is rather longer, and not so plump. The form of some of them is very elegant and graceful ; the plum- age of others, especially of some of the scolopaceous tribe, is beautifully mottled, but, generally speaking, their colours are not brilliant. There is one bird? of this Order that is particularly interest- ing, not only on account of some singularities in its structure, but likewise for its amiable manners: this bird is described and figured by Piso? under the name of Anhyma, but it is more commonly known by that of Kamichi. It is said to be larger than the peacock or even the swan. Its wings are armed with two strong spurs, which point outwards when the wing is folded ; but its most remarkable feature is the long, slender, cylindrical, and nearly straight horn which arms its forehead. One would suppose a bird so fitted for combats was the terror of the feathered race, delighting in battle and bloodshed, but this is not the case, for it is one of the most gentle and susceptible of birds. It feeds upon grass, and attacks no birds that approach it: at the time of pairing, however, the males contend fiercely and sometimes fatally for the females; but the victory gained, they become patterns of conjugal fidelity, never parting, and like the turtle, if one outlives the other, the sur- vivor usually is the victim of its grief.* Another South American bird of this Order,® if we may cre- dit the accounts that are given of it, is gifted by its Creator with an instinct still more wonderful ; it seems to have a natu- 1 See above, pp. 283, 292. 2 Palamedea cornuta. 3 Hist. Nat. et Med. Ind. Occid. 91. 4 Sonnini, in V. D. D’'H, N. xvii. 21. 5 Psophia crepitans. BIRDS. 431 ral inclination for the society of man, and seems to occupy the same place amongst birds that the dog does amongst quadru- peds. When taken and fed in a house, it becomes attached to the inmates. Like the dog it knows the voice of its master, and will. follow or precede him when he goes out, quits him with reluctance, and appears delighted when it sees him again. Sensible of his caresses, it returns them with every mark of affection and gratitude : it seems even jealous of his attentions, for it will peck at the legs of those who come too near to him. It knows and acknowledges also the friends of the family. It sometimes takes a dislike to individuals, and whenever they appear, attacks them, and endeavours to drive them away. Its courage is equal to that of the dog, for it will attack ani- mals bigger and better armed than itself. Sonnini, who re- lates the preceding anecdotes from his own observation, was also told that in some parts of America, these birds were en- trusted with the care of the young poultry, and even of the flocks of sheep, which they conducted to and from their pas- tures.* ; The common Stork? seems equally attached to man, and in return has generally met with protection from him, and in many nations has been accounted a sacred bird that it is a sin to kill or molest ; and they are entitled to these immunities not only on account of their philanthropic instincts, but likewise because they destroy lizards, frogs, serpents, and other noxious reptiles, which are a considerable annoyance in low and marshy districts. The black Stork’ is of a less social turn, and avoids the neighbourhood of man, and frequents solitary marshes and thick woods, where it nidificates on old trees. Order 3.—We seem to enter this order—which from the swiftness of the few animals that compose it, is called the Or- der of Courserst—by one of the most singular birds that is at present known; I mean the Apteryx australis of Dr Shaw. As far as can be judged from the only known specimen, which was brought from New Zealand in 1812, one would think this bird osculant between the Waders and the present Order. Its legs, indeed, seem those of a gallinaceous bird, with a tend- ency, as Mr Yarrel remarks, to the spurs of that tribe, but its beak is related to that of the Ibis, and the lateral skin of the toes is notched as in the Phaleropes. The wings are shorter than in any other known bird, quite concealed by the feathers, and terminate in a claw; a circumstance which seems to indi- av. 2. DH: N.4, 190: 2 Ciconia alba. 3. C. mgra. 4 Cursores. 5 See Zool. Trans. 1. i. t. x. 74. 432 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. cate an approximation to some quadruped form. These wings, though useless for flight, were doubtless given by its Creator to this animal to answer some purpose in its economy, either as a weapon or a prehensive organ. With the birds of the Order in which it is placed it agrees in its general form and plumage, but in stature it falls below them, being of the size of a small turkey. It is called by the natives Kivi. There is another insular bird, the Dodo, noticed in a former chapter,? which though classed with this, to judge from its figure seems to connect the Ostrich with the nezt Order, the Scratchers ;? but if we suppose the Order to form a circle, these birds will meet, one still being conterminous to the Order above it, and the other to that below it. These two birds have four toes. Mr W. 8S. Mac Leay,® as well as several other zoolo- gists, is of opinion that the Ostrich Family, meaning the typi- cal members of it, both in their internal as well as their external structure, approach the nearest to Mammalians. Of the Os- trich itself it is stated, amongst other characters, that its upper eyelid is movable and ciliated, and that its eyes are more like the eyes of a man than those of a bird, and they are so set as both of them to see the same object at the same time; that it is the only bird that discharges urine,* with many circuam- stances which I have no room to enumerate.. Mr Owen, how- ever, whose accuracy as a comparative anatomist can be fully relied on, has observed to me, that the urinary bladder, ster- num, and some other parts of these birds, are closer approxima- tions to the Chelonians than the JMammalians. The animal of the latter Class, whose external form ap- proaches nearest to the Ostrich is the Camel, a resemblance which has been so striking, that from a very early period they have been designated by a name which connects them with this quadruped :5 in many particular points, besides general form, they also resemble it. ‘The substance and form of their two-toed feet, a callosity on their breast and at the os pubis, their flattened sternum, and their mode of reclining. It is sin- gular that these birds associate with beasts, particularly the quagea and zebra.® The new world, which has a representative of the camel in the lama, and of the hippopotamus in the tapir, has also a peculiar ostrich of its own, which is called the nandu ;7 so that in See above, p. 30. 2 Vigorsin Linn. Trans. xiv. 485. Hor. Ent. 266. Linn. Trans. xvi. 43. N. D. DH. N. iii. 85, 86. 5 Struthio-camelus. Burchell’s Travels in S. Africa, ii. 315. Rhea Americana. Qe = BIRDS. 433 Africa, Asia,t Australia,? and America, there is a distinct genus of the present Order, each, as at present known, consist- ing of a single species. With respect to their functions, not much has been observed : they are said to live a good deal upon grain, fruit, and other ‘vegetable substances, and the nandu is fond of insects; pro- bably others of them may also assist in restraining the inces- sant multiplication of these little creatures. The ostrich may be said almost to graze, though it is very eager after grain; but its history is too well known to require any further enlarge- ment upon it. Order 4.—The birds of this Order are called Scratchers, from an action common to many of them, and more particularly ob- servable in our common poultry, that of scratching the ground to turn up food, especially when followed by their chicks. Of all the gifts of Providence, there is none that more promotes our comfort and pleasure than the majority of the animals that compose this Order, for it includes almost all our barn-door fowls, and the great majority of the game pursued so eagerly by the sportsman ; birds not only valuable for the variety and delicacy of the food, both flesh and eggs, with which they sup- ply our tables, but delighting us by the beauty, the elegance, and stateliness of their forms; the diversity of their plumage, _ especially the elongated or expansile tail feathers of the males ; and the rich variety and splendour of their colours. The gor- geous peacock and the graceful pheasant have scarcely a parallel in the other Orders, except perhaps, as to splendour, in those brilliant little gems, the humming-birds. I have mentioned, on a former occasion,? the numerous va- rieties of the common fowl, which have probably been pro- duced by climate and cultivation. With regard to size, Su- matra appears to produce both the smallest and the largest kind of poultry, the common feather-legged Bantam, and the Iago fowl,* the cock of which, Marsden says, he has “seen peck off a common dining table ; when fatigued, they sit down on the first joint of the leg, and are then taller than the com- mon breed.”° Colonel Sykes imported them into England in 1831; the hen laid freely, and reared two broods of chickens, Wild poultry are found both in the old world and the new: the jungle-fowl,® from which our breeds are supposed by Son- nerat to have originated, are common in India ; and the Span- 1 Casuarius geleatus. 2 Dromaius ater. 3 See above, p. 36. 4 Gallus giganteus. 5 Sumatra,2 Ed. 98. 6 Gallus Sonnerati. SE ee re a ey SS 434 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. iards are said to have found another kind in Peru and Mexico, in which last country they were domesticated, and called chi- acchialacca; Parmentier states that he heard the crow of the cock of this breed in the wildest forests of Guiana, and that he had seen one of them.+ The birds of this order are granivorous, insectivorous, or both, and the Hocco is stated to subsist on buds and fruits. Some are gregarious, as the pigeons; while others, as the partridge, form coveys only for a time ; in spring those that survive the sporting season pair off, and are soon at the head of a numerous family. Order 5.—Baron Cuvier has separated the Climbers from Mr Vigor’s Order of Perchers, not only on account of their having two toes behind, as well as before, but also on account of differences in their larynx, sternum, and ccecal appendages. Amongst the Climbers, though there are some armed with beaks of very extraordinary forms and magnitude, as the tou- can, there are none so interesting and altogether so remarkable as the Psittacean Family, or the Parrots, Parroquets, Macaws, Cockatoos, &c. ‘They seem complete analogues of the Mon- keys and other Quadrumanes, which they exceed, in their faculty of learning to articulate many words, for which their lower larynx is particularly constructed, and thus mimic the uiterance of man, as the former animals do his actions; a cir- cumstance which seems to have induced some ornithologists to place them at the head of their Class,? in contrast with the latter animals. There is a genus, belonging to this Order, found in the southern parts of Africa, the species of which are called bee- cuckows,? and are remarkable for indicating both to the honey- ratel* and the Hottentot the subterranean nests of certain bees, which they do by a particular cry, morning and evening, and by a gradual and slow flight towards the quarter where the swarm of bees have taken up their abode; the beast and the man both attend to the notice, seek the spot, and dig up the 1 ND. DH. WN. vii. 472. Modern ornithologists appear to account all these breeds as well as those mentioned in a former chapter (See above, p. 36) as distinct species. Linne, besides his Phasianus Gallus , or the common breed, has Var. 6, P. G. cristatus, or the Polish breed; y. P. G. ecaudatus, or the Rumplet ; 3. P. G. Morio, or the black-skinned breed; «. P. G. lanatus, or the silk breed ; ». P. G. crispus, or the Friesland breed; and &. P. G. pusillus, or the Bantam breed. There are several more in Gmelin. 2 Illiger, &c. 3 Indicator major, minor Vieill., &e. 4 Vivera mellivora. BIRDS. 435 nest; and to the share of the bird generally falls, not the part stored with the honey, but that in which the grubs are contained :* so that the bird, though it invites others to partake with it, has its own subsistence, which it could not otherwise readily come at, principally in view. Both this animal and its companion, - the ratel, are fitted by Providence for their function, and pro- tected from the danger to which they are exposed from the stings of the irritated bees by a very hard skin. The bees, however, sometimes revenge themselves on the treacherous bird by attacking it about the head and eyes, and so destroying it.? It is singular, and affords a most convincing proof of de- sign, that two animals that are so necessary to each other, the one to indicate and the other to excavate their common prey, should each be defended by the same kind of armour, and each seek a different portion of the spoil, suited to its habits. Amongst the birds most remarkable for their instincts, in the present Order, is the wryneck.* It is a feathered ant-eater, and is organized by its Creator to entrap its prey by the very same means as the quadruped ones. Like them, it can pro- trude its tongue to a very great length, which is not owing to the structure of this organ itself, but to a peculiar ligamentous sheath in which it usually is contained. Its salivary glands are above an inch long, and shaped somewhat like a tea-spoon. The saliva they secrete is so very viscid as to be capable of being drawn into threads finer than a hair, and several feet in length ; so that when the tongue is besmeared with it, no in- sect that touches it can escape. Like its analogues, it darts its tongue into an ant-hill, or lays it on an ant-track, and draws it back into its mouth laden with prey.* It issingular that the functions, in warm climates, given in charge by Providence to quadrupeds, in temperate ones, in this instance, devolves upon birds, the rapid increase of ants, in tropical countries, probably rendered it necesary that their devourers should be more nu- merous, and act with a greater momentum. The general functions of this Order, as they are in most of those of the present Class, are various. The food of some are 1 Sparrmann, Voyage, ii. 181, 187. 2 Cuv. Regn. An. i. 455. Sparrmann, Voyage, ii. 182. 3 YVunz torquilla. 4 I owe these observations on the wryneck principally to a medical friend, George Helsham, Esq. of Woodbridge, in Suffolk, a practical ornithologist, not only systematically and anatomically, but knowing birds also in their haunts, and conversant with their habits and instincts. 436 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. roots, fruits, and other vegetable substances ;* of others the stubs of insects ;? of others, again, principally insects in gene- ral under every form ;* and lastly, some to fruits or insects will add the eggs and the nestlings of other birds.* Order 6.—The birds of this Order, the Perchers, are distin- guished from the last, not only by the characters lately no- ticed, but likewise by a considerable difference in their habits and manners. Amongst them we find all those that delight us by their varied song; they are truly birds of the air, for they seem to have the full command of that element ; many of them moving gaily in every direction that their will suggests, rising and falling, flying backwards and forwards, or performing end- less evolutions, pro re nata, in their flight. These Perchers also are the best nest-builders, not usually selecting, like the Climb- ers, the interior of a hollow tree or similar situations, but most commonly interweaving their nests between the twigs and branches of trees and shrubs, or suspending them from them, or even attaching them to humbler vegetables ; some having even exercised arts from the creation, which man has found of the greatest benefit to him, since he discovered them. These birds, indeed, may be called the inventors of the several arts of the weaver, the seamstress, and the tailor, whence some of them have been denominated weaver and tailor-birds. The nest of the little Indian weaver-bird,> though it has neither warp nor woof, being formed by various convolutions of the slender leaves of some grass, so intertwined and entangled as to produce a web sufficiently substantial for the protection of the inhabitants of the nest, is, nevertheless, a very wonderful structure, but as it is well known® I shall not further enlarge upon it, but proceed to the tailor-birds, whose nests are still more remarkable. India produces several species that are instructed by their Creator to sew together leaves for the protection of their eggs and nestlings from the voracity of serpents and apes; they generally select those at the end of a branch or twig, and sew them with cotton, thread, and fibres. Colonel Sykes has seen some in which the thread was literally knotted at the end.? The Indian birds of this description form two genera, separated 1 The Psittaceans. 2 The Pies. 3 The Cuckows. 4 The Toucan. 5 Ploceus Textor. 6. There are several of these nests in the museum of the Zoological So- ciety. 7 Catalogue of birds, &c. 16. BIRDS. 3 437 from Sylvia by Dr Horsfield.t | The inside of these nests is lined usually with down and cotton. ' But these birds are not confined to India or tropical coun- tries ; Italy can boast a species which exercises the same art : and I am indebted to the kindness of one of our most eminent ornithologists? for being enabled to give a figure of this pretty and interesting bird, from a specimen in his possession ;* and to the Zoological Society for their permission to have a draw- ing made from a nest in their museum.* This little creature was originally described and figured by M. Temminck in 1820, but its singular instincts, as to its mode of nidification, were afterwards given in detail by Professor P. Savi. It is called by the Pisans Becca moschino, and is a species of the genus Sylvia.> In summer and autumn it frequents marshes, but in the spring it seeks the meadows and cornfields ; in which, at that season, the marshes being bare of the sedges which cover them in the summer, it is compelled to construct its nest in tussocks of grass on the brink of ditches: but the leaves of these, being weak, easily split, so that it is difficult for our little seamstress to unite them, and so to form the skeleton of her fabric. From this and other circumstances the vernal nestsof these birds differ so widely from those made in the autumn, that it seems next to impossible that both should be the work of the same artisan. The latter are constructed in a thick bunch of sedge or reed, they are shaped like a pear, being dilated below and narrowed above,° so as to leave an aperture sufficient for the ingress and egress of the bird. The greatest horizontal diameter of the nest is about two inches and a half, and the vertical is five inches or a little more. ) The most wonderful thing in the construction of these nests is the method to which the little bird has recourse to keep the living leaves united, of which it is composed. The sole inter- Weaving, more or less delicate, of homogeneous or heteroge- neous substances forms the principal adopted by other birds to bind together the parietes of their nests ; but this Sylvia is no weaver, for the leaves of the sedges or reeds are united by real stitches. Inthe edge of each leaf she makes, probably with her beak, minute apertures, through which she contrives to pass, perhaps by means of the same organ, one or more cords formed of spider’s web, particularly of that of their egg-pouches. 1 Prinia and Orthotomus. 2 Mr Gould. 3 Prate XV. Fig. 1. 4 Ibid. Fia. 2. 5 S. cisticola. 6 Puate XV. Fig. 2. 438 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. These threads are not very long, and are sufficient only to pass two or three times from one leaf to another; they are of un- equal thickness, and have knots scattered here and there, which in some places divide into two or three branches. This is the manner in which the exterior of the nest is formed ; the interior consists solely of down, chiefly from plants, a little spider’s web being intermixed, which helps to keep the other substances together. In the upper part and sides of the nest, the two walls, that is the external and internal, are in immediate contact; but in the lower part a greater space in- tervenes, filled with the slender foliage of grasses, the florets of Syngenesious plants, and other materials which render soft and warm the bed in which the eggs are to repose. This little bird feeds upon insects. Its flight is not rectili- near, but consists of many curves, with their concavity upwards, These curves equal in number the strokes of the wing, and at every stroke its whistle is heard, the intervals of which corres- pond with the rapidity of its flight. Perhaps of all the instincts of Birds, those connected with their nidification are most remarkable; and of all these, none are so wonderful as those of the tribe to which the little bird whose proceedings in constructing its nest I have just des- cribed, belongs. In the Indian tailor-birds, the object of their sutorial art is stated above; and doubtless, in the case of the Italian, the attack of some enemy is prevented by her mode of fabricating her nest. Situated so near the ground, her eggs, but for this defence, might otherwise become the prey, perhaps, of some small quadruped or reptile. He who created the birds of the air taught every one its own lesson, and how to place and construct its nest as to be most secure from inimical intru- sion. I may observe here, that Professor Nitzch’s three Orders, or rather Sub-classes, mentioned above, receive some confirma- tion from the places selected by the individuals composing them, to form their nests and deposit their eggs in. The aquatic birds generally select places in the vicinity of water ; the terrestrial make them on the ground; and the great body of the aérial construct their nests in trees, shrubs, and plants. The birds of this Order as to their food leave no vegetable or animal substance untouched, and the humming-birds, with their butterfly-tongue, imbibe the nectar of flowers. Of a vast number, insects form the principal part of their food, and they are the chief check to their too great multiplication; and sometimes, as in the case of the locust-eating thrush,* they 1 Turdus gryllivorus. BIRDS. 439 devote themselves to a particular tribe of insects, but most of the insectivorous birds will also eat grain. Order '7.—The last Order of Birds, the Raveners, includes those that are most perfect in their form, and all are remark- able for their predatory habits. Their power of wing, and talon, and beak, distinguish them from all other birds of the air; and though some of the terrestrial birds vie with them in magnitude, and some of the aquatic ones, as we have seen,? exceed them in extent of wing and untired flight, yet none can come near them in the union of all those qualities which con- stitute their claim to the first rani amongst the birds; and the eagle has, as it were, been consecrated king over them all, by being placed in the Holy of Holies of the Jewish temple as one of the papvals of those powers that rule under God in na- ture.” This Order is asually divided into two sections, which might be denominated Sub-orders, the nocturnal birds of prey and the diurnal. The first of the birds of these sections are distin- guished by their large eyes, the enormous pupil of which receives so many rays of light, that they are dazzled by the glare of day; but by it are enabled to see in the night—they fly in the evening and by moonlight. Thus they are fitted best to fulfil their function, and to be very beneficial to man, in keeping within due limits animals that are often extremely detrimental to his property, and commit their ravages more or less in the night ; on this account owls are often seen in barns where mice and rats abound, and are most valuable auxiliaries to the cats. The white owl® is said to destroy more of the murine race than even these last animals. Had not the pro- vident care of the Father of the universe created these mouse- and-rat-destroying animals, the tiller of the soil would often labour in vain. The diurnal Section of the Raveners contains all the birds of might and power. I have before mentioned the secretary- bird,* created to diminish the number of serpents ; so similar to some of the waders, as to have been classed with them by sev- eral ornithologists; but Cuvier says, its whole anatomical structure, as well as its beak and other external characters, vindicate its claim to be placed in the present Order.® Another species belonging to it descends to still lower food, and like the bee-eater,® devours bees and wasps and other in- 1 See Introduction. 2 Ezek. i. 10; x. 1. 3 Strix flammea. 4 See above, p. 284. 5 Reéegne An. i. 339. 6 Merops apiaster. 440 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. sects, I allude to the bee-falcon; but in general the aquiline race attack vertebrated animals, reptiles, fishes, and birds of every wing, and many quadrupeds, and the giant vultures satiate their ravenous appetites upon any carcasses that their peircing sight, from the great heights to which they ascend, can dis- cover. Humboldt says, that the Condor? soars to the height of Chimborazo, an elevation almost six times greater than that at which the clouds that overshadow our plains are suspended.? In the book of Deuteronomy we have a very animated and beautiful allusion to the eagle, and her method of exciting her eaglets to attempt their first. flight, in that sublime and highly mystic composition called Moses’ Song ; in which Jehovah’s care of his people, and methods of instructing them how to aim at and attain heavenly objects, is compared to her proceed- ings upon that occasion. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, flut- tereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so Jehovah alone did lead him. The Hebrew lawgiver is speaking of their leaving their eyrie. Sir H. Davy had an opportunity of witnessing the proceedings of an eagle after they had left it. He thus describes them. ‘“‘T once saw a very interesting sight above one of the crags of Ben Nevis, as I was going on the 20th of August in the pursuit of black game. Two parent eagles were teaching their offspring, two young birds, the manceuvres of flight. They began by rising from the top of a mountain in the eye of the sun; it was about mid-day, and bright for this climate. They at first made small circles, and the young birds imitated them; they paused on their wings, waiting till they had made their first flight, and then took a second and larger gyration, always rising towards the sun, and enlarging their circle of flight so as to make a gradually extending spiral. The young ones still slowly followed, apparently flying better as they mounted ; and they continued this sublime kind of exercise, always rising, till they became mere points in the air, and the young ones were lost and afterwards their parents to our aching sight.” What an instructive lesson to Christian parents does this history read ! how powerfully does it excite them to teach their children betirnes to look toward heaven and the Sun of righte- ousness, and to elevate their thoughts thither more and more on the wings of faith and love ; themselves all the while going before them, and encouraging them by their own axample. 1 Pternis apivorus. 2 Sarcorhamphus Gryphus, 3 Zool. i.29. See above, p. 272. 4 Salmonia, 99. CHAPTER XXIV. Functions and Instincts. JMMammalians. WE are now arrived ai the last and highest Class of the Animal Kingdom, to which man himself belongs, and of which he forms the summit: but though he may be said to belong to it in some respects, in others he stands aloof from it, as an insulated animal, and one exalted far above it, being created rather to govern its members, than to be the associate of the highest of them. This Class includes many animals which are of the greatest utility to man, and without which he could scarcely exist, at least not in comfort; and others again that attack him and his property ; and though thefear of him, insome degree, still remains upon them, also often excite that passion in his breast. But he of all animals is the only one, that by the exercise of his reasoning powers and faculties, can arm himself with facti- tious weapons, enabling him to cope with the superior strength, the fierceness, claws, and teeth of the tiger or the lion, and to lay them dead at his feet when in the very act of springing upon him. The animals of this Class, that are terrestrial, are all quadru- peds,* and are mostly covered with fur or hair, longer or shorter, though in some, these hairs become quills, as in the porcupine, or spines, as in the hedgehog ; others, like the serpents and and lizards, are protected by scales, as the Manis; and some are incased in a hard coat of armour, often consisting of pieces so united as to form a kind of mosaic, as the armadillo, the Chlamyphorus,? and probably the Megatherium. In the aquatic Mammalians the legs are, more or less, con- verted into fins, or means of natation.* ‘The whole body con- stituting the Class, though sometimes varying in the manner, are all distinguished by giving suck to their young, on which 1 Terparoda true yue. 2 Prare XVII. 3 See above, p. 256, 265. 3F 442 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. account they were denominated by the Swedish naturalist, Mammalians.* The situation and number of the, usually protuberant, or- gans that yield the milk, vary in different tribes and genera. The Creator has distributed them according to the circum- stances of each kind. Physiologists divide them into pectoral, or those on the chest ; abdominal, or those on the abdomen ; and inguinal, or those on the groin. In the human race, the Quad- rumanes, and the bats, and some others, these organs are placed between the arms. For an erect animal like man, it is evi- dent that this situation for the paps was the only convenient one for suckling an infant, either when sitting or standing; the monkey tribes also, which are always moving about upon trees, and among the branches, could not have exercised this maternal function, had their lactescent organs been placed lower ; and the bats, which carry and suckle their young dur- ing flight, required that their nipples should be similarly placed, to enable them to keep fast hold. All the species of the above tribes have only a pair of the organs in question, with the ex- ception of the lory, or sloth-ape,? so called from the excessive slowness of its movements, which has four, two of which Cu- vier places in his abdominal column, under the name of epigas- tric. The animals which produce more than two at a birth, as might be expected, have a proportionable number of nipples differently distributed. ‘Thus the cat has four pectoral, and four abdominal. The ten nipples of the swine are all abdomi- nal, and those of the other Pachyderms, with the exception of the elephant, which has only two pectoral nipples, are simi- larly situated. The jerboa? has both pectoral and inguinal ones, while the lemming‘ has all three kinds; the Ruminants, Solipeds, Amphibians, Carnivorous Cetaceans, have only ingui- nal dugs, with from two to five nipples. This situation is evidently best suited for suckling their limited number of young ones. Amongst the Marsupians, whose young, immediately upon their birth, pass into a second matrix as it were, almost the entire skin of the abdomen forms a pocket, inclosing the lactescent organs ; those of the opossum are arranged, in Cu- vier’s table, in the inguinal column; but in the Kanguroo, which has four, they appear rather to be abdominal. These variations in the position and number of the organs furnishing 1 Cuvier calls them Mammifera, but there seems no reason for altering the original term. 2 Stlenops. 3 Dipus Sagitta. 4 Lemmus. MAMMALIANS. 443, the sole food of the animals of the present Class in their state of infancy, were evidently planned and formed by the hand of a being supreme in Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, who adapted every organ to the circumstances in which it was his will to place the diversified animals that compose it, and to their general structure. To those which produce not more than two at a birth, only two organs for suction were usually given, placed, according to the wants of the animal, either between the anterior or posterior extremities, in which latter case the posture was never erect; but where he decreed an animal should produce a more numerous progeny, he planted them in ereater numbers, and so distributed them that all belonging to the same litter could suck at the same time. In the case of the Kanguroo the members of two litters are sometimes sucking at the same time, which accounts for their having four nipples, a fact which shows how accurately every thing has been fere- seen, weighed, and numbered, by a Provident Intellect. In the whole animal kingdom, except amongst the Mam- malians, there is no instance of the young being supported by their parents with nutriment derived from themselves, nothing, therefore, affords a clearer character for a definition of the Class than this most interesting one: the Birds, indeed—with the exception of pigeons which feed their nestlings from their crop— as well as the bees, and several other Hymenopterous insects, provide their progeny with food which they collect for them themselves; but the great majority of invertebrated animals, confine their care for them, to placing their eggs in a situation in which, when hatched, they would meet with their appro- priate food, and this appears to be all that is generally done by the two first classes of Vertebrates, the Fishes, and the Rep- tiles. Mamnatia. (Beasts.) Animal vertebrated, ovoviviparous, or viviparous. Extremities ambulatory, or natatory ; in a few organized for flight. Integument pilose ; sometimes spinose, or armed with hard scales or plates; and sometimes naked. Young not hatched by incubation, but when first extruded from the matrix, receiv- ing their nutriment by suction, till they can support them- selves. Circulation double. Blood red, warm. Respiration simple. Lungs thoracic. i a i Oe ale 444 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Cuvier seems to have laboured under some difficulty with regard to the Classification of Mammalians, and to have regarded the Marsupians and Monotrémes as forming a distinct Class, divisible, for the most part, into Orders analogous to those into which the Class of common Quadrupeds is divisible. Subse- quent observations have proved the general correctness of this idea. Mr Owen observes to me, in a letter, “ Dissections of most of the genera of JMarsupians have tended to confirm in my mind the propriety of establishing them as a distinct and parallel group, beginning with the Monotremes, which I believe to lead from Reptiles, not birds. A general simplicity in the structure of the brain; a less perfect condition of the vocal or- gans ; some peculiar dispositions of the great veins and arteries, as the presence of two superior vene cave, and the absence of an inferior mesenteric artery, are among the circnmstances in which they, the Marsupians and Monotrémes differ from the true viviparous Mammalians, and agree with the oviparous Vertebrates. Recent opportunities of examining the impreg- nated uterus of the Kanguroo and Ornithorhynchus have almost determined that they are both ovoviviparous.” Under these impressions, confirmed and illustrated by the observations of so able a comparative anatomist, I shall consider the Class of Mammalians as divisible into two Sub-classes, viz. Ovoviviparous Mammalians, and Viviparous Mammalians. It may be here observed, with regard to the state of forward- ness in which the different tribes of Mammalians leave the matrix, a considerable variation takes place, some requiring a longer time than others, before they can be considered as at all independent of maternal care and protection. The young of the Ruminants, Pachyderms, and Solipeds, come into the world with the organs of the senses, and of locomotion, in a state to be used immediately ; they can see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and walk with their legs, as soon as they are born; whereas the Predaceans and several others, when first born are blind, and unable to walk, and do not attain to the full use of their eyes and legs till a considerable time after birth. In man, though the infant is born seeing, yet a much longer period, and the instruction of the mother or nurse, are required before it can walk. In the first case here noticed, that of the Ruminants and Pachyderms, the young animal requires less care from the mother. She has little to do besides suckling, and watching it in order to protect it if danger threatens. But, in the second 1 Regn. An. i. 174. MAMMALIANS. 445 case, she must prepare a kind of nest, not exposed to the light, and removed from observation, in which she can attend to her young unmolested, till they can see and move about upon their legs. Every one knows how attentive feline animals are to these circumstances, and the Rodents often excavate bur- rows in which they bring forth and suckle their young. The Marsupian Mammalians probably are exposed to external cir- cumstances, which render it necessary that they should have a kind of nidus formed of the skin of their own body, to receive their young when they leave the matrix, at which period they seem to be in a more helpless state than any of the animals last alluded to.t From this statement we see that the graminivorous and om- nivorous animals, whose food is always at hand, come into the world the best prepared for action ; while the carnivorous ones, and those that must, if I may so speak, procure their daily bread by the sweat of their brows, require to be in some degree educated for their function,” before they can duly exercise it. In the instance of the Ornithorhynchus, a burrow,? seems to sup- ply the place of the marsupial pouch, which indicates some approach to many of the Rodents. Sub-class 1. Ovoviviparous Mammalians. Chorion, or external membrane of the egg not rendered vas- cular by the extension of the foetal vessels into it. Embryo not adhering to the uterus. Only one passage out of the body. Marsupial bones in all. This Sub-class is divided into two Orders, JMonotremes, and Marsupians. Order 1.—Monotremes (Ornithorhynchus ; Echidna.) No marsupial pouch. Coracoid bones extended to the ster- num. Young suckled from a mammary orifice: brought up in burrows. Animal predaceous. Order 2.—Marsupians (Wombat; Koala; Kanguroo; Pha- langist; Flying and Common Opossum, &c.) A marsupial pouch receiving the young after birth, in which they are suckled, by means of nipples. Animal herbivorous, predaceous, or carnivorous. Sub-class 2.—Viviparous Mammalians. Chorion, or external membrane of the egg rendered vascular by the extension of the foetal vessels into it. Embryo adhering to the uterus. 1+ Owen in Philos. Tr. 1834. 344. 2 See above, p. 327. 3 Owen, ubi. supr. 564. 446 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Young when brought forth not received into a pouch ; suckled by a nipple. This sub-class is divided into eight Orders thus arranged in an ascending scale, 1. Cetaceans. 5. Rodents. 2. Pachyderms. 6. Predaceans, 3. Ruminants. Pb Cheiropterans. 4. Edentates. 8. Quadrumanes. Several of these Orders may be further divided into Sub- orders, as will appear when I come to treat of them. I have not adhered to Baron Cuvier’s arrangement, in placing the Ruminanis next to the Cetaceans, for it always appeared to me incongruous to place at the foot of the scale, animals on every account entitled to rank higher: and 1am happy to find my opinion backed by Mr. Owen’s judgment, which he informs me is grounded on anatomical considerations. The Hippopotamus appears to us both the proper successor of the Cetaceans. Order 1.—Cetaceans. 'This Order may be divided into two Sub-orders, the first consisting of those that form the great body of the Order, which are predaceous in their habits; and the second of those that are herbivorous. (To the first belong the Whales ; the Cachalots ; the Narwhals ; the Porpoises; and the Dolphins, &c.: and to the second, the Manatee; the Du- gong; and Rytina.) This Order is principally distinguished from the terrestrial Mammalians by having the hind lees converted into a horizon- tal (so called) fin moving up and down. They have little or no neck, and their anterior extremities are covered with a tendinous membrane, which enables the animal to use them as fins. The Predaceous Cetaceans are distinguished from the Her- bivorous by having their mammary organs inguinal, and by their fins not being prehensory. In the Herbivorous Sub-order, the mammary organs are pec- toral, and they can use their anterior extremities, in some de- gree, as hands, to carry their young, and in locomotion.* They are also armed with tusks, a circumstanoe which ap- pears to connect them with the Morse or Walrus,? which is said, by Cuvier, to be both herbivorous and carnivorous, and to differ considerably from the rest of the Amphibians. Order 2.—Pachyderms. 'Theexternal characters which distin- guish the Solipeds from the typical Pachyderms are so striking, 1 See above, p, 261. 2 Trichecus rosmarus. MAMMALIANS. 447 that they seem almost entitled to be placed in a separate Order. I shall, however, consider them as forming a Sub-order. (To this Order belong the Hippopotamus; the Tapir; the Swine tribe ; the Rhinoceros ; the Elephant; the Horse ; and the Ass ; &c.) The principal characters of this Order, are Feet armed with hoofs incapable of prehension. In the typical Pachyderms the hoof is divided more or less, but in the Solipeds it is not. Order 3.—Kiuminants. The Camel tribe seems to form an- other Sub-order in the present Sub-class, distinguished by the remarkable circumstance, mentioned upon a former occasion, that its hoof, though superficially divided, has an entire sole,! and the males have no horns. (This Order includes the Camel ; Dromedary ; Lama; Giraffe; the Ox, and Sheep tribes ; the Goats; the Antelopes; the Deers; and the Elk.) The principal character of the Order is that which its name indi- cates, that the animals belonging to it, chew the cud, that is, masticate a second time the feod that they swallow, which, owing to the structure of their stomachs, they can return to the mouth after the first deglutition. Order 4.—Edentates. (This order contains the Pangolin ; the Ant-eaters ; the Armadillos ; and the Sloths; &c.) Their distinctive character is to have no fore teeth. Order 5.—Rodents. (Guinea-pigs ; Hare and Rabbit ; Porcu- pine; Beaver; Mouse; Rat; Dormouse; Jerboa; Marmot ; Squirrels ; &c.) The principal character of this order are its front or cuiting-teeth ; of these there are two in each jaw, sepa- rated from the grinders by an interval, so that they can neither seize any living prey, or lacerate its flesh ; they cannot even cut the aliments which form their subsistence, but they can, as it were, file them, and by constant labour, nibbling and gnawing, reduce them to fragments proper for deglutition. They are connected with the kanguroo, the wombat, and other JMarsupians, and the beaver exhibits one of the distinctive charac- ters of the JMonotremes, it has only one passage by which the excrements are ejected. Order 6.—Predaceans or Zoophagans. Cuvier’s subdivisions of this Order may be regarded, for the most part, as Sub-orders, but there is one tribe included in it by this great, man, the Cheiropterans, which seems rather to form an Osculant Order, between it and the Quadrumanes. (Walrus; Seals; Cat; Leopard ; Panther; Tiger; Lion; Hyena; Ichneumon, Civet- cat; For; Wolf; Dog; Otter; Martin; Weasel ; Glutton ; Bear ; Mole ; Hedgehog ; Shrew ; &c.) The animals of this 1 See above, p. 296. 448 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. Order have three kinds of teeth, viz. cutting-teeth, canine teeth, and grinders ; their paws are armed with claws ; their muzzle is often set with whiskers, usually called smellers; their mam- mary organs are dispersed ; their intestines are less voluminous than those of herbivorous animals, a provision, the object of which is to prevent the flesh which forms their food from pu- trifying, by remaining too long in the body. Order '7.—Cheiropterans (Bats ; Vampyres ; and Flying-cats). The animals of this Order are distinguished by real organs for flight, formed of the skin extended between the legs, as de- scribed on a former occasion ;* their mammary organs, as in the Quadrumanes, are pectoral; they are, in some points, con- nected with the flying opossum, flying squirrels, &c. Order 8.—Quadrumanes. (Monkeys ; Apes ; Baboons ; Oran- outans.) The great character that distinguishes this order is, a movable thumb on their lower extremities opposed to the fingers, so that they can use the carpus, metacarpus, and phalanges of both extremities as hands. I have more than once had occa- sion to observe,? that certain tribes in the animal kingdom seem occasionally to form centres from which rays diverge towards different parts. ‘The quadrumanes afford another example of this disposition in nature: the lory, for instance, looks towards the sloths ; the baboon, the Cynocephalus of the ancients, to- wards the dogs and bears ; the aye aye, amongst the Rodents, also might be taken for a quadrumane,’ and several other in- stances occur. Sub-class 1. Order 1.—The animals of this Order have puz- zled Zoologists to ascertain their place and character. At first they were regarded as oviparous instead of mammiferous quad- rupeds, and the Ornythorhynchus in particular, was thought to be something between bird and beast. The researches of Mr Owen have almost proved that the animal just named does not leave the womb of its mother as an egg, requiring her in- cubation, to complete its birth ; but in the form it is afterwards to maintain, in which case it must necessarily derive its sup- port from her, by some lactescent organ, traces of which have been discovered. Its beak resembling that of a duck, and its webbed feet seem to connect it, in some degree, with the first Order of the Birds ; but the entire scapular apparatus, the de- velopment of the oviduct and uterus in both sides, the absence of the ligamentum teres, its four legs, and reptant motions, show that it is most nearly connected with the Repiiles. The 1 See above, p. 272. 2 See above, pp. 148, 199, 206. 3. See above, p. 300. MAMMALIANS. 449 Echidna, by its extensile tongue, its food, and mode of taking it, approaches the ant-eaters: it also rolls itself up like an armadillo. ‘The functions of the Order seem to be to keep in check the numbers of small animals; the Echidna, the ants ; and the Ornithorynchus, which frequents the waters, some that are aquatic. But we know very little of their habits and history. Order 2.—The animals of this Order are partly herbivorous, and partly carnivorous. The wombat,* the koala,? the kan- guroo,? and other New Holland species, are herbivorous; the phalangist* of the Moluccas, lives upon the trees, and devours insects as well as fruits. The New Holland opossums’ are very voracious, and devour carcasses as well as insects: they enter into the houses, where their voracity is very troublesome. That most common in America, like the fox, attacks poultry in the night, and sucks their eggs. It is said to produce often sixteen young ones in one litter, which, when first born, do not weigh more than a grain each! though blind and almost shape- less, when placed in the pouch they instinctively find the nip- ple, and adhere to it till they attain the size of a mouse, which does not take place till they are fifty days old, at which period they begin to see; after this they do not wholly leave the pouch till they are as big asarat!! This statement is so ex- traordinary, that, though apparently believed by Cuvier, on the authority of Barton,’ it seems almost incredible. It is strange, as the animal seems common in America, that Say, or some other Zoologist of that country, has not turned his attention to it. I have mentioned, on another occasion,® several particulars of the history of the kanguroo and koala, which I need not re- peat here. Indeed our knowledge of the history and instincts of the Marsupian animals is very limited. Europe produces none. New Holland, some of the Asiatic islands, and North and South America, are their principal habitations. As the young of these animals leave the matrix of their mother at so early a period, and when, if they were exposed to the atmos- phere, they must inevitably perish, it isevident that some such protection, as that with which Providence has furnished them, was necessary for the preservation of the race. Doubtless 1 Phascolomys. 2 Lipurus. 3 Macropus. 4 Phalangista orientalis. 5 Dasyurus. 6 Didelphis Virginiana. 7 Regn. An. 1.176. 8 See above, pp. 282, 300. el 450 / FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. some wise and beneficial end is answered by the seeming Pre mature nativity of these little creatures. The opossums are peculiar to America, and are remarkable for having a greater number of teeth than any other animal, amounting in all to fifty; they approach the Quadrumanes, by having the thumb of their hind foot opposed to the fingers, whence they have been called Pedimanes, but it is not armed with a nail. They are usually stationed on the trees, where. they pursue birds and insects, though, like the monkeys, they often eat fruit, and by this structure of the hind foot they can probably better support themselves on the branches. Many of the animals of this Order tend also to the Rodents, and in to the Predaceans. Sub-class 2. Order 1.—At the foot of the present Class are found the most gigantic animals with which it has pleased God to people the globe that we inhabit. The destruction, however, at least in the Arctic seas, of these animals, is so great, that it has been supposed, they are not suffered to live long enough to attain their full dimensions; but this has been doubted. Mr Scoresby saw none in those seas that exceeded sixty-eight feet in length; but some are said to reach one hundred and twenty feet. 1 saw one, which was exhibited two years ago, in the King’s Mews, the length of the skeleton of which was more than ninety feet. In the Antartic seas, where the cupidity of mercantile enterprise does not occasion any great destruction of them, some are said even to reach the enormous length of one hundred and sixty feet. God has placed these Leviathans* where their enormous bulk can have full play, and their enormous appetite be fully sati- ated, in the vast and teeming depths of the ocean, where, whether they move horizontally, or, by the aid of that powerful organ, their forked tail, seek the deep waters, there is space, and to spare, even for them. The carnivorous, or predaceous Cetaceans may very conve- niently be divided into sections by characters which distinguish their mazillary organs ; the common whale,* and the fin-whale,* have their jaws armed with no real teeth, but only furnished with transverse plates, formed of what is called whalebone, consisting of a fibrous horny substance, sufficient for the mas- tication of their, for the most part, gelatinous food, which swarms in such infinite myriads i in the Arctic and icy seas, that Scoresby calculates it would require eighty thousand persons, constantly 1 See above, p. 418. 2 Balena. 3 Balenoptera. MAMMALIANS. A451 employed from the Creation, to count the number of those ex- isting simultaneously. Animals of this section are further subdivided into those that have, and those that have not a dorsal fin. To the latter sub- division belongs the animal commonly distinguished as the whale by way of eminence,* and which is the principal object of the whale fishery. The senses of seeing and hearing in these animals, in the water, are extremely acute ; and their eyes are so placed that they can see behind as well as before and above them, and for a great distance ; but when the head emerges from the water, this activity of sight and hearing ceases. Their motions in the water are extremely rapid. They will sometimes assume a perpendicular position, with their head downwatds, and rearing aloft their tremendous tail, lash the water with terrific violence, like the Indian god, churning the sea into foam, and filling the air with vapour. Sometimes by the motion of this organ, they produce a thundering noise. They will dive to the bottom of the ocean ; and when confined in the shallows, these unwieldly monsters will sometimes leap out of the water. Their brain, compared with that of man, is very small. The weight of the brain of an udult man is often four pounds; that of a whale, nineteen feet long, only three pounds and a half; yet this is large compared with that of some other animals. The second section of Cetaceans consists of those which have teeth only in their upper jaw. To this tribe belongs the sea- unicorn, or narwhal,? distinguished by its long tusk, or tusks, for there are sometimes two, extended in a horizontal direction. To the third section belong those that have teeth only in their lower jaw: of this description are the spermaceti whales, or cachalots,* remarkable for their enormous head, sometimes occupying half the length of the body. Their teeth are long, and numerous, and all point outwards ; opposite to them, in the upper jaw, is an equal number of cavities, in which the ends of the teeth are lodged, when the mouth is closed. These animals are said to grow sometimes to an enormous length ; and to be very cruel and dangerous. The fourth and last section of carnivorous Cetaceans consists of those that have teeth in both upper and lower jaws. To this the porpoise,* the grampus,° and the long celebrated dolphin® 1 Balena Mysitcetus. 2 Monodon Monoceros. 3 Physeter. 4 Phocena. 5 Delphinus Orca. 6 Delphinus Delpis. a = aie pha EE, eg ag © EO Ee Pe -5— te uN a CD Pele & Oe ee eS ee de ee ee ee on ee 452 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. belong. ‘These animals are more active than the preceding Cetaceans, and have a brain of greater volume. The common dolphin is gregarious, and remarkable for its frolicsome gam- bols, often fortelling a storm, during which they will leap entirely out of the water. ‘They pursue and devour the gre- garious migratory fishes, and will even eat offal and garbage. These animals, in their tooth-armed mouth, often opening wide, seem to exhibit some affinity to the aquatic Saurians, as has been remarked with regard to tne Cetaceans in general. The end for which all these carnivorous Cetaceans were brought into existence by the Creator of the universe, was evidently to keep within due limits, those animals, inhabitants of the northern and southern oceans, which were most given to increase, and which, were it not for some such check, might multiply to such a destee as would interfere with the general welfare.? But the vegetable tenants of the ocean require to be kept within due limits, as well as the animal, amongst other crea- tures to whom this province is assigned, are some Cetaceans ; thus preserving the general analogy observable in the animal Kingdom, which, in almost every Order, has its cattle, as well as its beasts of prey. Only three genera have been hitherto discovered to which this function is assigned, and all of them consisting of animals now in existence. The Manatees,® belong to this Sub-order, on account of their carrying their young with their flappers or fin-like legs, and their breasts, probably gave rise to the fable of the siren, or mer- maid. One of the most remarkable of the herbivorous Cetaceans, is the Dugong,* which is the only animal yet known that grazes at the bottom of the sea usually in shallow inlets, which it is enabled to accomplish by its power of suspending itself steadily in the water, and by having its jaws bent down at an angle, in such a manner as to bring the mouth into nearly a vertical direction, so that it can feed upon the sea-weeds much in the same manner as a cow does upon the herbage. Ruppel, a traveller in Africa, discovered a second species of Dugong in the Red Sea; and he is of opinion, that it was the skin of this animal with which the Jews were commanded to cover the tabernacle. 1 See above, p. 16,17. 2 See above, p. 107—108. 3 Manatus Americanus. 4 Halicore Dugong. 5 H. Tabernaculum, See Exod, xxvi. 14. Badger’s skins in our Trans- lation. MAMMALIAMS. 453 Order 2. Whoever compares the genuine Pachyderms with the Cetaceans, will find many points in which they resemble each other. As the latter Order contains the largest marine animals, so does the former the giants that inhabit the earth. With respect to their integument, the skin of both is nearly naked, except in the case of the swine, the daman,* the mam- moth, and some others; a very small eye characterizes all, and a short tail; the blubber of the whale seems to have its analogue in the fat that covers the muscles of the swine. . One of the most remarkable animals of this Sub-order, is the fossil one, which, on account of its enormous tusks, is nained Deino- therium.? It is found in the north of Europe, and specimens of its powerful jaws and tusks may be seen in the British Museum. From its lower jaw two powerful tusks rise as in the Hippopo- tamus, to which Mr Owen regards it as approaching very near, and as forming the link that unites the Cetaceans to the Pachyderms. The herbivorous Cetaceans, in common with the generality of the Pachyderms, are likewise armed with tusks ; so that the interval that separates the Hippopotamus and Deinotherium from the Dugong is not very wide. The grand function of the, for the most part, mighty animals which constitute the tribe | am speaking of, seems to be that of inhabiting and finding their subsistence, in the tropical for- ests of the old world; both Africa and Asia have each their own rhinoceros, and elephant, which, by their giant bulk, and irresistible strength, can make their way through the thickest forests or jungles. ven the swine, from the thickness of its skin, suffers nothing from pushing through bushes and under- wood in search of acorns ; and most of these animals, by means of their tusks, muzzle, or horns, can dig up the roots that form their food. The hippopotamus seeks his provender in th@ African rivers, and by means of the tusks with which the under jaw is armed,—in this differing from the dugong, in which the tusks are in the upper jaw,—is enabled to root up plants grow- ing under the water. The tapir acts the same part nearly in the New World that the hippopotamus does in the old. By the efforts of the Pachyderms, in general, in pursuit of their own means of subsistence, a way is often made for man more readily to traverse and turn to his purpose forests and woody districts, that would otherwise mock his efforts to pene- trate into them. When we consider the vast bulk and armour of the rhinoceros, for instance, and the violence with which he 1 Ayraz. 2 From the Gr. desvoc, terrible, and Supssv, wild beast. 2 | 7 | if | { t } } ?. ke i f — 454 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. endeavours to remove obstacles out of his path, we may in some degree calculate the momemtum by which he is enabled to win his resistless way through the thickest and most entan- gled underwood. I need not enlarge on the second Sub-order of the Pachyderms, the Solipeds, the well-known equine and asinine tribes; every one must be struck by the contrast that their structure and characters exhibit to those of the first Sub-order, or typical ones. A fiery and intelligent eye ; a neck clothed with thunder, to use the words of inspiration; a graceful form; speed that often outstrips the wind; are the distinctive characters which the highest tribe of them exhibits; while the other, though less beautiful, still has the organs of sight and hearing singu- larly conspicuous ; along tail ; and its integument clothed with a shaggy coarse fur: besides these characters, the undivided hoof of both these tribes forms also a most striking distinction. No animals, indeed, externally present characters more diverse from each other than the soliped and typical Pachyderms. God has given us these animals, evidently, that we may em- ~ ploy them as our servants, and their great function is, to carry ourselves and our burthens; they also minister in no small degree to our innocent pleasure and amusements, as well as to our defence and security. Order 3.—Of all the different Orders of the present Class, or indeed of all the Classes of animals, none are of so much im- portance to their Lord as the Ruminants, which we are next to consider ; without them, hunger, cold, and nakedness would beset him, or, at least, a large portion of his comforts, with respect to articles of food and clothing, must be cut off. Cuvier divides this great Order into those that have horns, ‘and those that have none, and we may here adopt his division, considering these two sections as forming two Sub-orders. The first of them, being the beasts of burthen of more than one na- tion, may be regarded as succeeding the solipeds; these are the camels and dromedaries, the lamas; and perhaps what is called the musk-deer, also wanting horns, may be placed amongst them. So that we have thus before us animals that may be regarded as looking towards the Solipeds, in the camel genus ; towards the sheep by its fleece, in the lama; and to- wards the antelope tribes in the musk. All the other Ruminants, the males at least, are armed with two horns, either simple or branching ; either hollow, or solid ; either persistent or deciduous. I feel disposed to consider the giraffe, or camelopard, as an intermediate form between the animals that are horned, and those without horns, for its short, MAMMALIANS. 455 persistent, solid horns, clothed with a velvet skin, seem almost rudimentary. It may be regarded as connecting, in some degree, the long necked animals, the camel and lama, &c. with the deer tribe. These last, the most elegant and airy, both in form and limb and motions, of the whole class, placed in contrast with the clumsiness and bulk of the Pachyderms, seem intended as one of the principal ornaments of the globe we inhabit, and originally to be amongst the peculiar favourites of its king and master man. Now, instead of the innocuous animals, he takes into his alliance, as his most intimate associates, those that are best fitted to pursue and destroy, as the dog, and the cheetah ; and thus with the help of the horse, he overtakes these beau- tiful creatures, and, instead of caresses, they receive death at his hands. | The head of these animals, in some, as the rein-deer,* in both sexes, but generally only in the males, is ornamented, as it were, with a branching forest,? formed by its antlers, or horns, which are solid, covered, as in the camelopard, with a velvet skin, but only during the period of growth, and annually deciduous ; these are used by the males in their mutual com- bats. Amongst these light and airy animals, however, some of a larger and more robust stature are thus fitted for the use of man, as the rein-deer. The elk, or moose,? the wapiti,* and red deers, emulate the horse in size, and are of great strength, though not yet employed by man.* Lastly, come the Rumi- nants, whose horns are hollow and naked, but persistent. To these belong the Antelopes, one species of which has four horns,® the goats, the sheep, and the bovine tribes. The species of the two last of these great families are particularly import- ant to man, and are genefally so well known as not to require to be treated of in detail. The bison,” with his shaggy mane, presents no slight analogy to the lion, the so called king of beasts; and the gnu, reckoned amongst the antelopes, seems to combine characters borrowed from the ox and the horse. | The function of this great Order of Ruminants, is not only to browse the herbage, and provide, by constantly trimming, and as it were mowing it, for its renewed verdure; many of them are employed also in pruning the trees, by feeding upon their branches; and there is not one that, in its place, does not contribute its part to the general welfare. The cattle on a 1 Cervus Tarandus. 2. French. Bois. 3. C. alces. 4 C. strongyheceras. 5 See above, p. 285, 6 A. Chickara. 7 Bos Urus. > \ 456 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. thousand hills are distributed by their Great Creator according to certain laws, and by their actions in their several spheres, to promote certain ends, which ‘neglected, or imperfectly pro- vided for, would produce derangements that might affect a wide circumference. Order 4.—Having, in a former part of the present volume, given an account of the principal tribes of this Order, I need not here do more than mention it, except by observing, that the members of it are principally inhabitants of the new w orld, the Manis and Orycteropus, being the only genera it contains that are found in the old. Order 5.—The animals included in the Order of Rodents, or gnawers and nibblers, as | have before observed,+ seem to occupy the same station amongst the Mammalians, that the Hymenoptera do amongst Insects, since they are the most re- markable of any for the arts which Providence has instructed them to exercise. This, as well as the preceding Order, seems very slightly connected with the great tribe of Ruminants: the Patagonian hare,? however, of the Pampas, belonging to the Rodents, seems, in its light and elegant form, to make the nearest approximation to that tribe. Several of the animals of the Order before us copy the mem- bers of the class of insects in one of their most remarkable pecu- liarities; during the cold or winter season, they become torpid. This is the case with the dormouse,* the marmots,* the prarie- dog,* and many other Rodents, as well as with many preda- ceous Mammalians, especially the insectivorous ones, as the hedge-hogs.° The mole, and the bats, and even some of the largest animals, as the bear, are subject to the same law. When we consider the case of the insectivorous animals of the present class, we see at once the wiSdom and goodness of the Lawgiver in this enactment. ‘The reduction of the tempera- ture, and other causes, have driven the insects from the thea- tre they usually frequent, to remain for a time without motion under the earth and other places of security, where they are safe from these their enemies; it was, therefore a kind and wise provision, that as their accustomed food was beyond their reach, they themselves should also be placed in a state not to require it. Many other animals amongst the Rodents, though they do not pass the winter in a state of absolute torpidity, 1 See above, p. 299. 2 Cavia patagonica. 3 Myoxus avellanarius. 4 Arctomys. 5 Spermophilus ludovictanus. Faun. Boreal, Americ. i. 156. 6 Erinaceus. MAMMALIANS. 457 retreat to what may be called their winter quarters, in which they have laid up a store of provisions against the evil days of winter. Of this description are many of the murine tribes, particularly the hamster,t which is furnished with a pouch on each side of its mouth, that it fills with grain to deposit in its burrow, for a winter store. Some will thus carry as much as three ounces at a time. The lemmings® also, whose destruc- live ravages I have before noticed,® especially that called the economist,* have similar habits, storing up roots instead of grain. Generally speaking, it is the lowering of the temperature Hl that induces Mammalians, as well as cold-blooded animals, to hybernate, and brings on a state of torpidity, or a cessation of } the usual stimulus to locomotion and action: in which state, | Mr Owen remarks, warm-blooded animals become, as it were, cold-blooded. As a watch not wound up remains without mo- tion, still retaining the power of resuming it, and when the mainspring recovers its elasticity.is again enabled to act upon | its wheels: so to animals heat is the key that winds up the : wheels, and restores to the mainspring its power of reaction. Hybernating animals have supernumerary cells, and generally become very fat in autumn, and it has been said that this fat supports them in their torpid state; it is found, however, that there has been but little of it consumed during the state of torpidity, but that it wastes,very fast immediately after that state is ended. The Indians remark, with respect to the black bear, that it comes out in the spring with the same fat which it carries in in the autumn; but after the exercise of only a few days it becomes lean.’ A state of periodical rest may be necessary to the animals we are speaking of, not only as a means of protection from the effects of a low temperature, and on account of the impossibility of procuring their usual means of subsistence ; but since alternate rest and action are neces- sary to most animals, so a longer period ‘of sleep may be re- quired in some cases, by such cessation of action to keep the machine from wearing out too soon. Excess of heat we know produces the same effect as excess of cold, it disposes to sleep.® The tenrec,7 a Madagascar animal, and the jerboa, fall into a kind of summer lethargy from that cause, which lasts some months.® — From the numerous instances of remarkable instincts exhi- cs 1 Cricetus. 2 Arvicola. Lemmus. 3 See above, p. 49. 4 LL, economus. 5 Fn. Boreal. Americ. i. 20. 6 N.D. DH. N. xxxi. 387—390. 7 = Setiger. 8 N. D. DH. N. xxxiii. 53. 3H 458 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. bited by the animals of this Order, which might be selected, I must confine myself to one or two of the most singular. The hare is only noticed for its extreme timidy and watchfulness, and the rabbit for the burrows which it excavates for its own ‘habitation, and as a nest for its young: but there is an animal related to them, the rat-hare,* which is gifted by its creator with a very singular instinct, on account of which it ought rather to be called the hay-maker, since man may or might have learned that part of the business of the agriculturist, which consists in providing a store of winter provender for his cattle, from this industrious animal. Professor Pallas was the first who described the quadruped exercising this remarkable function and gave an account of it. The Tungusians, who inhabit the country beyond the lake of Baikal, call it Pika, which has been adopted as its Trivial name. These animals make their abode between the rocks, and during the summer employ themselves in making hay for a winter store. Inhabiting the most northern districts of the old world, the chain of Altaic Mountains, extending from Siberia to the confines of Asia and Kamtschatka,* they never appear in the plains, or in places exposed to observation ; but always select the rudest and most elevated spots, and often the centre of the most gloomy, and at the same time humid forests, where the herbage is fresh and abundant. They generally hollow out their burrows between the stones and in the clefts of the rocks, and sometimes in the holes of trees. Sometimes they live in solitude and sometimes in small societies, according to the nature of the mountains they inhabit. About the middle of the month of August these little ani- mals collect with admirable precaution their winter’s provenderf, which is formed of select herbs, which they bring near their habitation and spread out to dry like hay. In September, they form heaps or stacks of the fodder they have collected under the rocks or in other places sheltered from the rain or snow. Where many of them have laboured together their stacks are sometimes as high as a man, and more than eight feet in di- ameter. A subterranean gallery leads from the burrow, below the mass of hay, so that neither frost nor snow can intercept their communication with it. Pallas had the patience to ex- amine their provision of hay piece by piece, and found it to consist chiefly of the choicest grasses, and the sweetest herbs, 1 Lagomys. 2 Mr Daines Barrington presented to the Royal Society an animal resem- bling the Pika found in Scotland, but probably a different species. MAMMALIANS. 459 all cut when most vigorous, and dried so slowly as to forma green and succulent fodder ; he found in it scarcely any ears, or blossoms, or hard and woody stems, but some mixture of bitter herbs, probably useful to render the rest more wholesome. These stacks of excellent forage-are sought out by the sable- hunters to feed their harassed horses, and the (Jakutes) na- tives of that part of Siberia, pilfer them, if | may so call it, for the subsistence of their cattle. Instead of imitating the fore- sight and industry of the Pika, they rob it of its means of sup- port, and so devote the animals that set them so good an example to famine and death.t. How much better would it be if instead of robbing and starving these interesting animals, they learned from them to provide in the proper season a sup- ply of hay for the winter provender of their horses. But no animals in this, or indeed any other Order of Mam- malians, are so admirable for their instinets and their results as the beavers. I have more than once alluded to some proceedings of these, seemingly, half-reasoning animals, and shall now as briefly as possible give some account of those fabrics in which their wonderful instinct is principally manifested. There are two writers who had great opportunities of gaining information concerning them; Samuel Hearne, during his journey to the Northern Ocean, in the years 1769, 1770, 1771, and 1772; and Captain Cartwright, who resided nearly sixteen years, on the coast of Labrador. To them I am principally indebted for the particulars of the histery here given. From the breaking up of the frost to the fall of the leaf, the beavers desert their lodges, and roam about unhoused, and unoccupied by their usual labours, except that they have the foresight to begin felling their timber early in the summer. They set about building some time in the month of August. Those that erect their habitations in small rivers or creeks, in which the water is liable to be drained off, with wonderful sagacity provide against that evil by forming a dike across the stream, almost straight where the current is weak, but where it is more rapid, curving more or less, with the convex side opposed tothe stream. They construct these dikes or dams of the same materials as they do their lodges, namely, of pieces of wood of any kind, of stones, mud, and sand. These. cause- ways oppose a sufficient barrier to the force, both of water and ice; and as the willows, poplars, &c. employed in constructing them, often strike root in it, it becomes in time a green hedge, 1 WN D. DH. WN. xxvi. 407—410. 460 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. in which the birds build their nests. Cartwright says that he occasionally used them as bridges, but as they are level with the water, not without wetting his feet. By means of these erections the water is kept at a sufficient height, for it is abso- lutely necessary that there should be at least three feet of water above the extremity of the entry into their lodges, without which, in the hard frosts, it would be entirely closed. This entry is not on the land side, because such an opening might let in the wolverene, and other fierce beasts, but towards the water. ‘Cuvier, in his table above alluded to,* assigns only four pec- toral teats to the female beaver ; but Dr Richardson states that she has eight, and the maxium of her young ones at. eight or nine.2. The number inhabiting one ledge seldom exceeds four old and six or eight young ones; the size of their houses, there- fore, is regulated by the number of the family. Though built of the same materials, they are of much ruder structure than their causeways, and the only object of their erection appears to be a dry apartment to repose in, and where they can eat the food they cccasionally get out of the water. It frequently happens, says Hearne, that some of the large houses have one or more partitions, but these are merely part of the building left to support the roof. He had seen one beaver lodge that had nearly a dozen apartments under the same roof, and, two or three excepted, none had any communication but by water. Cartwright says, that when they build, their first step is to make choice of a nutural basin, of a certain depth, near the bank where there is no rock; they then begin to excavate under water, at the base of the bank, which they enlarge upwards gradually, and so as to form a declivity, till they reach the surface ; and of the earth which comes out of this cavity they form a hillock, with which they mix small pieces of wood, and even stones: they give this hillock the form of a dome, from four to seven feet high, from ten to twelve long, and from eight to nine wide. As they proceed in heightening, they hollow it out below, so as to form the lodge which is to receive the family. At the anterior part of this dwelling, they form a gentle declivity terminating at the water; so that they enter and go out under water. The hunters name this entrance the angle. The interior forms only a single chamber resem- bling an oven. At a little distance is the magazine for provisions. Here they keep in store the roots of the yel- low water-lily, and the branches of the black spruce,® the 1 See above, p. 442. 2 Fn. Boreal. Amer. i. p. 107. 3 Abies nigra. MAMMALIANS. 461 aspin,t and birch,? which they are careful to plant in the mud. These form their subsistence. Their magazines sometimes contain a cart-load of these articles, and the beavers are so in- dustrious, that they are always adding to their store. There is a species of beaver found in the great rivers in Eu- rope—the Danube, the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Weser, which has been regarded as synonymous with the beaver of Canada, but which, though it forms burrows or holes in the banks of those rivers which it frequents, does not, like them, erect any lodges, as above described. Does this instinct sleep in them, and require a certain degree of cold to awaken it, or are they a distinct species? Linné mentions one in Lapland, where the cold is sufficiently intense. Cuvier seems uncertain whether they ought to be considered as distinct. Beavers seem formerly to have existed in England ; the town of Bever- ley (Beaver-field), in Yorkshire, seems to have taken its name from them, and its arms are three beavers. Such are the principal operations that these wonderful ani- mals, probably by the mixture of intellect with instinct, are instructed and adapted by their Creator to execute, that man, by studying them and their ways, may acknowledge the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness that formed and guides them. The functions of the numerous tribes of this Order are va- rious. The great majority may be said to be granivorous, or nucivorous, or even graminivorous; but many live upon dried ve- getable substances, and wood. The aye aye, which approaches the Quadrumanes, appears to be insectivorous. Though many of them are great plagues to man, yet, by exciting his vigi- lance, they are useful to him, and they form the food of many of the lesser predaceous animals. Order 6.—The connection between the animals of which this Order consists, and the Rodents, seems not easily made out. The lowest tribe, the Amphibians, which Cuvier has placed immediately before the Marsupians, appears to have no connection with that Order, or any of the Rodents; and the morse, which forms his last genus of the tribe in question, ap- pears evidently to look more towards the herbivorous cetaceans, - the manatee,* &c. than to any other animals; the seals, in- deed, may be regarded as tending towards the feline tribe. Amongst the other Predaceans, the hedgehog and tenrec pre- sent, | apprehend, something more than an analogy to the 1 Populus tremula., 2 Betula alba. 3. Cheiromys. 462 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. porcupines and some of the rats. The bear seems to look to- wards the sloth; and the feline race, in their whiskers and feet, look to the hares and rats. The general functions of this Order are to check the tend- ency to increase not only in their own Class, the Mammalians, but in most of the other Classes of animals, more particularly those which man has taken into alliance with him, as cattle, and poultry, and game of every description. But where his action is greatest, theirs is usually least ; and the most power- ful devastators of the animal kinkdom, the lions and the tigers, are found in the warmest climates, where nature is most pro- lific, and where man has not fully established his dominion, in the trackless and burning deserts of Libya, and in the impene- trable forests and jungles of India. - In more northern regions, the bears, the foxes, and other Mammalians, are employed in this department, though the former also eat roots and other vegetable substances,* and thus in the wild countries of the north supply the place of man, and keep the animal population under, and at a certain level, so that one may not encroach upon another. If the matter is closely investigated, we shall find that God has distributed and divided these predaceous animals to every country, in measure and momentum, as every one had need. The necrophagous Mammalians’ also, or those that devour dead carcasses, such as the hyznas, dogs, and similar animals, are equally useful in removing infectious substances, which in hot climates soon generate disease, and are always dis- gusting objects, and exercise a very important and beneficial function, devolved upon them by their Creator; for if all the animals exercising this function were removed from the earth, it would soon be depopulated, and a universal pestilence would destroy man, and all his subject animals. Order '7.—The animals of this Order, though evidently lead- ing towards the Quadrumanes, seems less nearly connected with the insectivorous Predaceans of Cuvier, the hedgehog, mole, &c., and to approach nearer to some Marsupians, as the flying squirrel and the flying opossum. I therefore consider them as forming an Osculant Order, distinguished by their powers and organs of flight before sufficiently noticed.* They | are nocturnal animals, and live entirely upon insects. In the winter, they become torpid, and suspend themselves by the 1 Fn. Boreal. Americ. i. 15, 23, 28. 2 Carnivora. Cuv. 3 See above, p. 272. MAMMALIANS. 463 claw of the thumb of the fore-foot, which is left free for this and other purposes. » Order 8.—Linné evidently degraded man when he placed him in the same Order with the monkey, and even considered his genus Homo as consisting of two species, advancing the Ouran Outan* to the honour of being his congener, and a second spe- cies of man. Cuvier has, with great propriety, separated man, the heir of immortality, and whose spirit goeth upward, from the beast that perisheth, and whose spirit goeth downward,? and placed them in different Orders. Man has employed some animals in almost every Order, or taken them under his care ; but there is only a single instance of a Quadrumane being so used. There is a kind of monkey,® a native of Madagascar, which, being of a gentle disposition, the natives of the southern part of that island take when they are young, and educate, as we do hounds, for the chase.* The principal function of these animals is to live and move in the trees, amongst the branches in tropical countries, and they subsist upon fruits, roots, the eggs of birds, and insects. One object of their creation seems to be to hold the mirror to man, that he may see how ugly and disgusting an object he becomes when he gives himself up to vice and the slave of his passions. In fact, in every department of the animal kingdom, the moral instruction of his reasonable creature seems to have been one of the objects of Creative Wisdom: and the sloth and the glutton may be added to the mandril and baboon as equally calculated to cause him to view vice with disgust and abhor- rence ; as the bee, the ant, and the beaver, to excite him to industry, and prudence, and foresight ; or the dove to peace and mutual love. 1 Written also Ourang Outang, and Orang Otang. 2 Kccles. iii. 21. 3 Indris brevicaudatus. 4 N.D. DH. WN. xvi. 171. CHAPTER XXV. Functions and Instincts. Man. AFTER traversing the whole Animal Kingdom from its very lowest grades, and having arrived at Man, who confessedly stands at the head, and is the only visible king and lord of all the rest, it will be expected that I should devote a few pages to the world’s master. ~——~Baron’Cuvier, with great propriety, places him by himself in a separate Order, distinguished from that which succeeds it, ..in his system, by the significant appellation of Bimane, indicat- ing that his two hands are the instruments by which he sub- ~~ dues and governs the planet that he inhabits ;t by which also he is enabled to embody his conceptions, and, as it were, to ... convert his thoughts into material subsistences. I shall consider him both physically and metaphysically ; physically, as to his actual position, and as to his action upon his subjects and property, whether vegetable or animal; and metaphysically as to his connection with that world, to which his mind or spirit belongs. When I say that Man stands at the head of the creation, I do not mean to affirm that he com- bines in himself every physical attribute in perfection that is found in all the animals below him ; for it is manifest to every one, that many of them far exceed him in the perfection of many of their organs, and in their qualities of various kinds. For sight, he cannot compete with the eagle; for scent, with the hound, or the shark; for swiftness, with the roe-buck ; for strength and bulk, with the elephant: but it is in his mind that his superiority lies. There is in him a spirit, an immaterial sub- stance which constitutes him the sole representative here on earth, of the spirit oF spirits. He is the only member of the Animal Kingdom that partakes both of a heavenly and of an earthly nature,—that belongs both to a material and an immaterial world: and on this account it was that God, when he had created man, constituted him king over the whole 1 See above, p. 302. _. =. MAN. 465 sphere of animals with which he had peopled this globe that we inhabit. When his unhappy full took place, the Divine Image was impaired, and consequently the dominion over those creatures, which formed a part of it, was proportionably weak- ened, and reduced to its present standard. But still, though weakened, it is not abrogated ; his subjects have not universally broken the yoke and burst the bonds of his dominion—a large portion of them still acknowledge him as their king and master; and those that he has not subdued so as to make them do his bidding, still fear him and flee him: and even of these, there is none so fierce and intractable, that he has not found means to tame and subdue. And this is the position in which he now stands with respect to the animal kingdom; he has that within him that enables him to master them, and apply such of them as are of a convertible nature, if I may so speak, to work his will and answer his purpose. The functions of man, with regard to the world in which he is now placed, are all included in his action upon the sphere of animals and vegetables, and in their re-action upon him. If we survey all nature, wherever we turn our eyes, or wherever we direct our thoughts, we see the action of antagonist powers, a flux and reflux, by which the Great Builder of the universe supports the vast machine, and maintains all the motions that he has generated in it. The same principle is at work in every description of beings in our own planet; every action of man upon any object of the world, without kim, produces a reaction from that object, attended often by important results. The action of man upon the world without him, is threefold. His first action upon them is, that of the mind to contemplate them, so as to gain a knowledge of their forms and structure— of their habits and instincts—of their meaning and uses. His second action upon them, having studied their natures, and discovered how they may be made profitable to him, is to col- lect and multiply such species as he finds will, in any way, answer his purpose. His third action upon them is to dimin- ish and keep within due limits those species that experience teaches him are noxious and prejudicial either to himself, or those animals that he has taken into alliance with him, which are principal sources of wealth to him, and minister to his daily use, comfort, and enjoyment. If we consider the predaceous animals, we shall find in them a greater tendency to multiply than in those that content them- selves with grazing the herbage; they generally produce more young at a birth; and their period of gestation is often shorter, so as to admit of more than one litter in the year; so that, un- 31 — in 466 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. less some means were used to reduce their numbers within a certain limit, the whole race of herbivorous animals must per- ish. Hence arose the first kind of war. Man armed himself to destroy such of his subjects as had rejected his dominion, and even contended with him for the possession of the earth, and to have license to devour at will its more peaceful inhabi- tants. A similar cause generated the other and more fearful kind of war, of man with man. Whence come wars and fight- mgs amongst you, saith the Apostle ;! come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ? The highest view that we can take of man is that which looks upon him as belonging to a spiritual as well as a material world. The end of the creation of the earth, says the father and founder of Natural History, is the glory of God, from the works of nature, by man only. And, as the same pious author observes, “How contemptible is man,” if he does not aim at this end of his creation, if he does not strive to raise himself above the low pursuits that usually occupy his mind !* The heavens indeed declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth the work of his hands. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.* The beasts of the field honour him, and all creatures that he hath made glorify him. But man must study the book open before him ; and the more he studies it, the more audible to him will be the general voice to his spiritual ear, and he will clearly perceive that every created thing glorifies God in its place, by fulfilling his will, and the great purpose of his providence; but that he himself alone can give a tongue to every creature, and pronounce for all a general doxology. But further, in contemplating them, he will not only behold the glory of the Godhead reflected, but, from their several instincts and characters, he may derive much spiritual instruc- tion. Whoever surveys the three kingdoms of nature with any attention, will discover in every department objects that, without any affinity, appear to represent each other. Thus we have minerals that, under certain circumstances, as it were, vegetate, and shoot into various forms, representing trees and plants: there are plants that represent insects, and, vice versa, insects that simulate plants ; and the Zoophytes have received their name from this resemblance.* And as we ascend the 1 James, iv. 1. 2 Finis creationis telluris est gloria Dei exopere nature per hominem solum. Linn, Syst, Nat.i. Intrott. i. 3. O quam contempta res est home nisi supra humana se erexerit. Ilid. 4 Ps. xix: 1, 2. 5 See above, pp. 80, 84, 90. MAN, 467 seale, every where a series of references of one thing to another may be traced, so as to render it very probable that every created thing has its representative somewhere in nature. Nor is this resemblance confined to forms; it extends also to char- acter. If we begin at the bottom of the scale, and ascend up to man, we shall find two descriptions in almost every class, and even tribe of animals: one, ferocious in their aspect, often rapid in their motions, predaceous in their habits, preying upon their fellows, and living by rapine and bloodshed ; while the other is quiet and harmless, making no attacks, shedding no blood, and subsisting mostly on a vegetable diet. Since God created nothing in vain,we may rest assured that this system of representation was established with a particular view. The most common mode of instruction is placing certain signs or symbols before the eye of the learner, which represent sounds or ideas; and so the great Instructor of man placed this world before him as an open though mystical book, in which the different objects were the letters and words of a language, from the study of which he might gain wisdom of various kinds, and be instructed in such truths relating to that spiritual world, to which his soul belonged, as God saw fit thus to reveal to him. In the first place, by observing that one object in na- ture represented another, he would be taught that all things are significant, as well as intended to act a certain part in the general drama; and further, as he proceeded to trace the ana- logies of character, in its two great branches just alluded to upwards, he would be led to the knowledge of the doctrine thus symbolically revealed—that in the invisible world there are two classes of spirits—one benevolent and beneficent, and the other malevolent and mischievous; characters, which, after his fall, he would find even exemplified in individuals of his own species. But after the unhappy fall of man, this mode of instruction by natural and other objects used symbolically, though it per- vades the whole law of Moses, and the writings of the prophets, as well as several parts of the New Testament, gradually gave place to the clearer light of a Revelation, not by symbols, but by the words and language of man, which he that runs may often read; yet still it is a very useful and interesting study, and belongs to man as the principal inhabitant of a world stored with symbols, to ascertain what God intended to signify by the objects that he has created and placed before him, as well as to know their natures and uses. When we recollect what the Apostle tells us, that the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things a 468 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. that are made,’ and that spiritual truths are reflected as by a mirror, and shown, as it were, enigimatically,? we shall be convinced that, in this view, the study of nature, if properly conducted, may be made of the first importance. In this enumeration and history of the principal tribes of the Animal Kingdom, we have traced in every page the footsteps of infinite Wisdom, Power, and Goodness. In our ascent from the most minute and least animated parts of that Kingdom to man himself, we have seen in every department that nothing was left to chance, or the rule of circumstances, but every thing was adapted by its structure and organization for the situation in which it was to be placed, and the functions it was to dis- charge ; that though every being, or group of beings, had separate interests, and wants, all were made to subserve to a common purpose, and to promote a common object ; and that though there was a general and unceasing conflict between the members of this sphere of beings, introducing apparently death and destruction into every part of it, yet that by this great mass of seeming evil pervading the whole circuit of the animal creation, the renewed health and vigour of the entire system was maintained. A part suffers for the benefit and salvation of the whole; so that the doctrine of the suffer- ing of one creature, by the will of God, being necessary to promote the welfare of another, is irrefragably established by every thing we see in nature; and further, that there is an unseen hand directing all to accomplish this great object, and taking care that the destruction shall in no case exceed the necessity. Well, then, may all finally exclaim, in the words of the Divine Psalmist :— O Lord, how manifold are thy works, in WISDOM hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches. So is the great and wide sea also, wherein are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts. These wait all upon thee: that thou mayest give them meat in due season. When thou givest them they gather it: and when thou openest thy hand they are filled with good. When thou hidest thy face they are troubled : when thou takest away their breath they die, and are turned again to their dust. When thou lettest thy breath go forth they shall be made: and thow shalt renew the face of the earth. 1 Rom. i. 20. 2 1 Cor. xiii. 12. APPENDIX. Since the preceding part of this treatise had mostly passed through the press, | have had an opportunity of consulting some recently published works, which contain accounts, illus- trated by figures, of many very interesting animals belonging to several of the Classes of which I have there treated; and - all of which more or less demonstrate a presiding Intelligence immediately connected with the globe that we inhabit, and who, viewed under every aspect, evidently careth for us, and all the creatures he has made. I shall select a few of these for the consideration of the reader. I formerly observed‘ that types representing some of the higher forms of the animal kingdom were often to be detected amongst those belonging to its lowest grade: a remarkable instance of this may be seen in one of Ehrenberg’s late works,? in which is described and figured a singular Polygastric Infusory, which seems to exhibit the first outline of an Arachnidan’ form; it has eight locomotive organs or bristles, representing the eight legs of those-animals.* By means of these organs, this animal, which was found by Dr Ehrenberg in the Red Sea, performs a double rotatory movement, one by the rotation of the anterior pair, and the other by the three posterior pairs. The motion of these filamentous legs is so rapid that they appear as if, instead of eight, a hundred were revolving, and so form a kind of natural Phantasmascope. Another infusory genus, Bacil- laria, seems to prefigure the Salpes,® the species at first being concatenated in chains or ribands, and afterwards separating. ® The animalcules forming this genus have sometimes been mistaken for plants, and the quadrangular form of the asso- ciated individuals gives them the appearance of the jointed stem of a plant, rather than of an animal chain. On a former occasion, I alluded to other imitations of the vegetable world 1 See above, p. 358. 2 Symbole Physice. 3 Discocephalus Rotator. 4 Pratt l, A. Fie. 6. 5 See above, p. 307. 6 Prarel. A. Fie. 4,5. a a ee ee eee — a ee eta i a OO i BR en! eee ee ie ee ‘ —— 470 APPENDIX. exhibited by the polypes, particularly to some of them produc- ing seeming blossoms, consisting, as it were, of many petals.* I shall now notice sorne that represent monopetalous flowers. A genus long known to naturalists, which seems intermediate between the Infusories and the Polypes, named originally by Linné Vorticella, exactly simulates a bell flower with a spiral footstalk. They are often found in fresh water, and present no unapt representation of a bunch of the flowers of the Lily of the valley, whence one species has been named Vorticella Convallaria. Some of these have branching, and others simple stems,? but they are all spiral, and capable of being lengthened or shortened at the will of the animal, which is thus enabled to elevate or depress its little blossoms, the mouths of which are furnished with a double circlet of filamentary tentacles, by the rotation of wnich, like the rest of its tribe, it can produce a food-conveying current to its mouth. Still nearer to the Polypes, with which indeed it is arranged, is another genus representing monopetalous flowers, named by Ehrenberg, who found it in the Red sea, Zoobotryon, or Animal-grape. This singular animal production will scarcely arrange under any of the Orders mentioned on a former occasion, but it may be re- garded as intermediate between the Rotatories and the Polypes. Like the latter it is a compound animal, consisting of a naked branching stem; its lower extremity, as may be seen in the figure,® appears as if sending forth numerous little radicles, and the branches terminate in ovate germs, from which issue a multitude of animalcules resembling monopetalous bell-shaped flowers, with the mouth surrounded by a filamentous coronet, each sitting upon a spiral elastic footstalk, by means of which the animalcule can either draw itself close to the stem, or, shoot- ing out, dart on either side after its prey. When the mouth of every individual is open, each germ looks like what botanists call a raceme of bell-shaped flowers; and, when they are closed, they resemble a bunch of grapes.* To the class of Worms, especially those that have heen de- nominated Entozoa, or internal worms, I have a few interesting additions to make, taken from a work of Dr Nordmann’s,* some of which are so extraordinary and wonderful, both as to their functions and structure, that the great object of the present 1 See above, p. 279. 2 Ibid. 277. 3 Prats I. B. Fie. 2. a. 4 Ibid. b. 5 Micrographische Beitriige, &c. APPENDIX. 471 treatise, Gloria Dei ex opere nature, will receive considerable illustration from some account of them. Dr Nordmann’s first treatise is upon a tribe of these creatures that are interesting from their very singular situation, in the Eyes, namely, of the higher animals. Amongst the personal pests of our own species, enumerated in the chapter above alluded to,* I mentioned none that at- tacked the organs just named; but this learned investigator of parasitic worms has noticed two which have been detected in them; one related to the Guinea-worm,? which was extracted from the eye of a person affected by a cataract ;* and another, a Hydatid,* from the eye of a young woman. Besides those that infest our own visual organs, quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fishes, have each their eye-worms. Amongst those to which the will of Providence has assigned their station in the eyes of the latter class of animals, is a remarkable one,° which Dr Nordmann discovered in those of several different spe- cies of perch,® sometimes, in such numbers, as must have inter- fered with that distinct sight of passing objects, which appears necsesary to enable predaceous animals to discover their prey in time to dart upon it and secure it; in a single eye the Doctor detected, in different parts, 360! of these animalcules: when much increased they often produce cataracts in the eye of the fishes they infest. This little animal appears something related to the Planaria, or pseudo-leech, and, to judge from Dr Nord- mann’s figures, seems able, like it, to change its form’. Un- derneath the body, at. the anterior extremity, is the mouth ; and in the middle are what he denominates two sucking-cups ;* these are prominent, and viewed laterally form a truncated cone ; the anterior one is the smallest and least prominent, and more properly a sucker ; the other probably has other functions, since he could never ascertain that it was used for prehension. A kind of metamorphosis seems to take place in these animals, for our author observed that they appeared under three dif- ferent forms. These little pests, small as they are, have a parasite of their own to avenge the cause of the perch, for Dr Nordmann ob- served some very minute brown dots or capsules attached to the intestinal canal, which when extracted, by means of a See above, p. 360. 2 Filaria medinensis. F. Ocult humani. 4 Cysticercus cellulose.. Diplostomum volvens, Puatel. B. Fie.5. 6 Fbid. Fie. 6. See Nordmann’s Micrograph, 1. t. ii. f. 1—9. Saugnapfe. on owe 472 APPENDIX. scalpel formed of the thorns of the creeping cereus,* and laid upon a piece of talc, the membrane that inclosed them burst, and forth issued living animalcules, belonging to the genus Monas, and smaller than M. Jiomus, which immediately turned round upon their own axis with great velocity, and then jumped a certain distance in a straight line, when they again revolved, and again took a second leap. Looking over our author’s list of eye-worms that infest fishes, we find that five out of seven are attached to different species of perch, and one cannot help feeling some commiseration for these poor animals; but when we recollect that they form the most numerous body of predaceous fishes in our rivers, we may conjecture that thus their organs of vision are rendered less acute, and that thus thousands of roach, dace, carp, and tench may escape destruction. The ever watchful eye of a Father Providence is over all his works, and he has provided means, in every department of the animal kingdom, so to limit the inroads of the predaceous species, that a due proportion and harmonious mixture may every where be maintained, and that with respect to every individual species. The means are va- rious, but the end is one; and the partial evil terminates in the general good and welfare of the whole. Next to the eyes, the gills of fishes are subject to annoyance from internal worms ; and amongst these there is none more remarkable or wonderful than one first discovered by Dr Nord- mann, upon those of the bream,? and to which, on account of its remarkable structure and conformation, he has given the name of Diplozoon, or Double animal. In the Classes of Polypes and Tunicaries we have been introduced to many animals that appear to be compound ; which, from a common stem or body send forth numerous oscula or mouths, in this emulating the membersof the vegetable kingdom: but amongst all these plant-animals,® there is none can compete with this of Dr Nordmann, which, like the Siamese youths, appears to be formed of two distinct bodies, united in the middle so as to present the appearance of a St Andrew’s cross, each half of the animal containing precisely the same organs ; namely, an alimentary canal, a system for circulation and generation, and also a nervous system. Miiller calls the innumerable and — varying cohorts of the animal creation preachers of the infinite wisdom and power of the Sovereign of the world ;* and this is 1 Cactus flagelliformis. 2 Cyprinus Brama. 3 Phytozoa. 4 Entomostraca. 27. APPENDIX. 473 one of the most wonderful of them all, which singularly ex- emplifies those attributes. At first it might be imagined, that, like the youths just alluded to, this was a monstrous production of nature ; but Dr Nordmann relates that he has found thirty specimens, precisely agreeing with each other, all in a similar situation, attached namely, to the gills of the fish mentioned above, and he never found it single, or in any other situation : there can, therefore, remain no doubt on the subject. In order to find these ani- mals, it is necessary to examine all the leaves of the gills separately under water, or to separate the lesser whitish ones with a pointed instrument, when the animal may be detected by its movements: its station is between the leaves or folds of the inner gills. This singular creature consists of two lobes, or arms, above the point of union, and two below it. The upper pair are the longest and most divergent : they are somewhat lance-shaped, and at the extremity of each, on the under side, is a mouth, with a sucker, divided by a fleshy transverse septum ; by means of these suckers, the mouths of this two-bodied mon- ster are kept steady, so as to suck without intermission. The orifice of the mouth is large, and, when fully open, trian- gular: there is also an organ within the gullet which seems analogous to a tongue, resembling the sucking organ of the pseudo-leech. The alimentary canal branches out on both sides into nuimerous blind vessels. ‘The whole of this canal, like the creature itself, is cruciform. The circulation of the blood is very visible : each half of the animal has on both sides two principal blood vessels, which are every where of almost equal diameter, without any enlargement; in the two exterior ones the blood runs upwards, and in the two interior ones downwards, and its motion is extremely rapid. The genera- tive organs and ovaries are also double. The feces, as in the polypes and other lower animals, pass out at the mouth. The two lowest lobes are somewhat club-shaped, or thickest at the extremity, towards which, in each, are two oval plates, or disks, containimg four oblong acetabula, or suckers : the bodies below the plates terminate in a triangular piece, or flapper. In some of their movements it seems as if the two upper lobes had different wills, since sometimes one appears inclined to move to the right, and the other to the left, or one to move and the other to remain at rest ; but the lower lobes always move sim- ultaneously, either: inwardly or outwardly. The animals that are found attached to the gills of other fishes are usually at their lower extremity furnished with sev- 3K —— a i i 2s & ym on oes +“ = POD Ee eee cape parm ney momen Na Suey ae ame tome Lam) jon ‘ Le ee ee ee 474 APPENDIX. eral suckers; thus one genus* infesting the gills of the sun? and sword fishes® has three; and another,* found in those of the tunny,° has siz, whence Cuvier would rather call it Herastoma. But these are nothing to those of our Diplozoon, which, on the four disks just named, has no less than sixteen suckers, four on each disk.6 Under a strong magnifier, these suckers when opened, for they can open and shut, exhibit a complex ma- chinery of hooks and other parts, by which their Creator has enabled them to take firm hold of the gills, so as not to be unfixed by their constant motion in respiration, especially when we consider their structure and substance. A further proof of this design is furnished by the form of the animal itself, for the body being divided upwards and downwards into two diverging lobes, it can fix itself at each extremity more firmly than if it was single, not only by having more points of attachment, but also by the divergement of its lobes, especially the lower ones. When a man wishes to stand as firmly and steadily as possible, he separates his legs so as to form a certain angle: and this is - what its Creator has fitted our animal to do; and so by all these means it maintains its station on the lubricous, multifid, and constantly moving organs, from which it is commissioned to suck the blood. Probably these Diplozoons may be of the same use to the fishes they infest, as the horse-flies are to the animal from which they take their name. | Dr Nordmann found this creature could exist submerged for three days, during which period its movements became gradually more feeble. One specimen, which he fed twice a day with fresh fishes’ blood, lived nine days in water, and ap- peared to die at last from being too much handled. What can more evidently illustrate both the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Deity than this most extraordinary ani- malt How nicely is it formed, in every respect, to fulfil the functions given in charge to it! How admirably is it secured against the mischances to which its singular situation exposes it! When we see so much art and skill put in action to adapt such seemingly insignificant creatures, and so low in the scale of creation, to the circumstances in which they are placed ; so many contrivances, exhibiting the deepest intellect, taking the most comprehensive surveys of every possible contingency, and 1 Tristoma. 2 Mola. 4 Polystoma. 5 Scomber Thynnus. 6 Even this is nothing to those of a genus infesting some Cephalopods, Hectocotyle, the different species of which have from sixty to more than one hundred suckers, whence their name. 3 Xiphias. APPENDIX. A75 rearing a structure calculated to stand against every pressure upon it,—we must feel convinced that the attention of the Creator is directed to every individual in existence, whether great or small, high or low, spiritual or material. To every thing that he created he gave a law, the law of its nature; a law emanating from Him, enforced by the physical powers acting upon certain structures, and producing certain necessary effects under His constant superintendence, direction, and ac- tion, on and by those powers. The intestinal worms, as well as some other parasitic ani- mals, are many of them so remarkable for the situation in which we discover them, that their transport to the spot where they are to exercise their function seems almost miraculous. How a mite should find its way into the human brain seems past our conjecture. We cannot clearly ascertain by what means the eye-worms are conducted to their assigned station, nor how the various species of tape-worm invariably select each its proper pabulum: the same holds good with regard to the cyst-worms,* or hydatids. Do they, like the Infernal Fury,? as fabled by Linné, fall from heaven upon the earth and waters, and instantly bury themselves in their allotted animals? But to speak soberly, all we can safely affirm is, that He who de- creed the end decrees the means, and these probably are physi- cal ones under his direction. He it is who guides the punitive animals that he employs to their several stations. Is there not an omnipresent Deity, whose action is incessant, and co-exten- sive with his presence? He it is that, as the Prophet speaks, causeth it to rain upon one city, and not to rain upon another city; that employs his instruments, both of benediction and punishment, according to his will. It is He, who by secret paths, and by means that mock our researches, conducts to their assigned station the animals in question. Every power of nature, every physical agent, is at His disposal. His is the earthquake and the volcano; the lightning of the thunder; the fire-damp of the mine; the overwhelming violence of the water flood ; the windy storm and tempest: His is the wide- wasting sword, that destroys myriads, and the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and carries off millions; and He gives his commission to all his scourges against individuals as well as against nations, which they unconsciously execute and can- not exceed, for He saith to them, as to the raging sea, Hith- erto shall ye come and no further, and here shall the work of destruction cease. 1 Cysticercus. 2 Furia infernalis. L. i i i hate) = Nene ie ae rs oe Sata elise Le Se ee ee i i i i eee 476 APPENDIX. We have a remarkable instance of this special guidance and employment of natural objects in the case of the prophet Jonah, when he disobeyed the word of the Lord. In the first place God sent out a great wind into the sea ; in the next he prepared a great fish to swallow him alive when he should be cast over- board, and at the Lord’s command the same animal cast him upon the dry land. Next God prepared a gourd for a shadow against the heat; after that he prepared a worm which de- stroyed the gourd; and in the last place he prepared a silent east wind,* or a heat, like the sirocco, without-sound. In all these cases the object employed was a physical object, under the immediate direction of the Deity. The wind, the fish, the gourd, the worm, the heat, were not new creations, but well known objects, acted upon to take a particular direction so as to produce particular events. By what is here said, I by no means assert the doctrine of inevitable fate, for then there would be no use in the employ- ment of means of prevention. Sir H. Davy’s safety-lamp would not preserve the life of the miner, nor Dr. Franklin’s conduc- tor disarm the thunder cloud; and all the other means that, non sine Deo, have been invented to render harmless the action of the physical powers under certain circumstances; but I would merely assert that constant superintendence of the Deity over the world that he has created, and Who upholdeth all things by the word of his power, which we call Providence, by which, in general as well as individually, his will has full accomplish- ment; and every substance or being, whether animate or in- animate, takes the station which he has assigned to it. This is no miraculous interference out of the general course of na- ture, but the adaptation of that course to answer the wise pur- poses of Providence, which selects individuals, and distinguishes them from other individuals by events, as to this world, seem- ingly prosperous or adverse, but which have their ultimate reference to the spiritual world, and to their final destiny. As God willeth not that any should perish, so he withholdeth not from any the means, that, if duly used and improved, will be sufficient for his salvation ; and in all his dealings with man- kind he hath this great and merciful object in view. 1 mwa psp an. : : | APPENDIX. NOTES. Note 1, p. 2.—The life and motion. The word life may per- haps here be used, in some sense, improperly ; but the original motion caused by the agency of the Spirit, and followed by Light and Expansion, may be called the birth, or beginning, of the life of the world, which followed, under the Divine Guid- ance, as a consequence of it. I speak only of animal life, not of spiritual, which resulted from the immediate insufflation, if I may so use the term, of the Deity himself.* I may here be permitted to observe that the Mosaic account of the beginning of creation, especially of the incubation of the Holy Spirit and its consequences, has been transplanted, by many oriental and occidental nations, into their cosmogonies. The circumstances and consequences of it have, in most cases, been altered from their original simplicity ; and, in some, it has been assumed as a foundation, on which an Atheistic Philoso- phy has been erected amongst the Greeks. But when we consider attentively the terms in which these dogmata are delivered, and recollect that the Gods of the Greeks and Ro- mans, especially him who was invocated as the father of gods and men, were really the great elementary powers which under God govern the universe—whence Homer describes him as aibega varov, and calls him Zeus vepeanysperns, and Ennius appeals to him in these terms, Aspice hoc sublime candens quem invocant omnes Jovem. And to live abroad is to live sub Jove, sub Dio. It is evident that these Gods were subsequent to Chaos, and sprung from that motion of the Spirit which first gave birth to this world as we behold it; besides these, the sun, moon, planets, earth, ocean, &c. made part of the catalogue of false Gods whom the Heathens worshipped and served instead of the Creator. These powers, which were originally reverenced as symbols 1 Genes. ii. 7, comp. John, xx. 22. ee ee ee Se EG me RS ge ee A478 APPENDIX. NOTES. and representatives of the Godhead, and, as it were, his vice- gerents in Nature, in process of time were thus regarded and adored as the supreme and only God—the sign instead of the thing signified—the instrument instead of the hand that guided it—the work instead of the workman. They deemed, as the author of the Book of Wisdom observes,* Hither fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be the Gods which govern the world. Veneration and love to those from whose actions or studies we derive great benefit, and respect for our ancestors, amiable motives when they do not lead us away from God, often induce mankind to throw a kind of Divinity, a ray of glory, around such persons ; first, perhaps, they are complimented with the title of suns of their people or race, and their wives as moons, and next we transform them into what we regarded as their symbol. So the Egyptians, in process of time, added the adjunct On, or the Sun, to the name of their great ancestor, Ham; whence he was afterwards designated as Hamon, or Ham the sun, and became the Jupiter Ammon of the Greeks.* The idea of the incubation of the Spirit, of its being the prin- ciple of love that was in action, and that it produced the first motion, prevails, more or Jess, in all the cosmogonics. Aristophanes, in his Aves, gives an account of the Grecian cosmogony, which proves that the heathen gods of the Greeks were all subsequent to the original creation of matter, in a pas- sage, of which the following linesare nearly a literal translation: Once Chaos was and Night, dark Erebus And ample Tartarus ; but Earth, and Air, And Heaven were not. First black-winged night In th’ Infinite gulfs of Erebus brought forth The wind-nursed egg, from which in circling hours, Love the desired, his shoulders golden-winged, Sprung like a wind-swift vortex, he who mixed With Chaos winged and dark, and 'Tartarus wide Nested our race, and them brought first to light. Ere love commingled all, zmmortal Gods Were none, but from that commixture rose Heaven, Sea, and Earth, and Gods incorruptible. Wind-nursed egg. Gr. ixnveusov ov. Literally, the egg under the wind, alluding to the incubation of the Spirit. Love. This is the motion infused by the Spirit into tl chaos which was followed by light and expansion, and the 1 Wisdom, xiii. 2. 2 Cudworth, Ll. ii. 338. APPENDIX. NOTES. 479 whole harmonious circie of creation, in which there was no discord, but all was very good. His shoulders golden-winged. Gr. Sc1rCay vwrov wlepuyow xpuraey. Literally, his back shining with two golden wings ; these two golden wings were, perhaps, light and the expansion, which car- ried love through his whole work. Sprung. G. ECaasev, germinated. Wind-swift vortex. Gr. ems avenaness divass, Literally, like whirlwinds or whirlpools, swift as the wind. He who mixed with Chaos winged and dark. Gr. Ovlos de xaes mlepoevrs peryets vuxsw. This describes love or motion entering into chaos and beginning to produce order. Nested our race. Gr. Evectlevse yevos nuerepov. The birds here claim an early origin. The allusion probably is to the mun- dane egg and the birth of winged love. But from that commizture rose heaven, sea, and earth, gc. Gr. Suppsyvouevay dc erepwy ereposs, epever” spavoc, cxeavoc Te, Hal pu, wavToy at Ocwy wanspav yer@ agbivav. Literally, ‘one thing being min- gled with another, heaven, ocean, and earth, and the incorrupt- ible race of all the immortal Gods were produced. It is evident from this passage that those whom the Greeks accounted their Gods were the elements, the heavenly bodies, and other works of creation. Thus they changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Nore 2, p. 3.—Kindred Monsters. I allude here to the gi- gantic Reptiles, those especially which are now seen only in a fossil state, many of which instead of legs are furnished with paddles; as the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri. 'These animals seem intermediate between the amphibious Saurians and the Chelonians. Some of them also exhibit several characters in common with some of the Cetaceans, Amphibians, &c. Nore 3, p. 5.—Intermediate, as it were, between matter and spirit. I find a similar idea in the Nouveau Dictionnaire D’ His- toire Naturelle,* “Le mot de matiére porte avec soi Vidée dun corps lourd et grossier: cependant il est des substances aux- quelles on donne le nom de matiére, telle que la matiére éthérée, et qui sont d’une si inconceivable tenuité, qu’on diroit qu’elles tiennent le milieu entre Vesprit et la matiére.” Sir Hum- phry Davy seems to have adopted a similar opinion, which I have given in another part of this work;? and Dr Wollaston 1 xix. 449. article Matiéres. Patrin. 2 See above, p. 323. 480 APPENDIX. NOTES. also, in his Religion of Nature delineated, asks—‘‘ Might it not be more reasonable to say, it (the soul) is a thinking substance intimately united to some fine material vehicle which has its residence in the brain?”* And again—‘If we should suppose the soul to be a being by nature made to inform some body, and that it cannot exist and act in a state of total separation from all body; it would not follow from thence, that what we call death, must therefore reduce it to a state of absolute insensibility, and inac- tivity, which to it would be equal to non-existence. For that body, which is so necessary to it, may be some fine vehicle that dwells with it in the brain, and goes off with it at death.* This vehicle, which is so necessary to the soul, dwells with it in the brain, and goes off with it at death, he further supposes, is that by which it acts and is acted upon, by means of the nerves.» This vehicle seems not very different from the vital powers of modern physiologists, who regard the nervous power as their agent.* The Doctrine of a vehicle for the soul which accompanies her when separated from the body is not a modern hypothesis, but was held by the Platonists and many of the fathers.® Our Lord says to his disciples—The hairs of your head are allnumbered: upon which we may observe that the head of man is clothed with hair to answer a certain end, an end which has not yet been duly investigated, but which in Scripture has been intimated by making it the symbol of strength or power— by which latter term it is designated by St Paul®’—as in the case of Sampson, whose superhuman strength seems to have departed from him, when his seven locks were shorn off; sym- bolizing might from the seven spirits of God,’ or in other words, the sevenfold might of the Spirit. It is well known that the hair is affected by the electric fluid, and it may conduct it to the brain or other organs. Whatever be its function, however, its force will depend upon the quantity, and the quantity upon the number of conductors, and this God regulates in the case of individuals, according to circumstances, so that, though some receive more and some less, He that receives much has nothing over, and he that receives little has no lack.® Nore 4, p. 5.—For if the instinct of the predaceous ones was 1 See above, p. 290. 2 Ibid. 293. 3 Ibid. 293. 4 Dr Wilson Philip, in Philos. Tr. 1829, 271, 278. 5 See Dr H. More, On the Immortality of the Soul, B. iii, Axiome xxvii. and Cudworth’s Intellectual Syst. '799. 6 1 Cor. xi. 10. 7 Revel. i. 4, 5. 8 2 Cor. viii. 15. APPENDIX. NOTES. 481 not restrained, they would soon have annihilated the herbivorous ones, even if, as Lightfoot supposes, they were at first created by sevens. If the fall of man, as is generally supposed, happened — soon after his creation, the fitst sacrifice, which as the Lord God clothed the first pair with skins before their expulsion from paradise, must have been offered immediately after the former sad event, would have caused the annihilation of a species ; which, in conjunction with the circumstance of Noah being directed to admit clean animals into the ark by sevens the male and his female, afforded no slight ground for Lightfoot’s suppo- sition alluded to in the text. He thus expresses his opinion. “ Bestie munde create sunt septene, tria paria ad prolem, et re- lique singule Adamo in sacrificium post lapsum: at immunde tan- tummodo bine, ad generis propagationem.”' Lightfoot here speaks of three pairs and a half, and some writers quoted by Poole, seem to think, that the same number were received into the ark, and that the seventh, a male, was intended for sacri- fice after the deluge; others think there were seven pairs. Norte 5, p. 6.—In the fiercest enmity and opposition to each other. There was a show-man, who in the year 1831, ex- hibited on one of the London bridges, as I was informed by a friend upon whose accuracy | could rely, the animals here spoken of in a state of reconciliation. In one cage were cats, rats, and mice, and in another hawks and small birds living to- gether in the utmost harmony, and without any attempt on the part of the predaceous ones to injure their natural prey. Note 6, p. 9.—Concerning the kind of which interpreters differ. The Septuagint renders the Hebrew word m3, which our translation renders lice, by cxviges, which is supposed to mean the mosquito or gnat, but I cannot help thinking with Bochart,? that it rather means the louse, not only on account of its deri- vation from a root, 13, which signifies to fix firmly, which agrees better with the animal just named than with the mos- quito, but also because it was produced from the dust of the earth like other apterous animals, and not from the waters, like the winged ones. The African negroes, as was before observed, have a peculiar louse.* Nore 7, p. 10.—Geologists have observed, from the remains of plants and animals embedded in the strata of this and other north- 1 Lightfoot, Opera, Ed. Leusden. i. 154. conf. 2. 2 Hierozoic: 574. 3 Genes.i.21. 4 Fabr. Syst. Antliat. 340. 2, 3 L 482 APPENDIX. NOTES. ern countries, that the climate must formerly have been warmer than it now is. That the inclination of the earth’s axis was once different from what it now is was a very ancient opinion; but whatever might be the cause, the fact seems to have been cer- tain, from the existence in very high latitudes of the plants and animals here alluded to, such as various species of palms, of elephants, hippopotami, turtles, and similar tropical forms. Cuvier indeed has conjectured, that the carcass of a mammoth found in Siberia belonged toa cold climate because it was clothed with wool as well as hair. Its hair was stated to con- sist of three kinds. One being stiff black long bristles, another flexible hair of a reddish brown colour, and the third a reddish brown wool which grew among the roots of the long hair? Now with respect to sheep, there is evidently a difference with regard to their coat in those that live in warm climates, and those that inhabit cold ones, the coat of the former usually consisting chiefly of hairs, and the latter of wool;? but Dr Buckland,? and Dr Virey* have advanced some satisfactory arguments which prove that the Mammoth could not have existed in the countries in which its fossil remains are so abun- dant, if it had been exposed‘ to a great degree of cold. It is remarked with respect to the remains of fossil elephants, which are so numerous without the tropics, in regions too cold for their existence, that none have been hitherto found in those countries which they actually inhabit, at the present time.® This throws no small degree of doubt upon that hypothesis which assigns them for their habitation the countries in which their remains are now deposited: but with regard to the re- mains of coral reefs® found in the Arctic seas, no doubt can be entertained that at the period of their formation, those seas were warm enough to suit the temperature of the animals that formed them; but which no longer exist and rear their struc- tures in those latitudes. I met with the following extract in the Literary Gazette for April 7, 1832 ; it is taken from a work entitled Six Months in North America, by G. T. Vigne, Esq. : “The fossil remains of about thirty animals, now supposed to be extinct, have been found at the Big-bone lick ; and Mr Bul- lock conjectures that there are more remaining. That these animals did not perish on the spot, but were carried and depos- ited by the mighty torrent, which it is evident once spread over -? Cuvier, Theory of the Earth, by Jameson, 275. 2 See above, p. 35. Supplement to Captain Beechey'’s Voyage, ii. 355, 356. N. D. DH. N. x. 162. 5 Ibid. 169. Dr Buckland in the Appendix to Beechey's Voyage, ii. 355. arewre APPENDIX. NOTES. 483 the country, is probable from the circumstance of marine shells, plants, and fossil substances having been found not only mixed with the bones, but adhering to them, and tightly wedged in the cavities of the skull—‘those holes where eyes did once inhabit,’ were often stopped up by shells or pieces of coral for- cibly crammed into them.” The bones of the Mastodon were found by Humboldt at an elevation of more than 7,000 feet above the sea, and in central Asia those of horses and deer have been met with at an elevation of 16,000.* Note 8, p. 11.-—Burchel and Campbell appear to have met with more than one new species of rhinoceros in their journey from the Cape of Good Hope into the interior. Burchel describes one under the name of Rhinoceros simus.2, Campbell’s had a straight horn projecting three feet from the forehead, different from any he had seen, and its horn resembled that of the supposed uni- corn.? There is in the Norwich Museum a horn flattened at the summit, nearly straight, and three feet long, which also seems to belong to another species. Norr 9, p. 13.—The word of God, in many places, speaks of an abyss of waters under the earth. Scientific men in the present day seem to question this. The passages in Holy Writ, besides those quoted in the text, that appear evidently to affirm that an abyss exists in the earth, are chiefly the following. In the book of Genesis, in the blessings pronounced, both by Jacob and Moses,* previous to their death, upon the tribes of Israel, in that relating to Joseph, amongst others are mention- ed—The blessings of the deep that lieth under, or as the same words are more literally translated in Moses’ blessing—The deep that coucheth beneath.’ The expression in these passages evidently alludes to an abyss under the crust of the earth, from which blessings may be derived: and which is emphatically described as couching beneath, as if the mighty waters it con- tained were lying in repose like a beast at rest, and chewing the cud, in contrast with the incessantly fluctuating and stormy ocean. When the children of Israel murmured for water in Rephi- dim, Moses at the Divine command smote the rock in Horeb, and water flowed out of it in a copious stream, which there is reason to believe followed them in all their wanderings through 1 Quarterly Review, No. LVII. p. 155. 2 Travels, ii.'75. Bulletin des Sc. Juin 1817. 96. 3 Travels, 295. 4 Comp. Genes. xlix. 25 with Deut. xxxiii. 13. 5 Heb. man nyon 484 APPENDIX. NOTES. the wilderness. If we consider the nature of that dry and thirsty land where no water is,’ it is evident that this perennial stream could not be derived from the clouds that hovered round the summits of Mount Sinai, the rocks of that district were washed by no rivers derived from above, and seem not calcu- lated for percolation. But what was the case—the stroke of the wonder-working rod of the Lawgiver of Israel produced a fissure in the rock, which opened a channel through which the waters, before in repose in the great deep, rushed forth in a mighty stream; and therefore the Psalmist says—He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and he gave them drink, as out of the great abysses. Alluding evidently to a source of sweet waters below. The prophet Jonah, in the prayer he uttered when incarce- rated in the fish’s belly, has these words—I went down to the bottoms of the mountains: the earih with her bars was about me for ever.? A parallel expression is used in Moses’ song—.4 fire shall burn to the lowest hell—it shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains.* This last passage shows that the Hades* of Scripture—usually translated Hell, but distinct from the Ge- henna or Hell of the New Testament—is synonymous with the abyss. Asis further proved by the following passage of the book of Job. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the search of the abyss? Have the gales of death been opened unto thee, or hast thou seen the gates of the sha- dow of death 2° In this passage the springs of the sea, the abyss, the gates of death, and the gates of the shadow of death, seem nearly synonymous, or to indicate, at least, different portions, of the womb of our globe. The bottomless pit, or rather the pit of the abyss of the apocalypse, also belongs to the same place: the word rendered pit means also a well. Schleusner, in his lexicon, translates the phrase by Puteus seu fons abyssi, so that it seems to indicate a mighty source of waters. But as the terms abyss and great abyss are applied to the receptacle of waters exposed to (he atmosphere, as well'as to those which are concealed in the womb of our globe,® it is evident that they form one great body of waters in connexion with each other. Norte 10, p. 15.—He who willed the deluge, and the destruc- tion of the primeval earth and heavens by it, §-c. When it is con- sidered that all the knowledge which we have, and can have, of the contents of the globe that we inhabit, is very superficial; 1 See 1 Cor. x. 4. 2 Jonah, ii. 6. 3 Deut. xxxii. 22. 4 Heb. sixw. 5 Job xxxviii. 16, 17. 6 Job xli. 31. Ps. cvi. 9. Isaz. li. 10, &e. APPENDIX. NOTES. 485 that it is only, as it were, skin deep, and consequently very im- perfect, it seems as if we stood in great need of some other guide, besides our own reasonings and guesses upon the little that we can explore of the earth’s crust, to enable us to form a correct judgment, and to arrive at the truth as to what changes may have taken place in it, and by what means. When we further consider that we are informed by the highest authority, that the original earth and its heavens, with all their animal inhabitants—those only excepted, which, by his command, took refuge in a vessel built according to his direction—were de- stroyed by a universal deluge, which overtopped the highest mountains, and continued in force for nearly a year: when this great catastrophe is duly considered, surely, from the ac- count given of it in Scripture, much may be gleaned that will throw a light upon the subject, that can never be struck out by the unassisted investigations of the Geologist who can pene- trate'so little below the earth’s surface. My own knowledge of Geology and its principles, as now laid down, is too slight to qualify me to compare them with what has been delivered in Scripture on the subjects here al- luded to; but as it appears to me that the scriptural account of the great Cataclysm has not been duly weighed, and its mag- nitude, duration, momentum, varied agency, and their conse- quences, sufficiently estimated by geologists, I will endeavour, as briefly as I can, to call their attention, and that of Christian Philosophers in general, to the most striking features exhibited by it, as stated in the seventh and eighth chapters of the book of Genesis, still requesting them to bear in mind these words of the poet, as expressing my own feelings. Fungor vice cotis exors ipse secandi. My only wish being to excite others better qualified, by their knowledge both of Scripture and. Nature, the Word and the Work of the same Almighty Being, to undertake the task. It must be borne in mind that the scriptural account is not a figurative one, in which the object is to represent one thing by another, but a statement of epochs, and naked facts; of causes and effects; in which all that is requisite is to ascertain the meaning of the terms employed to describe them. The cause of the universal deluge, every one is aware, was, with the exception of one family, the universal corruption of the humanrace. All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.* In consequence of which God determined to—Bring a flood of 1 Genes. vi. 12. 486 APPENDIX. NOTES. waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, wherein was the breath of life from under heaven; and every living substance from off the face of the earth. To accomplish this purpose, it was evidently necessary that the whole globe should be submerged, and the tops of all the mountains covered to such a depth as to prevent any thing in which was the breath of life from making its escape. Having mentioned the cause and object of the deluge, we must next consider the means by which this universal destruction is stated to have been effected. Three only are mentioned. All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and ihe rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” 1. All the fountains of the great deep were broken up. The radical idea of the word here rendered broken up is that of divi- sion or disruption, therefore the meaning is that those fountains by which the waters of the great abyss issued ordinarily upon the earth to water it by numerous streams and rivers, were so cleft, disruptured, and broken up, as to form vast chasms vom- iting up the fluid contents of the womb of the earth, and send- ing forth torrents of incalculable force and volume. The ves- tiges of such clefts in the earth’s crust are still to be traced in many places. Malte Brun, in his Geography, observes, with respect to valleys—‘“Those which are found between high mountains are commonly narrow and long, as if they had ori- ginally been only fissures® dividing their respective chains, or for the passage of extensive torrents. ‘The angles of their direc- tion sometimes exhibit a singular symmetry; we see in the Pyrenees, says M. Raymond, some valleys whose salient and re-entrant angles so perfectly correspond, that if the force that separated them were to act in a contrary direction, and bring their sides together again, they would unite so exactly, that even the fissure would not be perceived.”* 2. The windows of heaven were opened—is stated by Moses to be the second cause by which the deluge was effected. The word, which in our translation of the Bible, is here and in other places rendered windows, does not mean an opening for the transmission of light, for which another term is usually employed.® In the Septuagint and other ancient versions it is supposed to signify water falling from the heavens in large masses, and cataract or a corresponding term is used. 1 Genes. vi. 17, and vii. 4. 2 Ibid. vii. 11. 3 nypa is Hebrew for a valley, and ypa) is the verb used to express the disruption of the fountains of the great abyss. 4 System of Geography, I. i. 168. E. Tr. 5 mw 6 ba APPENDIX. NOTES. 487 The radical idea is that of lying in wait, as a wild beast in its den. In other parts of Scripture it is used for dovecots or the holes in rocks that doves frequent ;* for the sockets of the eyes ;* for the heavens when shedding copiously blessings or plenty ;* and for the action of something from above producing earthquakes.* My venerated friend, the late Rev. Wm. Jones, of Nayland— weli known for his knowledge of the Hebrew, and the variety and ability of his researches on every subject. connected with the interpretation of Scripture—in his Physiological Disquisi- tions thus expresses himself, concerning the term in question. ‘We suppose then that the air was driven downwards, for this purpose, through those passages which are called windows of heaven. These may seem very obscure terms to express such a sense by ; but heaven is the firmament, or expanded substance of the atmosphere; and windows, as they are here called, are holes, or channels of any kind. The same word is used for chimneys,* through which smoke passes, and for the holes, probably cliffs of a rock, in which the doves of the eastern countries have their habitation.’ It strikes me as not very improbable that the term I am speaking of may allude to volcanoes and their craters, which may be called the chimneys of this globe, by which its subterranean fires communicate with the atmosphere, and by which the air rushing into the earth, when circumstances are favourable, may possibly act the part of the fabled Cyclops, and blow them up previous to an eruption: thus they become literally channels or chimneys, through’ which the matter constituting the expanse or firmament passes, either from heaven, or, in an eruption, towards heaven. The expression, in Isaiah, quoted above, The windows from on high’ are opened, and the foundations of the earth do shake—seems to indicate that earthquakes are connected with the opening of the windows of heaven, thus pointing to volcanic action as the result. Still the expression is ambiguous, and requires further elucidation: it may, how- ever, be intended to include both interpretations. The violent disruption of the fountains of the great deep, which appears to have been the first step towards producing the deluge, since God generally employs means to effect his purposes, was pro- 1 Isai. Ix. 8. 2 Eccles. xii. 3. 3 2 Kings, vii.2. Malachi, iii. 10. 4 Isai, xxiv. 18. 5 Hosea, xiii. 3. 6 Isai. 1x.8. See Jones’s Works, x. 264. See also Parkhurst, Heb. Lez. under ann II. 7 Heb. pwn. 488 APPENDIX. NOTES. bably occasioned by the expansive power of heat, and the same agent would, as it does at this very time in some countries, send out the waters, and it seems equally probable, that in proportion as the waters rushed out the air would rush in and take their place, and thus form a centre of repulsion, or vis cen- trifuga, to counteract the pressure of the superincumbent wa- ters. It seems not improbable, if this were the case, that in its transit from the surface of the earth, to its centre, the air might bring with it vast cataracts of water attended by thunder and lightning and other electric phenomena. Heat, the most elastic of all fluids, at the first creation, under the name of the expansion or firmament, acting in the bosom of the chaotic waters divided them, and therefore it is consist- ent with the Divine proceedings that the same mighty ele- ment should be put in action to bring them again together. And we learn from Scripture, that the same irresistible agent well be employed for the destruction of the present earth and its atmosphere or heavens, which are reserved unto fire, when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.t As the opening of the windows of the heavens seems the consequence of the breaking up of the foun- tains of the great deep, it is therefore mentioned in the second place. 3. The third instrument of Divine Power to produce the de- luge was rain. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.? It isa common form of expression,—It rains as if heaven and earth would come together ; and this probably was the character of the rain that now fell for forty Mycthemera, or entire days of twenty-four hours. A circumstance that does not require further explanation. By the united operation of these three mighty agents, guided by the Almighty hand of the Deity—Whose way is in the sea, and whose path is in the great waters, and whose footsteps are not known8’—the waters kept gradually rising and prevailing more and more, till they overtopped all the high mountains* that were under the whole heavens fifteen cubits,> by which the Divine decree to destroy the earth with all its inhabitants, both rational and irrational, except those in the ark, was fully exe- cuted. With respect to the earth itself, when we consider the \ 1 ere, w..7, 10. 2 Genes. vii. 12. 3. Ps. lxxvii. 197 4 Genes. vii. 19. In our translation, pyinn in this verse is rendered Adlls, and in the 20th mountains. 5 Ibid. 20, APPENDIX. NOTES. 489 violent action of the ascending and descending waters, and of the firmament rushing downwards; the disruptions, dislocations, introversions, comminutions, deportations here and there of the original strata of the crust of our globe, can scarcely be con- ceived, and are still more difficult to calculate and explain exactly. In the waters thus again, as at the creation, masters of the whole earth, God had an instrument by which his will with respect to its crust, and the changes to take place in it, might have full accomplishment, especially when we consider the long time during which the waters kept rising or prevailed, till they reached the height necessary to fulfil the Divine decree. It seems not clear whether the forty days during which the rain fell are included in the hundred and fifty days that the waters are stated to have prevailed. If they were included, the period would be five lunar months and ten days; and if they were not, it would extend tosix such months and twenty- two days. What a time, even according to the shortest cal- culation, for the continued action of such a body of fluctuating waters, continually increasing, till they left no peak or pinnacle of the most elevated mountains of the globe visible! Whocan calculate the effects of that action? During this period of the increase and prevalence of the wa- ters, when the mountains were covered, all ingress of the atmosphere into the earth by the chimneys of the volcanoes, if that is the meaning of stopping the windows of heaven, would cease; and the abyss, at or before the end of it, no longer vomit forth its waters by its innumerable mouths. Having considered the secondary causes to which the Word of God attributes the rise and prevalence of the deluge, I must next make a few observations upon the means to which Divine Wisdom, Power, and Goodness had recourse to effect this, and to cause the waters to return to their ancient receptacle. At the first creation, The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.. The consequence of which was that order arose out of confusion. The motion was then begun, by which the wind! bloweth where it listeth, the light shines forth, heat expands, the clouds are formed, and the physical cherubim, under the guidance, and according to the will of Jehovah of Hosts, are in action, and fulfil his purpose, and the consequence is that The waters under the heaven are gathered together into one place and the dry land appears.? Similar steps were taken at the 1 Avepos sdev s5% wAnv anp Woaus pewv ost ama uel Rene Asyeras. Aristot. De Mundo. 2 Genes. i. 9. 3M ee ae — eee ie. ——— 490 APPENDIX. NOTES. deluge. For God remembered Noah and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with himinthe ark: and God made a wind to:pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged.* \t is not here said, as on the occasion just alluded to, that the Holy Spirit brooded over the water, but literally that God passed (a) wind (or spirit) over the earth. The action, though not the same, was ana- logous, wind under the direction of God was employed to do, in part, what the incubation of the Holy Spirit had before effected, to begin that action by which the globe and its atmosphere would be again placed in statu quo, the water again divided, so that one part should return to the great abyss, its destined abode ; and the other be suspended in the atmosphere ; and, by the same means, the dislocated crust of the earth be re- formed ; the matter suspended in the water or floating on it deposited, the detritus of the old one being mixed, and often, as it were, intercalated with vegetable and animal substances and remains. This wind from God having passed over the earth, the waters assuaged ; that is, their rage and violence ceased ; the fountains of the abyss and the windows of heaven being stopped ; the one no longer poured forth its waters upon the earth ; and the other no longer descended to occupy their place; and the rain had ceased to fall. When the above three causes of the deluge ceased their action, and had given place to the wind from God, the waters of course began to subside. We are now arrived at the last epoch of this great event, the gradual decrease and final subsidence of the diluvial waters. The period of their increase, if with Lightfoot we add the 40 days to the 150, would be 190 days, or, as was before observed, six lunar months and about three weeks. In the seventh month of the deluge, as the same author observes,? on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat,® from which period the waters returned off the face of the earth, going and returning, as it is in the Hebrew,* rendered in our translation by the word continually, but almost all the ancient versions adhere to the literal sense, which seems to be impor- tant, and to indicate a flux and reflux of the waters, which would affect the deposition of the matters floating upon or suspended in them. Whether this flux and reflux partook of the nature of a tide, and was produced by the action of the moon, or whether it was occasioned by the wind, which, as Solomon observes, Goeth towards the south and turneth about te the north,® does not appear. nae 1 Genes. viii. 1. 2 Uli supra. 3 See above, p. 20. 4 Heb. ayer won yowa Syp prpn aw 5 Eccles. i. 6. i a ae ——- st 4 —*" . a _ - an oe eS ee a or ae ——_—. “st - «2 - of ” 7 APPENDIX. NOTES. A9] After the resting of the ark, more than two months elapsed before the tops of the mountains were seen, and finally, in nearly two months more the waters had universally disappeared; and after their long domination over the earth, lasting nearlyjeleven months, were confined again within the limits that God had originally assigned to them. Reckoning to the day of Noah’s going out of the ark, on the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the whole period of his confinement appears to have been one year and ten days. Itis evident, from the period that intervened between the resting of the ark, and the subsequent emergence of the tops of the mountains more than two months afterwards,’ that the subsidence of the waters at first was very gradual; but, in proportion as their volume diminished, it probably became more and more rapid. The tumult and violence of the descending waters, and the effects produced by them, in the new mixture, as it were, of the substances now forming the crust of our globe, and the putting it into its present order—always under the direction and guidance of the Deity, who sitteth above the water-flood, employing as his hands those physical agents which rule in nature, to fulfil his purpose—must have been the reverse of those of the ascending ones: the object now was not disruption, and dislocation, and destruction, but to form anew the earth and its heavens which had been thus destroyed, and by the addition of a vast body of fresh materials not entering into the composition of the old crust of the former, to render it materi- -ally different from it ; and that when the attention of mankind was directed to the study of God’s works, and of those remains -of the former world, a proof might be supplied of the existence of this sad catastrophe, confirmative of the account given in Holy Scripture, and adding to the force of the warning that universal corruption will be a prelude to universal destruction. - When we consider what an infinite host.of animals of every description must have perished in the diluvial waters, as well as the incalculable magnitude of the mass of vegetable sub- stances that must have been severed by the violence of the conflicting waters from the earth’s surface, or uprooted after- wards in consequence of its being so thoroughly soaked by them, we see immediately that their deposition and sepulture, as well as the putting together again of the dislocated remains of the primeval earth, must have been an important part of the office of the subsiding waters, upon which I shall now offer a few ob- servations. 1 Genes. viii. 4, 5, SS a a ee — ors S 492 APPENDIX. NOTES. It has been a matter of surprise that amidst so many fossil animals which are daily brought to light, and those of some of the largest quadrupeds in great numbers,* no remains of the human race have yet been discovered, except in one or two soli- tary instances. As the deluge was caused by the wickedness of these old giants, as they have been called, but really apos- tates,? these men of renown, it was evidently a miraculous inter- ference of the Deity for their punishment; it seems, therefore, by no means improbable, that the place of their burial was not left to chance, or the uninfluenéed action of physical causes, but, like the burial place of Moses, was decreed by God, and fixed so as to be placed beyond discovery. It seems to have been the opinion of most modern geologists, that fossil animals in general were natives of those districts or countries in which their remains have been discovered. But whoever takes into consideration the account, above detailed, which the sacred writings give us of the universal deluge, and of the prevalence of the waters above the summits of the high- est mountains, will see at once, with the exception of those that were overtaken and drowned by the waters in dens or caverns, they must have floated when the waters had reached and flooded all the elevations upon which they had taken their last refuge, and they would have drifted off north or south, or in any other direction the fluctuating element was taking, and if there was an alternate flux and reflux, they would have been carried by it backwards and forwards till they were de- posited some here and some there; some upon mountain sum- mits,? and others at different heights ruled by the circumstances of the earth’s surface and the action of the subsiding waters. Few, indeed, would be imbedded in their native country, except those that perished, as above mentioned, in caverns; though probably, in many cases, those of the same species might con- gregate, and so floating off together might be buried together. It has been remarked that no fossil elephants have been found in the countries that those animals now frequent. It seems, therefore, by no means certain that the gigantic Saurians now found in our southern coasts, or that the Mammoths or other gigantic Pachyderms of Northern Russia or Nova Zembla, were really natives of those regions. What Geologist, then, however practised, however deeply conversant with his subject, can estimate and exactly calculate 1 See Reliquie Diluv, 138—182. 2 See Heb. 3 See above, p. 483. APPENDIX. NOTES. 493 the action and operation of these mighty waters, both during their rise, prevalence, and subsidence for so extended a period ; especially when those of an Almighty superintending and di- recting Cause, upon the whole body of means that he employed to accomplish his purposes, and execute his decrees with regard both to the destruction and renovation of our globe, are duly considered ? By what I have here argued I no not mean to contend that there may not have been many partial convulsions which may have produced very important changes in different countries of our globe: it is not moreover at all improbable that while its - population was concentrated, many regions when uninhabited, God so willing, by diluvial, volcanic, or other action of the elements, might be materially altered, new mountain ridges might be elevated, mighty disruptions take place, and other changes to which there could be no witnesses, but which can only be conjectured by the features such countries now exhibit. Nore 11, p. 22.—We learn from the Apostle St Peter, that the imeval globe, and its heavens or atmosphere, perished at the deluge. I shall add a few words here on the passage of St Peter alluded to in the text. Speaking of the scoffers of the last days, and of the deluge, Whereby, he says, the world that then was being over flowed with water perished : he adds, But the heavens and earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, &c. In this passage it must be observed that the term world in the sixth verse is synonymous with the heavens and the earth taken together of the fifth and seventh verses, and by it seems to be meant that the earth with its own heavens, or the atmosphere that surrounds it, both perished or were destroyed, which is rendered further evident by the expression: But the heavens and earth which are now. From which it may be gathered that the heavens and earth which are now, are different from the heavens and earth which were destroyed at the deluge; and as the lat- ter has evidently been reconstructed, and vegetable and animal remains have been mixed with the dislocated materials and as it were detritus of the original world;? so the new atmosphere might be, and probably was differently mixed, so as to be less friendly to health aad longevity, which would account physi- cally for the gradual reduction of the former extended period of human life to its present brief standard. Animals as well as man might be affected by this change, their bulk might be di- 1 Gr. araarto. 2 See above, p. 490, and Herschel in Cab. Cyclop. xiv. 141. No. 135. | : | | 494 APPENDIX. NOTES. minished, and other variations be produced in them which have not been ascertained. When God fixed upon the rainbow as the token of his covenant with Noah, the changes, here alluded to, in the atmosphere might be the cause of the appearance, under certain circumstances, of that phenomenon. Scientific men have judged it not improbable, without refer- ring to this doctrine of Revelation, that changes in the compo- sition of the atmosphere, according to circumstances, may have taken place.* Note 14, p. 29.—Whoever examines the animals of North America will find a vast number that correspond with European species—on the Rocky Mountains, and in the country westward of that range Asiatic types are discoverable. ‘The rein-deer, the fox, the weasel, the rat, the mouse, the golden eagle, the peregrine falcon, and many other birds are of the former description. In the latter paragraph I allude toa fine Carabus,? which is found in Siberia; and likewise to a new genus? related to Trechus, of which I possess a specimen, found in India, both taken also in the Rocky Mountains. Mr Sabine informed me that several new Peonias, and a Laurus that reached the height of sixty feet, were natives of the samecountry. In Chili, Molina found the green and temporary frogs, the heron, the turtle-dove, and several other old-world animals. Note 15, p. 30.—But which in their immediate or remote con- sequences, may be productive of effects that are important to be attended to, and provided for. When we reflect upon the action of the Deity, we can scarcely avoid taking our ideas of it, in some degree from that of man. Man’s attention is usually directed to things that appear to him important, as affecting either his passions or his interests, but he passes by those that appear to him trivial, as having no bearing upon his pain, or pleasure, or welfare. But here there is a great difference, for though some 3 By long experience do attain To something like prophetic strain, the generality can trace the chain of causes and effects, but for a very few links ; and therefore they disregard some things as trivial, which, in the event, produce effects of the greatest im- portance. But it is not so with God ; he sees the most distant consequencés of every thing that happens in his whole universe, 1 Ann. Des Se. Nat. xix. 432. 2 C. Victinghovii. Fisch. 3 Isopleurus. K. M.S. APPENDIX. NOTES. 495 and therefore knows exactly in what proportions every thing appertaining to the nature of every creature should be mea- sured out to it in order to produce the effects he intends should take place, if I may so speak, during its ministration ; so. com- bining agents and actions, as may infallibly fulfil his law, and general purpose. He foresees the effect of what are regarded as the most trivial things, as the number of our hairs and the death of a sparrow, as well as of those that are most important: and his general object is to provide for the execution of the laws both physical and metaphysical by which he governs the universe, and so upholds all things, but not so as never to sus- pend the action of these laws. The following events recorded in Scripture were remarkable instances of such suspension. 1. The Universal Deluge, by the means of which the heavens and the earth of the primeval world were destroyed. 2. The Egyptian palpable darkness for three days and nights. 3. The passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, the waters standing as a wall on either hand. 4, The sun apparently standing sitll in the heavens at the command of Joshua, or the earth ceasing to revolve on its axis. 5. The shadow going back on the dial of Ahaz three degrees, or the earth retrograding. 6. The supernatural darkness that took place at our Saviour’s crucifixion. Note 16, p. 46.—Which will take place in his time and at his word; and by the means and instruments that he empowers and commissions. ' Ever since the fall of our first parents a copious harvest of evil and sorrow, the fruit of sin, has been reaped by their descendants, amongst others, that of slavery has been one of the bitterest. In the case of Ham it was predicted and de- creed by the Deity himself that his son Canaan should be a servant of servants or slave to his brethren, a prediction which, to judge’ by the event, affected all the descendants of the of- fending patriarch, for no races have been so much degraded, in all respects, as the African negroes who derived their origin from him. Much has of late been done with the view of ameliorating their condition, and most of the European nations have con- curred in the benevolent endeavour. In consequence of the exertions of this country, the debasing traffic in slaves, and the miseries and waste of human life that it occasioned, have been very much diminished. But though Christian nations have agreed to relinquish the trade in slaves, and it is to be hoped i Hi] iW j aft | : ' ea Sy: sing 2 pst i ener ass al eee ei ee a ea tn ee = eS mens 496 APPENDIX. NOTES. that many of the wars that were expressly kindled amongst the Africans themselves, for the purpose of making slaves will cease : still there are markets for slaves that we have no power to close, and therefore it is to be apprehended that the good expected from the abolition, by European states, of the traffic in question, will not be altogether realized: so that it still seems doubtful whether slavery is near its extinction, or whether it ever will be extinguished during the present state of society, and while the nations amongst whom it is practised continue to be apostates from the knowledge and worship of their Crea- tor. While the souls of the sons of Adam are thus enslaved and sold under sin, it seems improbable that God’s time for their general emancipation from bodily slavery should be at hand ; but when their heart shall turn to the Lord, this, and numberless other evils, at his bidding, and by instruments that he appoints, will cease. The best way therefore of accom- plishing this obiect is by providing means, wherever God has made an opening, for the education of the negroes, and for training them to habits of industry and order: to give them freedom before they are qualified to use it for the benefit of so- ciety, is giving them not a boon, but a curse. | Note 17, p. 46.—Should another and last cloud of error en- velope the world with darkness. There are many passages of Holy Writ, from which it appears that, before the final triumph of the gospel, there shall be a time of great spiritual darkness upon earth ; and it seems also to be intimated that this reign of evil shall be brought on by-men that Despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities,* who shall promise liberty to their follow- ers, while they themselves are the servants of corruption ;* who shall resemble Corah, and his companions in rebellion Dathan and Abiram,? and rise up against their civil and ecclesiastical rulers ; and whoshall for a time prevail against them, as seems to be intimated by one of the most ancient prophecies in the Bible. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.* So says the venerable patriarch, in his valedictory and prophetic address to his twelve sons before his death. These words seem to foretell that serpents, or apostates, symbolized by the tribe of Dan, would, in the last times, incite the lower orders to rebel against their governors and reject their authority ; and when Jacob adds I have waited for thy salvation, O Jehovah, it seems 1 Jude, 8. 2 2 Pet. ii. 9, 19. 3. Numb. xvi. 1—3, 31—35. 4 Genes. xlix. 17. APPENDIX. NOTES. 497 to be further indicated that this event will be followed by the great day of salvation. It was an ancient opinion that Anti- christ would be an individual of the tribe of Dan, who, in the. last times, to use the words of Irenaeus, would leap like a lion upon the hnman race ;? an opinion probably derived from this prophecy, or from that of Moses delivered on a similar occasion, Danis a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan ;? and from the exclusion of that tribe from the number of those that were sealed, as recorded in the Apocalypse.* St Paul, in his de- scription of the man of sin, describes him as exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped or venerated.* This has been interpreted as meaning idols, but in Scripture princes and rulers are called Gods, as when it is said Thou shalt not revile the Gods nor speak evil of the ruler of thy people;® whence it seems as if St Paul meant to indicate a power that was to exalt itself above all authority whether civil or eccle- siastical. Irenzeus expected his personal Antichrist to reign three years and a half, interpreting the prophetic period of 1260 days literally ;° but this period, if interpreted a year for a day, would only agree with a succession of individuals. The an- cient opinion of a personal Antichrist, may be reconciled with the modern one of a succession of individuals entitled to that appellation, by considering St John’s prophecy of the two wit- nesses. ‘They are to prophecy clothed in sackcloth 1260 days.” This period synchronizes with the reign of the Antichristian power which corrupts the gospel, headed by a succession of indi- viduals. Again, they are to be killed, and their bodies exposed without sepulture in the street of the great city for three days and a half;® this second period synchronizes with the reign of the personal Antichrist, who denies the gospel, who is to be a single individual; and more particularly entitled to the name of Antichrist by his infidelity, and atheistic principles. He is the Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.® It may be asked— When God doeth this, who shall be able to stand? will any Christian church escape? We learn from the case of that of Philadelphia,* that ifany such church holds fast her profession, has kept the word of Christ, and not denied his name, though beset by a host of enemies, she shall be kept from the hour of temptation. 1 Adv. Heres. 1. iii. c. 38. 2 Deut. xxxiii. 22. 3 Revel. xvi. 5—8. 4 Gr. csBacpa. 2 Thess. ii. 4. 5 Exod. xxii. 28. 6 Ubi supr.l. v. ¢. 25. 7 Revel. xi. 3. 8 Ibid. 7—11. 971 John, ii. 22. 10 Rev. iii. 7—10. 3N Bs 498 APPENDIX. NOTES. Nore 18, p. 46.—And be restored to the favour of their God and their own land. Some Divines have thought that there will be no restoration of the Jews to their own land ; but as it is evident, from what St Paul says, that they will at a period fixed in the Divine counsels be converted to the faith of Christ,‘ so it appears equally clear, from what is foretold in the conclud- ing chapters of Ezekiel and by other prophets,? that they shall also again inhabit Judea and Jerusalem. Some interpreters are also of opinion, that the pouring out of the vial of the sixth angel upon the river Euphrates and the drying up of its waters,? signify the dissolution of the empire of the Turks ; that, by the Kings of the East therein mentioned, are meant the Jews; and that their return to their own land is indicated, by their way being prepared. Bishop Horsley supposes, likewise, that the eighteenth of Isaiah foretells this event, and that the great commercial nation of the day will be instrumental in bringing it about.* St Paul’s conversion is thought to have been a type of the conversion of the Jewish nation in the latter days, and as his zeal und success seem to have exceeded that of the other apos- tles, and he was the great instrument of the conversion of the gentile world to the faith of Christ, so it has been supposed that the Jews when converted, will be the main instruments of the conversion of the then heathen world. Norte 19, p. 48.—Unless some means can be devised at home, by which the pressure may be lightened, and the suffering classes be enabled to procure the necessaries of life. ‘There are two mighty nations on our globe in which a system has long been acted upon, enabling them to support a population, never diminished by foreign wars, greatly exceeding that of any other country, whose numbers have only been diminished occasionally by famine, by devastating inundations and unfavourable seasons, from which nothing can altogether insure a people. The na- tions I allude to are China and Japan. We are informed, in the account of Lord Macartney’s Embassy, that in the former of these countries, “ Every square mile contains upon an ave- rage one third more inhabitants, being upwards of three hun- dred, than are found upon an equal quantity of land, also upon Rom. xi. 25, 26. Ezek, xxxvii. &c. Isai.lx. Jerem. xxx. &c. Rev. xvi. 12. comp. ix. 14. See also Ix. 8, 9, and Zeph. iii. 10. ~ owe APPENDIX. NOTES. 499 an average, in the most populous country in Europe.”* The population of the latter is also stated to be prodigious.? The encouragement of Agriculture appears to be the sole mean which enables these countries to maintain so vast a mass of population. In China, it is stated, that the whole surface of the country is dedicated to the production of food for man alone, that even the steepest mountains are brought into cultivation; they are cut into terraces, and the water that runs at their feet is raised by chain-pumps, worked each by two men, from ter- race to terrace, to irrigate them; and steep and barren places are not suffered to ruu waste, but are planted with pines and larches.* A similar account is given of the state of agriculture in Japan, where attention to it is enjoined by the laws as one of the most essential duties; and if any one leaves his land un- cultivated his more active neighbour may take possession of it, In both these countries no article that can possibly be used as manure is wasted, ‘so that the soil and crops have every possi- ble attention of this kind. Malte-Brun has givea a very inter- esting account of the honours paid by the Emperor of China and his court to agriculture: who annually in the beginning of March, after adoring the God of Heaven, and invoking his Blessing on his labour and on that of his whaie people, himself, laying aside his imperial robes, holding a plough opens several furrows, and is succeeded by his chief mardarins, who in suc- cession, follow the example of the prince Some allowance probably must be made for too warm colouring in these state- ments, as most of them must have been derived from the report of the natives, yet there seems no doubt with respect to their gen- eral accuracy. Whatan example is kere set by nations which we are accustomed-to consider as far behind ourselves in every art of life: how vast a portion of our own home empire is suf- fered to lie waste, while all the time hundreds of thousands of our agricultural population are languishing for want of employ- ment, and compelled to live upon a pittance, which, unless they add to it by theft or fraud, is scarcely sufficient to keep body and soul together ; and in the mean while the morals of our peasantry are gradually corrupted; they grow daily less industrious ; they will often congregate at the beer-shops, and get inveterate habits of intemperance ; they lose all respect for Macartney Embassy by Sir G. Staunton, iii. 388. Malte-Brun. Syst. of Geogr. Asia II. ii. 5383. E. T. Macartney Embassy, iii. 386. Malte-Brun, Asia, 560. Thumb. Japan, iv. 82. Malte-Brun, 561. Malte-Brun, 561. or WN 500 APPENDIX. NOTES. their superiors, and the bonds of union betwixt the upper and lower classes are gradually dissolving ; and unless some remedy for this fearful evil is soon discovered, who can say what the consequences may be? When a man once loses his self-esteem, and is degraded from his natural dependence upon himself, under God, and the labour of his hands, for the support of him- self and family, being no longer of use to himself or others, he becomes careless of hisactions; and being, as it were, rejected by society, becomes the enemy of those above him, and the ready associate of evil men, in evil works. Note 20, p. 84.—Those that are loricated and covered with some kind of shell. The varied means by which a provident and beneficent Creator has provided animals with different means of defence ought not to be overlooked. When we see even these invisible atoms as it were provided with armour, to defend them probably from the attack of animals of their own class, we feel confident that he will not neglect us. This dis- tinction of animals into loricated and naked may be traced through most oftheir Classes; thus the Coleoptera stand in con- trast with most of the other Orders of insects; the fishes and reptiles that are covered with scales with those that are covered with skin. In biids, however, this distinction does not appear to obtain at all: in wuadrupeds the giant Megatherium, the Ar- madillo, the Chlamyphorus, and the Janis, are distinguished from the other Mammalians by the armour that protects them, Note 21, p. 87.—The first plants and the first animals are scarcely more than animated molecules, and appear analogues of each other ; and those above them in each kingdom represent jointed fibrils. A discovery may\here be noticed of one of the most scientific Botanists of the present age, and whose keen eye and philosophic spirit have penetrated into depths and mysteries before unexplored, belonging to the science of which he is so great an ornament. In the investigation of some of these, he discovered that not only vegetable, but even mineral molecules, when placed in a fluid medium, would move about in various directions, but by what cause these motions were generated he offers no conjecture. He very kindly showed me this sin- gular phenomenon, if my memory does not deceive me, with respect to some mineral substances. Mr Brown has observed that the motions in question, he was satisfied, arose neither 1 In some fishes the scales are invisible, so that they may be almost reckoned naked: See above, p. 351. APPENDIX. NOTES. 501 from currents in the fluid, nor from its gradual evaporation, but belonged to the particle itself;! and of the spherical molecules mixed with the other oblong particles obtained from Clarckia pulchella, that they were in rapid oscillatory motion ;? in both mineral,® vegetable,* and animal substances,’ along with the molecules, he found other corpuscles, like short fibres some- what moniliform, or having transverse contractions, correspond- ing in number, as he conjectured, with that of the molecules composing them: and these fibrils, when not consisting of a greater number than four or five molecules, exhibited motion resembling that of the mineral fibrils, while longer ones of the same apparent diameter were at rest.° It does not appear clearly from the words of the learned author, whether the mo- tion of the mineral molecules was similar to that of the vegeta- ble ones, which he describes as oscillatory. The motions of the mineral fibrils, when not composed of more than two or three molecules, were at least as vivid as those of, the simple molecule, and which from the fibril often changing its position in the fluid, and from its occasional bending, might he said to be somewhat vermicular ;7 now vermicular movement is a kind of progressive oscillation, the anterior extremity going from side to side and being followed by the body. In other mineral bodies, as in white arsenic, which did not exhibit the fibrils, he found oval particles about the size of two molecules, which he con- jectures to be primary combinations of them: their motion, which was more vivid than that of the simple molecule, con- sisted usually in turning on their longer axis, and then often appearing to be flattened.* The revolution of a body upon its axis, it may be observed, implies the action upon it of two equal conflicting forces, by the counteraction of which the revolution is produced and maintained: the same action on the longer fibrils? would keep them at rest. My motive for introducing a topic, which, at the first blush, seems to have a very slight connexion with the subject now before me, was a suspicion that sometimes Mr Brown’s mole- cules may have been mistaken for Infusory Animals. Com- paring the oscillatory motion he observed in them, and Carus’s observation that the motions of Infusories occasionally present the appearance of attraction and repulsion,” this suspicion seems to merit attention, and to call for more close examination ; and it may be observed that the action of these two powers seems 1 Brief Account of Microscopical Observations, &c. 4. 2 Ibid. 5, 6. 3 Ibid. 10. 4 Ibid. 11. 5 Ibid. 6 Ihd. comp. 10, 11. Y Ibid. 10. 8 Ubi supra. 9 Ibid. 11. 10 Introd. to Comp. Anat. E. Tr. i. 45. § 57. i ‘ } i ; 1 4 } } i! y i 502 APPENDIX. NOTES. sufficiently to account for the oscillatory motions of the mole- cules, and takes away all idea of any spontaneity. With regard to the Infusories this has been most satisfactorily established in a former part of this chapter,* and this clearly proves their animal nature, as do their modes of motion, &c.? but when we recolleet that they abound in vegetable infusions, and that the more vegetables are macerated, and as it were decomposed, the more numerous are the animalcula that they appear to give out when infused, it would be nothing extraordinary either that they should be mistaken for moving molecules, or moving mole- cules forthem. Farther we may observe a kind of analogy between the spherical Infusories and the Molecules, and between the filiform ones transversely annulated with a vermicular motion, and the fibrils of Mr Brown. Another law of nature seems to result from the experiments of this acute naturalist—that all bodies whether organized or inorganized, are formed, as fibrin is in the animal kingdom, by spherical molecules made, as it were, into necklaces, and then adhering in bundles, and that these are the substratum of all substance. In fluids the spherules are not united, and so have free motion inter se. | Note 22, p. 106.—Several of them, for it is not common to them all, when touched cause a sensation similar to that produced by the sting of a nettle. Aristotle mentions a marine animal, under the name of Acalephé,? and another, if it be not the same, under that of Cnidé,* both of which words, according to the Greek lexicographers, are used to designate the same plant, the stinging-nettle ;> but it seems not quite certain that, in either case, he had the stinging Gelatines or sea-néttles in his eye. Describing his Acalephé, he says, ‘ It adheres to the rocks, as do some of the shell-fish, but sometimes it roves at large. It has no shell, but the whole body is fleshy. If the hand is moved to it, it perceives, seizes, and adheres to it, like the Polype, by means of its tentacles,® so that the flesh swells. It has its mouth in the middle, and the rock seems to serve it for a shell: if it meets with any of the small fishes, it detains them in the same way that it does the hand. Thus whatever edible thing it meets with, it devours. One kind of them isat large, and devours whatever sea-urchins,’ or cockles,* it meets 1 See above, p. 81. 2 Ibid. 82. 3 Gr. Axaangu, Aulus Gellius (JVoct. Ait. 1. iv. c. 11.) writes it Axaavgn- 4 Gr. Kyidy, 5 Heschius explains Axaangas by Kysdae. 6 Gr. warmravas. 7 Byuvos. 8 Gr, xrevss, APPENDIX. NOTES. 503 with: it appears to have no excrement, in this respect resem- bling plants. There are two kinds of Acalephés; one smaller, and best adapted for the table; the other large and hard, such as are produced about Chalcis. In the winter their flesh is firm—they are therefore caught and eaten at that season—but in summer they dissolve, for they become watery, and when touched they immediately are so damaged as not to be remov- able.t When suffering from the heat they withdraw within the rocks.” And again—“It has a mouth in the middle, which is chiefly conspicuous in the large ones ; it has,{like the divalve shell-fish, a passage by which the excrements are voided, which is in their upper surface: like them too it has the fleshy part within, but it uses the rock as a shell.” With regard to his Cnidé, of which he treats at the same time with the sponges, as inhabiting the caverns of the rocks —he says, “ Of the Cnidés there are two kinds, one in the hol- lows, which adheres to the rocks ; others, that range at large, are met with in smooth places,* and on the flat shore.” It seems not accordant with the usual accuracy of this great Philosopher and Naturalist, where he is treating formally of the same kind of object, to distinguish it by two different names, nor is it likely that he would have placed them in separate chapters, as if they were distinct things. He would surely not have devoted one whole chapter to the Tethys and Acalephé, and another to the Cnidé and Sponge, unless he had meant they should be considered as distinct animals. Still there is one circumstance that seems.in one respect to indicate their iden- tity, one species of each appears to be usually fixed, and the other free. But this, by itself, does not furnish a satisfactory proof. With regard to these Acalephés or Cnidés of Aristotle having any right to be considered as belonging to Linne’s genus JMedusa, it seems chiefly based upon their name of Net- tles, which probably was given them, from a faculty they possessed of stinging, in some measure, like a nettle, a faculty which some of the Jedusas are known to possess in a re- 1 The word I have rendered watery (uadxpoc) means properly without hairs; but nada is used by Theophrastus to express moisture, and is used: here evidently in a similar sense. 2 Aristot. Hist. Anim. |. iv. c. 6. 3 Ibid. 1. viii. e. 2, 4 In the text itis ev tos werfoos, but Athenwus reads ey ross Acsoss, Which better agrees with the context. 5 Gr. raatapodeonv—it may perhaps mean flat rocks. Aristot. Idd. 1. v- c. 16. ios eee ee EO an ae FY Te OS ee ee 504 APPENDIX. NOTES. markable degree.* But Aristotle does not appear to intimate that such an effect. follows its touch, except that the fixing of its tentacles caused a swelling. _ If either of his species is en- titled to be considered as a Medusa it must be the smaller; the larger or fixed one appears in one respect to resemble the Am- phitrite magnifica :? they are stated to use the rock to which they are fixed as a shell, whence it should seem that they retire occasionally into it, like the above animal. With regard to his second species, though some parts of his description agree with the common jelly-fish, yet their devouring Echini and Cockles seems to indicate some animal furnished with a more » powerful apparatus for making their way to the animal in- habiting these shells. Pliny does not in his description merely copy Aristotle; for he speaks of his sea-nettle as producing the same effect as the vegetable nettle. Yet he mentions them and the sponges as being something intermediate between the animal and the plant, which can scarcely apply to our Jelly- fish. It seems, I think, probable, that the term in question was employed by the ancients, to designate more than one group of animals, and more particularly the Tunicaries of La- marck, both those that are fixed and those that are free. Aristotle’s fixed species, which he describes as retreating into the rocks, as into a shell, will probably one day be found near the eastern coast of the Black Sea. It is worth while also to inquire whether any animal answering the description of Aris- totle’s secend species is still eaten, in the winter, by the Greeks, customs of that kind seldom changing. Norte 23, p. 130.—It seems to me most probable that they are the animals, and not the pholads, as is usually supposed, which the Roman naturalists describes under the name of Dactyle. Pliny says of his Dactyli that they are so called, because of their re- semblance to the human nail;* in the Pholads this resemblance is very slight, but in the razor-shells and some tulip-shells it is much more striking. He also observes that the Dactylus when replete with moisture sparkles in the mouth of the eater, and 1 The stinging property of many such Tentacula, for instance, in the Medusa and Holothuria, likewise deserves notice. This, which, with some modifications, also exists in several plants, appears to be the lowest degree of the, so called, electric power in several fishes, not recurring in the higher orders of animals, and perhaps comparable as regards man, to the magnetic influence alone.—Carus. i. 47. § 60. 2 Tubularia magnifica, Linn. Tr. v. 228. t. ix. 3 Hist. Nat, 1, ix. c. 61. a aon APPENDIX. NOTES. 505 that the falling drops also emitlight.t If Pliny, in his account of this creature, was really speaking of the pholad, it is singu- lar he should not mention its habit of boring rocks. Note 24, p. 136.—Their byssus has long been celebrated, for it is mentioned by Aristotle. Aristotle’s mode of expression is sin- gular. Ai dé mivvae ogSat ouovras ex te Buocs sy Toss ape pncoders xat BoBogwdecw. He says also when they are deprived of the pinno- phylax, they perish.? Pliny, who mostly copies Aristotle’s account, does not notice the byssus.? 1 His natura in tenebris remoto lumine, alio fulgere claro; et quanto ma- gis humorem habeant, lucere in ore mandentium, lucere in manibus, atque etiam in solo et veste decidentibus guttis. Ibid. 2 Hist. Anim. |. v.c. 10. 3 Hist. Nat. 1. ix. c. 42. : | ee {r= hy ee =" a Asyss, 13, 483 Acalepha, 104, 502 Accipenser, 57 Acephala, 128 Achatina, 157 Acorn barnacle, 190 Acrita, 80 Acrocinus, 284 Actheres, 201, 204, 253, 255 Actinia, 132 Adanson, 79 Addison, 316 JElian, 234 Aeroscepsy, 249 Agardh, 79 Agassiz, 396 Agastria, 80 Aggregate animals, 118 Air, Introd. |xiv Albatross, 429 Alca, 428 Alcyonium, 84 Alcyon, 86 Alitrunk, 267 Alligator, 17, 417 Ambulacra, 109 American animals, 494 Ametabolians, 355 Ammonites, 11, 169 Ammophila, 364 Amoreux, 97 Amorpha, 79 Amphitrite, 186, 244 Amphibians, 262, 265 Amphiuma, 412 Amymone, 201 Anableps, 391 Ananchinia, 120 INDEX. Ananchitis, 114 Anas, 55 Anas acuta, 279 Anatifa, 190 Androctonus, 347 Anhyma, 430 Animals and plants 74, 110, 319, 500 Animalcules, 80, 81, 242 Annelidans, 179, 257 Annulosans, 172 Anolius, Anolis, 255, 417 Anomalon, 366 Anser, 55 Ant’s nests, 369 Ants, 363, 371 Ants of visitation, 371 Ants, black, 370 Antagonist powers, Introd. lviii, 76, 465 Antilope Chickara, 455 Antilope furcata, 52 Antilope rupicapra, 70 Antenne, 249 Anthobians, 382 Antichrist, 497 Antipathes, 94 Ape, 301 Aphaniptera, 357, 360 Aphides, 49 Aphrodita aculeata, 197 Aphrodita magnifica, 259 Aplysia, 164 _ Aporobranchians, 338, 352 Aptenodytes, 71 Apteryx, 431 Aquila, 227 Ara, 38 Arachnidans, 232, 338 508. Aranea, 340 Aranea, notacantha, 347 Araneidans, 339 Ararat, 25 Arctomys, 456 Argonauta, 72, 164 Argulus, 207 Argyronauta, 346 Aristotle, 94, 110, 136, &c. Arm, 278 Armadillo, 221, 500 Arvicola, 49, 457 Ascalabotes, 254 Ascaris, 174 Ascidians, 117 Ass, 454 Astacus Gammarus, 212, 215 Astacus fluviatilis, 212, 216 Asteria, 108 Ateles, 228 Athanasius, Introd. xxxiv, xviii Audoin, 67, 200, 341 Aurelia, 244 Aye-Aye, 300, 448, 461 Azote, 79 Baboon, 301, 463 Bacillaria, 469 Bacon, Friar, Introd. xxxix Baculites, 11 Baddeley, 375 Baker, 350 Balena, 450 Balenoptera, 450 Balanites, 190 — Balanus, 150, 190 Barnacle, 189 Barbs, 250 Barrington, 458 Barton, 449 Bat-louse, 351 Bat-mite, 350 Batrachians, 284 Bauer, 80, 85 184 Bdella, 181, 182 Beak of birds, 292 Bear, 301, 457 Beattie, 308 Beaver, 299, 315, 335,459 INDEX. Beechey, 98, 99, 430 Bee-cuckow, 434 Beetles, 285, 376, 379 Bellevue, 133 Bembex, 364 Bennet, 336, 341, 374, 429 Bimane, 302, 464 Bipes, 64, 284 Birds, 3, 53, 218, 269, 283, 327, 331 Birgus, 214 Bison, 455 Bivalve Molluscans, 128 Blackwall, 286, 345 Bladder-kelp, 158 Blatta, 377 Boa, 281, 415 Bochart, 160 Bodianus, 390 Boerhave, 176 Boltenia, 123 Bones, 380 Bonito, 429 Bonnet, 7,176, 415 Booby, 429 Borassus, 65 Bos Americanus, 50 Bos urus, 455 Bosc, 17, 65, 105, 157, 167, 181 Botryllus, 115 ; Botryocephalus, 174, 175 Brain-mite, 475 Branchiopod, 86, 200 Branchipus, 199 Branchiremes, 260 Brayley, 152 Bristles, 260 Brongniart, 407 Brown, 79, 500 Bruguiere, 83, 108 Buccinum, 148, 150 Buckland, 99, 299 Bugong, 374 Bugs, 377 Bulimus, 157 Bulla, 148 Bullwa, 148 Burrowing Molluscans, 130 Burying Beetles, 380 Byssus, 128, 135, 137, 505 Cactus, 472 Calandra, 382 Caligus, 207 Callicthys, 265, 392 Calosoma, 379 Calyptrea, 148 Camel, 296, 297, 454 Camelopardalis, 281], 454 Campagnol, 49 Campbell, 65 Cancer stagnalis, 204 Cancer menas, 231 Canis, 35, 227 Carabus, 227 Carcasses, 380 Cardium, 130 Carinaria, 165 Carlisle, 175 . Carnivora, 227, 462 Cartwri, ht, 300, 460 Carus, 111, 131, 197, 353 Cassida, 381 Cassiopea, 244 Castor, 71, 299, 459 Casuarius, 272, 283, 433 Cat, 36, 39, 326 Catcott, 27 Catoblepas, 296, 455 Caueasian, 40 Cavia, 456 Cavitaries, 172 Cellaria, 90 Cenomyce, 51 Centipedes, 224, 227 Centres, 148, 199, 207 Cephalopods, 163, 246, 251, 259 Cephalothorax, 205, 236 Cerambyx, 381 Cermatia, 225 Cervus, 285 Cetaceans, 261, 265, 446, 450 Cetonia, 382 Chabrier, 267, 269 Chetodon, 403 Chalk eggs, 99 Chameleon, 290 Chamois, 70 Charadrius Zgyptius, 183 Cheetah, 455 INDEX. | 509 Cheiromys, 300, 461 Cheiroptera, 272, 448, 464 Chela, 208 Chelifer, 237, 349 Chelonia, 71, 265, 434, 450 Cherub, Introd. lii Cherubim, Introd. xliv, xlvi, lxviii, 318 Chilognathans, 224, 228 Chilopodans, 224, 225 Chimera, 61 Chirotus, 416 Chiton, 146, 150 Chlamyphorus, 298, 299, 441, 500 Chrysomela, 381 Cicada, 376 Cicindela, 332, 379 Ciconia alba, 431 Ciconia argula, 182 Ciconia nigra, 431 Cirripedes, 181, 189 Clamp-shell, 135 Classification, 444 Clausilia, 149 Clavellina, 115 Clio, 144, 249 Clouds, Introd. \xi Clupanodon, 61 Clupea, 62 Cnide, 502 Coala, see Koala Cochleoctonus, 380 Cockles, 130, 142 Cock-roach, 377 Cod-fish, 59, 394 Coluber, 70 Coleoptera, 358, 378 Colymbus, 55 Comatula, 194 Conchifers, 55 Concholepas, 148 Condor, 440 Condylopes, 127, 197, 259, 279 Coral, 94 Cordylia, 382 Coronula, 191 Crabs, 208, 231 Crab-spider, 346 Crangon, 209 Cricetus, 457 510 Wrinoideans, 193 Crocodile, 17, 417 Crosse, 417 Cteniza, 341 Cuculus, 53 Culex, 71, 86 : Cuvier, 104, 110, 157, 165, 251, 262 Cyamus, 220 Cychrus, 55 Cyclops, 199, 201, 203 Cyclopterus, 254 Cyclostoma, 149 Cynocephalus 301, 443 Cyprea, 148, 161 Cyprinus auratus, 86 Cyprinus Brama, 472 Cypris, 199, 260 Cypselus, 53 Dactyle, 130, 504 Daldorf, 65 Dalyell, 81, 172 Daphnia, 199 Darkness, Introd. |xv Dasyurus, 449 Davy, 19, 183, 323, 410 De Blainville, 80, 110 Deer, 285, 294, 455 De Geer, 199 Deinotherium, 453 De la Motte, 309 Delphinus, 451 Deluge, 14, 484 Denon, 417 Depurators, 85 Dermaptera, 357 Dermestes, 227, 350 Deukelzoon, 61 Dhawalagiri, 14, 25 Dibranchiata, 164, 168 Didelphis, 449 Didemnum, 115 Didus, 30 Digitigrades, 301 Diomedea, 429 Diplostomum, 177, 471 Diplozoon, 177, 251, 472, 474 Dipneumones, 340 Diptera, 357, 360 INDEX, Dipus, 282 Discoboles, 254 Discocephalus, 241, 469 Distoma, 172 Dodo, 30, 432 Doras, 64, 392 Draco, 274 Dragons, 16, 406 Dragon-flies, 268, 375 Draparnaud, 173 Dromaius, 433 Dromedary, 297 Dufour, 236 Dugong, 452 Du Trochet, 242 Dynastidans, 382 Dyticus, 71, 254 Eagle, 38, 439, 440 Ears, 33 Earthworm, 184, 241 Echeneis, 254 Echidna, 233, 298, 449 Echinococcus, 174 Echinoderms, 104, 108, 252 Echinus, 109, 192 Edentata, 297, 447, 456 Edwards, 67 Eggs of Frogs, 329 Egg-placer, 364 Ehrenberg, 80 Elater, 322 Electric-eel, 401 Electric-fishes, 399 Electricity, 321 Elephant, 294, 313, 453 Ellis, 115, 194 Elytra, 266 Emu, 26, 272 Enchelis, 82 Encrinites, 193 Encrinus, 195 Enhydra, 71 Entimus, 383 Entomostracans, 199, 208, 258 Entozoa, 171, 200, 470 Epeira, 285 Ephemera, 68, 275 Equorea, 244 ——_— oe > = Erinaceus, 301 Escallop-shells, 137 Esox, 227 Eudora, 244 Euplea, 374 Exocetus, 65, 265 Extinct animals, 9, 20 Eye of Fishes, 390 Eye-worms, 471 Fabricius, 234 Falco, 227 Fasciola, 172, 174 Feathers, 270 Feelers, 249 Felis, 227 Filaria, 174 Fins, 261, 264 Fire, Introd. lxiv Fire-flies, 374, 382 Firmament, Introd. |x Fishes, 332, 386, 395 Fishing-frog, 250, 395 Fistulidans, 108, 115 Flagrum, 231 Flea, 360 Flesh-fly, 311, 262 Flight, 271 Flight of Bats, 272 Flight of Birds, 271, 291 Flight of Insects, 267 Fly-shooter, 403 Fluke, 175, 179 Food of Animals, 319 Forest-fly , 357 Forficula, 378 Fossil Animals, 492 Fox, 331 French, 308, 311 Freycinet, 213 Frigate-bird, 429 Frog-hopper, 378 Fulica, 55 Furia, 475 Gad-fly, 361 Gadus Mgelfinus, 59 Gadus Morhua, 59 Galathea, 260 INDEX. 511 Galeodes, 235, 236 Galeopithecus, 273 Gallinago, 56 Gallinula, 56 Galls, 364 Gall-flies, 364 Gallus, 433 Gally-worm, 224 Gamasus, 205 Garum, 60 Gaspard, 155 Gastropods, 144, 145, 247 Gecko, 254, 255, 290 Gecarcinus carnifex, 66 Gecarcinus Uca, 67 Gelasimus pugillator, 212 Gelasimus vocans, 211 Gelatines, 104, 243 Geoffroy, 417 Geophilus electricas, 226, 258 Gills, 387 Giraffe, 281, 454 Globulina, 87 Glomeris, 224 Glow-worm, 322, 383 Glutton, 227 Gmelin, 58 Gnat, 362 Gnu, 296, 455 7 Goats-beard, 320 Goby, 390 Gods of the Heathen, Introd. lvi, 477, 479 Goldfuss, 424 Gonyleptes, 349 Gordius, 7 Gould, 437 Grallatores, 57 Grant, 197, 247 Grasshoppers, 284, 377 Gravitation, 317 Gray, 116, 187 Gregarious Animals, 118 Ground-beetles, 379 Gryllotalpa, 280, 289 Guana, 417, 419 Gubernacula, 274 Guettard, 195 Guilding, 146, 187, 416 512 INDEX. Guinea-worm, 471 Hister, 381 Gymnotus, 401 Hive-bee 319, 368 Gyrinus, 71 Holman, 367 , Holothuria, 244 Haddock, 59 Homaloptera, 357, 360 Hag, 398 Home, 132, 399 Hagenbach, 379 Homoptera, 358, 376 Hair, 35, 269, 480 Hooke, 83 Halicore Dugong, 452 Hop, 320 Halicore Tabernaculum, 452 Hope, 365 Haliotis, 148, 150, 249 Hoplia, 382 Haltica, 285, 381 Hornets, 366 Hamster, 11, 457 Hornet-flies, 362 Hancock, 65 Horns, 32, 376 Hand, 302 Horse, 453 Harpalus, 227 Horsefield, 437 Harris, 83 House-cricket, 377 Hearing of Fishes, 391 Humble-bees, 288 Hearne, 300 Humboldt, 43, 402 Heat, 321 Humming-birds, 38 Heavens, Introd. lv, 493 Hump, 34 Hectocotyle, 474 Hurry, 182 Hedgehog, 301, 456 Huso, 57 Hedysarum, 79, 320 Hyena, 227 Heliconia, 375 Hyalea, 145 Heliocentris, 340 Hybernation, 320, 322 Helix, 147, 151, 249 Hydatigera, 174 Helix hortensis, 152 Hydatis, 177, 471 Helix pomatia, 153 Hydra, 80, 89, 243 Helminthologists, 8 Hydrargyra, 65 Helshum, 435 Hydrocampa, 71 Hemiptera, 376, 378 Hydrophilide, 71 Hermas, 73 Hydrophytes, 87 Hermit-crabs, 214 Hyla, 290 Herodotus, Introd. 1vi, 181 Hymenoptera, 299, 363, 366, 371, 456 Herring, 60 Herschel, 12 Janthina, 157 Hesychius, 182, 189 Ichneumon, 365, 384 Heteropods, 144, 162 Ichthyosaurus, 479 Hexapods, 229 Idotea, 230 Hexastoma, 474 Jenner, 53, 54, 328 Hippodamia, 375 Jews, 43, 498 Hippopotamus, 294, 453 Iguana, 22, 410 Homdineans, 174 Iguanodon, 21, 22 Hirudo, 180, 252 Indicator, 434 Hirundo esculenta, 328 Indris, 463 Hirundo riparia, 328 Infusories, 72, 80, 83, 501 Hirundo rustica, 54, 327 Ink of Cuttle Fish, 166 Hirundo urbica, 328 Inoceramus, 11 Insects, 356 i Instinct, 306, 317, 319, 322 Integuments, 441, 500 Intellect, 313, 327 Interagents, 317 Invertebrata, 278 Jobson, 17 Johnson, 172 Jones, 487 Ioterium, 230 Treneus, Introd. \xvii Irradiation, Introd. lxvi ' Isis, 195, 318 Isopods, 230 Tulus 187, 224, 228 Jurine, 267 Justin, M., Introd. Ixviii Ivy, 320 Kanguroo, 26, 27, 282, 442 Kamichi, 430 Kircher, 11 Kidd, 290 King, 83, 142 King-crab, 199, 200, 205, 280 Koala, 27, 300 Kotzebue, 203 Kraken, 165 Lacepede, 61 Lacordaire, 322, 380, 382 Lace-winged flies, 375 Lagomys, 458 Lamarck, Introd. xxiv, 80, 83, 121 Langouste, 215 Lanthorn-flies, 376 La Place, Introd. xxiii, 11, 15 Laplysia, 146, 148, 164, 249 Larve, 281 Latham, 421 Latreille, 127, 192, 198, 235, &e. Law, Introd. xxxiii, 162 Leach, 351 Leather-devourers, 380 Leech, 180, 240 Le Clerc, 7 Leeuwenhoeck, 175 Legs, 274, 280 Lemmings, 457 3 P INDEX, 513 Lemur, 301 Lemmus amphibius, 71 Lemmus ceconomus, 49, 457 Lemmus vulgaris, 49 Lepadites, 190, 191 Lepas, 189 Lepidoptera, 358 Lerneans, 200, 204 Le Sueur 121, 142 Leucophrys, 82 Leviathan, 406, 418 Libellulina, 71 Lice, 7, 481 Lightfoot, 5 Ligia, 230 Limax, 148, 249 Limnia, 170 Limnoria, 13] Limulus, 199, 205 Limpets, 147 Linguatula, 174 Linné, 8, 145 Lipurus, 300, 449 Lister, 340 Lithotrya, 190 Lobster, common, 215, 231 Lobster, thorny, 215 Locusts, 48, 377 Loligopsis, 247 Lophius, 262, 395, 404 Loricaria, 265 Loxia, 276 Lumbricinans, 180 Lumbricus, 7, 184 Lycoris, 187 Lyelk, Introd. xxxii, 29 Mackarel, 59 Mackenzie, 62 Mac Leay, 171, 189, 192 Macrocercus, 38 Macropodia, 209 Macropus, 282, 449 Mador, 181 Madrepora, 96 Malacostracans, 198, 220 Malte- Brun, 12, 28, 499 Malapterurus, 400 Malthus, 395, 404 4 ee ee ~ ees SE ee ea a ae 514 Mamunalians, 326, 331,°441 Mammary organs, 44] Mammoth, 482 Man, 4, 463 Manatee, 262, 452 Manis, 298, 441, 500 Manitrunk, 267 Mantell, 20, 21, 194 Manticora, 379 Mantis, 377 Mantis-crabs, 209 Marmot, 456 Marsupians, 300, 442, 447, 449 Marsupites, 194 Martin, 182 Mastodon, 483 Matter, 323 Medusa, 108, 243 Megalosaurus, 20, 22 Megatherium, 441, 500 Meleagrina, 139 Melolonthidans, 382 Menopoma, 412 Mergus, 55 Merian, 371 Metabolians, 355, 356 Metamorphosis, 202, 359 Migrations, 47 Millepedes, 224, 227 Maller, 194, 195 Mites, 350 Mola, 393, 474 / Mole, 301 Mole-cricket, 280, 2389, 377 Molluscans, 126, 142, 158, 256 Monas, 87, 206, 472 Mongol, 40 Monitor, 22, 417 ‘ Monkey, 301 Monoceros, 150 Monodon, 45] Monoculus, 189, 199 Monothyra, 143 Monotremes 233, 297, 445, 448 Montague, 351 Moongeeara, 369 More, 323 Mormolyce, 379 Motion, 239 Miller, 83, 172, 472 INDEX. Murex, 159 Muskdeer, 454 Mycetophagus, 38! Mygale, 341 Myriapods, 223, 228, 258 Myrmecophaga, 298 Myrmica, 368 Mytilus, 139 Myxine, 255 Myoxus, 456 Nais, 173 Nandu, 432 Narwhal, 451 Natatores, 57 Natatory Organs, 259 Nature, Introd. xxx Nauplius, 201 Nautilus, 162, 246 Necrophaga, 227 Necrophagus, 227 ; Necrophorus, 227 Negro, 40 Nephrops, 215 Nereideans, 180, 186, 257 Nereis, 187 2 Nerita, 147 . Neritina, 147 Nests, Birds, 328 Nests, Fishes, 392 Neuroptera, 308, 375 Nibblers, 299 Nicholson, 402 Nipples, 442 Nicothoe, 207 Nirmus, 71 Nitrogen, 74 Nitzch, 438 Nordmann, 200, 472 Numenius, 56 Nycteribia, 351 =a 2. wee Oak-gall, 365 Obisium, 237, 349 Ocypode, 211 Ocythoe, 167 Octopus, 165, 245 Oestrus, 361 Olivier, 211, 235 Oniscus, 230 INDEX. Operculum, 150, 151 Ophidians, 227, 258, 234, 328 Ophiotheres, 284 Opossum, 20, 450 Oppian, 168 Orbicula, 148 Orders of Animals, Infusories, 83 »Polypes, 89 Radiaries, 104° Tunicaries, 117 Molluscans, 128, 144 Cephalopods, 164 ~ Worms, 171 Annelidans, 179 Cirripedes, 189 Entomostracans, 200 Crustaceans, 210 Myriapods, 223: Arachnidans, 338 Pseudarachnidans, 349 Acaridans, 350 Insects, 356 Fishes, 395 Reptiles, 409 Birds, 424 Mammalians, 445 Orchesia, 211 Ornithorhynchus, 27, 233, 297, 448 Osculant Orders, 356 Oscillatoria, 78, 87 Osler, 130, 133 Osphronemus, 393 Ostrich, 17, 272, 432, Ovibos, 51 Ovis Aries, 35 Owen, 111,162, 167,246, 408, &c., &c. Oxygen, 74, 79 Oxyurus, 174 Oyster, 138 Pachyderms, 293, 446, 453 Paddles, 265 Pages, 428 Pagurus, 212 Pagurus Bernhardus, 213 Pagurus clibanarius, 213 Pagurus Diogenes, 213 Palemon, 209 Palamedea cornuta, 430 Paley, 06 Palinurus, 215 Pallas, 57, 235, 453 Palpi, 231, 233, 249 Pandalus, 209 Papilio, 373 Parasites, 204, 356, 365 Parnassius, 7) Parrot, 38 Parts reproduced, 392 Patella, 147 Pearls, 139 Pearl-fishery, 140 Pecten, 137 Pedimane, 450 Pediculus, 7 Pediculus Nigritarum, 46, 482 Pedipalps, 347 Pediremes, 260 Pegasus, 265 Pelecanus, 292 Pennant, 49 Pentacrinites, 194 Pentacrinus, 195 Pentelasmis, 150, 190 Perca fluviatilis, 204 Perca lucioperca, 204 Perca scandens, 214 Perch-pest, 204 Perchers, 436 Percival, 183 Periophthalmus, 390 Peripatus, 187, 257 Peron, 95, 120, 121 Periwinkle, 148 Petaurus, 274 Petricola, 133 Phalangista, 274, 449 Phalangium, 237 Phalaropes, 431 Phaneus, 381 Phascocherus, 294 Phascolomys, 449 Philo, Introd. lviii, \xvii, '73 Phoca, 71, 312 Pholas, 132, 135, 504 Phosphoric animals, 95, 101 Phrynus, 235, 237 Phyllium, 377 ae i i eee cpa srs eS SS tee Paeaee SE an ee at SS ¥ ' 516 Phyllodoce, 187 Phyllosoma, 220 Physalis, 106 © Physsophora, 104 Phytomyza, 376 Picus, 292 Pika, 458 Pileopsis, 148 Pimelodus, 412 Pinna, 136 Pinnophylax, 136 Pinnotheres, 136 Pioneer-spider, 34] Pisidius, 307 Plague of flies, 377 Planaria, 172, 471 Planorbis, 169 Plant-animals, 83, 240 Plantigrades, 301 Plants and animals, 74, 116, 319 Platalea, 256 Plato, 79 Plesiosaurus, 17, 479 Pliny, 84, 136, 168 Ploceus, 436 Plumier, 160 Pecilopods, 200, 207 Poison-fangs, 233 Polt, 134, 136, 138 Pollyxenus, 224 Polygastrica, 83 Polypary, 93, 97 Polype, 3, 83, 89 Polypi natantes, 90 Polypi tubiferi, 90 Polypi vaginati, 93 Polystoma, 474 Pompilus, 364 Pontoppidan, 165 Population, 498 Poulpe, 165 © Poultry, 36 Power, 83 Prairie-dog, 456 Predaceans, 301, 447, 461 Prehensory toe, 302 Proboscis, 295 Proteus, 19, 22, 410 Protophyta, 78 INDEX. Protozoa, 78, 83 Pseudoscorpions, 349 Psophia, 430 Pterodactylus, 423 Pteromyzon, 255 Pteropods, 144, 162, 259 Pteroptes, 350 Pulex irritans, 360 Pulex penetrans, 7 Pulmonaries, 338 Punitive animals, 7 Pupipara, 357, 360, 365 Purple die, 161 Purpura, 160 Pygolampis, 322, 383 Pyrites, 103 Pyrosoma, 95, 120, 240 Python, 415 Quadrumanes, 39, 301, 448, 462 Quadrupeds, 3 Quagga, 52 Radiaries, 171 Raffles, 93 Rafinesque, 167 Raia, 262 Rumond, 38 Ranatra, 71 Rat, 49 Rat-hare, 458 Rathke, 231 Raveners, 439 Rays, 393 Razor-shell, 129 Reaumur, 133, 216 Rectrices, 275 Rein-deer, 51, 285 Reptiles, 328, 332 Reptiles, system of, 408 Requins, 393 Rhea, 453 Rhinoceros, 11, 483, 294, 453 Rhizostoma, 106 Rhizotrogus, 382 Richardson, 34, 48,50, 51, 52, 299, 460 Ripiphorus, 365 Rodents, 299, 326, 447, 456, 461 Roget, 258 Rosa, 96 Rosel, 290 Rotatories, 82, 83, 241 Rotifera, 241 Rove-beetles, 379 Ruminants, 296, 447, 454 Rumphius, 96 Ruppel, 452 Rusconi, 413 Sabella, 185, 186 Salamandra, 413 Salamandra aquatica, 71 Salamandra platycaula, 329, 413 Salmo alpinus, 62 Salmo eperlanus, 62 Salmo Hucho, 62 Salmo Fario, 62 Salmo Salar, 62 ~ Salmo thyimallus, 62 Salmo Trutta, 62 Salpa, 119, 240, 469 Sanguisuga, 180, 252 Sarcophaga carnaria, 227 Sarcophagus, 361 Sarcoptes scabiei, 7 Sarcorhamphus, 69 Saurians, 16, 265, 284, 329 Sauvages, 341 Savigny, 120, 122, 180, 181, 236 Saw-flies, 357 Saxicava, 133 Say, 449 Scales of fishes, 387 Scales of wings, 269 Scaphites, 11 Scarabeus, 378, 380 Scheuchzer, 19 Scillea, 145 Scolex, 182 Scolopax gallinago, 292 Scolopax gallinula, 292 Scolopax rusticola, 292 Scolopendra, 187, 224, 225 Scolopendra phosphorea, 226 Scomber Pelamis, 474 Scomber Scombrus, 59 Scomber Thynnus, 60 Scoresby, 450 INDEX. Scorpions, 237, 348 Scutigera, 225 Sea-anemones, 115 Sea-devils, 393 Sea-pens, 90 Sea-urchins, 99 Sea-unicorn, 451 Segestria perfida, 345 Segestria senoculator, 344 Sepia, 164 Sepiola, 245 Seps, 284 Seraphim, Introd. |xix, note Serpents, 17, 258, 406 Serpula, 185 Serpuleans, 180 ; Sertularia, 90 Setiger, 458 Setiremes, 260 Shark, 17, 390, 393 Shaw, 204 Sheep, Guinea, 35 Sheep, Merino, 35 Sheep, Parnassian, 35 Ship-worms, 131, 134 Siliquaria, 185 Silpha, 227 Siluridans, 263 Simia, 301 Singing-birds, 420 Siren, 17, 408, 410 Sky, Introd. lviii Sloths, 299 Slugs, 249 “Snails (eyes), 152, 249 Scent of fishes, 391 Solen, 129 Soliped, 289 Solomon’s Ant, 371 Solpuga, 234, 236, 257 Spallanzani, 54, 81 Sparrman, 50, 414 Spatangus, 114 Spence, 54, 307, 333 Spermophilus, 456 Sphargis, 17, 265 Sphinx, 373 Sphodrus, 29 Spiders, 286, 332, 339 o17 518 Spiders, retiaries, 287, 345 Spiders, trap-door, 342, 343 Spider’s web, 339 Spines, 110 Spirit, ascent to, 323 Spirit, evil, 394 Spirit of Nature, 323 Spirula, 170, 247 Spondylus, 138 Spongia, 89, 93 Spoon-bill, 292 Squilla Mantis, 210, 219 Squalus, maximus, 393 Squirrel, common, 274 Squirrel, flying, 266 Stag-beetles, 268 Stapelia, 311 Staphylimus, 379 Staunton, 499 Star-fish, 108 Stetchbury, 182 Stelleridans, 108, 181 Stenosoma, 230 Stone-borers, 129 Stone-eaters, 133 Storge, 325, 336, 422 Stratyomis, 86 Strepsiptera, 357 Strix, 439 Strongylus, 174 Struthio-camelus, 432 Subterranean-fishes, 412 Succinea, 156 Suckers, 110, 18], 259 Sula Bassana, 429 Sun-flower, 319 Sus Babyrussa, 295 Sus Scrofa, 294 Swallow, 55, 327 Swimmers, 427 Swine, 33, 42, 294, 453 Sycophant-beetle, 379 Sykes, 368 Sylvia cisticola, 437 Symbols, 80 System, nervous, 333 Systems, 126 Tabernacle, Introd. xiii, xlv INDEX. Tachypetes, aquila, 429 Tenia, 174, 175 Tailor bird, 436 Tails, 275 Talpa, 30] Tape worms, 175 Tapir, 453 Tardigrades, 298 Teeth of fishes, 391 Tellina, 142 Tettigonia, 321 Tettix, 376 Temperature, connected with torpi- dity, 321, 457 Temple of God, Introd. xliii Tenrec, 457 Tentacles, Polypes, 242 Tentacles, Annelidans, Cirripedes, 250 Tentacles, Cephalopods, 245 Tentacles, Fishes, 250 Tentacles, Molluscans, 249 Tentacles, Radiaries, 243 Tentacles, Tunicaries, 244 Tenthredo, 364 Terebratula, 141 Teredo, 129, 13] Termes lucifuga, 372 Tethydans, 117 Tethys, 145 Tetrabranchiata, 164 Tetragnatha, 234 Tetrao, 276 Tetrapneumones, 340 Thalassina, 210 « Thalydans, 117 Thelyphonus, 235, 237 Theocritus, 182 Thompson, 192 Thunny, 60, 390 Thysanura, 355 'Tiger-beetles, 332, 379 Tiger-beetles, grubs of, 37) Toads in marble, 407 Todus, 183 : Trachelipods, 144, 149, 159 Tree Ant, 368, 371 Tree Lobster, 214 Trembley, 88, 91 Trichechus, 71 Se ee oe ee = INDEX. Trichoptera, 71, 357, 375 Trichocephalus, 174 Tridacne, 135 Trigonia, 142 Trig@é@o, 339 Trilobites, 221 Trionyx, ferox, 410, 418 Tristoma, 474 Trochilus, 181, 182, 292 Trochus, 151 Trox, 381 Tubicinella, 150 Tubularia, 186 Tunicaries, 116 Turbo, 147 Turdus, 438 Turdus gryllivorus, 49 ‘Turdus pilaris, 56 Turtle, 423 Twining plants, 320 Two hands of Nature, Introd. xxxiv Typhon, 348 Unclean animals, 226 Univalves, 144 Unger, 79 Uropoda vegetans, 352 Ursus, 301 Ursus Americanus, 52 Varieties, 32 Vehicle for the soul, 480 Vellela, 105 Vermetus, 185 Vertebrata, 278 Verulam, Lord, Introd. xxxiv, xxxvi Vespa, 365 Vibrio, 80, 83, 85 519 Virey, 66, 317 Volucella, 361 Voluta ethiopica, 249 Von Baer, 172, 207, Vorticella, 205, 241, 374 Vultur barbatus, 37 Vultur percnopterus, 37 Wasps, 366, 367 Waders, 283 Walckenaer 235, 340 Weavers, 344 Weaver birds, 436 Web, spider’s, 339 Westwood, 231 Whale, 16, 37, 84, 107, 450 Wheel-animal, 241 White ants, 372, 375 White coral, 96 Windpipe, 421 \} Wings, 266, 270 Wings of insects, 267 Wing-shell, 157 Wryneck, 435 Xiphias, 474 Varrel, 422, 431 Yunx torquilla, 435 Zebu, 34 Zoea, 192 Zoobotryon, 470 Zoomyza, 376 Zoophaga, 227, 447 Zoophagous animals, 227 Zoophytes, 29 THE END. x Plate l. < Oe SOS ZZ aS Sra Yo Vy. 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