THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
In One Volume, with Plates, and a Map,
STORIES OF TRAVELS IN TURKEY,
WITH AN
ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
OF THE
INHABITANTS OF CONSTANTINOPLE,
A\U A
DESCRIPTION OF THAT INTERESTING CITY :
Founded upon the Narratives of
MACFARLANE, MADDEN, WALSH, FRANKLAND, ANDREOSSY,
AND OTHER 11KCENT TRAVELLERS ;
WITH A GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL SKETCH
OF THE EMPIRE.
Printed for HURST, CHANCE, and Co., St. Paul's Church-yard.
Of whom may be had, in One Volume, with plates, price Is. lettered,
STORIES OF TRAVELS IN SOUTH AMERICA,
PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF THAT
COUNTRY.
" The plan of this little work is excellent. A knowledge of
foreign countries, their customs, productions, &c., is as interesting as
useful to youthful readers. A spirit of inquiry is excited, a mass of
information is almost unconsciously collected, which cannot but have
a good effect in after years." — Literary Gazette.
ft A better plan for the instruction of young persons could not
have been hit upon than the one employed by the compiler of this
little volume. This publication, if followed up, will be a useful
and convenient aid to the intelligent teacher. The present volume
ADVERTISEMENT.
contains an abstract of the most interesting parts of four very im-
portant Works, and the narratives into which they are thrown are
'casingly written." — Monthly Review, July, 1829.
We warmly recommend the little volume. It would make a
.narming school book, and teach more geography in a week than
most boys learn in a year." — Spectator, July 18, 1829.
" This is a very pretty and entertaining volume. It is illustrated
with several excellent plates. We shall be glad to see the ingenious
editor produce more volumes upon a similar plan." — Edinburgh
Literary Journal, June, 1829.
" The compiler of this book has proceeded upon an excellent plan,
of which his success in execution is every way worthy. Although
the oldest may peruse the " Stories of Popular Voyages " with profit
and pleasure, yet they are in a particular manner suited to the
young ; and to them we would strongly recommend them. Youth
delights in tales of adventure by sea and land; and these stories are
calculated not only to gratify the juvenile imagination, but to fix
upon the memory a permanent recollection of the actual state of ex-
tensive sections of the busy world on which all have to play a part."
— Morning Journal.
" The narrative is well drawn up, and, while it preserves the in-
terest of a continued journal, gives the chief actual details which are
essential to the knowledge of the country. A work of this kind has
long been a desideratum, peculiarly in the education of youth, and
we have seen nothing better adapted for the purpose." — The Court
Journal.
" We recommend this little Work with seme confidence in its
merits.'' — Atlas Newspaper.
" It is intended chiefly, but by no means exclusively, for the
young ; and the price at which it is published, renders it a cheap
present for youth." — Brighton Gazette.
Me u^tae^^Cof/t
s ?
BRITISH
The Brook.
LONDON:
WHITTAKER, TREACHER, AND ARNOT,
AVE-MARIA LANE.
MDCCCXXX.
THE
BRITISH NATURALIST;
OR,
SKETCHES OF THE MORE INTERESTING
PRODUCTIONS OF BRITAIN
AND THE SURROUNDING SEA,
IN THE SCENES WHICH THEY INHABIT ;
AND WITH RELATION TO
THE GENERAL ECONOMY OF NATURE, AND THE WISDOM
AND POWER OF ITS AUTHOR.
Nature speaks
A parent's language, and, in tones as mild
As e'er hush'd infant on its mother's breast,
Wins us to learn her lore !
Professor Wilson's Poems.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR WHITTAKER, TREACHER, AND Co.
AVE-MARIA LANE.
MDCCCXXX.
PllINTED BY SAMUEL MANNING AND CO.
LONDON-HOUSE YARD, ST. PAUL'S.
PREFACE.
SOME apology may seem to be necessary for
the appearance of a new work upon Natural
History, — more especially of a work that is sanc-
tioned by no name or authority, and pretends
to no systematic arrangement. Now these, which
not a few may think imperfections, are intended
to enable the British Naturalist to stand up for
judgment, to be awarded according to its real
merits. The dictum of authority, and the divi-
sions of system, are the bane of study to the
people at large. The former never fails to
repress the spirit of inquiry ; and in the latter,
the parts are so many, and so scattered, that
one cannot understand the whole: it were as
easy to tell the hour from the disjointed move-
ments of a number of watches jumbled together
in a box, as to find " how nature goes," from the
mere dissection of her works.
I do not want to hear the harangue of the
exhibitor ; I want to see the exhibition itself, and
b
M34S973
VI PREFACE.
that he shall be quiet, and let me study and
understand that in my own way. If I meet with
any object that arrests my attention, I do not
wish to run over the roll of all objects of a similar
kind ; I want to know something about the next
one, and why they should be in juxtaposition.
If, for instance, I meet with an eagle on a moun-
tain cliff, I have no desire to be lectured about
all the birds that have clutching talons and
crooked beaks. That would take me from the
book of nature, which is before me, — rob me of
spectacle, and give me only the story of the ex-
hibitor, which I have no wish either to hear or
to remember. I want to know why the eagle
is on that cliff, where there is not a thing for
her to eat, rather than down in the plain, where
prey is abundant; I want also to know what
good the mountain itself does, — that great lump
of sterility and cold ; and if I find out, that the
cliff is the very place from which the eagle can
sally forth with the greatest ease and success,
and that the mountain is the parent of all those
streams that gladden the valleys and plains, — I
am informed. Nay, more, I see a purpose in it, —
the working of a Power mightier than that of
man. My thoughts ascend from mountains to
masses wheeling freely in absolute space. I look
for the boundary: I dare not even imagine it:
I cannot resist the conclusion — " This is the
building of God."
PREFACE. Vll
Wherever I go, or whatever I meet, I cannot be
satisfied with the mere knowledge that it is there,
or that its form, texture, and composition are thus
or thus ; I want to find out how it came there,
and what purpose it serves ; because, as all the
practical knowledge upon which the arts of civi-
lization are founded has come in this way, I too
may haply glean a little. Nor is that all : won-
derful as man's inventions are, I connect myself
with something more wonderful and more lasting ;
and thus I have a hope and stay, whether the
world goes well or ill ; and the very feeling of
that, makes me better able to bear its ills.
When I find that the barren mountain is a source
of fertility, that the cold snow is a protecting
mantle, and that the all-devouring sea is a fabri-
cator of new lands, and an easy pathway round
the globe, I cannot help thinking that that, which
first seems only an annoyance to myself, must
ultimately involve a greater good.
This was the application given to Natural His-
tory in the good old days of the Derhams and the
Rays ; and they were the men that breathed the
spirit of natural science over the country. But
the science and the spirit have been separated ;
and though the learned have gone on with per-
haps more vigour than ever, the people have
fallen back. They see the very entrance of know-
ledge guarded by a hostile language, which must
be vanquished in single combat before they can
Vlll PREFACE.
enter ; and they turn away in despair. I admit
the merit of the systems and subdivisions: for
those who devote themselves to a single science,
they are admirable ; but to the great body of the
people they are worse than useless.
With many works that profess to be popular,
the case is not better. They are in general col-
lections of scraps, put together by persons of no
observation, — the illustrations of a system without
the system itself, and therefore of little use to
any body. The facts that they set forth may be
true ; but when one puts the cui bono, there is no
answer; and when one seeks for the connexion
by which all the parts are united into a whole, it
is not to be found.
Some part of this may be owing to the mischief
of authority ; and of the authority of one of the
greatest men that ever lived. Bacon, forgetting
for once the difference between matter of fact and
matter of inference, said, rather inconsiderately,
that " final causes produce nothing." The sentence
is a mere opinion, and, what is more, it is a contra-
diction ! — as, if the causes be final, what can they
produce ? But the sentence has become a maxim ;
final causes are but seldom attended to, and the
history of nature, thus disjointed, becomes unin-
teresting. Yet final causes are, in the study of
organic being, what the laws of matter are in the
study of mere material existence, or what the
principles of arithmetic and geometry are in the
PREFACE. IX
study of number and figure. They are the laws
of growth and life ; and those who do not keep
them constantly in view, study nature as if it were
dead ; and, of course, fall into the same blunders
and absurdities as those who attempted to study
the heavens without the laws of physics, or pro-
perties of substances without those of chemistry.
The laws of physics and chemistry are nothing
but the ultimate facts, to which we always arrive
when we pursue the same course, and beyond
which we can never go ; and the ultimate facts in
the economy of organized bodies, or the laws of
life, as we may term them, are to be found in the
same way — by observation. Sometimes they act
contrary to those of physics or chemistry, and
sometimes not ; but when the former is the case,
we always find that there is an organization, the
very best adapted for producing the effect. There
is not one violation of this, — not one production
of nature doing any thing at any time, but just
that which, if we had studied it properly before,
we should have expected it to do ; and when we
find this adaptation universal and perfect, can we
doubt that it is the result of infinite wisdom ? and
believing it in our hearts, shall we be ashamed to
confess it? Shall we deny the wisdom of our
Maker, because he is all-wise ; or his power, because
he is all-powerful? With all our failings, we do
not deal so by our fellow-men ; and shall we
respect the works and contemn the Maker?
X PREFACE.
In the following pages the subjects have been
viewed in those masses into which we find them
grouped in nature ; and the plant or the animal
has been taken in conjunction with the scenery,
and the general, and particular use ; and, when
that arose naturally, the lesson of morality or
natural religion. The subjects for a first volume
have been chosen more for their breadth than for
their number, leaving those that are more minute,
and stand in greater need of pictorial illustration,
to future volumes, in the course of which the
same kind of scenes will be visited, though in
other aspects and for other purposes.
Throughout the work, the best authorities, at
least those which appeared to the author to be
the best, have been consulted, as well for the
collection of facts, as for the verification of ori-
ginal observations; but no man's labours have
been appropriated without express acknowledge-
ment in the text, and generally speaking, with
inverted commas in the analytic table.
The plan, of which the present volume forms
a part, has been long under consideration; and
materials are in preparation for extending it, not
only to a Series of Volumes of THE BRITISH
NATURALIST, but to follow, or alternate those, with
THE FOREIGN NATURALIST, as may be most ac-
cordant with the successful preparation of the
work and the wishes of the public.
Several facts and inferences will be found in
PREFACE. XI
the present volume, which have not been pre-
viously published. But the author has not put
them forward as his. His object is not to appear
a naturalist himself, but to show how delightful,
and how profitable, it would be, if all would be
their own naturalists , and go to the living foun-
tain instead of the stagnant pool.
Bank of the Thames,
Nov. 1829.
Insects are
designed and executed by MR. W. H. BROOKE ; and those of
the Lake and the Brook, by MR. BONNER, from Drawings
by HARRY WILLSON, Esq., who has recently published some
interesting Views of Foreign Cities.
ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS,
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
Page
GRAND distinction between the works of nature and those of art —
The commandment to man— The " knowledge " which " is
POWER"— Man's dominional duty— Vast increase in the works
of art ; and its effect upon the study of nature— The knowledge
of nature is the knowledge of God — Injuries done to common
study by the adoration of names and the admiration of cu-
riosities—The knowledge of nature obtainable only by obser-
vation—It is easily acquired— Adaptation of animals to the
places they inhabit— Revolutions in the earth and its inhabi-
tants—Fossil and extinct animals, not antediluvian— All nature
worthy of study— Habits of animals— Instinct and education—
The powers of plants— Their stability and means of production
—Pollen— Motions of animals— Structure of feet— The human
step— Incitements to the study of nature — It leads to the
adoration of God 1—3
CHAPTER II. THE MOUNTAIN,
Majesty of mountains— their use in the grand economy of the
globe— Bears and wolves— Habitations and habits of the wild
C
XIV CONTENTS.
Page
cat— Not the same species as the domestic one— Habits of
the marten— Battle of the wild cat and pine marten— Heath-
. berries— Pools— Production and habits of the gnat— she is a
boat-builder — The ascent — The last berry — The view — The
summit— frozen in summer— Rolling down stones— alarm the
golden eagle — her powers and habits — Plunder by eagles —
" Hannah Lamond " — Contest with the heron — The Alpine hare
—Seasonal changes of colour— The ptarmigan— The coverings
of animals whiten as they decay — The eagle's eye and the
telescope— Varieties of eyes— Mechanism of vision— The stoop
and exaltation of the eagle 40 — 03
CHAPTER III. THE LAKE.
Characters of lakes— their effects upon temperature— On floods
—On fertility— Habits of the heron— wonderful power of its
neck— its wings a parachute — its skill and success as a
fisher— its means of defence— war of the herons and crows
pro aris et focls— Fishing eagles— The osprey— its nature and
habits — The sea eagle — grandeur of her fishing — struggles with
large fish— Habits and migration of the wild swan— its musical
powers — Migration southward to»feed, and northward to nidify
— Instinct sometimes confounded with reason — The cause —
Migration ef animals— Detailed causes— Habits of the coot-
Coot's nest— Lake fishes— Case char— Torgoch— Guiniad . . 94—140
CHAPTER IV. THE RIVER.
Characters of rivers — they are the causes of civilization— the
preservers of the power of life — Ventilators — Sources of
health— River scenery— Fly catching— Angling— Maudlin sen-
timent—Water moths— Day flies— Crane flies— their singular
economy— The genus salmo— Production and habits of trout—
The Professor in a panic— The otter— its habits in summer
and winter— Water rat— Water hydra— Production and migra-
tion of fishes— Structure and respiration of fishes— Natural his-
tory of the salmon— Some vulgar error's on the subject— They
CONTENTS. XV
Page
do not spawn annually, nor emigrate to a great distance-
Salmon leaps— Kennerth— The fall of Kilmorac— Lovat's kettle
—The Keith of Blairgowrie— " Catching a salmon "—Dragon
Hies 141—203
CHAPTER V. THE SEA.
A calm — The storm on the wing — Cause and casualties of
waves— Breaking on a beach— On rocks and in caves— The
power and majesty of the sea— The desperate wish— Natural
theology— Motion of the sea— Formation and destruction of
land — Masses of rock — Marine remains — Natural history of the
cetacea — Baleen whales — Spermaceti whales — Dolphins-
Battle of the masons and the grampuses — Structure and re-
spiratory organs of cartilaginous fishes — The lamprey — The
pride— The hag— The torpedo— Electricity of fishes— Their
organs a peculiar class— The gymnotus— Battle of the gymnoti
and the horses— Electric fishes of Africa and the Indian Ocean
— The fecundity of fishes — Nearly four millions at one birth —
The sea anemone— The crab and the Baillie— Crabs— The
natural history of the herring— Baneful effects of old salt laws
— Herrings do not come in shoals from the polar sea — that
would be useless— contrary to the laws of nature— impossible—
Their migrations are from the shores to the deep water imme-
diately off— White fishing— The stormy petrel— Seals— Anec-
dote of a seal— Seals might be domesticated 204—300
CHAPTER VI. THE MOOR.
Characters of moors— their peculiar beauties — uses — The lap-
wing—its courage— its art— its nest and eggs— Tame lapwing—
The goshawk— its boldness and strength— Difference between
hawks and eagles— Grouse— Habits and habitudes of the red
grouse— Grouse-shooting— Grouse In perfection— Descent of
grouse to the low lands — Habits of the kite — rapacity —
cowardice — consequences of its greediness— Hen harrier-
Cock of the mountain— Black game— Mountain storms . . . 301—338
XVI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII. THE BROOK.
Page
Character of brooks— The advantages of change — Repose of
brooks — Structure and habits of the mole cricket — The great
water beetle — Land and water animals — Function of re-
spiration—Its probable use— The solar microscope— Habits of
the rail— of the swift— The death's-head moth— Structure of
insects— Space and time not necessary elements of power and
wisdom with God . 339—380
THE BRITISH NATURALIST.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
IT may be a trite observation, but it is at the same
time a true one, that " there is neither waste nor ruin
in nature." When the productions of human art fall
into decay, they are gone ; and if the artist does
not replace them by new formations, the species is
gone also ; but the works of nature are their own re-
pairers and continuers, .and that which we are accus-
tomed to look upon as destruction and putrefaction, is
a step in the progress of new being and life. This is
the grand distinction between the productions of nature
and those of art ; those in which the same power finds
both the materials and the form, and those in which
the form is merely impressed upon previously existing
materials.
The substances in nature are in themselves endowed
with faculties, unseen and inscrutable by man in any
thing but their results, which produce all the varied
INTRODUCTION.
forms of inorganic and organic being, of which the
solid earth, the liquid sea, and the fluid air, are formed,
and by which they are inhabited. The fabrications of
man are, on the other hand, in a state of commenced
decay the instant that they are made ; and without
the constant labour of repair and replacing, they would
perish altogether. The most extensive cities, and the
strongest fortifications, after man abandons them to
their fate, fade and moulder away, so that the people
of after-ages dispute, not merely about the places where
they were situated, but about the very fact of their
existence. It is true that, when man takes any of
nature's productions out of the place or circumstances
for which nature has fitted them, and supports them
by artificial means, they cannot continue to exist after
those means are withdrawn, any more than a roof can
remain suspended in the air after the walls or parts
that supported it are withdrawn ; or, a cork will remain
at the bottom of a basin of water, after the weight that
kept it from rising to the surface has been removed.
If man will have artificial shelter and food, he must
keep in repair the house that he has built, trim the
garden he has planted, and plough and sow the field
from which he is to obtain his artificial crop ; but if he
would content himself with that which is produced
without importation, and artificial culture, no planting,
sowing, or culture is necessary; for whether it be in
the warm regions or in the cold, in the sheltered
valley or upon the storm-beaten hill, in the close
forest or upon the open down, nature does her part
without intermission or error ; and while the results are
so many and so beautiful, the causes are those qualities
INTRODUCTION. 3
with which the fiat of the Almighty endowed the ele-
ments, when it was his pleasure to speak the whole
into existence.
Over the whole of this extensive, fair, and varied
creation, dominion was, by its Almighty and All-boun-
tiful Creator, given to man. When our first parents
were formed, and ere yet Eden had been prepared for
their abode, " God blessed them, and said, ' Replenish
the earth, and subdue it ; and have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And
behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree
upon which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed.' " Thus
the commandment is ample, and it is circumstantial.
There is the dominion to man, as a rational and an
intelligent creature — the study and knowledge, as an
exercise and improvement of the mind ; and the use,
for the support and comfort of the body, as the proper
consequence and reward of the study and knowledge.
It is this " knowledge" of the productions of nature,
their habits, and the laws of their being, which, in the
emphatic language of Lord Bacon, "is POWER;" and,
abundant as are the works, possessions, and comforts,
of civilized man — extensive as is his learning, numer-
ous as are his arts and his sciences, and disposed as he
too often is to neglect nature for art, or even for indo-
lence, the study of the nature and properties of those
objects and substances around him, in the production
of which he had originally no concern, is the source
and fountain of them all.
It is true that the dominion given to man is not an
B 2
4 INTRODUCTION.
idle dominion, a mere consumption of that which he
finds spontaneously around him, in the state in which
it is found. It is a dominion of improvement and for
the exercise of the mind, as well as for the satisfaction
of the mere animal wants. These latter are common
to the whole creation : the meanest animal, the most
lowly vegetable finds its food, and protects itself from
the weather, in a manner far more certain and success-
ful than man, if he, not elevating himself above the
brutes of the field, do not exercise his higher and
nobler powers. In those countries where man im-
proves nothing, and cultivates nothing, he is the most
abject creature to be found, and suffers more privation
and misery than the plants and the animals. In those
cases he is without his power ; therefore, has not taken
upon him his dominion ; and, instead of being, as he
ought to be, the ruler and governor of the rest of the
creation, he is the slave of the laws and instincts of
these : and he is so, just because, by being ignorant of
those laws and instincts, he is incapable of turning them
to his use.
To improve that which he uses is the characteristic
of man, the image of the Creator which is stamped upon
him ; and he is the only inhabitant of the world to
whom this power has been given ; and though one
grand means of effecting this important end, be the
treasuring up of knowledge, so that every succeeding
generation may turn to account the collected wisdom of
all the generations that went before it ; yet the rapidity
with which discoveries have been made, and inventions
founded upon them, since the art of printing diffused
knowledge among all ranks of the people, abundantly
INTRODUCTION. 5
proves that the treasure of nature is yet far from
exhausted.
But numerous and splendid as those inventions of
modern art are, and much as they have changed the
habits, and added to the possessions and comforts of
mankind, it is but too apparent that some sacrifice has
been made to them. Their number and their novelty,
the desire that people have to possess themselves of
them, and the labour which must be undergone in the
gratification of that desire, have drawn the attention of
a very large portion of the people from the objects
that are around them. The very splendour that has
rewarded the knowledge of the few, has tempted the
many from the path of original knowledge, just in the
same manner that the splendour of a pageant attracts
the populace to the neglect of their more useful avoca-
tions. The world of man's making has become so great
and so imposing, that it has tempted people to forget
the world of God's making, without which, and the
careful study and knowledge of it, the other could not
have existed.
Perhaps that may have acted as a stimulus to the
few, though the tendency of it must have been to
make them seek after that which was novel, rather
than after that which was true ; and hence, though,
during the last half century, there have been many
more successful inventions than during any other
period of the same length, it is certainly not too much
to say that the failures have increased in a much
greater proportion. The reason is a very plain one :
the people do not see the scientific induction — the
observation of nature, which must precede the suc-
B 3
6 INTRODUCTION.
cessful application of a new substance or a new com-
bination to tbe arts ; they see only the result ; and
therefore, when even a commendable feeling prompts
them to become imitators, they fix upon a result to
be arrived at, in total ignorance of the means that
ought to be used. Hence they labour for nought,
and vex themselves in the pursuit of vanity.
The necessary consequence is, an artificial state of
society, in pursuits, in manners, in the very structure
of the mind, and in every thing, whether of occupation
or engagement; nay, even in that most important of
all considerations, religion itself. The raw material
passes from the hand of the producer without much
change, or any knowledge of the process by which
it is to be made fit for use ; the manufacturer receives
it he knows not whence, or from what ; the merchant
thinks only of the sale and the profit ; the consumer,
of the supply of his necessity, or the gratification of
his vanity ; and the gratification is so very evanescent,
that hardly has one novelty been received, when an-
other becomes necessary. Thus, all is one round of
bustle and turmoil, in which, amid a dazzling succes-
sion of splendours, there is very little time for thought,
and less for engagement, than any one who has not
been a careful observer of the state of things would
be apt to suppose. In proof of this, it may be stated
with confidence, that the community have not got sub-
stantially wiser, even in the matter of their pecuniary
interests ; for there have been more wild and ruinous
speculations, unfounded upon a single well-established
fact, within the last ten years, than within any other
recorded period of double the duration. All those
INTRODUCTION". 7
failures proceeded from an ignorance of facts, which
any body could have known, had they taken the
trouble of inquiring, — of facts that stand boldly out,
and make themselves be felt the moment that the
parties come within the sphere of their operation.
But while in business there has been no very per-
ceptible accession of general wisdom, there has not
been much improvement in what are supposed to con-
stitute the pleasures of the world. The theatre has
lost its intellectual character. The delineation of
human nature, even in its most ordinary aspects, is
abandoned ; genius pens not one line for even the great
national houses; the fashionable, when they are at-
tracted, are attracted by sight and sound, without
meaning or moral ; the crowd are drawn by buffoonery
and grimace ; and the calm part of the community,
they who ought to impart to it its character, must
attend to their vocations. The other public amuse-
ments are all little better than mere sights ; for be
it a collection of pictures, or plants, or animals, one
can only have an observation beyond the mere ex-
ternal beauty or deformity of the show. There is no
allusion to use ; not a word about nature or properties ;
not even a knocking at that door of information, by
the opening of which so wide a vista of instructive
associations might be seen. The eye is gratified for
a moment ; but the show stands insulated, suggesting
nothing, and leading to nothing ; except, perhaps, the
craving for another show, from the restlessness of that
mind, which fain would break out of the prison and
be free as thought, but is not permitted.
In religion the case is perhaps still worse, as that is
8 INTRODUCTION.
altogether an intellectual matter. The most attentive
study of the wonders of creation, (and all its works are
wonders, from the animalcule which the eye cannot
discern without a microscope, to planets and suns and
systems, and those yet more incomprehensible powers
of mind by which these can be contemplated and known,)
— the most attentive study of these, can impart but a
faint and shadowy notion of that Being, who, by a
simple will, imparted to them those principles which re-
gulate their changes and preserve their existence through
countless ages. This being the case, (and the wisest
men that have lived have felt and admitted it,) it is not
possible that without any knowledge of his works there
can be a proper knowledge of God. If the only world with
which we are acquainted be of man's making, the only
God with which we can be acquainted must be of man's
imagining ; and whatever may be the forms or the
words of the religion, it can be nothing but superstition,
A belief in that of which the believer knows nothing,
is a contradiction in terms — a delusion and a cheat;
and, if there be but the very slightest stirring of
reflection, one who is just beginning to think must feel
that infidelity, which ignorance itself imparts, but
which it veils in its own darkness when only a shade
deeper.
That God, the Creator, can be known only from the
works of creation, is manifest from the whole tenor of
Holy Writ ; for, even in those parts of it that relate to
the Christian scheme of redemption, which requires an
immediate revelation by the Deity, the whole of the
illustrations are taken from the works of Nature ; and
though, unaided by any human science, the grand
INTRODUCTION. 9
truths of Revelation may be understood by man, —
though man may know what God has done, in order
that man may enjoy everlasting happiness, yet, without a
careful study of the works of God, man cannot be so
impressed with the exalted nature of that Being, as to
estimate the astonishing goodness which condescended
to notice one so low.
Were it at all necessary, it would be easy to multi-
ply proofs of the neglect of the study of Nature, and
illustrations of the loss, both in pleasure and profit,
which society suffers through that neglect; but it
is always a much easier matter to point out a fault,
than to show how that fault is to be corrected. It
does not appear that the fault is altogether in society,
— at least not directly ; for whenever a work on
natural subjects appears in a form intelligible to the
public, it is sought after and read with more avidity
than any other publication, — so strong is the bias to
know something of the phenomena around us, that
we restrain it with reluctance even under the most
untoward circumstances.
One discouragement, and that of a very inveterate
nature, arises from the form and nomenclature of
the modern systems. Nature herself does not speak
in an unknown tongue ; and therefore a plain man
pauses when he finds the objects with which he is
most familiar, named and described in a language
different from that which he himself speaks. On the
other hand, as these names and descriptions are
familiar to the learned of all countries, they save a
little trouble to them. But while, by this means, the
progress of a few of the more profound and systematic
10 INTRODUCTION.
students is accelerated, an incalculably greater number
are prevented from making any progress at all. The
professional students ought to be to society, what
pioneers are to an army on its march, — they should go
before it and clear the way, so that it may advance the
faster. But if the pioneers were to block up the way
behind them, just in order to make their own progress
the more rapid, it would be difficult to point out the
advantage that they would be to the army.
The celebrity that has been won by system and no-
menclature, and the disposition which has been shown
to make new divisions and alter old ones, though pro-
bably sanctioned by the progress of discovery, has fur-
ther given the science of nature, as it is found in books,
a formidable appearance to the unscientific ; and that
again has been increased by the multiplicity of works
and systems through which one is compelled to wade,
before the facts that are interesting for the picture of
nature that they exhibit, can be collected together.
This, too, in England at least, is in some measure un-
avoidable. Works on science will not pay for the labour
and expense. Thus there cannot be a revision of the
whole subject; and the new facts come out, in the trans-
actions of societies and in periodical journals, in essays
and notices, which do not always state them with accu-
racy, and which seldom point out how they are to be
joined to the information already before the public.
Farther, publicity is announced by the authority of
names ; an influence which is always mischievous, but
against which there is no means or possibility of guard-
ing, but by the diffusion of knowledge among the pub-
lic generally, — as they who have not the demonstrated
INTRODUCTION. 11
truth to believe, must place their faith somewhere, and
necessarily, or at least naturally, place it in the idol
that is most in vogue at the time.
Out of these circumstances, and many other analo-
gous ones which might be enumerated, there arises a
farther evil, which, in its effects, is probably the most
baneful of all : the wonders, that is, the novelties and
rarities in nature, are those that are shown and written
about. They who avoid the mouse or the spider, whose
characters and habits they might be studying during
many an hour which is spent in idleness and gossipping,
throng to the exhibitions of learned cats and sapient
pigs. A calf with two heads, or an ox of double the
ordinary obesity, will attract the gaze of hundreds, who
care nothing for either animal in its natural form and
condition. Curiosity is a valuable feeling, and ought
not to be repressed ; but there is no feeling that stands
more in need of being guided ; for if it ever be de-
bauched by following after rarities that are of no use,
it can hardly be brought to regard common objects,
however valuable they may be.
There is a pretty strong natural tendency to this love
of marvels, and to pay much more attention to the de-
viations of nature from her ordinary mode of working,
than to study the laws of common occurrences ; as if
there were more both of pleasure and of wisdom in
criticising the supposed faults and blunders of nature,
than in contemplating her beauties. Even when at-
tempts are made to render the study of natural objects
amusing and attractive, the attention is not directed to
the general course, but to the deviations. If it is a
plant, its common habits, by the study of which alone
12 INTRODUCTION.
its uses can be discovered, are passed over, and the
attention is directed to some freak or accidental circum>
stance ; and if an animal, any trick that it may have
been taught by man, is far more attractive than its na-
tural habits, and the more that it is contrary to those
habits, the more is it admired and wondered at. Even
a stone of fanciful shape and unusual colour is picked
up, kept, shown, and talked about as a curiosity, by
those who would think their time unprofitably and
painfully spent, were they to study the strata of which
the globe is composed, with a view either to the know-
ledge of its present state, or the elucidation of its past
history : just as if that which can communicate no
knowledge and lead to no use, were more valuable than
that which is fraught with the profoundest wisdom, and
leads to the greatest practical utility.
These are formidable barriers ; but the case is not
in itself so bad as, from the mere contemplation of
them, it would appear. They are, no doubt, obstacles
in the path to knowledge, but fortunately they are in
the by-path only. They render access to the copy a
good deal more difficult and uninviting than it other-
wise would be, but the original is as open to the public
as ever. The best system that man can invent, and
the best descriptions that he can give, with all the helps
of painting, engraving, or prepared specimens, are no-
thing to nature itself. The form may be fine, and the
colouring beautiful ; and we may admire the mould of
the one and the tints of the other ; but the charm is
not there — life, that mysterious impulse, which moulded
the form, painted the colours, and caused that which
runs in all to assume certain characters and perform
INTRODUCTION. 13
certain functions is gone, and all that is left is a piece
of dead matter, which can remind us of nothing but
the size, shape, and consistency of the parts of which
it is made up. " A living dog" says Solomon, " is
better than a dead lion;" and the saying is true as re-
spects both the power of the animal, and the lesson
which the study of it is calculated to impart.
Now man cannot be shut out from this means of
study, either by the situation in which he is placed, or
by want of education. If he shall have the range but
of one field, or even of one pathway, be that ever so
limited, there is still enough of nature to engage his
attention, afford him pleasure, and lead him to the con-
templation of that Being, " in the knowledge of whom
stands everlasting life." Nay, even in confinement, in
the gloomy solitude of the dungeon, cut off from all
intercourse with his kind, separated from those animals
which have been domesticated for use or for pleasure^
and forbidden to look upon the fair sky and the fertile
earth, there are well-authenticated instances, in which
the mouse and even the spider have owned his domi-
nion, and come at his call, to amuse his solitude. These
instances show that, if we had time and patience for
finding out their instincts and perfections, there are
none of the works of nature that might not have their
use ; and that the whole range of the works of crea-
tion is so given to man, as that the link by which his
enjoyment is bound to them can be separated only
by the stroke of dissolution.
When indeed our information extends only to our
own kind, we are, though we know all their habits and
all their history, in every age and country, in a state of
c
14 INTRODUCTION.
very great ignorance and helplessness as regards even
the advancement of our own comfort as individuals.
Creation is so linked together as one whole, both in
space and in time, that we cannot know the nature and
learn the use of any one part without a knowledge of
the whole. For the want of this information, people
have often done very foolish things, — such as wantonly
killing those rooks, that are of so much use in de-
stroying the larvae and eggs of insects, which, but for
rooks and other birds that feed upon insects, would
render the labour of the husbandman unavailing. In
like manner the garden spider is often destroyed, though
it be one of the grand preservers of the buds, the blos-
soms, and the fruit of the coming season. At the time
when these spiders become most abundant, the flies
are very numerous, most of the generations for the
passing summer having been produced ; and if all that
appear in the autumnal days were to live till they had
deposited their eggs, the different sorts of grubs and
caterpillars would be so abundant in the spring, that,
instead of fruit, hardly a green leaf would be left unde-
stroyed.
One of the most valuable consequences of the study
of nature is, the removal of prejudices, under the in-
fluence of which we are apt to act very foolishly. In-
stead of looking at plants and animals as forming a part
of nature as one whole, we are apt to make our own
ignorance the rule of our action, and persecute one and
foster another, from dislike and regard founded on no-
thing but our own caprice. Thus, instead of being, as
we ought to be, the wise and skilful rulers of the world,
improving its beauty at the same time that we add to
INTRODUCTION. 15
our own enjoyment, we become mere capricious tyrants,
and, like all other members of that class, feel in return
the miseries that we inflict.
Because, according to our limited notions, certain
classes of animals prey upon other classes, we call them
cruel ; and, not contenting ourselves with restraining
them from injuring us, or that on which we set a value,
we, from mere wantonness, wage against them a war
of extermination. Now we ought to bear in mind
that the same Creator who formed us, formed them
also ; and that, therefore, even those which, in our
estimation, are the most formidable or the most vile,
have a use, and an important use, in His sight ; that
only our ignorance prevents us from finding out and
admiring that use ; and that the wanton destruction of
any one being, is in truth a crime. Before we can
have any title to accuse any animal of cruelty, we must
first suppose it to be, which it is not, endowed with
reason, capable of judging of right and wrong — a
human being and not an animal. " Do the young lions
roar when they have food?" asks the inspired penman;
and the same question may be put with regard to every
animal in the creation. Certain propensities, which we
call instincts, lead each animal to pursue the course
that it does, and the lion and the wolf are no more
guilty of cruelty than the lamb and the turtle. Ad-
mitting that neither of the latter feeds upon animal
substances, which in the case of the turtle is not the
fact, they cannot subsist without destroying vegetables ;
neither can they consume their vegetable food without
destroying those myriads of minute animals with which
every leaf is peopled. Every kind of life is supported
1C INTRODUCTION.
by the destruction of some other kind ; and the same
power which confers the means of continuing the dif-
ferent races, prepares for such the means by which it
is to be destroyed. Hence, if we are to look upon
creation with eyes of wisdom, we must look upon it
as a whole, and as the harmony with which all the
parts are balanced. If we find any race or tribe that
has a great number of enemies, we invariably find that
that tribe is prolific in proportion to the number of its
destroyers ; so much so, that it would increase to its
own destruction, from the want of the proper kind
and quantity of food.
This holds in every region of the world, and among
vegetables as well as among animals. In countries
where the influence and operations of man have had
but little effect, we can trace the most beautiful adapt-
ation in the structure and habits to the nature of the
country. If that is a plain of great extent, and
affording pasturage at all times, the larger quadrupeds
are usually some of the ox or buffalo tribe, as we
find in the plains of India and the Savannahs of
North America. Those animals, from their unwieldy
gait and their great weight, are not adapted for
leaping or for taking long journeys in quest of food.
If the plains be subject to seasonal parching, we
find the race different; and lighter animals that can
migrate in quest of food, and bound across ravines,
or from rock to rock upon the mountains, are the
most abundant, — as may be observed in the Llanos
of South America, and the plains of Southern Africa.
If the land be inclined to permanent sterility, or if it
be stony, alternating with swamps and marshes, either
INTRODUCTION. 17
constantly, or at certain seasons of the year, we find
the animals undergo another change, — they are calcu-
lated for leaping or wading, as is the case with the
ostrich on the borders of the great African desert, and
the emu and the kangaroo in New Holland.
This adaptation is not confined to any one race, or
to any one instinct of the race : it applies to them all,
and to all their habits. Some of them are not a little
singular. On the continuous plains, whether these be
adapted for occasional or for constant residence, the
young animals are left to use their own legs from the
time of their birth ; but when the country consists of
patches, and there must be, as it were, daily marches,
the mother is provided with a marsupium, or pouch,
in which she can carry her young until they have ac-
quired size and strength adapted to the nature of the
ground upon which they are to find their food. This
is the case with the kangaroo," and indeed with most
of the quadrupeds of Australia, — with all of them that
can be considered as native, peculiar to that country,
and as singular as it is in its geography.
Where there is herbage, whether permanent or sea-
sonal, we find animals that browse herbage ; where
there are many native fruits, we find animals that can
live upon trees ; and where there is a tendency in hard
and prickly plants to overrun the ground, we find
elephants, and other animals that consume these. Thus
every vegetable-consuming animal, by consuming one
kind of vegetable, gives scope for other kinds ; and thus
yields food for other animals. Each has its destroyer ;
each has also that which it fattens ; and these are
so balanced, that the whole conduce to good. While
c 3
1 8 INTRODUCTION.
they do so, they remain ; and where there ceases to be a
necessity and an office for them in the economy of
nature, they cease to exist, and new races, adapted to
the change and circumstances of the place, occupy
their room.
The means of production and destroying are also
balanced in a very wonderful manner. When man
takes possession, he becomes the grand destroyer, —
his arts and arms, and especially the use of fire, of
which he is the only creature that can take advantage,
are superior to the strength of lions, the wings of
eagles, and the coilings and fangs of serpents ; and
accordingly, the wild beasts vanish before him, and
return again when he retires. The lion, which for
many ages had not been found in Bengal, is said to
have, of late years, reappeared in some parts of that
country, which have been depopulated and are degene-
rating into desarts.
But, independently of any reference to man, there is
an admirable balance between the destroyer and the
prey ; both races thrive equally, and thus show that,
in the general purpose of creation, the one has been
made for the other. In the warmer parts of Asia and
Africa, where not burnt up and converted into sand,
large quadrupeds breed very fast, and are of numerous
kinds, and it is there that we find the most formidable
of the beasts of prey. In tropical America, large
quadrupeds are not so numerous; and the beasts of
prey are not so powerful, — the puma is much inferior
to the lion, and so is the jaguar to the tiger. In
New Holland, where, from the sterile nature of the
country, there never could be many large animals,
INTRODUCTION. 19
there is no native beast of prey worth naming. The
dog is, probably, not a native, and he is not a very
powerful animal at any rate ; and the dasyurus, which
has been found on that island, is very rare, and is in
size not superior to a cat. In the adjoining island of
Van Dieman's Land, where the herbage is naturally
better, the animals of prey are a little larger ; but
neither of the two species of dasyuri that are found
there, is more powerful than the fox.
Thus, if we leave our own notions out of the case,
and take nature just as we find it, there is perfection
in all its parts and all its forms ; and from the smallest
moss that consumes the damp upon a wall up to the
king of the forest, at whose roaring all the other
inhabitants quake, all is beauty ; and the same exqui-
site wisdom and astonishing powers are everywhere to
be found.
But this lesson is not confined in time any more than
in space. According to those laws of inorganic matter,
which have been proved beyond the possibility of con-
tradiction, or even doubt, the surfaces of countries
must in time undergo changes, unless when these are
prevented by the exercise of human industry. When
the summer heat partially melts the snow upon high
mountains, the water thus produced must insinuate
itself into the seams and fissures of the rock, upon
even the highest peaks where there is no soil to be
washed down ; and when the frost comes in winter,
the water which has thus lodged itself must crystallize
into ice. In doing that it expands, or occupies a larger
space, — not very much larger, but it expands with a
force greater than any known resistance ; and the frag-
20 INTRODUCTION.
merits that are thus loosened, must ultimately be sepa-
rated, and fall by their own weight. In like manner,
the rain that falls upon lofty places must wash down
the softer and less compact soils ; and thus it may be
asserted, that, from the necessary action of the weather,
there is a continual tendency to flatten the general sur-
face of the earth. The process is, no doubt, a slow
one, but it is sure ; and there is no part of the world
without some traces of its effects. In the champaign
counties of England, the pavements, altars, and other
remains of the Romans, are invariably found below
ground. In the soft lands near the mouths of the large
rivers, and also under the peat-bogs, the ruins of former
forests and former animals are abundant, and diffused
over all parts of the country. It is true that some
of the surfaces (those of the peat-bogs in particular)
have the power of elevating themselves, as the mosses
with which they are covered decay at the root while
they are growing at the top ; and they powerfully retain
humidity, by the presence of which both operations are
so much facilitated, that a depth of many feet has been
found in the memory of one individual. Other in-
stances occur, however, where no such assistance could
be obtained. In cutting the Caledonian canal, from the
Moray Firth on the east side of Scotland, to Fort
William on the west, the implements and weapons of a
former people were found at the depth of more than
twelve feet, beneath a covering of loose stones, intermix-
ed with very little even of sand, and exhibiting hardly a
trace of vegetation, except the scanty covering upon
the surface.
Another class of revolutions, of which there are traces
INTRODUCTION. 21
in all countries, and which must change both the plants
and the animals, is the destruction of lakes and pools.
In mountainous countries, that arises from the rivers
which are discharged by the lakes. The beaches
which had once been the margins of the water, can
often be traced along the sides of valleys that are now
dry, or which, at most, contain but a small rivulet ;
and in other cases the river, after having mined its way
through the softer strata, is arrested by hard rock
near the lake. Scotland, Wales, Switzerland, the slopes
of the Andes, all mountainous countries in fact, abound
with instances of this description ; and those countries
which at one time were nearly covered with water, are
so completely drained by those natural changes, as at
another to contain hardly a drop, and thus become
desarts : in which state both their plants and their ani-
mals must undergo a change.
Sometimes, again, the land becomes parched through
the want of rain, to such a degree that the plants are
all withered, and the rain, when it does come, does
not penetrate into the soil. When that is the case
the quality of the vegetation changes, and in extreme
cases, wholly disappears. In the progress of this
change, as plants become fewer in number, they be-
come strongly impregnated with salt. The oil and
water which they contain are dried up by the heat,
and the charcoal, alkalis, and acids unite into new com-
binations, which are unfavourable to ordinary vegeta-
tion. The acridity augments, and at last nothing is left
but a barren sand covered with a crust of salt.
We have one of the most remarkable instances of
this kind of change on the northern parts of all the con-
22 INTRODUCTION.
tinents. There there are traces of many animals that
do not now exist, but which have certainly existed
along with the races that now inhabit the same regions,
because their remains are found together in collections
of matter that have not been subjected to any other
change than that produced by ordinary accumulation.
Besides those animal remains that are imbedded in the
different strata of rocks, and among which, though
care must be taken not to confound skeletons that are
more changed and mutilated with animals originally
less perfect, there is a sort of progressive character
from simpler to more complex. There are animals
which, from the situations in which their remains are
found, cannot have been extinct anterior to any great
or general revolution of the globe. Of these, the most
remarkable are a species of elephant, one of rhinoceros,
and one of hippopotamus, which appear to have been
pretty generally diffused over the cold, or at least the
temperate parts of the northern hemisphere. The
tusks, teeth, and other bones of an elephant, are found
in soft deposits, such as clay, mud, and marie, or under
peat-bogs. They have been found in many parts of
England, in Scotland, and in Ireland ; and the remains
of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus are found in the
same kind of situations. In the clay formation at
Brentford, in Middlesex, at no very great depth below
the surface, we believe the remains of all the three have
been met with ; and from their being found near
situations which are frequented by the living species of
accompanying fossil animals, and also in many stages of
their growth, there remains not a doubt that they sub-
sisted in the districts that now contain their bones.
INTRODUCTION. 23
When attention was first directed to those great
bones, the opinion was taken up, probably a little too
hastily, that they belonged to the identical species that are
now found existing in the tropical regions ; and the
conclusion was, that they must have existed anterior
to some mighty convulsion of the globe, which had
blended in one mass of ruin the productions of all its
zones. The nearness to the surface at which these
remains were found, and the soft substances in which
they were imbedded, rendered it impossible to refer
them to any very remote period, or their covering to
any thing else than the accumulation of clay or mud
by water, or the growth of peat. The vulgar opinion
referred them to the deluge ; but that did not agree
with the facts. The bones themselves showed that the
species were not quite the same with the existing ones ;
and there was an inconsistency in supposing that the
elephant of the warm countries should have escaped
that catastrophe, while that of the temperate was lost.
Besides, wherever the bones occurred, the debris over
them appeared to have been accumulated gradually,
by deposits from rivers, or in caves, or by the growth
of mosses and other plants.
These circumstances led the more observant and
reasoning naturalists to conclude, that, without any
necessary intervention of a deluge to drown them, or
to waft them from the regions of the equator, these
animals had, at one time, lived in the same countries in
which their bones are found ; and this conclusion was
further corroborated by the fact, that, though these
remains are found in North America, there is no trace
of an Elephant in the tropical part of that continent. In
24 INTRODUCTION.
the year 1799, actual obsveration established the truth of
these conjectures, by the discovery of an entire north-
ern elephant imbedded in ice at the mouth of the river
Lena, in Siberia. It would have been easy to argue
that an entire elephant, from the warmer parts of Asia,
could not possibly have been conveyed to the mouth of
the Lena by any deluge ; because, whether it had come
across the lofty mountains and the Table-land, or by
the more circuitous way of the sea, it must have been
dashed to pieces, and the soft parts decomposed by
maceration in water, before half the journey was
accomplished. But there was no need of arguing ; for
the covering of the animal was not a defence against
heat, like the naked dark skin of the tropical elephant,
but a defence against cold. It was covered with three
kinds of hair : one, black bristles, about eighteen inches
long ; another, brown hair, about four inches in length ;
and the third, close, reddish wool, not above an inch
long. This being the very winter-clothing of animals
of the cold countries, left not a doubt that this indi-
vidual kind inhabited Siberia ; and if that was the case,
those of England, North America, and all the other
countries where their remains are found, must have
done the same. The elephant of the Lena was a large
animal, — sixteen feet four inches long, and nine feet four
inches high ; the tusks measured nine feet and a half
.along the curve, and weighed three hundred and sixty
pounds. The head and tusks together weighed nearly
eight hundred pounds. From this we can see that
nature needs no violence, no general suspension of her
operations or order, to effect the extermination even of
the most powerful of her productions, when their pur-
INTRODUCTION. 25
pose is accomplished, and their existence in any par-
ticular place is no longer required ; but that wherever
any one is needed, there it is found, and where there
is no longer necessity for it, it vanishes from the
catalogue.
These, and a number of other changes, produced
gradually, or instantly — as in the case of earthquakes,
volcanoes, or inundations — alter the appearance of the
country, either upon a large scale, as respects long
periods, or upon a small scale, as respects short ones ;
but amid them all we find nature true to her general
principle, that " in like circumstances the results will
be similar ;" and the more extensive that our informa-
tion is, the more are we convinced that nothing is the
production of chance, but that the whole is governed by
laws which evince wisdom that we may admire, but
dare not imitate ; and that so universal and uniform
are those laws, that what we in our ignorance consider
to be breaches of them, are proofs that they are always
obeyed.
It is in this way that we are enabled to look up
from nature to the Author of nature ; and if our infor-
mation be of sufficient extent, nay, if it be but sound
as far as it goes, we can no more doubt or deny the
existence of a creating and preserving God, than we
can doubt or deny the fact of our own existence. Na-
ture is infinitely diversified, and yet each production
makes its appearance at the time, and under the cir-
cumstances, which we would be led to expect. A plan
which is so perfect and so harmonious, of which the
parts are so diversified, and yet which so mutually pro-
mote the existence of each other, — which blend the sea,
D
JRI INTRODUCTION.
the land, and the air, into one whole, — and which, though
always perishing, are always being produced, — offers a
field of contemplation which the longest life and the
most active mind cannot exhaust; and it has the advan-
tage over every other subject of study, as it presents
or awakens none of those bad passions and imperfections
which always present themselves when man and his
works are the objects of our inquiry.
It has this farther advantage, that the details are
just as interesting as the whole ; that the subject which
is too small to be seen by the naked eye, is just as
perfect in all its parts, and as wonderful in the use of
them, as that which is of the most ample dimensions.
The little green moss that is as a pin's point upon a
wall or the bark of a tree, or the fungus that makes a
barely visible speck upon a leaf, is as perfect in its
structure, and as full of life as the pine or the oak that
rises majestically over the forest, and exhibits itself to
an entire county at once. The aphis, that hardly
crumples the rose leaf, or the animalcula, of which
myriads do not render a drop of water turbid, is equally
complete, and, in some respects, much more curious
than the horse or the elephant. Of the aphis, nine suc-
cessive generations, all females, succeed each other
every summer, and yet each produces a numerous
progeny ; and some of the animalculae increase in
number by a spontaneous division of the little bodies
of those previously existing.
In order to understand any thing of the subject, we
must, indeed, study the small as well as the great, the
common as well as the rare. The rarest and the most
majestic of animals, cannot tell us more than the worm
INTRODUCTION. 27
that we trample under foot, or the caterpillar that we
destroy as a nuisance. Nor does the utility diminish
with the size. Silk, the finest substance with which we
are clothed — carmine, the finest colour with which we
can paint, and the very ink with which we write, are all
the productions of little insects.
When we are acquainted only with the larger ani-
mals and the cultivated vegetables, (and a very great
number of persons, who would be very angry if we
were to accuse them of ignorance, know very little
about these,) — we may be said to know absolutely no-
thing about the works of creation. Indeed, the study
of the domesticated animals in a state of confinement
is not the study of nature at all : it is the study of art,
by which nature has been in so far supplanted. To
obey the bit and the spur, is no part of the natural dis-
position of a horse ; to fawn, and watch, or catch game
for a master, is no part of the natural disposition of a
dog ; neither is it the natural disposition of the cow to
come lowing in order to be drained of that with which
nature provided her for the nourishment of her own
offspring. These and all the other matters, whether
useful properties or idle tricks, which make up nine-
tenths of the published biography of animals, are not
animal biography at all. They are merely instances of
the triumph of human art over the natural propensities
of the subjects upon which it has been exercised, — very
important as they lead to useful applications, but still
mere art, and tending to close rather than to open the
door to the proper study of nature ; and it is only in
proportion as the animals resemble man, by possessing
the faculty of teachability, which is the badge and
28 INTRODUCTION.
character of reason, that those things can be said of
them.
The unreasoning productions of nature, whether ani-
mal or vegetable, need no teaching. Those powers
which are given them for the maintenance of then-
being, are perfect ; and the farther they recede from
man, the more astonishing is the perfection. We read
of old lions teaching young ones to rend their prey, of
old eagles teaching their young ones to fly in circles
and to stoop on their quarry ; and that animals may
have been found in situations that would tempt those
who look upon every part of animal conduct as if it
were human, to come to such conclusions, is very pos-
sible. But any such means are unnecessary ; for what-
ever may be the natural habits of the animal, it will
assume them with the most unerring certainty, though
it has never seen them practised. Nobody ever heard
of a cat being complained of as a mouser, because it
had been separated from its mother before she had ini-
tiated it in that art. Ducklings that have been hatched
under a hen, take to the water, in spite of all her warn-
ings to the contrary. The cuckoo, when hatched by
the hedge-sparrow, turns all its companions out of the
nest ; but the sparrow, true to her instinct, feeds and
cherishes the unnatural intruder ; while it, equally true
to its instinct, flies to pass the winter in unknown re-
gions without a guide, and returns the next season to
deposit its egg in perhaps the nest of its foster-mother.
As we descend in the scale, the instinct becomes still
more perfect, — at least still more wonderful. The fly
deposits its egg in the substance which is best adapted
for nourishing its young, whether that be a leaf, a tree,
INTRODUCTION. 29
a piece of wood, the earth, the water, a putrid substance,
the body of a living animal, or that of another insect.
The species of tree or of animal is never mistaken.
The pulex penetrans, or chigoe of the West Indies, de-
posits her progeny in the human body. The oestrus
bovis, or gadfly of the ox, seeks no nidus for hers, but
beneath the skin of that animal ; and that of the horse,
fastens her eggs to the hair of the animal, and then
tickles and irritates the skin in such a manner as that it
may, by applying its mouth to the place, take the eggs
into the stomach. Even in those cases where the
animal, or egg, or whatever else is to be the nidus, and
supply the food, is to perish by the operation, the de-
struction does not take place until the young animal
has perfected its growth, and escaped, to pass into an-
other state.
In their mechanical structures, whether for their own
habitations, for their young, or as snares to assist them
in procuring their food, we have still the same unifor-
mity. In those that form themselves into societies, as
the beaver, the bee, and the ant, we find the one assist-
ing the other ; but we never find any teaching, or any
need of it. Beavers build all in the same way, in
similar situations, and, where they can procure them,
of the same materials. All bees, of the same species,
construct their cells in the same form; and if their
wax and their honey be not exactly the same, the
difference may always be traced to the plants from
which those substances are collected. In all these
wonderful habits they are perfectly regular. These
form part of the grand system of which the elements
and the seasons form a part ; and none of them varies
D 3
30 INTRODUCTION.
any more than a stone ceases to fall to the earth when
unsupported in the air. Man requires the union of
favourable circumstances, and the experience of gene-
rations, before he can construct a decent dwelling, or
find a constant supply of food ; and yet he sometimes
forgets that Being, at whose single and instantaneous
word or pleasure those thousands of creatures, and
their millions of instincts, came into existence, in per-
fect regularity, amid continual change, requiring no
new effort and no repair ; but passing from life to
death, and from death back again to life, in one won-
derful succession, until it shall please Him, who in one
moment spoke them all into being, to speak them all
out of it in another.
But it is not in this view alone that the study of
nature is the most pleasing and profitable. Tn con-
templating the structure of any plant or any animal,
however common, and however, upon that account, dis-
regarded or overlooked, we may find finer applications
of mechanical art, and nicer processes in chemistry,
than the collected art of the whole human race can
boast of. That the vegetable principle in an acorn
should be chemist enough to fabricate oak timber, and
bark and leaves and new acorns ; and mechanic enough
to rear the tree in the air against the natural tendency
of gravitation, and in spite of the violence of the winds,
and do all this by means of a little portion of matter,
that can be kept for a considerable time as if it were
dead, is truly astonishing. It is equally demonstrative
of power and wisdom in Him who gave the impulse,
that out of the same soil and the same atmosphere
each plant should elaborate that which properly belongs
INTRODUCTION.
to it ; that the flower of one plant should be crimson,
that of the next yellow ; that one should delight us
with its perfume, and that the very next one should
offend us by its fetor ; or that a food, a medicine,
or a poison, should be found the closest neighbours.
Nor is it less singular that light, which is so necessary
to the growth of plants that without it they lose those
substances upon which their colours depend, and be-
come pale and sickly, is unfavourable to the germina-
tion of seeds. And yet the matter is no prodigy, but
depends upon principles which hold true in the animal
and the mineral kingdom as well as in the vegetable.
The moisture and the exclusion of light bring on a
fermentation, in the course of which, the farina of the
seed is converted into sugar ; the very same process by
means of which malt is made out of barley. The
colouring matters again are all oxides, or combinations
of oxygen, in some way or other, and have a very great
resemblance to the artificial colours which chemistry
has taught mankind to prepare. The colours of all
flowers are more intense in fine sunny weather ; the
skins of the inhabitants of warm countries become
dark ; those who are exposed to the sun in summer,
become brown.
In this single department of one of the kingdoms of
nature, we have thus not only a fund of the most
curious information, but of information that is prac-
tically useful at every step. Even from the mere form
of vegetables, we have some of the choicest of our
ornaments, and have taken some of the most useful
hints in our architecture. The engineer who first suc-
ceeded in fixing upon the dangerous rocks of Eddy-
32 INTRODUCTION.
stone, a lighthouse that resisted the violence of the
sea, moulded its contour from the bole of a tree which
had withstood the tempests of ages ; and the model was
found so admirably adapted to the purpose, that it has
been copied, in similar cases, ever since. Even in the
more slender plants, that climb upon other plants, or
upon walls, the apparatus with which they are fur-
nished is the very best adapted for the purpose. They
coil round the stem, they lay hold by their spiral ten-
drils, or they are covered with little knobs which are
the rudiments of roots, that insert themselves into
the smallest crevices, and, when once there, so swell
and expand, that they break before they can be re-
moved.
The means that they take to secure the succession
are equally wonderful in themselves, and in the way in
which they harmonize with the rest of creation. The
honey that is contained in the nectaries of so many
flowers, and which finds so many insects in food, is one
certain means of preventing the loss and degeneracy
of the plants. The perfecting of the seed depends
upon the application to the pistil, or little tube that
stands on the rudiment of the seed-vessel, of the pollen,
or powder, generally of a yellowish colour, that is con-
tained in the anthers, or little knobs upon the top of
the filaments. That powder, in many cases, consists
of little hollow balls, which are filled with an air or
gas, similar to that with which balloons are inflated;
and which enables them to float in the air until they
alight upon the pistils. Sometimes those two parts
are in the same flower, sometimes in different flout is
upon the same plant, and sometimes upon different
INTRODUCTION. 33
plants. Wheat is an instance of the former, on the
ears of which the anthers may be seen, in the summer,
like pieces of yellow dust. The farmer calls these the
bloom, and when heavy rains fall at the time they are
upon the ears, they are washed to the ground, and
in consequence, many of the grains never come to
maturity, but remain empty husks. Fine sunny
weather appears to be the best for this operation of
nature, as it expands the grains of pollen, and causes
them to float, and also to burst when they come in
contact with the pistils, which is also a necessary part
of their economy. The filbert or haze1 is an instance
of two sets of flowers upon the same plant. Those
that are to produce the pollen make their appearance
in the latter part of the season, while those from
which the nuts are to be produced, do not appear
till the spring following. The willow, the hop, and
the juniper, are instances of the two on different
plants.
The volatile or floating nature of the pollen per^
forms among plants an operation which, from expe-
rience, mankind have found to be very advantageous,
not only with cultivated vegetables, but with domestic
animals. It has been found that if the same vegetable
be cultivated on the same field, or the same flock
continued on the same pasture, for a number of suc-
cessive crops or generations, their quality degenerates ;
and if continued long enough, they would die out.
Something of the same kind happens to the human
race ; for there are many well-authenticated instances
where, in consequence of a few families intermarrying
only with each other, both the bodies and minds of
34 INTRODUCTION.
their progeny have degenerated, age after age, till at
last they have become extinct.
Now by the floating of the pollen, and the carrying
it from flower to flower by insects, the pollen of one
plant is often applied to the pistil of another, and the
race prevented from degenerating. In some instances
this produces a little confusion. Thus, if cabbages and
turnips, and greens and cauliflowers, all blossom toge-
ther in the same field, the seeds are apt to be con-
founded, and produce different plants from those on
which they grow. It is the same with fruits and
berries, and also with flowers. The pips of apples,
the seeds of gooseberries, and those of the garden-
flowers that are sown in beds, produce many sorts,
and of those some are altogether new. In gardening
this is attended with considerable advantage. Seed-
ling pinks, auriculas, and other flowers, are often ob-
tained of much greater beauty than the parent plants ;
and some of the best strawberries and apples have
been procured by the same means.
But, in the forms and habits of vegetables, curious
though they are, we have only what may be called the
still life of nature ; and it is only when we turn our
attention to animals, that we feel it in all its wonders.
The plant remains in one place, drawing its nourish-
ment from the earth below, and the atmosphere around ;
and when these do not afford the proper quantity and
quality, the plant languishes and dies. But among
animals we find all the instincts and apparatus of loco-
motion, as well as instruments and arts necessary for
the obtaining of that upon which they live. Their
motions are of every degree of swiftness, — from that of
INTRODUCTION. 35
the swift, equal to, at least, two hundred and fifty miles
in an hour — or to be in England at six in the morning,
and in Africa before noon, — to some of the crawling
reptiles that cannot pass over half the number of inches
in double the space. Then we find them calculated
to move through many kinds of media, — through the
air, through the water, under the earth, into the sub-
stance of timber, and even of stone. Nor does the
apparent size or strength appear to signify much ; for
with the exception of the points of the piercers that
enable them to mine their way, the bodies of the
animals that work into the hardest substances are
generally soft as well as small. Their passages too are
made over all sorts of surfaces, whatever may be their
texture or position. The water-flea, (gyrinus natator,)
whirls his fairy circles on the pool, with the same ease
and the same rapidity as if he were moved by the wind
in free space : and when a number of them are gam-
bolling upon a glassy pool, they seem, as the exquisite
gloss of their black wing-cases glitters in the sun, as
if they were sparks of fire rather than living creatures
that can move only in consequence of muscular action.
The gentle ripple that follows their course, as they
wheel and play together, seems to be occasioned rather
by their agitating the air than by any action of theirs
upon the water, and the glitter of the wing-cases is so
constant that in those gyrations, from which they get
their specific name, their wings can hardly be used;
and yet, small as they are, they must have the means
of covering their feet and bodies with an oily coat, to
repel the water, in the same manner as ducks and
other water fowl preserve their feathers from the same
element.
36 INTRODUCTION.
The number of springs and paddings upon the feet
of animals, by which their fall is broken, and their
bodies prevented from being injured, when they alight
on the ground, after rapid motion, with the hooks, and
pumps, and suckers, by means of which they are en-
abled at once to fasten themselves to the smoothest sur-
faces, though perpendicular, or even the under sides of
horizontal ones, are truly wonderful ; and no one can
•examine the structure, or even watch the motions, of a
common house-fly, without perceiving that in science
of design, and elegance of execution, it is superior to
all the engines that ever man invented. The moment
that its little feet touch the surface, they adhere, by
the action of two small webs or membranes, one on
each side of the foot, which touch the surface, first in
the middle, and then gradually to the outsides, so as to
exclude the air ; and as the weight of the fly is con-
nected to the middle of each sucker, they never miss
their hold, until it relieves them first at the outsides.
Thus we have a series of motions all perfectly explain-
able upon the established doctrines of matter, as indeed
all mechanical contrivances for the motion of matter
must be, whether the "work of nature or of art. But
all this, which in the hands of the most expert me-
chanic, would require a considerable time, is done by
the fly in an instant. In all animals that bound and
leap by rapid motion, the padding of the feet, which is
formed of a substance not very unlike Indian rubber,
is of the utmost importance. The foot of the horse
may be taken as an example. When the horse bounds
forward, the point from which he takes his spring is
the fore-part of the hoof, because that takes a firm
INTRODUCTION. 37
hold of the ground, and also gives him the advantage
of the whole power of the foot and leg ; but when he
alights it is upon the padding at the heel, by means of
which the violence of the fall, which if received on the
tip of the hoof, and with the bones in one extended
line, would sprain the foot, and probably split the hoof,
is prevented, and the strain is thrown upon all the
joints of the foot. The human body, being composed
of matter, as well as the bodies of other animals, has
its motions regulated by the same laws. Those who
walk well, raise their feet upon the toes, by which
means the foot as well as the leg is brought into action ;
but if one were to alight upon the toes after a leap, a
sprain would be the consequence ; when alighting, the
flexor muscles that draw up the foot, are contracted,
and the extensors and tendons in the hind part of the
leg made tight by the projection of the heel ; and thus
the body falls, as it were, upon a spring, which gra-
dually relaxes till the toes touch the ground ; and as
the heel is more padded than any other part of the
foot, the fall is rendered much less violent. So strong
is this natural tendency to plant the foot upon the heel,
that the majority of people do it even while walking
slow, when it fatigues rather than assists ; and accord-
ingly one of the hardest lessons that military men have
in teaching a recruit to march gracefully, is getting
him to "point his toes." The clownish motion of rising
much upon the toes at every step, and dodging down
upon the heel, besides being ungraceful, is fatiguing,
as there is twice as much motion in the joints of the
feet, and twice as much raising and letting down of the
body, as there is any occasion for.
E
38 INTRODUCTION.
The motions of flying and swimming, and the means
by which an animal can so alter its specific gravity or
weight, in proportion to its bulk, as to be able to ascend
and descend, and also to float in mediums of different
densities, are still more curious than those of progressive
motion along the earth. They are performed partly
by the muscular power of wings and fins, and partly
by the help of air-cells and air-vessels, which the ani-
mal can expand or compress at pleasure; but their
principles, as they involve a mechanical and pneumatic
action at the same time, are rather more difficult to
explain. By observing the habits, and examining the
structure of the animal, we may however obtain some
knowledge of them ; but in the most interesting parts
of the study, that of the instincts and dispositions of
the animal as a living creature, we can infer nothing
but that two animals, which are exactly alike in their
structure, will be of the same disposition ; and though
that be a very general rule, as established by experience,
it is not universal.
Hence the only sure way to become naturalists, in
the most pleasing sense of the term, is to observe the
habits of the plants and animals that we see around us,
not so much with a view of finding out what is uncom-
mon, as of being well acquainted with that which is of
every day occurrence. Nor is this a task of difficulty,
or one of dull routine. Every change of elevation
or exposure, is accompanied by a variation both in
plants and in animals ; and every season and week, nay
almost every day, brings something new ; so that while
the book of nature is more accessible and more easily
read than the books of the library, it is at the same
INTRODUCTION. 39
time more varied. In whatever place or at whatever
time one may be disposed to take a walk, — in the most
sublime scenes, or on the bleakest wastes, — on arid
downs, or by the margins of rivers or lakes, — inland,
or by the sea-shore, — in the wild or on the cultivated
ground, — and in all kinds of weather and all seasons of
the year, — nature is open to our inquiry. The sky
over us, the earth beneath our feet, the scenery around,
the animals that gambol in the open spaces, those that
hide themselves in coverts, the birds that twitter on
the wing, sing in the grove, ride upon the wave, or
float along the sky, with the fishes that tenant the
waters, the insects that make the summer air alive, —
all that God has made, is to us for knowledge and
pleasure, and usefulness and health ; and when we
have studied and known the wonders of his workman-
ship, we have made one important step toward the
adoration of His omnipotence, and obedience to His
will.
E 2
40 MOUNTAINS.
CHAPTER II.
THE MOUNTAIN.
THIS mighty and majestic feature of nature in-
spires the beholder with a feeling of immensity and
power, like that which arises when he gazes on an in-
terminable desart or a boundless ocean. No eye,
however uninstructed, and no heart, however steeled,
can fail to have been impressed by a sense and a
feeling of the sublime and the awful, as he beholds
those huge and mysterious bulwarks ; towering through
the air, like pyramids connecting earth with heaven,
— their sides girdled with the forests, and their
summits crowned with the snows of a thousand
years. Whether we look upon them from the plain,
rearing their dark and giant forms into the regions of
the sky, and flinging down their cataracts with the
resistlessness of time and the roar of thunder, — or
wander amid their vast solitudes and horrid wastes,
listening to the rush of the wind among their pine-
organs, startling the eagle from his eyrie, and intruding
upon the birth-place of the storm ; and glancing down
through some cleft in the clouds, far below us, upon
the earth, which we seem to have left, with its towns
and rivers lying like the painted dots and lines upon
a map, — we are alike struck by a revelation of won-
MOUNTAINS. 41
ders, before which the spirit falls prostrate, and ac-
knowledges that, with a presence which there is no
doubting, " God is" indeed "here."
But, it is not to be imagined that these mighty
evidences of an immortal workmanship are idle and
unnecessary excrescences upon the otherwise fair and
even surface of the earth which they overlook ; or that
their wildernesses are set apart as the dwelling-place
of desolation, or their caverns as the home in which
the " blackness of darkness " abides. It is not to be
supposed that nature, (all whose other schemes are so
replete with a visible beneficence,) where she has
worked upon her mightiest scale, has worked idly or
ill ; or that she has created a machinery before whose
stupendous materials and motions the feeble imitations
of man are as the productions of insignificance, but in
the service of him to whose good her minutest opera-
tions tend. To say nothing of the stones, crystals, and
metals which they contain within their womb, — to say
nothing of the animals which furnish food or clothing
to man, that wander by their torrents, or start amid
their echos, — to say nothing of the timber which har-
dens on their sides, or the fuel which forms in their
hearts, — not even to mention the medicinal plants
which owe their birth to the chill air of these upland
wastes, — nor the thousand other benefits which man,
in his civilized and social state, gathers from these
great garner-houses, — they are the reservoirs from
which the world is watered, and the fertilizing principle
shed abroad throughout the earth. By a process in-
finitely designed and beautifully framed, working with
immensity as unerringly as if it were with atoms, the
E 3
42 MOUNTAINS.
peaks of the mountains are fitted for the arrest and
distillation of the clouds which gather round and over-
hang them, making half their mystery and horror ;
and their interior is formed into a thousand basins and
canals in which the waters are gathered, and by which
they are poured out, in streams of life and with voices
of gladness, through the plains. By that beneficent
working which, " from seeming evil still educes good,"
the waste of glacier and the wilderness of snow send
forth, upon their triumphant paths, the Rhine, the
Danube, and the Nile ; and of the apparent desolation
of the mountains, are born the beauty, the glory, and
the fruitfulness of the earth.
But, to the eye of science, they present yet another
source of interest and gratitude, scarcely less important.
Piled up as they are, like huge portions of the central
earth, flung out by some antediluvian convulsion, and
with their sides laid bare by the violence of tempests,
and exhibiting the naked strata of which they are con-
structed,— they enable us to investigate many of the
secrets of that earth on which we tread, and which
must, otherwise, remain concealed, within its inaccessible
depths. They are like vast warehouses, in which nature
has congregated samples of her works for the inspection
of science ; — like libraries, written by no mortal hand,
in which may be read her mysteries, by those whom
study has made acquainted with her language. By a
careful perusal of their construction, and of the mate-
rials of which they are composed, — by observation of
their various phenomena, and of that of the atmosphere
by which they are surrounded, together with the rela-
tive influences of each upon the other, — we may, at
EXTERMINATED ANIMALS. 43
length, discover the mechanism of the earth, and the
grand problem regarding the formation of the world
may be, one day, solved.
Though the wild deer is now the only remarkable
animal of the chase among the mountains of Great
Britain, yet the bear and the wolf have had their dens
in common with other beasts of prey, now only found
in other countries. The brown bear (ursus arctus)
which is still formidable in more northern regions, and
even in Germany and France, once infested this country.
Those animals were so powerful in the days of the
Romans that (as Plutarch informs us) they were trans-
ported to Rome ; and though the efforts to exterminate
them were unceasing, and their destruction was ac-
counted one of the noblest triumphs of the daring, yet
they appear to have held their place till a much later
period. Tradition says, that in the year 1057, a Gordon
vanquished so fierce a bear that he was permitted to
wear three bear's heads in the quarterings of his arms
as an achievement of honour. The tradition may not
be literally true ; but the very existence of the tradition
is a proof of that of the animal. It is corroborated too
by many circumstances connected with the honours of
families in Wales and Scotland, where pedigree and
tradition reach much further back, and are much more
full and circumstantial in their details, than in England.
" Beware the bear," though allegorical in the case
of the " Baron of Braidwardine," was often a real note
of precaution in the forest-hunts of both ends of the
island ; and, probably, notwithstanding the zeal and
ardour with which both the bear and the wolf are said
to have been hunted, their extirpation in the remote
44? EXTERMINATED ANIMALS.
parts of the country may have been fully as much
promoted by the destruction of the woods which af-
forded them shelter and prey, as by all the exertions
of man.
There is evidence that at one period of its history,
the island was inhabited by a bear of much more for-
midable size than the brown bear which is still found
on the continent. That is the Cave Bear, (ursus spe-
Iceus,) so called, because as a living animal it is now
supposed to be every where extinct, though its remains
have been discovered in several of those great caves,
in which the bones of animals not now met with alive,
are often found. Those remains occur in several places
of England, and give evidence that the animal of which
they are now the only monument, must have been at
least the size of an ordinary horse.
The wolf, though now extinct, comes down much
nearer to the present time ; and seems to have been
peculiarly abundant in the times of the Saxons. The
cold time of the year, when the food of the wolf in
his native forest fails, is still the season at which he
most boldly attacks domestic animals, and sometimes
man himself. The Saxons called January, Wolfen
moneth ; but whether they invented the name after they
came to England, or imported it from Germany, does
not appear ; thougb from the number of names in
Germany that are compounded of rvolf, the probability
is that they brought the name from that country. In
the tenth century, the number of wolves in England is
supposed to have been very much thinned, in conse-
quence of a law of Edgar, which commuted certain
punishments for a fine of so many wolf's tongues. In
THE WILD CAT. 45
1680, Sir Ewen Cameron, of Locbiel, is said to have
killed the last wolf in Scotland ; that in Ireland fell
within thirty years after ; but neither the time nor
the final extirpator for England is mentioned. The
remains of the wolf, in England, have not, so far as
we know, been met with, except in the monumental
caves to which allusion has been made ; and along
with them sleep the remains of other two extinct
species, a tiger about the size of the Bengal tiger, and
a hyaena about the size, and resembling in the skeleton
that of Southern Africa. These two belong to extinct
species, and, with the larger bear, appear to have inha-
bited the northern parts of the old continent about the
same time with the extinct elephant, rhinoceros, and
hippopotamus. But though all these are gone, there
is still in many parts of the country an animal which is
very destructive of birds and small quadrupeds, and
which, when it can find no means of retreat, sometimes
springs at man. That animal is
THE WOOD-CAT.
THE WOOD-CAT, (fells catus sylvestris,} in the
largest specimens that have been met with in places
where they have abundance of food, and have not
been hunted, is, including the tail, about four feet in
length, of which that appendage occupies about a foot
and a half. It stands about a foot and a half in height,
and measures, in a powerful specimen, nearly two feet
round the body. The head is larger, the gape wider,
the eyes more fiery and sparkling, and the whole air
of the animal more agile, bold, and fierce, than that of
46 THE WILD CAT.
the domestic cat, — though the wood-cat is never con-
sidered as any thing but a different variety, and often
represented as being the original race from which the
domestic cat has been taken.
The habits of the wood-cat are against that opinion;
and, so far as we know, there is not any evidence in sup-
port of it, farther than the similarity of colour which is
found between the wild one and some of the domestic.
Among domesticated animals, colour proves nothing;
and though it be more to be depended on in those that
are in a state of nature, it is not conclusive even there.
The wood-cat is a remarkably solitary animal, unless
when it comes abroad in the night to prowl. It used
to be one of the beasts of chase, and that, with its
solitary habits, has now nearly driven it to the fast-
nesses and wild parts of the country.
The colour of the wood-cat .is a ground of yellowish
brown, lighter towards the belly ; and the head, back,
sides, and tail are marked with transverse bars of deep
brown and black, in the form of those of the tiger, or
.rather of the tiger-cat, but more blended together,
and consequently less perfectly defined in their outlines.
The tail is thicker than that of the domestic cat, and
the end of it is blunt, whereas that of the other tapers
to a point.
Besides the evidence of form, superior size, and
habits, there is some corroboration that the domestic
cat is another species, most likely an imported one, —
Asiatic in most of the varieties, and certainly so in
the Cyprus, or spotted. The wild cat was always a
native of Wales ; and had the domestic cat been the
wild one tamed, it would not have had to be enumerated
THE WILD CAT. 47
among subjects that were worthy of having a price set
on them. Yet such was the case. In the tariff of
values set down in the Statute of Howel Dda, about
the beginning of the tenth century, a cat is reckoned
equal in value to every tree after a thorn-tree, among
which the oak and the elm, (the native or wych elm,
which is excellent timber, and one of the trees of
which bows were made,) are included. The Statute
runs to this effect :
" A kitten before it can see, its value is one penny ;
" After it can see, and till it has caught a mouse,
two-pence.
" After it has caught a mouse, four-pence."
The wood-cat does not confine its depredations to
mousing, but in places that are near its haunts, kills
poultry and lambs and kids, and is even said to
destroy sheep, when they are in a weakly condition.
As it keeps to the woods and rocky places, the grouse
and mountain hares are safe from it ; but it makes
great havoc among the coppice birds. It is rather a
dangerous animal to catch in a trap, as it is very
tenacious of life; and the moment it is loosened, it
springs, and fastens with great fury. For the same
reason it is dangerous to wound or even to irritate it ;
and if it cannot be killed outright, the safest way is to
let it alone.
There is one season at which the wood-cat becomes
a determined mouser, more especially on the lower
slopes, and in the coppices among the Scottish moun-
tains. When the hazel-nuts ripen and begin to drop,
they attract great numbers of the field mouse, (mus
48 THE WILD CAT.
sylvatica ;) and an instinct corresponding to that which
brings the mice to prey upon the nuts, brings the cats,
which have their dwellings in the holes of the adjoining
rocks, to prey upon the mice. As the coppices are in
general close, and the mice numerous, the hunting is
carried on during the day, and the cats are very bold.
They are said to combine for the purpose of giving
battle to intruders. That, however, is not well authen-
ticated ; but we have had personal evidence that they
show front when surprised, and that they will follow
yelling along at the top of a precipice, at the bottom of
which one is walking, for a very considerable distance ;
and apparently in great wrath, more especially, if it be
twilight. In places where they abound, they are much
more dangerous plunderers of poultry -houses than foxes
are ; as they can climb where foxes cannot reach,
enter by a smaller opening, and if they be taken in
the fact, instead of making their escape by stealth or
stratagem, as reynard does upon such occasions, they
spring in the face of those who open the door ; and
though there is no great danger of their attack being
mortal, it is alarming, because unexpected, and the
lacerations which they inflict, are not easily healed.
The Highlanders of Scotland, with whom the wood-
cat is any thing but a favourite, call it chat phaidhiach,
the raven-cat. The wood-cat, like the rest of the
genus to which it belongs, is understood to eat only
what it kills, unless when pressed by the greatest
necessity. Its range of food is, however, very con-
siderable, as it catches insects as well as birds and
small quadrupeds. Its fondness for fish is very great,
and notwithstanding the dislike that it has to the water,
THE WILD CAT. 49
because that impairs the action of its retractile claws,
it is said sometimes to catch them in their native ele-
ment. We have never seen it in the act of pouncing
upon them in the water ; but at a waterfall (that of
Kilmorac) in the north of Scotland, where, in the
season of the fish ascending the river, we once observed
a wild cat for more than a hour, crouching and watch-
ing the finny adventurers, though certainly without
once making a dart into the foaming stream, which,
indeed, from the height of the fall, the volume of
water, and the narrowness of the gorge in which it is
confined, would have been a daring attempt even for
an animal that could swim. In the domestic cat, water
sooner injures the fur than in almost any other animal,
as its fur is dry, and free from that oily matter by
which the skins of many other animals are protected.
It is understood to be chiefly owing to this dryness of
the fur, that electricity is so easily excited in the back
of a cat. Whether the wild one has the same pecu-
liarity has not been mentioned; though, as we have
seen the animal exposed to rain, without appearing to
feel the same inconvenience as the domestic cat, we
should therefore conclude, that the fur has some
water-proof quality ; and we have observed, that when
the skin of the wild-cat was used as a fur, it did not
suffer so much from rain as that of the domestic one.
A good deal of the difference may, however, be owing
to the differences of atmosphere to which the two
animals are exposed.
Formidable as the wood-cat is, it is, however, often
attacked, and sometimes foiled, by an inhabitant of the
same kind of situations, — the MARTEN.
F
50 THE MARTEN,
There are supposed to be two kinds of marten in
this country, the common marten and the pine-marten.
Of these, one is found chiefly on the south part of the
island. That is,
THE COMMON MARTEN.— (Martes fagorum).
THIS species, if indeed it be a different species from
the other, and not a mere variety produced by dif-
ference of situation, is found in the woods of England,
and in the rocky parts of the Welch mountains, espe-
cially where they are covered with brushwood. It
lodges in hollow trees, and is said to eject other small
quadrupeds, and even birds of prey from their nests.
Of those it takes possession for its own brood, which
are generally about four in number. In its form and
appearance, the marten is by far the most elegant of
the British beasts of prey ; it is also the boldest, the
most agile in its motions, and the most powerful in
proportion to its size. Its head and body are about a
foot and a half long, and the tail about half as much
more. It is rather low on the legs, and the form of
THE MARTEN. 51
the hind ones is strongest; by this structure the animal
is admirably adapted for leaping ; and there is also great
power of motion in the back-bone, by which means it
can throw the whole energy of its body into a leap.
When moving freely and without any excitement, it is
so lithe, that one would imagine there was hardly a
bone in its body ; but when it is excited, as in the
chase, (for it is understood to course hares and rabbits,
both by sight and scent,) it shoots along in leaps like
the successive discharges of a dart.
The colour of the marten is a brownish black on the
upper part, tawny on the under, the throat and breast
white, and the head with a reddish tinge. The fur is
close and rather soft; but in both respects it is inferior
to that which comes from colder climates. The marten
is a great slaughterer of game, poultry, and birds ; per-
petually in motion while awake, and coiled up into a
ball and perfectly still when asleep. It climbs trees
with great facility ; and though it falls even in the
middle of a pack of hounds, such is its agility, that it
will be in the tree again before they be scarcely aware
of its fall. Instead of that offensive smell which some
of the analogous animals, such as the polecat, have, the
scent of the marten is musky and agreeable, and on that
account dogs run very readily at it. Though the instinct
of the marten leads it to a very general destruction of
animal life, and though in the practice of that it shows
great courage and determination, it cannot be regarded
as a savage animal. When taken young it can be easily
tamed, and in that state it is very frisky and playful ;
but when any of the animals that are its natural prey
come within its reach, its playfulness is instantly sus-
F 2
52 THE MARTEN.
pended, and it springs upon them and dispatches them
in a moment.
The art with which many of the wild animals dis-
patch their prey, without injuring or tearing the flesh,
is very surprising, and in none is it more so than in the
marten. If the animal be small, or of feeble structure,
it is understood by one crush of its jaws to dislocate
the neck, and divide the spinal marrow ; but if the
animal be too large, or the articulation of the neck too
strong for that purpose, it fastens on the side of the
neck behind the ear, and divides the blood-vessels
with as much neatness and certainty, as if it had studied
anatomy.
The PINE MARTEN (Maries abietmi) differs from
the common marten in appearance only by being a
little smaller, and having the throat and breast yel-
lowish instead of white ; though the latter is said not to
be always the case, and is by some supposed to be the
effect of age. The pine-marten is most abundant in
Scotland, in the w7ild, wooded ravines of the mountains,
where it either builds a nest for itself on the tops of
trees, or finds one ready made by dislodging or de-
stroying a bird. This animal is more secluded than
the former, and unless at lonely huts near its native
woods, it seldom approaches the habitation of man, or
interferes with his property. Their habits, as well as
the superior thickness and softness of the fur, may be
the result of the more rigid climate, as it is found that
the marten of countries that are still colder, has finer
fur than the pine-marten of Scotland.
But if those circumstances soften the fur, they do
ITS CONTESTS WITH THE WILD CAT. 53
not appear to soften the courage of the animal, for the
pine-marten is just as bold to attack, and as stanch as
the common marten, if indeed it be not more so. In
mountain situations, it not only attacks and vanquishes
the wood-cat, but is said, by its stratagem, to bring down
the pride of the mountain — the eagle herself, if the first
and formidable clutch of her talons does not transfix its
vitals. With the cat, it is in a state of open hostility ;
and often when she is crouching, with her eyes intent
only on her prey, and just ready to pounce, the pine-
marten will spring upon her, fasten on the vessels of
her neck, pin her to the spot, and put an end to her
hunting. It is also said that the cat, though ever so
much pressed with hunger, will not venture to spring
upon the marten. The pounce of the cat is not a
death-stroke, like that of the eagle — indeed, death at
one blow is not the practice of any of the feline race,
from the lion downwards. Catching, crippling, and
then torturing to death, is the cat system ; and catching
a marten, without killing it, by any animal whose throat
it can reach, is " catching a tartar." Thus the cat does
not willingly attack, but still she knows her enemy, and
as she knows that it will attack if she do not, and as
she is rather a brave animal, she generally offers battle.
The onset is one of some skill on both sides. The
aim of the cat is to pounce with her paws upon the
head of the marten, in such a way as that the claws
may destroy or wound its eyes, while her teeth are
embedded in its neck ; and if she can accomplish that,
the fate of the marten is decided. That, however, if done
at all, must be done in a moment, and if it be lost,
there is no repairing the mistake. The spring of the
F 3
54 ITS CONTESTS WITH THE WILD CAT.
wood-cat is larger than that of her opponent, and the
cat takes up her position so that she shall, if possible,
alight upon his head with her full spring and im-
petus. To distract her attention, he keeps moving his
head from side to side, and if he succeeds in his object,
he rushes to close quarters by a side movement. If
the spring of the cat takes proper effect, there is a
struggle, but not of long duration ; and it is the same
with the opposite result, if the cat miss and the marten
fasten, during the short pause of exhaustion after the
spring. Here we may notice another curious feature
in the economy of all the feline race. It has been
remarked even of the most powerful of them, that if
they miss their object when they spring, they sneak
cowardly away, and do not return to the attack for
some time, if, indeed, they return at all. Now the fact
is, that it is not cowardice, but exhaustion. The gnash-
ing with the teeth and the talons seems to be the re-
action by which the motion of the spring is balanced,
and the tone of the animal kept up ; and if it fail in that,
it takes a while to recover the use of its springing
niuscles. Probably the violence both of the spring
and the exhaustion are connected in some way or
other with the electric state of the body; but that is a
point not easily to be settled. Should both miss, the
contest is renewed, and seldom, in the observed cases,
(which are not indeed very numerous,) given up until
the one be killed ; and in a protracted contest, the
marten is always the victor, as the cat is first exhausted
by the greater weight of her body, and the violence of
her leaps. In the year 1805, a gentleman, on whose
veracity we can depend, witnessed one of those com-
A BATTLE GAINED BY THE MARTEN. 55
bats in the Morven district of Argylshire. In crossing
the mountains from Loch Sunart southward, he passed
along the bank of a very deep wooded dell, the hollow
of which, though it occasionally showed green patches
through the trees and coppice, was one hundred and
fifty, or about two hundred feet from the top. The
dell is difficult of access, and contains nothing that
would compensate for the labour ; and thus it is aban-
doned to wild animals, and among others to the marten,
which, though the skin fetches a high price, is not so
much hunted there as in more open places ; because,
though they might succeed in shooting it from the
heights above, they could not be sure of removing the
body. Thus it is left to contend with the mountain
cat for the sovereignty of that particular dell, and both
are safe, except when they approach the farmhouse at
the bottom of the hill. The contest there lasted for
more than half an hour, and both combatants were too
intent on each other's destruction, to shun or fear
observation. At last, however, the marten succeeded
in falling upon the right side of the cat's neck, and
jerking his long body over her, so as to be out of the
reach of her claws; when, after a good deal of squeaking
and struggling, by which the enemy could not be shaken
off, the martial achievements of puss were ended in the
field of glory.
The victories of the marten over the golden eagle,
though there be a tale of one of them at every place
where eagles and martens are common, are not quite so
well authenticated ; and wood-cats, pole-cats, and even
weasels, which, though lithe and active enough in their
way, are certainly nothing to the martens, are often the
56 MOUNTAIN STRAWBERRY.
heroes of the tale. It runs uniformly in the same
manner: — Down comes the eagle in the pride of her
strength, slash goes her talons into the limb of the
marten, and with a flap of her wings she is soar-
ing toward the zenith. The prey, however, is only
scotched ; and the marten or the weasel, or whatever
else it may be, jerks round its head into the throat of
the eagle, and both fall lifeless to the earth. These
accounts may be true ; but they belong to that class, of
which there is a separate edition for every district, and
therefore they would need verification by an eye-witness.
But upon the little open glades, and in the shelves of
the rocks, by those dashing streams that descend and
cut their way in the lower slopes of mountains, there is a
fruit more cooling and agreeable than the nut, and it may
be obtained without a fear of wood-cats and martens.
That is the mountain strawberry, (fragaria collma^) one
of the finest fruits that grow, and one of those that remain
longest in season. If the soil of a mountain ravine is
good, the aspect warm, and plenty of shelter, it begins
to ripen in August, produces abundantly, and continues
till it is killed by the winter frost. There are two
varieties of it, — the white, which is nearly round, and
has the one side tinged with delicate scarlet ; and the
red, which is of an oblong form, and nearly as dark in
the colour as a mulberry. The white is a very de-
licious luxury; and the red, though a little austere,
(all red fruits are mostly so,) has a high flavour. Both
may be cultivated, but the red is the most hardy ; and
they who choose to pay it proper attention may, in
mild seasons, have fresh-gathered strawberries to their
Christmas desserts. By cultivation, the size increases,
THE BILBERRY. 57
and, some say, the flavour ; but those who cull it in its
native wilds have the advantage of health and pleasure,
in addition to a keenly-whetted appetite, to enjoy it.
This is not the only berry to be met with in such
places ; for after the coppice is cleared, and the heath
arrived at, if it be dry, and the soil tolerable, there is
the beautiful myrtle-leaved bilberry, (vaccmium monta-
num,) with its fine round berries, of the brightest lustre,
and the most intense, though very deep, purple. This
delicate berry can bear the keenest blast of the moun-
tains, and where the plant is the most stunted the
flavour is the richest. If the soil be inclined to moisture
without any admixture of peat, and especially if it be
under the shade of a pine forest, which often occurs in
such situations, sheltering the bilberry and destroying the
heath-plant, the bilberry assumes a more lofty character.
The plants are continuous, with leaves the size of those
of an ordinary myrtle, and the berries are as large as
the black currants of the garden ; they are also very
abundant, and more juicy than in the exposed situations,
though perhaps they have riot so rich a flavour. These
berries are often considered as a different species from
the others, but they are probably only a variety pro-
duced by difference of situation. In lonely situations
they afford a welcome harvest to the mountain birds.
The bilberry is produced so abundantly in some places
that, in passing through the bushes, one may gather
handsful without stopping ; but it is tender, and soon
becomes sour. Where it is abundant, it might probably
be made into wine. Upon the lofty parts of the heath,
the cow-berry (vitis idced) is now to be found ; the bush
is low and hard, and so is the berry, which, notwith-
58 THE COMMON GNAT.
standing its fine red colour, is generally left to the
birds. In the bogs, at about the same elevation, the
cranberry, or crowberry, (oxycoccus palustris,) is very
frequently met with, but it is harsh and austere.
On the margin of those pools that occur in the
courses of the streams, as one approaches a mountain,
especially if the pool be surrounded with foliage, and
also on the sides of the little tarns or lakes, when they
are in sheltered situations, one meets with what would
hardly be looked for, a perfect inundation of gnats.
It is true that, during the very warm summers, the
sides of the rivers and lakes in Lapland are much more
infested with those troublesome and noisy insects than
countries that lie farther to the south, and have a' much
milder winter. From this it would appear that the
severity of the weather does not injure the eggs of the
gnat ; and indeed the instinct of the little creature
guards against any such injury, as the young continue
in the water till they assume the winged form, under
which they buzz and bite during their short aerial ex-
istence. The water, even in that state, cannot acquire
a very low temperature ; and as, generally speaking,
the pools and lakes in those countries are of sufficient
depth to prevent the whole from freezing down to the
bottom, even in the most rigorous winters, myriads
are reserved for each year.
The common gnat, (culex pipiens,) which disturbs
the silence of night with its shrill pipe, and covers with
blotches or blisters the skins of such as have that part
of their person delicate and irritable, is a very singular
though a very small creature. Of the vast number
that are ever sporting over the water any fine evening,
THE COMMON GNAT. 59
perhaps the greater part may have left that element
only the same day. The female gnat is a regular boat-
builder. How the last race of the summer, that are
to people the air during the following year, dispose of
their eggs, is not completely known ; but no sooner is
the surface of the water loosened from the fetters of
the winter's ice, than the larvce, or young of the gnat
make their appearance in every piece of stagnant
water, with their tails at the surface, and reclining
their bodies below. If they be disturbed they natu-
rally sink, and thus one would be led to conclude that
they are hatched at the bottom ; and yet as the eggs
which are produced in the warm season cannot be
hatched except upon the surface of the water, it is not
easy to see how those that are produced in the cold
season can be hatched under the water either. That
they are hatched in some way or other is clear, and
they find their way to the surface with the first gleam
of heat. In this state, though they can dive, they
must come to the surface to breathe, which they do
through the tail as long as they are in the larvae state.
When they change to the chrysalis, the body turns and
acquires two breathing apertures, which stand up and
are open above the surface of the water. After they
have remained about ten days in this state, the upper
part of the case of the chrysalis begins to open, and
the perfect gnat to protrude the fore part of its body.
As it works away at its extrication, the case, which
though empty does not collapse, answers the purpose
of a little boat, as the perfect insect is not adapted for
living in, or even on, the water. The body serves as a
mast to the tiny vessel, the wings for sails, and the
60 THE COMMON GNAT.
fringed feelers, with which the head is provided, for
streamers, while the tail remains in the case as ballast.
This bark, though ingenious, is frail; and when even
a smart ripple of the water happens before the gnats be
wholly disentangled, the number which perishes is
quite incredible. When no such disaster happens, they
escape from the case, and play and buzz in countless
myriads.
Of those that come to maturity, the natural life is
not supposed to exceed a month, and probably the
female begins to deposit her eggs before she has at-
tained the half of that age. We admire the art which
many birds show in the building of their nests ; and
the untaught geometry of the bees, that so construct
their cells as to combine the greatest possible strength
and economy ; but small and common as the gnat is,
and little as wre heed her, she perhaps evinces more art
and science than any of them. The water is the only
element in which her young can subsist in the early
"stages of their growth ; and yet the heat of the sun and
the action of the atmosphere are necessary to the
hatching of her eggs. Instinctively she knows this —
or which, when speaking of instinct, which is not a
matter of reasoning at all, but one of pure observation,
is the same — she deposits her eggs on the water, and in
such a way as that they shall neither sink nor attract
the notice of enemies, by being attached to any bulky
substance. She alights upon a floating leaf, a bit of grass,
or any of those light substances which are found upon
the still water, \vhich she chooses. Projecting her hind-
most pair of legs backwards, and bringing them into
contact, she with her tail places one egg where they
THE COMMON GNAT. 61
meet, witli the end where the breathing aperture of the
larva is to be uppermost. To this egg she cements
another, to that a third, and so on till the number
amounts to between two and three hundred. Nor does
she build at random, but fashions the whole into a
little boat, hollow, elevated and narrow at each end,
and broad and depressed at the middle, the very
model of those fishing-boats that are found to live in
the roughest water. When she has completed her
little vessel, it is launched, and committed to the water,
where, if no accident happen, the whole boat is con-
verted into detached and living larvae in the course of
three or four days. The success of this mode of nidi-
fication is best proved by the countless swarms of gnats
that appear at all periods of the summer, notwithstand-
ing the number of enemies by which they are beset.
Indeed, such a power of production do the little crea-
tures set in opposition to those of destruction, that,
were their destroyers fewer, they would fill the air in
marshy places almost to solidity.
These phenomena are not, however, altogether con-
fined to the mountain; its peculiar traits are of a
more elevated character, though they do not, and
cannot, exceed in wonder, the smallest that nature
produces.
As we gain the ascent, and bid farewell to the region
of phtenogamous, or flowering plants, and reach the
families that are nourished by the cold stone, it may
not be amiss to pause, and take a little breathing.
Even there, upon its very verge as it were, the vege-
table kingdom does not forget its bounty. The dwarf
crimson bramble, (rubus arcticus,) and more frequently
CLOUDBERRY.
the luscious cloudberry, (rubus chamcemorus^) are found
fast by the margin of the snow, as the limit of vege-
tation. The first of these is a very pleasant fruit ; but
even in the bleakest parts of Scotland it is rare, and it
is not very plentiful even in Lapland ; but the cloud-
berry is more abundant, and it is much better. The
fruit is single, upon the top of a footstalk, and in
form, size, and colour, it is not unlike the mulberry,
after which it is partly named ; but in flavour, taking
the place where it is found into consideration, it is
superior to all the mulberries that ever grew.
At this elevation, the amphitheatre around the base
of the mountain begins to appear : — its woods and
its pools, its green dells and its brown heaths, come
out with a very graphic and pleasant effect ; and as one
toils along the remainder of the ascent, one is glad
occasionally to turn and remark its changes.
The summit is gained at last. — It is midsummer,
and yet the stones are frozen to the ground, in every
place where they do not feel the influence of the sun.
Here, an atmospheric load to a considerable amount is
removed. It is usually estimated, that when a man
of the ordinary size stands at the level of the sea, the
pressure of the atmosphere upon the surface of his
body, is about fourteen tons and a half; and that when
he gains an elevation of little more than four thousand
feet, about two tons of this pressure is taken off. It is
true that, generally speaking, the pressure is internal
as well as external, and that where it is not, the
external pressure gives tone to the system ; for one
feels relaxed in warm weather before rain, when the
barometer is low. But when one ascends a mountain,
THE MOUNTAIN. 63
there is no such feeling; the increase of cold more
than counterbalances the removal ; and as the bearing
thus produced, is an energy of the living system,
instead of a dead weight, exhilaration and pleasure are
the consequences.
On the summits of those cliffy mountains, there are
generally large masses of loose stone, and it is no
uncommon feat, to send these booming and bounding
down the slope, or thundering over the precipice. In
the former case, how they dance, dash, and loosen
others, till the whole mountain side is in motion ! In
the latter, the stone is not seen, but the peals, as it
dashes from one projecting point to another, are loud ;
they are caught up in echoes, and reverberated from
cliff to cliff, till the whole wilderness is in thunder, —
rendered the more awfully solemn, that there is not a
living thing visible, save one small, pale butterfly, and
the wind has carried it away before the species could
be known.
Ha! the sound of wings in the abyss, together with
a cherup, which again awakens the echoes, and mocks
the thundering of the stone. The bird appears more
than a thousand feet distant, and yet she is gigantic.
What grace of attitude, what strength of pinion, and
with what rapidity, yet with what ease, she wheels
sunward ; till, far above the summit of the mountain,
she leans motionless like a brown speck on the bosom
of the sky ! From its size, it must be twelve pounds
weight at the least, and yet it absolutely rises, and that
rapidly, as if it were of less specific gravity than the
medium in which it floats, rarified as it is by a height
of nearly a mile. The muscular energy by which that
64 THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
is effected, must be immense : to sustain itself without
motion of the wings is astonishing enough, but it is
nothing to a rapid motion upward, from no fulcrum but
the thin air. It is
THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
FOR many years she has had her eyrie in those cliffs.
She has laid the surrounding heaths and valleys under
contribution, for the support of those successive broods,
for which, while they were young, she was so attentive
in rending the prey ; but which, when they grew up,
she drove far from her own immediate haunt, to become
the monarchs of other mountains.
In symmetry, in strength, in the vigour of her wing,
the acuteness of her vision, and the terrible clutch of
her talons, the golden eagle is superior to every other
bird ; and as her habitation is always in those time-
built palaces, the most lofty and inaccessible precipices,
there is sublimity in her dwelling; and though in
reality a long-lived bird, she has popularly gained a
sort of immortality, from the durable nature of her
abode. It appears to be one of the general provisions
of nature, that the most powerful destroyers of living
animals should have their favourite haunts in the most
lonely places ; and in this, the lion, the most powerful
of quadrupeds, and the golden eagle, the most vigorous
of birds, completely agree. There is, however, a won-
derful difference in the distances at which they can
discover their prey : the lion springs only a few yards,
while the eagle darts down from the mid-heaven, in
one perpendicular and accelerating stoop.
THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 65
The GOLDEN EAGLE (Falco Chrysatlos) is among
the largest as well as the most powerful of birds.
Specimens have been found, measuring nearly four
feet in length, and about nine feet across the wings,
when they were fully extended. Specimens of much
larger dimensions have also been seen, one of which
was shot at Warkworth, measured eleven feet three
inches from the tip of the one wing to that of the
other, and weighed eighteen pounds. Probably large
specimens were more abundant formerly, when the
wild countries were left freer to their range than they
are now. The average dimensions may be taken at
three feet long, and seven feet and a half in expanse,
in the male ; and three feet and a half long, and eight
feet in expanse, in the female. This great extent of
wings, makes these when folded as long as the tail.
Considering its breadth and strength, the golden eagle
is not a very heavy animal, the average weight being w
about twelve pounds for the male, and fifteen for the
female. The figure is, however, compact, and the parts
admirably balanced ; and both the individual parts and
the general arrangement and symmetry, are indicative
of great strength. In order that the powerful muscles
and tendons by which the talons are moved may be
protected from the weather, the tarsi, or feet- bones of
the eagle are closely feathered, down to the very division
of the toes. The general colour of the toes, is yellow ;
they are defended above by horny plates, or scales, of
which there are only three on the last joint of each toe,
and they are furnished with talons, which are strong,
black, sharp, and very much hooked. So admirable is
the mechanism by which the toes and talons of the
G3
66 THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
eagle are moved, that a dried foot may be made to act
powerfully by pulling the tendons, long after it has
been dead ; and the tendons themselves are among the
toughest of natural substances. There is considerable
dignity in the repose of the eagle; she usually sits upon
a pinnacle of rock, where she can command an ex-
tensive view ; and the head is often recurvated, so that
one eye is directed to the front, and the other to the
rear. The knobs on the under part of the toes pre-
vent any injury from the roughest rock, and take a
firm hold of the most slippery : so that the eagle on
her two feet seems as firmly based as most quadrupeds
do on four. The hold which she thus takes of the
surface, and the powerful action of the muscles that
move the toes, give her another advantage ; for by
those combined powers, she can throw herself with a
bound into the air, at the same time that she expands
her wings, and thus, contrary to the vulgar belief, rear
usually from level ground. When, however, the eagle
has been feeding in any other place than near her
abode, she shows an unwillingness to rise. As she is
so constituted as to be able to bear hunger four or five
weeks, her feeding is voracious in proportion ; and as,
notwithstanding that she shows considerable adroit-
ness in plucking birds, and skinning quadrupeds, she
always swallows, more or less, of the indigestible
exumce, as well as the bones of the smaller prey, her
meal is heavy. This, in all probability, has given rise
to the vulgar opinion.
The following description of the adult female, given
in Selby's admirable work on " British Ornithology,"
is accurate : — Bill bluish at the base, the tip black.
THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 67
Cere, (the naked skin at the base of the bill,) lemon-
yellow. Irides, orange-brown. Primary quills, black ,
the secondary ones, clouded with hair-brown, broccoli-
brown, and umber-brown. Crown of the head, and
nape of the neck, pale orange-brown; the feathers
occasionally marginated with white, narrow, elongated,
and distinct. Chin and throat, dark umber-brown.
Vent, pale reddish brown. Tail, pale broccoli-brown,
barred with blackish brown, and ending in a broad
band of the same colour. Tarsi, clothed with pale
reddish-brown feathers. Toes naked, yellow. Claws
black, very strong, and much hooked.
In the young bird, the irides of the eyes are not so
yellow ; the back and coverts of the wings are of a
deeper brown ; there are some white feathers on the
breast and belly ; the inside of the thighs are white ;
68 THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
the feathers on the tarsi, white; the feathers of the
wings, white at their bases ; and the tail, white, for a
part of its length from the root, which becomes less
at each successive moulting. These distinctions dimi-
nish till the fourth year, when the bird arrives at its
full size ; they are then lost, and the age cannot be
known for a number of years. The story that is usually
told about the eagle renewing her age, is of course
without foundation, though it probably relates to the
moulting or change of the feathers, which happens to
the eagle as well as to other birds.
Though the golden eagle, as found in this country,
be perfectly untameable, there is a constant sexual
attachment in the race. The greater number of other
birds pair only during the breeding season, and become
indifferent to each other after the young can subsist by
themselves ; but the nuptials of the eagle are for life.
After a male and female have paired, they never sepa-
rate, or change their abode, and rear all their successive
broods in the same nest, which being made of strong
twigs five or six feet long, firmly wattled and placed
in some fissure or hollow of an abrupt rock, is sup-
posed to last for centuries with only additional repairs.
The pair, though they drive off their young, and,
indeed, every creature but man. whose haunts they
shun, arc closely associated together : when the one is
seen for any length of time, the other is sure not to
be far distant ; and the one may often be seen flying
low and beating the bushes, while the other floats high
in air, in order to pounce upon the frightened prey.
The time that they live, has not been accurately
ascertained i but their longevity must be very great.
THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 69
In their strength they are proof against the elements,
for the strongest gale does not much impede their mo-
tion ; and their powers of endurance enable them to
sustain very great casualties in respect of food. In
many parts of Scotland, where they are much more
numerous than in England, there are pairs that have
nestled in the same cliffs, beyond the memory of the
inhabitants. One of these places is Lochlee, at the head
of the North Esk in Forfarshire. That lake lies in a
singular basin, between perpendicular cliffs on the
north, and high and precipitous mountains on the south.
A pair of eagles inhabit each side, so that three may
sometimes be seen floating in the air at once ; but
those that have their abode in the inaccessible cliffs on
the north, seem to be lords of the place, as the
south ones do not venture to beat the valley while these
are on the wing. Nor is it in their native freedom only
that eagles attain a great age ; for there was one kept
in a state of confinement at Vienna for one hundred
and four years.
The female lays usually two eggs, which are sup-
posed to produce a male and a female ; sometimes she
lays only one, and very rarely three. The eggs are of
a dirty-white colour with reddish spots. The young
are produced after thirty days' incubation. When they
come out of the shell, they are covered with a white
down ; and their first feathers are of a pale yellow.
They are exceedingly voracious; and the old ones,
though they drive them from the eyrie as soon as they
are able to shift for themselves, are, up to that period,
equally assiduous in finding them food, and bold in
defending them from attack. The vicinity of an eagle's
70 THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
nest is usually indeed a scene of blood, as the prey, if
not killed by the blow of the wing or the clutch of the
talons, is carried to the ledge that contains the nest,
and despatched there.
Of the boldness of the eagles at that time, many
stories are told ; and they are so universal, that there
must be some foundation for them. When the old ones
are at the nest, the boldest fowler dares not approach
it, as one flap of the wing will strike a man dead to the
ground. Even when they are absent, an attack on
their brood is far from safe, as they see so far, and
can come so rapidly. An Irish peasant had discovered
the eyrie of a pair of eagles on one of the islands in
the Lake of Killarney $ and watching the absence of the
parents, he swam to the island, climbed the rocks, made
prize of the eaglets, and dashing into the lake, made
for the shore ; but before he had reached it, and while
only his head was above water, the eagles came, killed
him on the spot, and bore off their rescued brood in
triumph. In the northern islands, where cormorants,
gulls, and other aquatic birds breed in immense num-
bers, the eagles commit terrible devastation among the
young ; though in these places the sea eagle is often
mistaken for the golden eagle. They also attack full-
grown deer, and even foxes, wolves, and bears ; they
generally fasten on the heads of the larger quadrupeds,
tear out their eyes, and then beat them to death with
their wings.
There are accounts of their carrying off infants in
Britain ; and in places farther to the north, they have
carried off children a little more advanced. Instances
of this are mentioned in Iceland, in the Faroe islands,
THE STORY OF HANNAH LAMOND. 71
and in Norway. In the parish of Nooder-hangs in the
last country, a boy two years of age was carried off in
1737, though his parents were close at hand, and made
all the exertions in their power to scare the spoiler ;
nor were they able to follow her to the place of her
retreat. In Tinkalen (Faroe islands) a child was car-
ried off, and the mother climbed the hitherto unascended
precipice, but the child was dead. Ray mentions a
case in the Orkneys, where the mother was more for-
tunate ; and it probably is the foundation of the fol-
lowing tale, which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine
for November, 1826, and which bears the exquisitely
graphic stamp of Professor Wilson.
THE STORY OF HANNAH LAMOND.
" ALMOST all the people in the parish were leading
in their meadow-hay on the same day of Midsummer,
so drying was the sunshine and the wind, — and huge
heaped-up wains, that almost hid from view the horses
that drew them along the sward, beginning to get green
with second growth, were moving in all directions
toward the snug farm-yards. Never had the parish
seemed before so populous. Jocund was the balmy
air with laughter, whistle, and song. But the tree-
gnomens threw the shadow of ' one o'clock ' on the
green dial-face of the earth — the horses were unyoked,
and took instantly to grazing — groups of men, women,
lads, lasses, and children, collected under grove and
bush, and hedge-row, — graces were pronounced, and the
great Being who gave them that day their daily bread,
looked down from his eternal throne, well-pleased with
THE STORY OF HANNAH LAMOND.
the piety of his thankful creatures. The great Golden
Eagle, the pride and the pest of the parish, stooped
down, and away with something in his talons. One
single, sudden female shriek — and then shouts and out-
cries as if a church-spire had tumbled down on a con-
gregation at a sacrament ! ' Hannah Lamond's bairn !
Hannah Lamond's bairn ! ' was the loud, fast-spreading
cry. ' The eagle 's ta'en aff Hannah Lamond's bairn ! '
and many hundred feet were in another instant hurrying
towards the mountain. Two miles of hill, and dale, and
copse, and shingle, and many intersecting brooks lay
between ; but in an incredibly short time, the foot of
the mountain was alive with people. The eyrie was
well-known, and both old birds were visible on the
rock-ledge. But who shall scale that dizzy cliff, which
Mark Steuart the sailor, who had been at the storming
of many a fort, attempted in vain ? All kept gazing,
weeping, wringing of hands in vain, rooted to the
ground, or running back and forwards, like so many
ants essaying their new wings in discomfiture. * What 's
the. use — what's the use o' ony puir human means?
We have no power but in prayer!' and many knelt
down — fathers and mothers, thinking of their own
babies, as if they would force the deaf heavens to
hear !
" Hannah Lamond had all this while been sitting on
a rock, with a face perfectly white, and eyes like those
of a mad person, fixed on the eyrie. Nobody had
noticed her ; for strong as all sympathies with her had
been at the swoop of the eagle, they were now swal-
lowed up in the agony of eyesight. * Only last Sabbath
was my sweet wee wean baptized :' and on uttering these
AND THE EAGLE. 73
words, she flew off through the brakes and over the
huge stones, up — up — up — faster than ever huntsman
ran in to the death, — fearless as a goat playing among
precipices. No one doubted, no one could doubt, that
she would soon be dashed to pieces. But have not
people who walk in their sleep, obedient to the myste-
rious guidance of dreams, clomb the walls of old ruins,
and found footing, even in decrepitude, along the edge
of unguarded battlements and down dilapidated stair-
cases, deep as draw-wells or coal-pits, and returned
with open, fixed, and unseeing eyes, unharmed to
their beds, at midnight ? It is all the work of the soul,
to whom the body is a slave ; and shall not the agony
of a mother's passion — who sees her baby, whose warm
mouth has just left her breast, hurried off by a demon
to a hideous death — bear her limbs aloft wherever there
is dust to dust, till she reach that devouring den, and
fiercer and more furious far, in the passion of love,
than any bird of prey that ever bathed its beak in
blood, throttle the fiends, that with their heavy wings
would fain flap her down the cliffs, and hold up her
child in deliverance before the eye of the all-seeing
God?
" No stop — no stay — she knew not that she drew
her breath. Beneath her feet Providence fastened
every loose stone, and to her hands strengthened every
root. How was she ever to descend ? That fear, then,
but once crossed her heart, as up — up — up to the little
image made of her own flesh and blood. * The God
who holds me now from perishing-^will not the same
God save me when my child is on my bosom ?' Down
came the fierce rushing of the eagles' wings — each
H
74 STORY OF HANNAH LAMOND
savage bird dashing close to her head, so that she saw
the yellow of their wrathful eyes. All at once they
quailed, and were cowed. Yelling, they flew off to
the stump of an ash jutting out of a cliff, a thousand
feet above the cataract, and the Christian mother fall-
ing across the eyrie, in the midst of bones and blood,
clasped her child — dead — dead — dead, no doubt, — but
unmangled and untorn, and swaddled up just as it was
when she laid it down asleep among the fresh hay, in a
nook of the harvest field. Oh ! what pang of perfect
blessedness transfixed her heart from that faint feeble
cry — 'It lives — it lives — it lives!' and baring her
bosom, with loud laughter and eyes dry as stones, she
felt the lips of the unconscious innocent once more
murmuring at the fount of life and love !
" Where, all this while, was Mark Steuart, the
sailor ? Half way up the cliffs. But his eye had got
dim, and his head dizzy, and his heart sick ; and he
who had so often reefed the top-gallant-sail, when at
midnight the coming of the gale was heard afar, co-
vered his face with his hands, and dared look no longer
on the swimming heights. ' And who will take care
of my poor bed-ridden mother,' thought Hannah, whose
soul, through the exhaustion of so many passions, could
no more retain in its grasp that hope which it had
clutched in despair. A voice whispered ' GOD.' She
looked round expecting to see an angel, but nothing
moved except a rotten branch, that under its own
weight, broke off from the crumbling rock. Her eye,
by some secret sympathy of her soul with the in-
animate object, watched its fall ; and it seemed to stop,
not far off on a small platform. Her child was bound
AND THE EAGLE. 75
within her bosom — she remembered not how or when — •
but it was safe — and scarcely daring to open her eyes,
she slid down the shelving rocks, and found herself on,
a small piece of firm root-bound soil, with the tops
of bushes appearing below. With fingers suddenly
strengthened into the power of iron, she swung herself
down by briar and broom, and heather, and dwarf
birch. There a loosened stone lept over a ledge, and
no sound was heard, so profound was its fall. There,
the shingle rattled down the screes, and she hesitated
not to follow. Her feet bounded against the huge
stone that stopped them, but she felt no pain. Her body
was callous as the cliff. Steep as the wall of a house
was now the side of the precipice. But it was matted
with ivy, centuries old — long ago dead, and without a
single green leaf — but with thousands of arm-thick
stems petrified into the rock, and covering it as with a
trellice. She bound her baby to her neck, and with
hands and feet clung to that fearful ladder. Turning
round her head, and looking down, lo ! the whole po-
pulation of the parish, so great was the multitude, on
their knees ! and hush, the voice of psalms — a hymn,
breathing the spirit of one united prayer ! Sad and so-
lemn was the strain — but nothing dirge-like — breathing
not of death, but deliverance. Often had she sung that
tune, perhaps the very words, but them she heard not,
in her own hut — she and her mother — or in the kirk,
along with all the congregation. An unseen hand
seemed fastening her fingers to the ribs of ivy, and in
sudden inspiration, believing that her life was to be
saved, she became almost as fearless as if she had been
changed into a winged creature. Again her feet touched
76 STORY OF HANNAH LAMOND
stones and earth — the psalm was hushed — hut a tre-
mulous sohhing voice was close beside her, and lo ! a
she-goat, with two little kids at her feet ! * Wild
heights/ thought she, ( do these creatures climb, but
the dam will lead down her kid by the easiest paths ;
for O, even in the brute creatures, what is the holy
power of a mother's love !' and turning round her head,
she kissed her sleeping baby, and for the first time she
wept.
" Overhead frowned the front of the precipice, never
touched before by human hand or foot. No one had
ever dreamt of scaling it; and the golden eagles knew
that well in their instinct, as, before they built their
eyrie, they had brushed it with their wings. But all the
rest of this part of the mountain side, though scarred,
and seamed, and chasmed, was yet accessible — and
more than one person in the parish had reached the
bottom of the Glead's Cliff. Many were now attempt-
ing it, and ere the cautious mother had followed her
dumb guides a hundred yards through, among dangers
that, although enough to terrify the stoutest heart, were
traversed by her without a shudder, the head of one
man appeared, and then the head of another, and she
knew that God had delivered her and her child in
safety, into the care of their fellow-creatures. Not a
word was spoken — eyes said enough — she hushed her
friends with her hands, and with uplifted eyes pointed
to the guides sent to her by heaven. Small green plats,
where those creatures nibble the wild flowers, became
now more frequent trodden lines, almost as easy as
sheep-paths, showed that the dam had not led her
young into danger ; and now the brushwood dwindled
AND THE EAGLE. 77
away into straggling shrubs, and the party stood on a
little eminence above the stream, and forming part of
the strath. There had been trouble and agitation,
much sobbing and many tears among the multitude,
while the mother was scaling the cliffs, — sublime was
the shout that echoed afar the moment she reached the
eyrie, — and now that her salvation was sure, the great
crowd rustled like a wind-swept wood.
" And for whose sake was all this alternation of
agony ? A poor humble creature, unknown to many
even by name — one who had had but few friends, nor
wished for more — contented to work all day, here —
there — anywhere — that she might be able to support
her aged mother and her little child — and who on sab-
bath took her seat in an obscure pew, set apart for
paupers, in the kirk !
" ' Fall back, and give her fresh air,' said the old
minister of the parish ; and the circle of close faces
widened round her, lying as in death. ' Gie me the
bonny bit bairn into my arms,' cried first one mother,
and then another, and it was tenderly handed round
the circle of kisses, many of the snooded maidens bath-
ing its face in tears. ' There's no a single scratch about
the puir innocent, for the eagle, you see, maun hae
stuck its talons into the long claes and the shawl.
Blin ! blin ! maun they be who see not the finger o' God
in this thing ! '
" Hannah started up from her swoon, looking wildly
round, and cried, * O ! the bird, the bird ! — the eagle,
the eagle ! The eagle has carried off my bonny wee
Walter — is there nane to pursue ?' A neighbour put
H 3
78 THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
her baby into her breast, — and shutting her eyes, and
smiting her forehead, the sorely bewildered creature
said in a low voice, * Am I wauken — O tell me if I'm
wauken, or if a' this be the wark o' a fever, and the
delirium o' a dream ? ' '
The strength of wing and muscular vigour of the
eagle are truly astonishing. The flesh has not, as some
have alleged, any offensive smell or taste, but it re-
sembles a bundle of cords, and cannot be eaten. Some
notion of its power may be formed from the statement
of Ramond, when he had ascended Mont Perdu, the
loftiest of the Pyrenees, and nearly three miles above
the level of the sea. He had for a considerable distance
bid adieu to every living thing, animal or vegetable ;
but right over the summit there was a golden eagle far
above him, dashing rapidly to windward against a
strong gale, and apparently in her element and at her
ease.
In the regions which she inhabits, the golden eagle,
like the lion, owns no superior but man, and she owns
him as such only on account of his intellectual re-
sources. When taken ever so young, there is no very
well authenticated account of the taming of an eagle.
The wandering hordes to the eastward of the Caspian
sea, do, indeed, train eagles to hunt both game and
wild beasts ; and Marco Polo, the father of modern
travellers, who, in the early part of the thirteenth cen-
tury, spent six and twenty years in a pilgrimage over
the east, and revealed the wonders of the whole, as far
as Cathay or China itself, records the eagle hunts at
the court of the Great Khan of Tartary, as among the
THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 79
greatest marvels with which he met. It is probable
that the eagle thus trained to falconry, may have been
the imperial eagle, which is much more common in the
south and east, and which, though a powerful bird, is
not quite so savage as the golden eagle. That the
eagle was never used in European falconry, is certain.
It is invariably classed with the "ignoble falcons,"
or those that keep as well as kill their prey. One bird is
said to give the eagle more trouble than any other,
and that is the heron, rather a light and feeble bird.
The heron gets under the shelter of a stone, or the
stump of a tree, where neither the wing nor the talons
of the eagle can be effective ; and from that position it
twists round its long neck, and bites and gnaws the
legs of its enemy. Several years ago, a heron was put
into the cage of a powerful eagle, at the Duke of Athol's,
at Blair. It immediately betook itself to the shelter
of a block of wood, which the eagle had for a perch,
and began to nibble and bite ; nor did the eagle van-
quish it till after a contest of twenty-four hours. It is
not very often, however, that the golden eagle fre-
quents the haunts of the heron ; her favourite ranges
are the open moors and uplands, where the prey can be
seen from a great distance, and there is little cover to
shelter it. In this country they do not often come to the
woods, though they do so in the mountainous parts of
France, where the winter is proportionally more severe,
and the animals, upon which they prey at other times,
are passing the cold season dormant in their holes.
In Scotland, the eagle finds winter food in the very
fastnesses of the mountains. Of that food one favourite
article is
80
THE ALPINE HARE.
THE ALPINE or WHITE HARE (lepus vartabilis) is,
in point of size, generally intermediate between the
common hare and the rabbit, though we have seen a
specimen as large as the former. It is a timid, gentle
creature, inhabiting the wild and lonely mountains, and
seldom found at a lower elevation than 1500 feet above
the level of the sea. They bring forth their young
in situations more lofty than this ; generally so much
so, as to be out of the reach of the wild cat and pine
marten. They live in holes, and under stones ; and as
their safety from the eagle is in concealment, and not
in flight, they are not easily raised. The following
account of their seasonal appearance, from the Edin-
burgh Philosophical Journal, vol. ii., is accurate;
though we have observed, that their whiteness is more
complete in long and severe winters : —
" The varying hare becomes white in winter. This
remarkable change takes place in the following manner :
About the middle of September the grey feet begin to
be white ; and, before the month ends, all the four feet
are white ; and the ears and muzzle are of a brighter
colour. The white colour gradually ascends the legs
and thighs, and we may observe, under the grey hairs,
whitish spots, which continue to increase till about the
middle of October ; but still the back continues of a
grey colour, while the eye-brows and ears are nearly
white. From this period the change proceeds very
rapidly, and by the middle of November the whole fur,
with the exception of the tips of the ears, which remain
black, is of a shining white. The back becomes white
THE WHITE HARE. 81
within eight days. During the whole of this remark-
able change in the fur, no hair falls from the animal;
hence it appears that the hair actually changes its
colour, and that there is no removal of it. The fur
retains its white colour until the month of March, or
even later, depending on the temperature of the atmos-
phere ; and, by the middle of May, it has again a grey
colour. But the spring change is different from the
winter, as the hair is completely shed."
This seasonal change of the fur of the alpine hare
(and it is not confined to that animal) answers several
important purposes. One of these is safety from
enemies. The summer colour approaches that of the
grey stones and lichen among which it lives, while its
winter hair is that of the snow, which then completely
covers the mountains. Another advantage of the
change of colour is even more important : — it tempers
them to the weather. White is much more difficult
both to heat and to cool than black, and thus the white
colour preserves the natural heat of the animal in
winter ; and the dark colour in summer raises the tem-
perature of the surface, and makes the animal perspire,
the evaporation of which is a source of cold. The
adaptation of the colour to the temperature is much
more obvious than the protection. The animals that
prey upon the alpine hares are a part of creation as
well as they, and their preservation is just as essential ;
so that we may suppose that the increased mode of
concealment on the part of the one, is counteracted by
an increased vigilance on the part of the other. But
the protection of the animal from the weather counter-
acts no part of the economy of nature, and there we
82 THE PTARMIGAN.
find it pretty generally extended ; birds and rapacious
animals become lighter in winter ; and so does the old
hair upon cattle, and other quadrupeds, that are left out
for the winter in exposed situations. The ermine,
which does not need much protection, except from
man, becomes white in winter ; and many animals that
are dark on the upper part of the body, are light, or
were white on the under, that an equal temperature of
the vital parts may be preserved.
This curious seasonal change has not been very
carefully investigated ; and, therefore, the precise way
in which it is brought about cannot be ascertained.
Attempts have been made to explain it, by urging that,
when animals are exposed to strong light and heat, the
deoxydising rays of the sun decompose carbonic acid,
and as that is given out at the surface, the carbon is
precipitated upon the rete mucosum, and produces the
black colour ; but the lips and tips of the ears in the
alpine hare retain their blackness in winter ; and there-
fore the several parts of the skin would require to be
endowed with different powers ; and in the grouse of
Labrador, the feathers of the tail remain black during
the winter, as do some feathers on the breast of
THE PTARMIGAN.
THE PTARMIGAN, rock grouse, or white partridge,
(Tetrao lagopusj) which is another inhabitant of the
most elevated parts of mountains ; and, except in lofty
and lonely places, it is rather a rare bird. It resembles
the common red grouse in form, only it is, perhaps, a
little less, the length being about fifteen inches, the
breadth two feet, and the weight nineteen ounces.
THE PTARMIGAN. 83
From the still and lonely places in which it is found,
the ptarmigan is a very interesting bird ; very gentle in
its manners, and apparently courting the society of
man ; as if, when it is met with on the mountain-top,
a stone be thrown so as to light on the other side of it,
it will run among one's feet, and may be almost caught
with the hand. On this account, the ptarmigan has
been called a stupid bird; but stupidity cannot, with
any thing like propriety, be attributed to any animal
in a state of nature. Their habits, and means of sub-
sistence and defence, vary ; but they are all equally
wise. In summer, the ptarmigan is mottled grey and
white, so that, when it is in motion, it is not easily
distinguished from the stones among which it is found.
The quills of the wings are white, and so are the two
middle feathers of the tail, but the other tail feathers
are black, with white tips. In winter, the whole
plumage, except a feather or two on the breast, is
white, the change beginning in September, and being
usually finished in October. The moulting, or annual
change of feathers in those birds, has not been very
accurately described ; but there are some reasons for
concluding that the feathers alter in colour only in the
autumn. The young birds are mottled like the old
ones, but change their colour at the same season with
these : and if they shed their feathers then, they would
have to produce two complete coats in the course
of a few months, a degree of exhaustion of which, we
believe, there is no instance among the feathered tribes.
Neither are there any well-authenticated instances of
changes from lighter, either in feathers or in hair,
without a reproduction ; while there are many of the
84 THE PTARMIGAN.
opposite change. The whitening seems always to be
the result of a diminished action in the hair or feather,
which may be produced either by heat or cold, or
natural decay. Thus we find that the children of
peasants have the points and upper parts of the hair
bleached almost white by the sun, while the roots are
brown : those alpine animals turn white in winter ;
and men and other animals become grey with age. It
seems that the bleaching process takes place in the
hair itself, and has no connexion with a temporary
change of colour in the skin, as the rete mucosum ; for
we often find that the same summer sun which darkens
the skins of those who are much exposed to it, bleaches
and whitens the hair upon the hands and eye-brows.
Thus it remains doubtful, whether the action of the
sun in summer, even by drying the hair and feathers
of those beasts and birds which turn white in the
winter, may not assist in producing the change of
colour. That these are material causes for all those
changes, we may rest assured ; and that these have
some connexion with chemical action, is highly pro-
bable; but we must be careful not to confound the
chemical action of living bodies with that chemistry
of dead matter which alone we can study in the
laboratory.
The common residences of the ptarmigans are in
the most elevated parts of the mountains, where they
hide themselves in crevices, and often in holes in the
snow, which, till the temperature rises as high as that at
which snow begins to melt, are both warm and dry ; so
that a ptarmigan at the top of Ben Nevis has really a
more comfortable winter abode than a pheasant in one
THE PTARMIGAN. 85
of the low and rainy counties of England. They of
course feed within the range of vegetation, buds and
young shoots of heath and other alpine plants, with
mountain berries and insects, being their food ; but
they re-ascend during the night. In winter and spring,
they live in parties ; but during the breeding season,
they separate in pairs, descend lower, and spread over
a greater range of surface.
The season for their pairing is as late as June,
which offers another argument in favour of their
moulting in the spring. The nest is a circular hole,
scratched at the root of a bush, or at the foot of a rock,
with hardly any other preparation. Each female lays
from six to twelve eggs, larger than those of a partridge,
and of a reddish colour, mottled with black. The
young are produced in three weeks, and are of a
reddish mottled colour. The male is very attentive to
the defence and feeding of the female while she is
sitting ; and both birds defend their young with great
boldness ; but the eagles and larger hawks are too
powerful for them, and commit great havoc. As their
chief safety is in concealment on the earth rather than
in flight, they are much better adapted for running than
for flying ; and that their legs may not get numbed by
the cold, they are thickly feathered. Ptarmigans are
rarely found in England, except upon some of the
highest mountains in the north, and they are not very
frequently met with in Wales ; the part of Scotland
where they are most abundant, is the great ridge of
the Grampians, on the confines of Perth, Aberdeen, and
Inverness shires.
It is generally supposed, that the animals upon
86 POWERFUL VISION OF THE EAGLE.
which the eagle preys, are well acquainted with its
shadow ; and that, to prevent that from being seen, the
eagle floats at such a height as to make it indistin-
guishable. Certainly, we have always discovered the
eagle flying lower in cloudy weather than when the
sun was bright, but, whether on account of its answering
her vision better, or for some wise purpose, as that of
the shadow, has not been ascertained.
From the summit of the mountain, if one be pro-
vided with Dollond's best three-feet achromatic tele-
scope, an instrument that no traveller in these lands of
long views should be without, the golden eagle can
be followed, and her motions watched, with the same
accuracy as if one were a companion in her flight. In
this we have a very apt and striking instance of the
superiority of reason over even the surest instinct, and
the finest apparatus with which it can be furnished.
The eye of the eagle is so formed, that, while the bird
floats in the air at such an elevation as that its size
is reduced to a single speck, it can command miles
of surface with such precision as to perceive at once
in what part of the wide field of view there is prey —
even though nature, equally attentive to the prey and
the preyer, has coloured the former so like the surface
on which it is found, that no eye, but that of an eagle,
could distinguish it at even half the distance.
But wonderful as that faculty is, it is less surprising
than human vision aided by the telescope, by means of
which man has been enabled not only to connect
mountain with mountain, but planet with planet ; and,
while he has his home localised in some little spot of
the earth, to become a dweller, as it were, in the whole
EYES OF DIFFERENT ANIMALS. 87
solar system, and a rational speculator into the nature
and laws of that universe, of which the solar system
forms a part. Thus, while in the study of nature we
find every thing to admire, we find nothing to envy ;
and the more that we trace the power and wisdom of
God in his works, the more apparent becomes the
great goodness which he has manifested toward us.
This is one of the most important lessons that we
derive from the study of nature ; and we derive it from
that study alone. It teaches us gratitude to our Maker,
and contentment with our condition ; for the greatest
distinctions in the social distribution and arrangement
of men, are nothing when compared with those dis-
tinctions with which our Maker has endowed us above
the other productions of creation.
And yet an eye is a most curious instrument. In a
merely mechanical point of view, and without any
reference to the power that it has of conveying to the
sensation of animals the presence and qualities of ob-
jects, it embraces the principles of many sciences; and,
in so far as the resemblance can be traced, it is a beau-
tiful instance of the universality of the laws of nature.
The different parts of the eye have so complete a
resemblance to those optical contrivances by which we
aid it, in the observation of distant or minute objects, or
renovate its powers when they have begun to decay, that
the careful study of the eye itself might have led to the
construction of telescopes, microscopes, and spectacles.
In the eyes of different animals there are remarkable
differences, according to the nature and habits of the
animal, the medium in which it lives, or the time at
which it finds its food. The eyes of the more perfect
88 EYES OF DIFFERENT ANIMALS.
animals are two, and they are, generally speaking,
moveable ; so that the animal may turn them in various
directions without moving its body, or even its head.
In the insect tribes the eyes are often compound, con-
sisting of a great number of sights or lenses, each of
them adapted for receiving and transmitting light, but
all of them, even in the most compound eye, communi-
cating with one single retina, or organ of perception.
Animals that are liable to be chased, have the eyes
further back in the head, and so prominent that they
can see laterally, or even behind. The eye of the hare
is an instance of this, and that of the giraffe is still
more remarkable. The eyes of pursuing-animals are
more directed to the front ; and those that spring on
their prey have them deeply enfonced, so that they
may take a more steady view, both in direction and
distance. In the eyes of animals that have to seek
their ways and their food in the direction of the per-
pendicular— as in cats that climb trees — the eyes have
the pupil elongated in that direction, so that they may
contract the opening, and exclude light from other
objects at the sides of the one principally looked to,
and yet have a considerable range in the direction of
that. Animals, on the other hand, that have to find
their food upon the ground, as those that graze, have
the pupil contracted above and below, with the open-
ing elongated in the horizontal direction. There is a
considerable difference in the eyes of day and night
animals, as they are called, — as between those of an
eagle and those of an owl. The day animal has the
interior of the eye lined with a dark membrane or
pigment, the surface of which is without gloss; and
EYES OF DIFFERENT ANIMALS. 89
which, therefore, does not allow any reflection of light
from one part of the interior of the eye to another.
The eyes of night animals are, on the other hand, with-
out this, or have it light-coloured, by which means
lights are reflected within the eye. Each of these
adapts the animal to the time at which it is abroad :
the owl cannot see in the bright sun, because the image
of the object, to which its eye is turned, is confused by
the reflection, from the inner surface of the eye, of all
the images of surrounding objects ; and the eagle can-
not see in the dark, because of the deficiency of light,
in consequence of none of the side lights being reflected.
Each, however, can see more perfectly in its own
element than if it had the opposite contrivance. Be-
tween animals that live in the air, and those that live in
the water, there are differences equally curious. The
contrivance, by which the light that enters at the fore-
part of the eye is so managed as to produce vision, is
similar to that by which the sight is improved when we
use spectacles or telescopes. There are certain trans-
parent parts of the eye which are thinned off toward
the sides, and left thick in the middle, as is the case
with those glasses or lenses, of which telescopes and
other optical instruments are composed. Those natural
lenses, by making the rays or points of light that come
from the outsides of objects more rapidly approach
each other within the eye, make the object appear to
occupy a much greater space than it otherwise would.
Thus they magnify it, and of course make all the parts
more distinct; — as, if in looking at any surface, that
of the moon, for instance, the rays from the extremities
be made to contract twice as much, the surface will
90 EYES OF DIFFERENT ANIMALS.
appear to be doubled in both its dimensions, and seem
consequently four times as large — or it will have the
same appearance as if brought to half the distance.
There are three of those humours, as they are called,
in the eye of the more perfect animals. The aqueous
humour, which fills the foremost part of the eye, dis-
plays the iris or coloured portion that opens and shuts,
with the pupil or passage of the sight in the centre, and
it is supposed also to occupy a small portion behind
the iris. Behind the aqueous humour there is situated
the crystalline lens, which is equally transparent as the
aqueous humour, but of a firmer consistency, and has
both its sides convex or thickest at the middle. The
remaining part of the cavity is filled by the vitreous
humour, which is of a consistency between the two ;
and behind that, the retina or nervous tissue is spread
out, and supposed to be the most delicately sensible
part of the animal structure.
Now it is in consequence of these lenses being of a
more dense structure than the substance to which their
convex sides are turned, that they cause the rays to
approach each other, magnifying the object, and render-
ing it more distinct. The front surface of the aqueous
humour refracts the rays that come through the less
dense air, and they are further refracted by both sur-
faces of the crystalline lens. But animals, that live in
water, and receive the rays of light through that
medium, would not have them brought together by an
aqueous humour : and, therefore, the external eye in
fishes is nearly flat, while the convexity of the crystal-
line is increased till it be almost a little globe, like one
of the most powerful single-lens microscopes.
ON VISION. 91
The combination of lenses, or humours in the eye, is
supposed to take off those prismatic colours that are
produced when rays of 'light are strongly and differently
refracted — much in the same way that a similar effect is
produced by the compound object-glass in an achromatic
telescope ; and thus the eye, taken even as a piece of
mechanism, and without any reference to life, or the
faculty of sight, is equal, nay superior, to the utmost
effort of human contrivance. When we come to add
to it those natural powers of perception and adjustment
by which it acts and adapts itself, it would become,
were it not so common, and in the midst of a world
as wondrous, a great and constant wonder. The re-
fraction of rays that come from objects at different
distances, are different, and those which come from
a near one, approach each other more rapidly, and,
therefore, meet sooner than those that come from a
remote object. Light from objects at different dis-
tances, therefore, must meet in points at different
distances, behind the pupil of the eye. But vision is
not distinct, unless the point where the rays meet be
the very surface of the retina ; and, therefore, there
must be in the eye a power of altering its form, — by
the motion of the retina backwards and forwards, by
an alteration in the convexity, or otherwise, of the
refractive power of the lenses, or by both ; and one
can easily feel such a power, by habituating the eyes
to look at objects at different distances. Looking
closely, together with the straining of the eye-lids,
which usually accompanies such an effort, seems to
increase the convexity of the lenses; for, when the
sight has begun to dazzle and fail at the usual reading
92 THE EAGLE AND HER TREY.
or writing distance, one can, by gazing intently for
some time at small objects very near to the eye, recover
its tone, though after such an effort, distant objects
will be dim for some time.
It is probable that the eyes of birds, more especially
eagles that soar high, and depend wholly upon their
sight, have this power much more vigorously than
the eyes of men ; and it is not unlikely that the third
eye-lid, or nictitating membrane which they possess,
and the apparatus with which that embraces the ball
of the eye, may compress and stimulate the lenses, as
well as lubricate, cleanse, and protect the front of the
eye. In the eagle, the power of this organ is won-
derful ; for even when she soars so high above the
mountains, that you can mark her large form with
difficulty, down she drops with unerring certainty, even
upon the smallest of her prey, to a depth considerably
below. When one is near enough, the sound of her
descent is like the rustle of a whirlwind ; and even as
one sees her through the telescope, if the prey be
worthy of her, the descent is grand. Those wings,
upon which she the moment before floated with so
much grace and ease, are dashed behind her, as if they
were a useless impediment ; but these formidable
weapons are, all the while, kept in readiness, if they
should be needed, to aid the talons in the work of
death. If she mistakes or misses, and it is not often
that she does the one or the other, for her eye is keen
and her aim is true, she shoots away at a distance, as
if she had been unworthy of herself: but when her aim
is sure ; when the ptarmigan or the mountain hare is
transfixed ; and, while she exults for a moment over
THE EAGLE AND HER PREY. 93
her victim, before she rends it, there is a terrible
majesty in her air ; — and when all this is among the
grandeur of mountain scenery, while the spectator is
elevated above the whole ; — when the dark eminence
and the dusky eagle are projected against a mountain
glen, with its bright stream, its green bosom, its scat-
tered trees, its abrupt hills, and its wild and rocky
precipices, here veiled with mist, and there glancing in
the sun, — it is a scene which fails not to make a vivid
and a lasting impression.
94
CHAPTER III.
THE LAKE.
THE consideration of this division of the more strik-
ing features of the earth's surface, properly follows the
LAKES. 95
last — inasmuch as lakes are usual accompaniments of
mountain scenery, and form part of the machinery by
which nature works for the transmission of those waters
which are distilled by, and gathered into the hills ;
as well as for the provision of those vapours with
which the air feeds these huge alembics of the earth.
In what is, unscientifically enough, called the new world,
and particularly in Canada, these inland waters have
a character somewhat different from that which they
assume in the portion of the globe of which our island
forms a part; — extending to the magnitude, and ex-
hibiting most of the phenomena of seas, and standing
in less immediate and visible connexion with moun-
tain ranges, to which they owe their birth. In Europe,
the principal lakes are those of Switzerland ; to which,
with their surrounding scenery, those in the northern
parts of our own island bear, in all respects, a close
resemblance.
Here, they present to the eye an appearance which
at once indicates their origin ; and exhibits, in imme-
diate connexion with each other, the various parts
of that eternal process by which the vivifying prin-
ciple is preserved from stagnation, and the spirit of
fruitfulness poured over the earth. Embosomed in
deep valleys, and shut in by circling hills, — fed by
the streams and torrents that pour from the uplands,
opening chasms in the mountains, and wearing fissures
in the cliffs ; or by the countless streams that pene-
trate towards the earth's centre, till, turned by some
stratum of rock, they burst upward, in springs, amid
the hidden depths, — and presenting a surface from
which, in turn, the air may gather exhalations, and
96 LAKES.
send up" to the mountain peaks volumes of clouds,
laden with fresh materials for the action of their ap-
pointed part in the beautiful design, — they afford to the
naturalist a field of never-wearying interest, and to
rational man a theme for gratitude, adoration, and love.
To the enthusiast in the picturesque, nature no
where presents an aspect of such varied beauty as
amid these combinations of hill and water and glade.
That monotony which characterizes a wide expanse of
unbroken plain, even when clothed in a mantle of
uniform hue, and that unrelieved sense of awe and
loneliness which a mountain range, without this sooth-
ing accompaniment, is apt to suggest, are, alike, absent
here. All that is most sublime is softened by all
that is most beautiful; and all that is most beau-
tiful, is elevated by all that is most sublime. The
pervading and perpetual presence of water clothes the
earth in its richest robe of verdure ; and there is a spirit
of life and motion over all, which prevents that feeling
of oppression and melancholy with which man finds him-
self bowed down in the immediate presence of nature,
in her mightier agencies. The air is full of soothing
sounds, poured from a thousand natural sources, — the
ripple of the mimic wave upon the mimic beach ; the
murmur of the cascade ; the roaring of the cataract ;
the sighing of the breeze, or the rushing of the blast
among the rocking woods ; all blend into one wild, but
enchanting harmony, — repeated by a thousand voices,
from hill and grove and glade, — that it might well sug-
gest a mythology like that of the Greeks of old, and
lead the imagination to people every cliff and stream
and tree with a dryad or a faun,
LAKES. 97
The atmospheric phenomena of these regions too,
o" to the broken surface and that motion of which
o
we have spoken, give a character of universal variety
and endless change to their scenery. The light of
familiarity, which in time deadens the enjoyment of
mere level landscape, however fair, comes not here ;
because here the landscape is never for any length
of time the same. The minutest alteration of the sun's
place in the heavens, or the passage of the lightest
cloud, produces a change upon the earth, and invests
it with a novel charm. This scene is ever changing,
like a succession of creations ; and every change is re-
peated with the rich distinctness of truth, yet with the
softened beauty of a fiction or a dream, in the un-
stained mirror of the lake. Whether we gaze upon
these jewels of nature, lying like giant gems in their
rich green setting of wood and hill, or lashed into
foam and tumult by the wing of the tempest from
the mountains, — whether we view them with their
surface turned into plaits of gold by the alchemy
of sunset and the touch of the breeze, or with
their crystal floors paved with mimic stars and a
mimic moon, — nature nowhere else presents herself
to the eye in forms in which the presence of power is
so intimately associated with the presence of beauty —
the feeling of loneliness with the feeling of life — the
sense of motion with the suggestions of repose — the
evidences of unyielding winter with something like the
aspect of an ever-budding spring, and the spirit of
hoar antiquity with that of continual youth.
The deep lake never very much alters its tempera-
ture, even though situated in a northern region ; more
K
98 LAKES.
especially if it be but little elevated above the sea, and
the land around it be high. The latter circumstance
is a certain indication of depth ; and when that extends
to a hundred fathoms or so, the water, instead of being
covered with ice, even in the longest and most severe
winters, does not cool nearly to the freezing-point.
Strange stories have been told of lakes that have this
property : their waters have been said to be impreg-
nated with substances, which, at the same time that they
defy the frost, act upon those who drink them. These
have been alleged of some of the Scottish lakes that
pour their limpid waters iceless into the sea; while
all the shallow parts of them are frozen to a consider-
able thickness. But there is no need for any admixture
to prevent the congealation ; that is the necessary
result of the depth, and of a well-known property of
water. The greatest density of that fluid is at about
forty-two degrees of Fahrenheit ; and until this degree
of cold is imparted to the whole volume of the water,
of course no ice can be formed on the surface. The
cooling process is, in deep water, a very slow one ; as
the instant that a pellicle on the surface becomes
heavier than the rest, it sinks and exposes a new one.
When the water has cooled so far as to become sta-
tionary, the action of wind upon the surface furthers
the cooling; but even with that assistance the very
deep lakes are never frozen. The winter of 1807-8
was one of uncommon length and severity ; and yet
instead of any ice forming upon Loch Ness, (probably
the deepest lake, and most uniformly deep, in the
United Kingdom,) the river that flows from it was
several degrees above freezing, and only a few slight
LAKES. 99
traces of ice were discernible in some of the shallows
near to its confluence with the sea, at the distance of
seven miles from the lake.
But the same circumstances which render those deep
lakes difficult to be cooled, render them just as difficult
to be heated ; and thus the presence of a lake takes
the vicinity of it out of the extremes of chilling winter
and burning summer, which characterize northern coun-
tries, equalizes the temperature of the year, lengthens
the period of active vegetation, and clothes its banks
with a verdure unknown to any other places in the
same latitudes. Even the evaporation that takes place
from the surface of a lake which is surrounded by high
mountains, does not produce any thing like the same
degree of cold that is produced by evaporation from a
lake in a flat country. The air descends from the
mountains, is condensed in proportion to the depth to
which it descends, and being so, it is warmed. Another
thing : there is not the same difference of temperature
between the night and the day ; and thus there is less
dew and blight. In spring or autumn, the vegetation
around a marsh, or even a moist surface, is often found
destroyed, while on the banks of a lake not a leaf is
touched.
But lakes in mountainous countries have another
advantage : they prevent those floods of the rivers,
which are so destructive where there are no lakes ;
and if they be in warm latitudes, they prevent the soil
from being burnt up and becoming desart. Rains fall
with greater violence upon varied surfaces than upon
plains, because there the atmosphere is subject to more
frequent and rapid changes ; the slopes of the surfaces
K 2
100 LAKES.
precipitate the water sooner into the rivers ; and thus
the rain passes off in an overwhelming flood. By the
interposition of lakes, this is prevented. They act as
regulating dams ; the discharging river cannot rise
higher than the lake ; and thus, when the lake is large,
a flood which otherwise would flow off in a day, and
destroy as it flowed, is made to discharge itself peace-
ably for \veeks. Besides the preventing of devastation,
this is of advantage to the country. When the flood
passes off, while the rain is falling, and the air is moist
and not in a state for evaporation, the land derives but a
small and temporary advantage from the rain ; but when
the water is confined till the state of the atmosphere
changes, a considerable portion of it is taken up by
the process of evaporation, and descends in fertilizing
showers.
A decisive proof of the advantage of lakes, and the
casualties that result from the want of lakes to regulate
the discharge of mountain rivers, was unfortunately
given in the floods in Scotland, in the summer of 1829.
The whole of the rivers that flow eastward from the
Grampians have steep courses, but no lakes to regulate
their flow ; and the consequence was, that they threw
down the bridges, flooded the fields, washed away the
soil and crops, and did other damage ; while those
streams farther to the north, that roll an equal or a
greater mass of water, but which are expanded into
lakes, did no harm. Mountainous countries, in which
there are no lakes, are usually barren, or in the pro-
gress of becoming so. The Andes in America, the
ridges in Southern Africa, and many other lakeless
elevations, are utterly sterile. The mountains of Scot-
LAKES. 101
land, and even those of the north of England, have
little beauty where there are no lakes ; — they are
covered with brown heather, unbroken by any admix-
ture save dingy stone and red gravelly banks, where
the rains have torn them to pieces. There are none
of those sweet grassy dells and glades, and none of
those delightful thickets, coppices, and clumps of trees,
that spot the watered regions. No one seeks for
beauty or sublimity in the mountains of Northumber-
land and Yorkshire ; or in that dull part of the Gram-
pians where the lla, the Esk, and the Dee have
their remotest sources. When the low lands are ap-
proached, there will of course be sublimity, because
the rivers have gained force, and will cleave the earth
and form precipices and cascades. But the upper
regions, whatever may be their elevation, are cursed
with more than Babylonian infliction. " The bittern
will not dwell there :" the dusky raven, with his revolt-
ing crocq, hollow and horrible, as if it came from the
chambers of the grave, is almost the sole inhabitant ;
and even he does not make these places his home, but
merely visits them for the purpose of devouring the
remains of those animals that have perished in their
desolation. If the surface be dry, it presents nothing
but miserable stunted heather, and white lichen, which
crackles under the foot, and is the shroud of all useful
vegetation. If it be moist, then it is a peat-bog, which
offers no safe place for the foot; or, which is more
unsightly still, a dead peat-bank, over the whole black
surface of which there is not one living thing, animal
or vegetable. The water that creeps away from this
miserable surface has the appearance of unpurified
K 3
102 LAKES.
train oil, often has a film of iron on the surface, and
is always so cold and astringent that the very stones
seem to be shrunken by its touch.
Turning to the other parts of the very same ridges
of mountains, how different is the scene, and how
different the emotions ! The lakes of Cumberland and
Westmoreland, now contrasting their silvery surfaces
with the swell of green hills, and the shade of dark
woods ; and now giving back the reflection of rugged
cliffs and frowning precipices ; — there is music in the
name, and at the thought of them all the wealth of the
plains is forgotten. The gem of every country is a
lake. England has her Ulswater, Ireland her Killar-
ney, Scotland her Katrine, and Wales her Bala, which,
though designated by the humble name of a pool, is
capable of softening down the fiery spirit of the Cam-
brian, as he gazes on it from the mountain's ridge, —
and the waters are so limpid, that " the lasses of Bala,"
by laving their beauties in it on May-morn, excel in
brightness all the other daughters of the principality.
There is even a deeper feeling in the contemplation
of a lake than in that of a mountain. It is a moving,
almost a living thing ; and a focus for the concentration
of other life than you meet with upon land. In the
secluded tarn, or in those coppice-encircled bays where
the wind is excluded, the creatures are assembled.
The trees are full of birds, the bushes swarm with
quadrupeds, the air is alive with insects, and ever and
anon, as they touch with tiny foot the surface of the
water, the dancing circles convince one that the water
has its inhabitants likewise. Numerous visitors have
their banquetting house here, One grand spoiler is
103
THE HERON.
THE HERON (Ardea cinerea) is, in appearance and
habits, one of the most singular birds to be found in
Britain. It is longer than the golden eagle, and the
expanse of its wings is not much less than that of the
ordinary specimens of that bird. It measures about
forty inches in length, and sixty -four in breadth ;
and yet, with all this vast spread, it does not weigh
above three pounds. The fact is, that it is all legs,
wings, neck and bill, and this gives it, when seen
from a distance, a very formidable appearance. In
its way, it is a formidable bird ; and though shy and
retiring in its nature, and not disposed to attack any
thing but its finny prey, its structure is admirably
united to its modes of life. Its legs are of great
length and strength. The scaly coverings of the legs,
and the nature of the cuticle on the naked parts and
104 THE HERON.
between the plates, enable it to bear the water for a
great length of time without injury. Its toes are long,
with claws well adapted for clutching, and one toe is
toothed, so that eels, and other slippery prey, may not
wriggle out of its clutches. The muscular power of
the long neck is wonderful, and by it the point of the
bill can be jerked to the distance of three feet in an
instant. No bird indeed can, with its feet at rest,
" strike out " so far or so instantly as the heron ; and
the articulations of the neck are a sort of universal
joints, for it can, with the same ease, and in the same
brief space, jerk out the head in any direction or in
any position ; nay, the bill can act, and that powerfully,
when the neck is twisted backwards and the head under
the wing. The bill, too, is formidable ; the points pierce
like spears, and toward the extremity there are sharp
and strong barbs turned backwards ; so that when once
it strikes, it never quits that which it can lift, and it
makes a terribly lacerated wound in that which it can-
not. The bill is about six inches long, and the gape
still longer, as it extends backward as far as the eyes.
The gullet and craw are exceedingly elastic, so that it
can swallow large fish, and a number of them. Seven-
teen carp have been found at once in the maw of a
heron. The neck of the heron is indeed one of the
most singular pieces of animal mechanism, and proves
how nicely the maximum of activity and strength can
be combined in the smallest possible quantity of mate-
rials. The wings are also admirably fitted for enabling
it to float itself with its weighty prey, or to lean upon
on the air in its long and elevated flights. They are
concave on their under sides, and thus act like para-
THE HERON. 105
chutes. This formation of the wings also enables it to
alight in such a way as not to disturb the water, or in
any manner alarm its prey. By exerting the parachute
power, it not only prevents that accelerated motion in
descent, which makes the stoop of the eagle so terrible,
but it gradually softens the motion, and alights so
gently as not to occasion a rustle in the grass, or a
ripple of the water.
This structure of the wings is of great use to the
heron in one of its modes of feeding. Its usual mode
is to wade and wait for the prey; but it sometimes
fishes upon the wing. It seldom does that, however,
except in shallow water, the depth of which does not
exceed the length of its neck or legs ; and its vision must
be very acute, to enable it at once to see the fish and
estimate the depth of the water. It comes to the
surface with a gradually diminished motion ; and then,
suspended by the hollow wings, whose action does
not in the least ruffle the surface, it plunges its bill,
grapples the fish to the bottom, and, after perhaps
a minute spent in making its hold sure, rises with a
fish struggling in its bill. The prey is sometimes
borne to the land and there swallowed, and sometimes
it is swallowed in the air. Eels are generally carried
to the land, because their coiling and wriggling do not
admit of their being easily swallowed when the bird
is on the wing ; but other fishes, especially when small,
are swallowed almost instantly, and the fishing as
speedily resumed. We once had an opportunity of
seeing four or five small trout caught in this way in
about as many minutes ; and we know not how long
the fishing might have been continued, as the bird did
106 THE HERON.
not appear to be in the least exhausted ; but a gos-
hawk came in sight, and at her appearance the heron
escaped, screaming, to the upper regions of the sky.
That is not, however, its usual mode of fishing.
Wading is the general method, and in it the hooked
and serrated toes are often used in aid of the bill.
Small streams and ponds are its most favourite places,
and the success, especially in the latter, is often very
great. Nor is the actual catching the only injury that
the heron does to fish-ponds, for it lacerates a great
many that it does not secure, and often in so severe a
manner that they will hardly recover, though fish suffer
far less, either in pain or injury, from wounds, than
land animals. The heron does not much frequent the
larger and deeper lakes, and seldom (perhaps never)
fishes in water deeper than the length of its neck and
legs. Its time of fishing is the dusk of the morning
and evening, cloudy days, and moon-light nights. We
remember seeing only one instance of a heron fishing
when the sun was bright. That was on a rivulet, in
the hills of Perthshire, the banks of which, at some
places, nearly closed over the water ; and there the
heron appeared, like a skilful angler, to take the side
opposite to the sun.
The most apparently trivial habits of organized
bodies are just as demonstrative of infinite wisdom, as
those that attract the vulgar by their novelty, or by
some real or fancied resemblance to the marvellous
among mankind : the times at which the heron resorts
to the water to fish, are those at which the fish come to
the shores and shallows to feed upon insects, and when,
as they are themselves splashing and dimpling the water,
THE HERON. 107
they are the least apt to be disturbed by the motions
of the heron. The bird alights in the quiet way that
has been mentioned, then wades into the water to its
depth, folds its long neck partially over its back, and
forward again, and with watchful eye awaits till a fish
comes within the range of its beak. Instantaneously it
darts, and the prey is secured. That it should fish
only in the absence of the sun, is also a wonderful
instinct. Every one who is an angler, or is otherwise
acquainted with the habits of fish in their native ele-
ment, knows how acute their vision is, and how much
they dislike shadows in motion, or even at rest, pro-
jected from the bank. It is not necessary that the
shadow should be produced by the bright sun. Full
day-light will do it ; and we have seen a successful
fly-fishing instantly suspended, and kept so for a con-
siderable time, by the accidental passage of a person
along the opposite bank of the stream, nay, we once
had our sport interrupted by a cow coming to drink ; so
alarmed are fish, especially the trout and salmon tribe,
at the motion of small shadows upon the water ; though
shadow, generally speaking, be essential to their surface
operations. They do not feed, and therefore we may
conclude that they do not so well discern small bodies
upon the surface, when the sun is bright. Fishes are
in fact, in part, nocturnal animals ; and the heron, that
lives upon them, and catches them only in their feeding
places, is partially, also, a nocturnal animal.
There is one case in which we have observed herons
feeding indiscriminately in sun and shade ; and that is
when a river has been flooded to a great extent, and.
the flood has passed off, leaving the fish in small pools
108 THE HERON.
over the meadows. How the herons find out these
occasions, it is difficult to say ; but we have seen several
pairs come, after a flood, to a river which they never
visited upon any other occasion ; and within many miles
of which a heronry, or even the nest of a single pair,
was never observed.
Few birds are more generally diffused than the
common heron. It is found in all latitudes and all
longitudes. In some places they migrate, in others
they merely spread themselves, or shift their quarters
in the same latitude, and in others again they remain
quite stationary. The power of changing their abode
is necessary for their comfort, and even for their exist-
ence. They are exceedingly voracious ; and their
powers of digestion are equal to their powers of swal-
lowing. The seventeen carp mentioned by Willoughby,
were only a meal for six or seven hours. The absolute
necessity of food for the preservation of the life of the
animal is not, however, quite so great as its rapacity ;
for it can not only subsist for a long time without
food ; but when old ones are taken alive, they prefer
freedom to luxury, and starve themselves to death,
even though food be placed within their reach, and
kept there till they could eat it unobserved.
Herons appear, like many other animals, to have
some instinctive perception of the approach of rain ;
as their favourite time for flying, and at which they
take their loftiest flights, is just before a fall of rain.
Their elevation then is greater than that of the eagle ;
and their flights are also longer at those times than
when they are merely in search of food. It is possible-
that their elevation may be chosen as an instinctive
THE HERON. 109
means of defence against their enemies, — as when they
are assailed by eagles and hawks, their first means of
escape is usually ascent; and if they can sufficiently
attain that, they are understood to be safe.
In cases of extremity, they can shake off their
natural timidity, and show both courage and skill.
When a hawk gets higher on the wing than a heron,
(the whole of that tribe can kill their prey only by
stooping upon it when it is below them,) the heron is
said — though it is very difficult to verify the saying by
actual observation — to assume rather an ingenious
system of tactics. The neck of the heron is the part
usually struck at, as when that is successfully hit, he
is finished without harm to the assailant. To prevent
this, he is said to double the neck backward under the
wing, and turn the bill upward like a spear or bayonet,
over the centre of his body. This bill is, as has been,
mentioned, six inches in length, so that, if it be well
aimed, and the heron can avoid the stroke of the wing,
the enemy is sure to be transfixed before the talons can
take effect. We have heard of instances in which not
hawks merely, but eagles (not the golden eagle, but
the sea-eagle, falco albicilla, or the osprey) have been
thus transfixed by the heron, and have fallen to the
ground pierced through the vitals, while their intended
prey has soared untouched, and made the air shiver
with its scream of victory. As these contests must
take place at a considerable height above the earth, it
is not easy to know the details of them ; and indeed
the habitual vigilance which the heron observes upon
all occasions, necessarily renders the encounters not
very frequent. Still, though we have not seen it, the
L
110 THE HERON.
occurence may be possible ; and the greater the force
with which the assailant descends, the greater is the
probability of its being fatally pierced by the bill.
Even when wounded, the heron is a dangerous bird ;
and when winged, it cannot be approached but with
the utmost caution. The bill is darted out with rapid
and unerring aim, at the eyes of whatever animal comes
within its range ; and powerful dogs have been struck
blind in rushing too hastily upon a wounded heron.
Under almost any circumstances the herons are
found in pairs ; and in the breeding season they con-
gregate in flocks, like rooks. The female heron lays
four or five eggs of a bluish green colour, and about
the size of those of the duck. Their nests are usually
built upon lofty trees ; but so fond are they of the
society of each other, that rather than separate, part
of them will build on the ground. Montague mentions
a heronry upon a little island in a lake in the north of
Scotland, where, there being but one stunted tree for
a great number of herons, as many as it could support
made their nests on it, and the rest congregated round
it on the earth. Twenty nests upon one tree is not an
unusual number in cases where they are pinched for
room. The nests are large and flat ; the frame-work
being made of twigs ; and the inner coating of wool,
feathers, moss, or rushes, according as there may happen
to be a supply. While the period of incubation lasts,
the male fishes with assiduity, and provides his mate
with a supply of food ; but after the young are hatched,
both parents assist in providing for them. In situations
that are well adapted for the construction of heronries,
the birds have great reluctance to leave them, even
THE HERON. Ill
after the trees are cut down ; and a case is mentioned
by Dr. Hey sham, in which, when their own habitations
had been destroyed, they made an attempt to possess
themselves of those of their neighbours. A heronry
and rookery had been for many years near each other,
and the one party had never offered to give the other
the least disturbance. At length, however, the trees
which had been the habitations of the herons were cut
down, while those that belonged to the rooks were
spared. When the pairing time came, the herons made
a general attack upon the habitations of their swarthy
neighbours ; and after a considerable time spent in
fighting, and a number of killed and wounded on
both sides, the herons remained in possession of the
trees. Next year, however, the rooks renewed the
contest with the same determination as before ; but
they were again worsted, and the herons were again in
possession. After the second brood had been hatched,
there was not a suspension merely, but a termination
of hostilites ; and afterwards the two societies occupied
the same trees, and lived in harmony together. The
labour which the herons take in fishing for their broods,
as well as the success with which that labour is at-
tended, is very considerable ; so much so that the
spaces between the trees on which the nests are con-
structed, are often strewed with fish ; even eels of large
size have been brought in this way, from a distance of
several miles.
The heron has fallen off very much in estimation,
both as an article of food and as a means of sport.
In former times it was accounted a suitable dish for
kings ; and so highly was the hunting of it with hawks
112 THE HERON.
prized, that the destroying of a heron's nest, or the
capture of its eggs, subjected the party to a penalty
of twenty shillings. At present it is little heeded
in places where fish-ponds are not in use ; and where
they are, it is looked upon as a destroyer and a nui-
sance. When the peasants succeed in killing it, they
do not send it off as a present to royalty, or even eat
it themselves ; they nail it up upon the barn wall
or the stable door — those common museums of rustic
natural history, along with owls and kites, and other
birds that are refused a place in the culinary catalogue.
It is difficult to generalize the natural history of a
lake, as it depends much upon situation. This applies
to the plants upon its shores, the fish in its waters,
the birds that frequent its surface, and even the insects
that sport in the air over it. Sometimes those dif-
ferences appear to be perfectly capricious. Thus in
the lower part of Strathmoor, in Scotland, there is one
small lake (the Loch of the Stormouth,) which, in
the breeding season, is literally covered with the
common gull, while on other lakes in the immediate
neighbourhood, which are to all appearance as well, if
not better adapted for the purpose, there is not one to
be seen. But in the distribution of animals, whether
for temporary or permanent residence, there can be
no caprice, their preference of any place to another
must depend upon some instinct, which, if known,
would be another point in their history ; and it is only
by the careful observation of their peculiarities that
that history can be made either general or true so far as
it goes. There is, however, one bird, which is pretty
generally found visiting all the British lakes that arc
THE SEA-EAGLE. 113
surrounded with high rocks or eminences, and not at
any very great distance from the sea ; characters that
belong to most of the larger lakes in the islands. That
bird is
THE SEA-EAGLE.
IN the history of the sea-eagle there is some con-
fusion ; first, because it has been confounded with the
osprey, or fishing buzzard ; and secondly, because the
old and the young have been described as two distinct
species. Indeed, some naturalists are of opinion that
the osprey is only the eagle at a different stage of its
growth. The two, however, are essentially different
in their size, their habits, and even of the divisions
of the hawk tribe to which they properly belong. The
male of the osprey is only about one foot nine inches
in length, and the female about two feet; and the
breadth of the male about five feet, and of the female
about five feet and a half. The male of the sea-eagle
is about four feet in length, and the female about two
feet ten inches ; and the breadth of the female is about
seven feet. The tarsi of the osprey are naked and
scaly; those of the sea-eagle are feathered at least
half way to the toes. The osprey has in former times
been trained to catch fish for its keeper, while the sea-
eagle, like the golden-eagle, will not fish but for itself
or its young.
The OSPREY (falco haliaetus) of Linnaeus, though in
his time the distinctions of eagles were very imper-
fectly understood, and which u&ed to be called the
bald buzzard, or the fishing hawk, is in fact not an
L 3
114 THE OSPREY.
eagle at all, though a very fierce and powerful bird.
It is common in England, and perhaps most so in the
warmest parts of the country, less frequent in the north,
and rather a rare bird in Scotland. On the other hand,
the fishing eagle is abundant in Scotland, much more
so, and more generally diffused, than the golden eagle.
It is most abundant in the north ; less so in the south ;
rather a rare bird in the north of England, and hardly
known in the south. This is one of the principal causes
of the confounding of the two : they who have de-
scribed from English specimens, have described the
bald buzzard ; and they who have done so from Scotch
ones, have described the sea-eagle. The other mistake
is precisely of the same kind with that which made the
old and the young of the golden eagle two different
species.
The beak of the osprey is of a bluish black, with
the cere at the base, gray, and toward the base is rather
straight, but not so much so as in the eagle, and the
point is remarkably hooked. The general colour of
the upper part is brown, with the feathers a little paler
at the margin. Those on the crown of the head are
edged with white, and the back of the head and nape
of the neck entirely white, on which account it got the
name of the bald buzzard, though no part of its head
be destitute of feathers. The lower part of the body
is spotted with brown in the young birds, but nearly
pure in the old. The whole plumage is close and
glossy, and resembles that of water- fowl, fully as much
as that of the eagle. The legs are short and very
strong ; the tafsi black, and defended by scales ; the
lower parts of the toes very much tuberculated, and
THE OSPREY. 115
the claws black and remarkably strong. The flight is
generally rather heavy ; but at times it can shoot along
with great majesty.
It forms its nest on the tops of tall trees or cliffs
near the water, but never on the ground, as is stated by
some naturalists. The eggs are four or five, of a pale
yellow spotted with brown.
The principal food is fish, in the catching of which
it shows very great intrepidity. When looking out for
prey, it hovers over the surface of the water, at a con-
siderable height, with its wings continually in motion ;
and when the prey appears, it darts down with so
much force, that it plunges fairly into the water to
the depth of a foot or two ; and then springs buoyant
to the surface, ascends the air, and soars off to a rest-
ing place in the woods or on the cliff, according to the
situation, dashing the spray from its feathers as it flies.
The fact of its being able to plunge into the water,
reascend and fly immediately, led some of the earlier
naturalists to conclude that one of its feet, at least,
must be webbed ; that, however, is not the case ; and
the only natural protection that it has from the effects
of the element in which it finds its food, consists in
the similarity of its feathers to those of the water-fowl.
Even the feathers upon its thighs are different from
those of the eagles and hawks ; they are short, close,
and compact, while those of the latter birds are long
and plumy. The osprey, though a powerful bird, is
not a handsome one. As both this and the sea-eagle
have got the name of the osprey, and some of the more
modern writers confine it to the one bird, and some to
the other, it is necessary to attend to the specific distinc-
116 THE SEA-EAGLE.
tions, which are, indeed, too marked for occasioning
any danger of confounding the one with the other.
The SEA-EAGLE (falco albicilla) is a powerful bird,
second only to the golden eagle, and probably exceed-
ing that in rapacity, as well as in the range of its food.
The dimensions of this eagle have already been men-
tioned. Though approaching in size to the golden
eagle, it is not nearly so compact or indicative of
strength, neither is it of the same rich colour. The
upper part is gray-brown with darker spots, the lower
part nearly cinerous, with blackish spots ; the tail in
the full grown bird is white, which has led some to
confound it with the young of the golden eagle ; and it
has a beard or tuft of feathers at the root of the under
mandible.
As fishing is their regular means of subsistence, they
are chiefly found near the sea, or the shores of great
lakes, where they build their nests in the most inacces-
sible precipices, and the female lays one egg, or at the
most two. The eggs are white, and about the size of
those of a goose. Like the other rapacious birds, they
can remain a long time without food. Selby mentions
one that had existed in a state of want for five weeks,
at the end of which time it had begun to gnaw the flesh
from its own wings.
Few exhibitions in nature are finer than the fishing
of this powerful bird. Not adapted for walking into
the shallow water for prey like the heron, the sea-eagle
courses over the surface. From her unapproachable
haunt in the trees or the crags — the latter is, when
she can obtain it, her most admired residence — she
THE SEA-EAGLE, 117
darts forth with the straightness and fleetness of an
arrow, and as she glides high in the air, scanning the
expanse of miles with her clear and unerring vision,
one or two motions of her wings are sufficient to ele-
vate her almost above the reach of human eyes, or
bring her down close to the surface of the water.
o
When her prey appears within her reach, she pauses
not an instant, but raising her broad wings upward
against the air, and thus taking advantage of the elas-
ticity of both, shoots down as if discharged from a bow
or an air-gun, makes the cliffs echo to her cherrup, and
dashes upon the water with the same thunder and
spray as if a lightning-rent fragment had been preci-
pitated from the height. For an instant the column
of spray conceals her, but she soon ascends bearing the
prey in her talons, and brief space elapses before she is
lost in the distance.
In lakes that abound with large fish, if there be lofty
trees or rocks near, the eagle is almost sure to be found,
more especially if the situation be wild and lonely.
Those inlets of the sea to which the name of "lochs" is
given, upon the north and west coasts of Scotland, are,
from their precipitous shores, their wild and solitary
character, and the abundance of fish that they contain,
favourite haunts of the eagle ; the same may be said
of those on the shores of Donegal, Mayo, and Galway,
and especially those in the southwest of Kerry, in Ire-
land ; also of the wild and cliffy positions of Orkney and
Shetland ; and to the very margin of the polar ice,
Indeed, it is found in all the northern parts of both
continents, and in Asia as far south as the Caspian
Sea.
118 THE SEA-EAGLE.
But though it be always found near the waters, it is
properly a land bird, and can neither rest nor feed
except upon the land ; consequently, it is never found
upon the ocean, or near low shores, though it is by no
means confined to lakes and inlets, but may be ob-
served at every headland which is lofty and lonely
enough for its residence. Many tales are told of
conflicts between these eagles and the larger inha-
bitants of the sea. The eagle can strike in the water,
and retain in its hooked talons, fishes that it cannot
lift into the air, though it can keep them at the surface.
The larger cod, which are very abundant on those parts
of the coast which the eagle haunts, and the larger
salmon, in the bays, or in those lakes which are near
the sea, are those of which the tales are usually told ;
but we have heard similar stories of the basking
shark.
If the fish be near the surface, — and cod, especially,
swim so near it, that from a promontory, a white " blink "
may be seen over the shoal, if numerous, — the eagle
dashes down, plunges its crooked talons into the prey,
and clutches them with such force, that it cannot dis-
entangle them, even though so disposed. The lacer-
ation, the pain, and the encumbrance, prevent the fish
from darting off with that activity which it could exert
if free ; and the exertions of the eagle, though not
adequate to lifting the fish into the air, are very capable
of keeping it at the surface, as the difference of specific
gravity between even the living fish and the water, is
but trifling. Thus a struggle ensues ; the fish en-
deavours to dive, and the eagle strives to pull it above
the water, so as to be able to strike it behind the head
THE SEA-EAGLE. 119
with its wing, or tear out it eyes, or open its skull with
its beak. If the fish be very large, and the claws of
the bird do not, in consequence, very much destroy its
muscular power, it is sure to succeed so far as to drown
the eagle ; after which, the talons relax, the dead body
floats off, and the fish recovers. But if the fish be
small, it is drowned in the struggle, by the water passing
the reverse way into its gills, or it is lifted so far out
of the water, as to enable the eagle to beat or tear it to
death. When that takes place, the fish has no ten-
dency to sink, and the eagle is said to float with it to
the shore, rowing in the air, or occasionally on the
surface of the water with Its wings.
Upon those lonely islets and rocks in the North Sea,
where the nests and young of sea-fowl almost cover
the surface in the breeding season, the sea-eagle finds
'abundant prey, and reigns king of the place, except
upon an occasional visit of the golden eagle, or in
those wild and lofty places which are selected by the
skua gull, for the scenes of its nidification. Though
no match for the eagle, single-handed, the Skuas, which
are bold and powerful birds, come to the charge in
numbers, and so buffet the eagle with their wings, that
she is glad to make her escape to the upper regions of
the air.
Though both active and successful as a fisher, the
sea-eagle has other means of subsistence. She does
not scruple to pick up dead fish along the beach, or to
attack seals, and land animals. Birds and small quad-
rupeds, arid even lambs, fawns, and grown-up deer,
fall a prey to the craving of her appetite ; and, as she
relishes carrion, on that account, most likely hunts by
120 THE SEA-EAGLE.
scent, as well as sight. On the coast of Sutherland,
where the rocks harbour a number of these eagles,
which prey upon the inhabitants of the sea and the
flocks of the people indiscriminately, the following is
mentioned, as a successful way of capturing the spoiler :
" A miniature house, or at least, the wall part of it, is
built upon the ground frequented by the eagle, and an
opening left at the foot of the wall, sufficient for the
egress of the bird. To the outside of this opening, a
bit of strong skeiny (packthread) is fixed, with a noose
on the one end, and the other end returning through
the noose. After this operation is finished, a piece of
carrion is thrown into the house, which the eagle finds
out and perches upon. It eats voraciously, and when
it is fully satiated, it never thinks of taking its flight
immediately upward, unless disturbed, provided it can
find an easier way out of the house ; for it appears,
that it is not easy for it to begin its flight, but in an
oblique direction; consequently, it walks deliberately
out at the opening left for it, and the skeiny being fitly
contrived and placed for the purpose, catches hold of
it, and fairly strangles it."
It would require many volumes to detail the habits of
all the feathered tribes that appear seasonally or con-
stantly in the neighbourhood of lakes ; and the circum-
stances of climate and situation, as well as those
instincts of the birds themselves which cannot be ex-
plained, farther increase the difficulty. The most
remarkable of those that wade in the shallows, and
skim the waters, for predatory purposes, have been
mentioned. The birds which are found in the rocks,
woods, and coppices, near lakes, will be more properly
THE WILD SWAN. 121
noticed in another place. The same may he said of
quadrupeds and insects. There are none of the former
peculiar to British lakes, and the latter are more
abundant over pools and rivulets, than on those ex-
panses of water, which are the fishing grounds of the
eagle and the osprey. Of the feathered tenants of the
water, — those which are web-footed for swimming, and
have their feathers so constantly oiled as never to
be wet, though immersed in water, the largest, and
probably the rarest, is
THE WILD SWAN.
THE WILD SWAN, or WHISTLING SWAN, (anas cygnus
of Linnaeus,) is but a bird of passage in the British isles,
though generally a few of them breed in the northern
counties of Scotland, and in the Orkney and Shetland
islands, where their places of retreat or breeding are
the secluded lakes. The wild swan is a majestic bird.
The full-grown male measures nearly four feet in
length, and about seven feet in the expanse of the
wings. The weight, about twenty-five pounds. The
dimensions of the female are rather less. The body of
the wild swan is white, like that of the tame swan ; but
the head and nape are yellowish, and the wings are tipt
with ashen gray. The appearance of the bird, the
different note which it utters, and the different forma-
tion of the wind-pipe, upon which that note seems to ,
depend, all point out this as a species entirely different
from the tame or mute swan. The note of the wild
swan is a deep and hoarse whistle, which, however, is
rather musical, though not sufficiently so to have gained
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122 THE WILD SWAN.
for it that vocal celebrity, with which it has been
invested by the ancients. It is somewhat singular, that
this music of the swan, which was celebrated by all the
ancients who mentioned the bird, with the exception
of Lucian, should be still admired in Iceland, where
vast flocks of wild swans repair annually to breed. The
Icelanders compare the music of the swan to that of
the violin, though the swan has but one note,
Wild swans are, strictly speaking, natives of the cold
regions ; and do not migrate so far south even as the
warmer shores of England or France, except in very
severe winters. In the north of Scotland they are
much more common, and some remain for all the year,
except when the lakes and waters, in which they find
their food, are frozen over. The food of the swan is
aquatic plants with their seeds and roots, and insects
that float upon the surface of the water, or are found
at the bottom where that is shallow. It does not ap-
pear that they prey on fish, excepting perhaps the fry
when very young ; and to other birds and quadrupeds
they are perfectly innocuous, except when themselves
or their young are assailed. On these occasions, espe-
cially the latter, they are both bold and formidable ;
and not only able to beat off other assailants, but to
render the approach of man dangerous. The power of
whistling in the wild swan is supposed to depend on the
singular flexures of the trachea, or wind-pipe. That
organ enters a cavity of the breast-bone, from which it
is reflected backwards before its termination in the
lungs. It is probable that this peculiarity aids in the
respiration of the bird, as well as in the production of
sound, — the length and flexibility of the neck being
THE WILD SWAN. 123
apt to occasion partial interruptions of that essential
operation, which the air contained in the cavity of the
bone may enable the bird to bear.
The quiet regions of the north are the favourite
abodes of the "swans ; and they are said to protract
their residence there as long as they can ; and, when the
lakes begin to freeze, to assemble in flocks and break
the ice with their wings, or prevent it from forming by
flapping and dashing in the water. Their chosen
abodes are to the north of Iceland, for, though far
more of them breed there than in the northern parts of
Scotland, the Icelanders regard them as birds of pas-
sage. Iceland, indeed, seems a place of rendezvous in
which numerous flocks, each containing a hundred or
more, assemble in their passage northward, in the spring,
and again in their passage southward, in the autumn.
Their flight is elevated, and the line or wedge in which
they are arranged, is so close and serried that the bill of
the one is nearly in contact with the tail of that before.
Though birds of powerful wing, their progress depends
a good deal upon the wind. When they go before a
brisk gale, they fly at the rate of one hundred miles an
hour ; but, when the wind is against them, their flight
is comparatively slow ; and a side wind, which blows
them from their course, is understood to hinder them
more than one which is right a-head. When on the
wing, swans are very difficult to shoot, — as, on account
of the height at which they fly, and the rapidity of their
motion, the aim, even at the time of pulling the trigger,
must be taken ten or twelve feet before the bird,
otherwise it will have passed before the shot reaches
its height. In fact, they are shot with difficulty at any
M 2
124 MIGRATION OF BIRDS.
time, because the great thickness of the feathers and
down both deaden the force of the shot, and make it
slide off.
The nest of the female is formed of reeds, without
leaves and rushes ; she lays from four to seven eggs,
which are of a rusty colour, with some white blotches
about the middle ; and she sits for about six weeks, so
that the young are not in a condition to quit the places
where they are hatched during the first season. They
begin to moult, or cast their feathers, in August, during
which operation they are unable to fly, and thus readily
become the prey of the people of the north, who hunt
them with dogs, or knock them on the head with clubs.
The young swans are not unpleasant food ; but the
people of the countries where they breed do not hesitate
to kill and eat the old ones, the flesh of which is very
hard, tough, and black. The feathers and down of the
swan are articles of commercial value ; and the north-
ern people dress the skins, with the feathers and down
upon them, for winter garments. In the north of Scot-
land both the birds and eggs are sometimes wantonly
destroyed.
The migration of birds is a singular provision of
nature, and though the rapidity of their motion makes
their passage across the widest seas a matter easily ac-
complished, yet the instinct which leads them to change
their latitude with the seasons is worthy of notice ; — the
more so, that it is also one of the resources of man in a
state of nature. The same necessity, that of finding
food, seems to actuate both. The Siberian hordes follow
the course of vegetation, moving to the south as the
winter cold nips the vegetation of the north ; and to the
MIGRATION OF ANIMALS. 125
north, as the summer heat parches it in the south.
The Esquimaux, on the other hand, move to the south
in summer, and support themselves by hunting ; while
they return northward to the sea in winter, to feed
upon seals and other breathing natives of the deep,
which must keep open holes in the ice to preserve their
existence. In like manner, the migratory flights of
birds appear to be chiefly influenced by the necessity
of seeking food, though partly also by the finding of
proper places for rearing their young.
From the nature of their powers of motion, the sea-
sonal migrations of quadrupeds are necessarily limited.
If they be inhabitants of islands, they cannot pass over
the sea ; and upon continents, large rivers, mountains,
or desarts, limit their range. In Britain, the stag and
the roe, which are found only in the uplands in the
warm season, find their way to the warm and sheltered
plains in the winter; and on more extensive lands
some of the quadrupeds take longer journeys ; but
they are all comparatively limited, and extensive mi-
grations are performed only by those animals that can
make their pathways in the sea or the air. The seal,
which during summer is found in such numbers on
the dreary shores of Greenland, Jan Mayen, and Spitz-
bergen, finds its way to Iceland in the winter; but
its migration is limited; and numbers still remain in
the most northern regions that have been visited.
The inhabitants of the water have, indeed, less neces-
sity for seasonal changes of abode than those of the
land ; as the water undergoes less change of tempera-
ture, and as some of those sea animals which, like the
seal, require to come frequently to the surface to
M3
126 MIGRATION OF ANIMALS.
breathe, do not require to remain long above water, or
have much of their bodies exposed to the air. The
grand inconvenience which they seek to avoid, appears
to be the labour of keeping open those breathing holes,
without which they could not live under the ice. Or
if there is any other instinct, it may be the desire of
escaping their enemies, as the bears and the northern
people watch them at their holes, and make them a
sure and easy prey. Those who have not thought
rightly upon the subject, are apt to say that they could
not know of those dangers, and therefore could not
seek to avoid them without experience. But that is
part of the general error into which we are so apt to
fall when we begin the study of nature. We make
ourselves the standard of comparison, and think of the
animals not only as if they had to deal with men, but
as if they actually were men themselves. Whereas,
in their natural state they need no teaching, and the
danger, or the means of life, and the instinct by which
the one is avoided and the other secured, are co-
existent. We are in the habit of attributing superior
sagacity to animals in certain stages of their being ;
as we give the "old fox" credit for greater cunning.
That may be, indeed must be true, as regards the arts
of man, because the means to which he resorts for the
capture or destruction of animals are not natural, and
thus it would be a violation of the law of nature to
suppose that they should be met by a natural instinct.
In situations which nature produces, the children of
nature are never at a loss ; but as the contrivances of
man are no part of her plans, it would be contrary to
the general law to suppose that they should be in-
MIGRATION OF ANIMALS. 127
stinctively provided against these. That they do learn
a little wisdom from experience, is a proof that they
are not mere machines ; that they are something more
than mechanical; that life in the humblest thing that
lives, is different in kind from the action of mere
matter; and that there runs through the whole of
organized being, a philosophy which man, when he
thinks of it, must admire, but which he cannot fathom.
The animal, or even the plant, is not like an engine,
confined to certain movements which it cannot vary,
but has a certain range of volition (if we may give it
the name) by means of which it can deviate a little
from that which would otherwise be its path, if that
path contain ought that is dangerous or inconvenient.
Thus, if we would come to the living productions of
nature with minds fit for learning those lessons which
they are so well calculated for imparting, we must
equally avoid two extremes, the one of which would
lead us to confound organic being with the mere in-
organic clods of the valley, and the other would lead
us to confound their instantaneous impulses with de-
liberation, and measure instinct by the standard of
reason.
The migrations of birds are more remarkable, and
have been more early and more carefully observed;
and that birds should have a greater range, is in perfect
accordance with the general law of nature. The ap-
paratus with which the majority of birds are furnished
for preparing their food for digestion in the stomach,
confines that food within a smaller compass than the
food of the quadrupeds. With the exception of the
birds of prey, which can rend other animals for their
128 MIGRATION OF BHIDS.
subsistence, and are thus capable of living at all seasons
of the year, the birds must subsist upon soft substances,
as insects and their larvae, or the seeds, and green and
succulent leaves of plants ; while quadrupeds, being
furnished with organs of mastication which, along with
the saliva, reduce their food to a sort of pulp before
it be swallowed, can subsist upon dry leaves and
bark, and even upon twigs. Thus, in even the coldest
countries, there is still some food for a portion of those
quadrupeds that live upon vegetables ; and these again
afford subsistence for the carnivorous ones, as well as
for the more powerful birds of prey. In very cold
places too, the smaller quadrupeds, and even some of
the larger ones, are so constituted that they hybernate,
or pass the winter in a state of torpidity, in which they
have no necessity for food, and consequently none for
change of place.
But in the severity of the northern winter, the food
of the feathered tribes fails. The earth and the waters
are bound up in ice, so that the worms and larvae are
beyond their reach ; the air, which in summer is so
peopled with insects, is left without a living thing;
the buds of the lowly evergreen shrubs, and those
seeds which have fallen to the ground, are hid under
that cold but fertilizing mantle of snow, which, cold as
it seems, secures the vegetation of the coming summer ;
the berries and capsules that rise above the snow are
soon exhausted ; and the buds of the alpine trees are
generally so enveloped in resin and other indigestible
matters, that they cannot be eaten. Thus the birds
must roam in quest of food : nor is it a hardship, — it is
a wise provision. Were they to remain, and had they
MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 129
access to the embryos of life in their then state, one
season would go far to make the country a desart;
and even the birds would be deprived of their summer
subsistence for themselves and their young. They are
also provided with means by which they can transport
themselves, in average states of the weather, without
much inconvenience; and thus, while in migration they
seek their own immediate comfort, they preserve other
races of being. In some of the species, too, they
preserve a portion of their own race. It has been
mentioned that the young of the swan are unable to
migrate the first year ; and of most migratory birds,
there are always a few that are unable for the fatigue
of migration. If the strong did not go away, the whole
of the weak, and in cases like that of the swan, the
whole of the young, would perish. After the moulting
takes place, in most birds, perhaps in all of them in a
state of nature, the paternal instinct ceases to operate ;
they feel no more for the brood of that year. It is
each for itself individually during the necessity of the
winter ; and when the genial warmth of the spring
again awakens the more kindly feelings, the objects of
those feelings are a new brood. In her march, nature
never looks back ; her instinct is fixed on the present,
and thus leads to the future, without any reference
to that experience which the progress of reason and
thought requires. In consequence of this, the strong
would take the food from the weak, the active from
the feeble, and the full-grown from their offspring, if
nature were not true to her purpose, and prompted
the powerful to wing their way to regions in which
food is more easily to be found, and leave the young
130 MIGRATION OF BIRDS.
and the feeble to pick up the fragments that are left, in
those places which they are unable to quit.
It has been said that the teachableness which is the
characteristic of man, has nothing to do with the
instincts of the animals ; but it does not follow that he
should not take a lesson from those instincts ; because
the instincts of animals and the reason of man are all
intended to forward the very same objects — the good
of the individual and of the race. Now, in this very
fact of the migration of birds, simple and natural as
it may seem, and unheeded as it is by careless observers,
we have an example worth copying, even in the most
refined and best governed society. The strong and
the active go upon far journeys, and subsist in distant
lands, and leave what food there is for their more
helpless brethren. Would men do the same — would
they temper the work to the capacity of the worker,
in the way that it is done by the instincts of those
migratory birds — the world would be spared a deal of
misery. It is thus that, in the careful study of nature,
man stands reproved at the example of the lower
creatures, and learns, by doing by reason as they do
by instinct, to be grateful to that Power, " who teacheth
us more than the beasts of the field, and maketh us
wiser than the fowls of heaven."
The migrating birds that spend part of the year in
the British islands, may be divided into two classes, —
summer birds and winter birds; but of both classes
some are only occasional visitants, and others are mere
birds of passage, tarrying only for a short time, as they
are on their route to other countries.
The two general classes observe the same law in
MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 131
both of their migratory instincts — the finding of food,
and of fit places for the rearing of their young. The
general motion for these two purposes is in opposite
directions — they move toward warmer regions in search
of food, and toward colder ones in order to build their
nests. The winter birds come to us for food, and the
summer ones for nidification. The winter ones never
are those that feed upon land insects, and but seldom
those that feed upon seeds ; because when they come,
there are few of these. They are chiefly water-birds,
in some sense or other. They frequent the shores of
the seas, the inland lakes, or the margins of springs,
rivulets, and rivers, and they swim or wade, or merely
run along the bank, according to their nature ; and
resort to those haunts where their food is to be found
with the most unerring certainty. They are all com-
mon inhabitants of regions farther to the north,
have reared their broods there, and remained till the
supply of food began to fail. The extent of their
flight southward depends upon the severity of the
winter; they come earlier, and extend farther, when
that is severe ; and their departure is accelerated by a
warm spring, and retarded by a cold one. Though the
diffusion of the same species of birds be much more
extended than that of the same species of quadrupeds,
there is still a variation according to the longitude.
The birds of passage which appear in Britain are not
exactly the same as those either of continental Europe
or of America ; and that accounts for the appearance
of the occasional visiters. A strong wind from the
east during the time of their flight often wafts a conti-
nental bjrd to our shores ; and a strong wind from the
132 MIGRATION OF BIRDS.
west occasionally brings us an American visiter. The
flight of birds is therefore a sort of augury, though a
very different sort from that believed in by the super-
stitions of antiquity. It has no connexion with the
offices or fortunes of men, but it tells what kind of
season prevails in those climes whence the visiters come.
The early appearance of the winter birds is a sure sign
of an early winter in the northern countries ; and the
early appearance of the summer ones is just as sure a
sign of an early and genial spring in the south.
The migration of our winter visitants is a very simple
matter ; we can easily understand why birds, when their
supply of food begins to fail, should fly off in a warm
direction ; but the return — the general migration north-
ward for the purpose of rearing their young, is, at first
consideration, a more difficult matter. Yet when we
think a little, the difficulty ceases, and the one move-
ment becomes no more a miracle or a marvel than the
other. Very many of the summer birds feed upon
insects ; and summer insects are more abundant in the
northern regions than in the south. This happens
particularly with the water-flies, of which there are
supposed to be several generations in the course of a
long summer's day ; and the short night at that season
occasions little interruption to their production. The
same causes which produce the greater supply of insect
food, increase the daily period during which the bird
can hunt, and this gives it a farther facility of finding
food, over what it would have in the comparatively
short days farther to the south. But the breeding
time is that at which the birds are called upon for
extraordinary labour. During the period that the nest
MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 133
is building, there is a new occupation altogether ; and
the nests even of very small birds are constructed with
so much care, that that and the finding of subsistence
demand more than the average power of industry.
When the female begins to sit on the eggs, the feeding
of her partially depends upon the male ; and when the
young are hatched, their support, till they are in a
condition for supporting themselves, requires a consi-
derable portion of the time and industry of both parents.
When the young are fledged, the parent birds still
require long days : the operation of moulting, by which
their tattered plumage is replaced by a new supply,
exhausts them : thus they have long days, and also
food in abundance, when they are least able to make
exertions in search of it ; and by the time that the
decreasing supply warns them that it is time to seek
more southern climes, they are in prime feather and
vigorous health, and able to sustain the fatigues of the
voyage. The return, too, is, generally speaking, after
the autumnal equinox, so that in their migration south-
ward they have the same advantage of a longer day
than in places northward. Thus, even in this com-
mon-place matter, — a matter which is so common-place
that few take the trouble of heeding it, and almost
none inquire farther than saying that it is the instinct
of the birds, — we may trace as perfect a succession of
antecedent and consequent, or as we say, of cause and
effect, as in any other part of the works or economy
of creation. We ought, indeed, to guard very care-
fully against stopping at the word instinct, or indeed
at any other word which is so very general that we
cannot attach a clear and definite meaning to it. Those
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134 MIGRATION OF ANIMALS.
general words are the stumbling-blocks and barriers in
the way to knowledge ; and when we turn to them who
take upon themselves the important business of instruc-
tion, and ask them for an explanation, they but too
frequently give us a word, and when we get one, in our
own language or in any other, to which we can attach
no meaning, the path to knowledge is closed. Perhaps
there are few words by which it is more frequently
closed than this same word, " instinct ; " because we
are apt to rest satisfied with it as an ultimate or insu-
lated fact, and never inquire into that chain of pheno-
mena of which it forms a part. Now nothing in nature
stands alone : — Creation needs no new fiat ; but the
succession of events throughout all her works depends
on laws which are unerring, because they are not
imposed by any thing from without, but are the very
nature and constitution of the beings that appear to
obey them. It is this which makes nature so won-
derful, which so stamps upon it the impress of an
almighty Creator :— its parts and phenomena are mil-
lions ; the primary power that puts all in motion, is
but One.
These reflections have been a little extended, because
they are often in danger of being overlooked ; and
because the tranquil shore of an expansive lake is one
of the best scenes for contemplation, — one at which the
several elements and their inhabitants are more easily
brought together than at almost any other. But it is
not the broad expanse of water, with its mountains and
its majestic scenery, that is alone worthy of our con-
templation. The mountain tarn, which gleams out in
the bosom of some brown hill or beetling rock, like
THE COOT. 135
a gem in the desart, when one does not expect it ; —
the sheet of glittering water amid encircling forests ;
and the shelving pool amid undulated green hills, with
its margins alternating of white marie, clean pebbles,
and sedgy banks, have all their beauty and their re-
spective inhabitants. It is true that the osprey and
the fishing-eagle do not there display their feats of
strength, and the wild swan does not bring forth her
young, or even often visit ; but our old friend the heron
is there, and she finds new associates writh whom she
can dwell in peace. One of the common summer in-
habitants of those more lowly and retired and warm
situations, is
THE COOT.
THE common coo/, or black coot, sometimes called, on
account of the pale colour of its forehead, the bald
coot, (fulica atra, Linnseus,) is a bird about the size of
a domestic fowl. The length is about eighteen inches,
the expansion of the wings about twenty-eight, and the
weight, from a pound and a half to two pounds. The
bill of the coot is straight, and of a conical shape ; it,
and the fore-part of the head are usually flesh-coloured,
but in the breeding season the latter is spotted with
red. This pointed beak is less in the female than in
the male. The body is blackish, with a little white on
the outer edges of the wings. The legs are greenish,
and the bands or bracelets greenish yellow ; the toes
are long, and armed with crooked claws of considerable
length. The three front toes are pinnated, or have
three lobed fin-like membranes upon each side, but
they are not united by a membrane, and the hind toes
N 2
136
THE COOT.
are bare. Though the pinnated feet of the coot adapt
it for swimming, and the water be its principal element,
it walks with some vigour, but with the waddling mo-
tion that is so general among the web-footed animals,
and it is said even to be adroit in climbing trees.
The coot is common in all the northern parts of the
world, and is by no means a rare bird in Britain. It
is a permanent resident within the island, but it changes
its residence with the seasons. In winter, coots are
found about the larger lakes, and sometimes in bogs,
and the estuaries of rivers ; but none in the open sea,
and not in salt water until the fresh-water lakes be
frozen over. They are commonly found in flocks.
Being rather timid birds, they are not much seen dur-
ing the day, and are very inert or lazy ; so much so,
that they can hardly be driven from their concealment
in the reeds and rushes, by water spaniels, but will
attempt to dive in the water, or bury themselves in the
mud. When compelled to take wing, they do it with
much apparent difficulty, and even pain. They come
abroad in the evening, and feed upon fishes, insects,
seeds, and herbage ; and pick up grain with more
rapidity than common poultry.
When the breeding time approaches, which is early
in the spring, the coots separate into pairs, and betake
themselves to the margins of smaller pieces of water,
where they find rushes, reeds, or sedges to conceal their
nests, The rush, however, is their favourite, and they
choose a place surrounded with water, generally on the
margin of a clear pool or small lake. The nest is
generally begun at or near the surface of the water.
The quantity of materials is large. They are flags.
THE COOT. 137
rushes, and other dry herbage, matted together with
grass, fastened to the bush of rushes with the same,
and lined with soft, dry grass. There is a provision
of nature in the construction of the coot's nest. She
builds at so early a period of the season, that she is
in danger of being inundated by the spring rains.
Against casualties from these, she guards both by the
quantity and the buoyancy of her materials. The
height of her nest allows a considerable rise in the
surface of the surrounding water, and when that in-
creases too much, the nest is so buoyant that it can
float off, bearing her and her eggs in safety, to another
portion of the water. This elevation of the nest is apt
to expose both the coot and her eggs to the buzzard,
and other predatory birds, and for this purpose she
carefully seeks the concealment of the tallest flags and
rushes. The coots are prolific birds; the female lays
from twelve to twenty eggs, and she generally has two
broods in the year. The eggs are about the size of
those of the common hen, and of a dull white colour,
with dark spots running into blotches at the thick end.
In some places those eggs are in considerable request.
In flavour they are certainly inferior to those of the
hen, but they are more handsome in appearance. The
female sits about three weeks ; and the instant the
young quit the shell, they swim and dive and play in
the water with the greatest ease and activity.
Many other water-fowl are found seasonally on the
margins of lakes ; but they, and indeed those that have
been mentioned, are not so strictly speaking inhabi-
tants of lakes, as they are of ppols, fens, marshes, and
the banks of rivers, or upon the shores of the sea.
N 3
138 THE CASE CHAR.
Deep and clear water is not adapted to the habits of an
animal that must float on the surface, and yet find its
food, or a part of its food, at the bottom. Shallow
waters, where there are the roots of plants, are not only
the places where the food of water fowl is found in the
greatest abundance, but they are the only places where
it is accessible. The features of the great lakes are
characterised by grandeur, and as the birds that fre-
quent them have this character, their numbers are
comparatively few.
Very deep lakes appear to be as little adapted for
fish, especially for the catching of them : the plenty and
the sport being in waters that are more shallow, or
in the streams and rivers. Many of the British lakes
are, however, interesting on account of the fish they
contain, and several have species that are peculiar.
Of the indigenous British fishes that are found only
in lakes, and are peculiar to certain lakes, and not found
in others, the most remarkable are,
1.— THE CASE CHAR.
THE CASE CHAR, (salmo alpinus,) of which the
habits are not very well known, is found, chiefly, if not
exclusively, in Winander-Mere, in Westmoreland. It
is nearly in the form of a trout. The back is black,
which passes gradually into blue on the sides, which
again passes into yellow on the belly, upon which there
are a few pale red spots. Though the case char has
been found in Winander-Mere, it is not a permanent in-
habitant of that lake, but appears to enter it from the
sea, for the purpose of spawning, which operation it
THE GUINIAD. 139
performs about the end of September. When it first
appears, it is in considerable esteem, but probably more
on account of its rarity than of any thing else. It is
commonly about a foot long.
2.— THE TORGOCH; OR, RED BELLY.
THIS fish, to which the Highlanders of Scotland
give the name of tarrag-gcheal, is much more, strictly
speaking, a lake and an alpine fish, than the for-
mer, being found in the mountain lakes of Wales
and Scotland, in situations from which it is not very
likely to migrate to the sea. It is a most beautiful
fish, being of a shining bluish purple on the back,
which passes into silvery yellow and scarlet, marked
with spots of deeper red on the under part. Its flesh
is of a red colour : but there is not much known of its
habits, only it is understood to remain permanently in
the lakes, and to spawn about the beginning of the
year. It is in best season in autumn. In size and
form, it does not differ much from the case char.
3.— THE GUINIAD.
THIS fish (coregonus lavaretus,) has some resem-
blance in its form to the trout, and was classed by
Linnaeus in the genus salmo. It is about the size of
the former j but has the mouth very like that of a
herring, and the covers of the gills of a silvery hue
and lustre, but sprinkled with small black spots. The
first dorsal or back fin is of a deep blue colour. This
fish is found in the larger lakes, in most parts of the
140 THE GUINIAD.
United Kingdom, where the situation is not very high
and the cold not very intense. It is found in shoals,
and is supposed to deposit its spawn about Christ-
mas.
Trout are found in most lakes, and in many of them
eels and pike ; perch and other fish are also met with ;
but some of these are (by common tradition) said not to
be natives of the United Kingdom; and, at any rate,
lakes are not the best places in which either to catch
fishes or to study their natural history. Some of the
most interesting fresh-water ones may be mentioned to
more advantage in the next chapter.
141
CHAPTER IV.
THE RIVER.
THERE is no object in nature, of which the associa-
tions are more delightful, than a river. The mountain
and the lake have their sublimity ; and in the economy
of nature they have their uses, — the mountain is the
father of streams, and the lake is the regulator of their
discharge. The lofty summit attracts and breaks the
clouds, which would otherwise not be carried so far
inland, or would pass over without falling to fertilize
the earth. These are collected in snow, and laid up in
a store against the bleak drought of the spring ; and
as the water, into which the melting snow is gradually
converted during the thaw, penetrates deep into the
fissures of the rock, or into the porous strata of loose
materials, the fountains continue to pour out their
cooling stores during the summer. The lake, as has
been mentioned, prevents the waste of water which
would otherwise take place in mountain rivers, as well
as the ravage and ruin by which that waste would be
attended.
These have their beauty and their value ; but they
can, in neither respect, be compared to the river.
They are fixed in their places, but that is continually
in motion, — the emblem of life ; — the source of fertility,
142 THE RIVER.
the active servant of man ; and one of the greatest
means of intercourse, and, consequently, of civilization.
The spots where man first put forth his powers as a
rational being, were on the banks of rivers ; and, if no
Euphrates had rolled its waters to the Indian Ocean,
and no Nile its flood to the Mediterranean, the learning
of the Chaldeans and the wisdom of the Egyptians
would never have shone forth ; and the western world,
which is indebted to them for the rudiments of science
and the spirit that leads to the cultivation of science,
might have still been in a state of ignorance and bar-
barity no way superior to that of the nations of Aus-
tralia, where the want of rivers separates the people
into little hordes, and prevents that general intercourse
which is essential to even a very moderate degree of
civilization.
The river is a minister of health and purity. It
carries off the superabundant moisture, which, if stag-
nating on the surface of the ground, would be injurious
both to plants and animals. It carries off to the sea,
those saline products, which result from animal and
vegetable decomposition, and which soon convert into
desarts those places where there are no streams.
When the alkalis and alkaline earths, that enter into
the composition of organized bodies, are once united
with the more powerful acids, they cease to be ca-
pable of again forming part of the living structure.
Lime, which, chiefly combined with phosphoric acid,
enters largely into the composition of bones, com-
bines more intimately with sulphuric acid, and is then
unavailing for animal purposes. It is the same with
those alkalis which enter into the composition of plants
THE RIVER. 143
and animals. Potass and soda are the alkalis usually
found in vegetables ; and the acids, with which they
are found in combination, are, principally, the carbonic
and acetic ; though, in saline plants growing near the
sea, there is usually a small portion of muriate of soda,
or common salt. Now these combinations are easily
dissolved by sulphuric or nitric acids, and the com-
pounds which these form with the alkalis cannot be
again dissolved by the weaker acid ; so that if potass
of soda be once united to either of those acids, it
ceases to be fit for entering into the vegetable structure.
The alkali which is found most abundant in animal
structures, is soda, and the acids with which it is found
combined are principally the muriatic and phosphoric,
or some having a weaker attraction for it than the
muriatic. Ammonia is obtained abundantly in the de-
composition of animal matter ; but there is much reason
to believe that it is formed during the process. Now,
whenever any of those salts are changed to the nitrate
or the sulphate, or when any of their alkaline bases
are combined with nitric or sulphuric acid, — combina-
tions that are sure to take place in every instance
when the salt or the base comes in contact with either
of these acids, — a substance is formed which cannot, by
any natural process of which we have any knowledge,
be again separated so that the alkali may again enter
into the composition of an organic structure. Thus, if
these substances were allowed to remain, they would
gradually accumulate, and the termination both of
animal and of vegetable life would be the consequence.
Of this we have many proofs : in those warm regions
which, through the want of irrigation by water, have
J 11 THE RIVER.
become desarts, there is always a crust of some of those
salts upon the surface ; and the beds of dried-up lakes
in warm climates contain quantities of the same, while
all their vicinity is sterile. On the surface of the neg-
lected lands, the coat is comparatively thin, but in the
basins that once were lakes (as in some of those in
Mexico,) it is several inches, or even feet, in thickness.
The greater thickness in the beds of the lakes, shows
that there must have been an accumulation there
while the bed was filled with water ; and hence it is
evident that the purification of the soil from saline
compounds, deleterious to vegetable and animal life, is
one of the most important functions of rivers ; and if
not so immediately necessary to the existing races of
beings, at least essential to their permanent continuation.
Rivers also tend to purify the air, as well as to drain
the earth of deleterious matter. The current of water
that descends from the high ground, causes a gradual
motion in the air, by which that over different kinds
of surfaces is interchanged. This is all that is meant
by purifying the air. When it remains long over any
particular kind of surface, it ceases to take up the
effluvia, which, by stagnating, would be converted into
a poison. It is by changes of this kind, that winds,
hurricanes, and thunder-storms are said to clear the
air ; and what they do with violence, is silently done
by the ever-flowing current of a living stream.
Nor, important though they be, are these all. Dead
animal and vegetable matters accumulate in water, and
then undergo decomposition, in the course of which
they give out gases which are pernicious. Disease is
always found about stagnant waters ; and " the reek o'
THE RIVER. 145
the rotten fens," is one of the most disagreeable things
that can well be imagined. But the river carries off all
these, and runs pure and limpid; and thus its motion
is an instrument as well as an emblem of life. Nor are
the advantages confined to the river, while it is a
rapid stream winding its way among hills and uplands ;
they continue through all its course ; and, in the puri-
fication of the air especially, have their full effect when
it has sunk down nearly to a level estuary, enjoys the
benefit of a tide from the sea, and is useful for the
purposes of navigation.
Take, as an instance, the British metropolis — waiving
the benefit that its commerce derives from the river,
and the utter impossibility of carrying on that com-
merce without it. Suppose, for a moment, that nearly
a million and a half of human beings, with all their
domestic animals, and their fires and furnaces, and other
means of contaminating the air, were huddled together
on a plain, elevated only a few feet above the level of
the sea, and surrounded by marshes, which London
once partially was, and always would have been, had it
not been for the drainage of the Thames, and the gra^
dual elevation of the banks of that river, by the debris
that it is constantly bringing down. It would have
been a region of death, instead of the healthy place
which, in spite of all its magnitude, it is. The tide in
the Thames not only produces a constant current, and
therefore change of air, in the direction of the river ;
but the sea and the land air that it ultimately brings,
occasion, by their difference of temperature, a play
of cross wind to and from the hills on the north
and south ; and thus the river puts in motion currents,
o
146 THE RIVER.
by means of which the whole city and suburbs are
ventilated.
Thus we see that, setting aside all its natural beauty,
all the direct fertility that it produces, all the living
creatures that without it could not exist, all the uses to
which it is applied in the arts, and all the facilities which
it gives to intercourse and trade, — that, setting all these
aside, and looking upon a river as merely a physical
part of the creation, it is one of the most important
that can engage our attention. But when, to the ab-
stract consideration of the river itself, we unite that of
those adjuncts, they pour in and swell the utility, just
as the tributary streams roll in and augment the parent
tide. Occupying the most sheltered part of the dis-
trict, and the part toward which the rains and torrents
wash all the more fertile mould of the uplands, the
river possesses on its banks the most rich and abundant
food for vegetation ; and, by doing so, it affords both
the best shelter and the most plentiful subsistence for
animals. Hence quadrupeds, birds, and insects, flock
to it, to drink its waters, to browse the herbage upon
its banks, to walk in its groves, to sport over its surface,
or to commit their young to its tide. Nor is it the
favourite only of the tenants of the earth and the air ;
for there is a charm about the aquatic tenants of a
river, that is not found in those either of sea or of lake.
They seem to partake of the wholesome freshness of
the living water, and to show the effects in the beauty
of their colours, the briskness of their motions, and
probably in the delicacy of their flesh as food. Those
who carry sentiment into nature, condemn angling as a
cruel sport, though anglers, from the time of Izaac
THE 111 V Ell. 147
Walton, and probably from long before that, have been
proverbially a kind-hearted and poetic class of men, —
models of mildness, as compared with any other sports-
men. A man who is amid the beauties of nature in
calm and silent contemplation, or intent only upon the
capture of a trout, is in a situation the very best calcu-
lated for forgetting animosity, and cherishing kindness
and good- will for all mankind ; and any means by which
that frame of mind can be ensured, are cheaply purchased
at the expense of any quantity of mere spoken senti-
ment,— more especially of that very questionable kind,
which is just as forward to batten upon the fish, as to
condemn the angler.
In Sir Humphry Davy's " Salmonia," there is a pas-
sage, descriptive of river scenery, which is so true to
nature, and, at the same time, so poetical and beautiful
that we cannot refrain from quoting it : — " As to its
(angling's) practical relations, it carries us into the most
wild and beautiful scenery of nature ; amongst the
mountain-lakes, and the clear and lovely streams, that
gush from the higher ranges of elevated hills, or make
their way through the cavities of calcareous strata." (We
should not, for our fishing, give a preference to streams
that run through calcareous strata ; but n'importe.)
" How delightful, in the early spring, after the dull and
tedious winter, when the frosts disappear, and the sun-
shine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by
some clear stream, — to see the leaf bursting from the
purple bud, — to scent the odours of the bank, perfumed
by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, with the prim-
rose and the daisy ; — to wander upon the fresh turf,
below the shade of trees ; — and, on the surface of the
o 2
148 THE RIVER.
waters, to view the gaudy flies sparkling, like animated
gems, in the sunbeams, while the bright, beautiful trout
is watching them from below ; — to hear the twittering
of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, hide
themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-
lilies ; — and, as the season advances, to find all these
objects changed for others of the same kind, but better
and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend, as it
were, for the gaudy May-fly ; and till, in pursuing your
amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are
serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush, and the
melodious nightingale, performing the offices of pater-
nal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and
woodbine."
There is, indeed, a calmness and repose about an-
gling which belongs to no other sport,— hardly to any
other exercise. To be alone and silentf amid the
beauties of nature when she is just shaking off the
last emblems of the winter's destruction, and springing
into life, fresh, green, and blooming, — that, that is the
charm. The osier bed, as the supple twigs register
every fit of the breeze, display the down on the under
side of their leaves, and play like a sea of molten silver,
for the production of which no slave every toiled in
the mine ; and at that little nook where the stream,
after working itself into a ripple through the thick
matting of conferva and water-lilies, glides silently
under the hollow bank, and lies dark, deep, and still
as a mirror, is made exquisitely touching by the
pendent boughs of the weeping willow that stands
"mournfully ever*' over the stilly stream. In such a
place, who could refrain from moralizing? From the
THE RIVER. 149
days of Pliny, and probably from days long before
Pliny was born, it has been customary to look upon a
river as the emblem of human life. It brawls its
sparkling and playful childhood among the mountains,
" leaps down into life " by the last cascade. Then it
mingles among busy scenes : — laves alike the castle
and the cottage, grinds at the mill, and glitters round
the churchyard ; broadening, and slackening its pace
while it runs ; and at last mingles in the mass of de-
parted rivers in the boundless expanse of the ocean.
The simile is not a bad one; and as a well chosen
simile is to him who wishes for thought without pe-
dantry and formality, what a well-dressed fly is to an
angler, it will bear to be pursued a little farther ; and
this is the more pardonable, that the termination — which
at the ocean is tinged with gloom and despair, may be
brightened into hope and exultation.
The river is not, in its physical structure, in the
water of which it is composed, the same for one day, or
even for one hour ; but still, there is an identity which
is never lost, amid all those changes. Just so with
man : in his structure, in his pursuits, in his feelings
and associations, he changes every hour ; but still he
is the same individual, — the chain of identity is never
broken. Whence does the river receive that constant
supply, which enables it to run perennial to the sea, in
omne volubilis cevum, — ever draining, yet never dry, —
ever wasting, yet never the nearer done ? There is a
spirit in the air, — an invisible agent, which sustains the
fountains of life ; and by the action of which, the river
is enabled to flow, and man to contemplate its beauties,
and meditate upon its wonders. It has been mentioned
o 3
150 THE RIVER.
that the river, in its course, washes away those sub-
stances, which would be hurtful to plants and animals,
and carries them to the great laver of the ocean, where
the materials of new lands are mixed and prepared.
Over the surface of that ocean the atmosphere spreads
its wings, — a spirit brooding over the abyss ; and it,
by an imperceptible and inscrutable chemistry, sepa-
rates the water pure and limpid, sending it back to the
mountains to feed the springs; and thus the river,
which otherwise would run completely dry in a very
short time, is kept in perpetual flow. It is thus hidden
for a time in the ocean, but it is not lost; it enters
there, foul with the course which it has run upon earth,
and it ascends again, purified by the breath of heaven.
Just so with man : the faculties of the body are laid
and lost in the dust ; but the Spirit from on high calls
him up again, pure and immortal, equally safe from
the contamination of the world, and the corruption of
the tomb*
Even that little nook is an emblem of life ; so true is
it that nature is beset with tongues, if we would but
cease our own idle noise and listen to them. There
are the activity, the flowers, and the weeds of life in
that little rapid and struggle ; there is the calmness
of the grave in that smooth, dark, and stilly pool ;
and the weeping willow is both a monument and a
mourner. — The wind is on the pool, however ; it has
shaken the May-flies from the pendent boughs of the
willow ; the little things are struggling upon the
waters ; and mark those boiling circles ! the trout
hastens to the feast. One plunge after another, and
every plunge is the death-note of a fly. Well may
THE RIVER. 151
the willow weep; for its shade, calm and beautiful
though it be, is a very Golgoltha, where thousands are
immolated every hour, and thousands more perish in
the stream.
They who pule about the trout, have no compassion
for the fly, to which life is as sweet as to any other
living creature. They cry out at the putting of a
hook in its jaws, but they mention not the millions
of which the same jaws have been the grave ; they
complain that a net is spread for the fish, but they
never will reflect that the same fish converts the whole
stream into a net for the capture of his prey* If there
be cruelty in the one case, there must be cruelty
also in the other ; but the fact is, there is cruelty in
neither. The trout feeds upon the flies ; man feeds
upon the trout ; the purposes of life are served ; and
nature tempers the supply to the waste.
One word more about the cruelty of angling* As
man is superior to all other earthly creatures-, the
purposes of man are those that ought first to be con-
sidered ; and there are two points to guide the con-
sideration,— moral justice to ourselves, that we do not
waste our time, or injure our sense of right and wrong
by our purpose ; and moral equity, that we invade
not the privileges of other men. Now in any of these
acts that we call cruelty to the animals, we are wrong
when the purpose in view does not call for the act,
or when there are other means of accomplishing that
purpose, — as when a brutal person attempts to beat
into action an animal that stands more in need of food
or rest. When we do the act even with a purpose,
there is apt to be a taint, a lessening of the delicacy
152 THE RIVER.
of feeling toward our fellows, in proportion as the
animal to which the act is done approximates to man
in structure or association. That which shrieks and
throbs with pain, from which the blood flows warm,
and the breath escapes in sighs and convulsions, —
the killing of a hare or a rabbit, or even a pig, is much
more likely to contaminate, than the death of a trout,
which has little or nothing in common with us. A cat
is a predatory animal, and yet a man of any pretensions
to right feelings would rather pull a few thousand
fishes from the stream, than kill the mouser which sat
basking in the lone old woman's cottage window, and
had for ten long years been the only associate of its
mistress. This maudlin tenderness, which is often the
cloak of cruelty of a far worse description, is another
of the fruits of that bastard tree of knowledge, which
produces words, not things ; and the very summit of
which is so dwarfed and lowly, that it can command
but a little shred of the prospect. Before we decide,
we should see the whole ; for if we do not understand
that, we shall never be able to comprehend the purpose
and working of any of the parts. But we had almost
forgotten
THE WATER-FLIES.
THE habits of the water-flies show that nature has
intended them as food for the fishes. Very many of
them pass through the first stages of their being in
water ; and when they become perfect flies, the surface
and vicinity of that element are still their haunts.
They are in general short-lived; and the instinct of
PHRYGANE^E. 153
continuing their races brings them to the water that
they may there deposit their eggs, and that when the
ends of their being are accomplished, their bodies may
not be lost, but serve as food for those inhabitants of
the water, which in their turn serve as food for each
other, for fishing birds and quadrupeds, and for man.
Water-flies are of many genera and species ; and
many flies which do not naturally breed in water, and
also beetles, are blown upon the water by accident,
and supply food for fish.
The water-flies, properly so called, that are most
abundant on trouting streams and other waters that are
shaded and sheltered by trees, may be reduced to three
leading genera : —
Phryganece, or water-moths ;
Ephemerae, or day-flies ; and
Tipulce, or crane-flies, — though the latter are rather
meadow-flies than water ones, as most of the
species deposit their eggs in the earth, in fun-
gous plants and other substances on land, and
not in the water.
The PHRYGANE^B include all the species of water-
flies that have very long antennce, or feelers, besides
four wings, which, when they are at rest, they fold
over their bodies in the same manner as moths. Their
wings, however, want that exquisite powdery plumage
which characterises the wings of the moths, properly
so called. They belong to the Linnaean order of Neu-
roptera, or nerve-winged insects, the wings consisting
of a fine membrane spread upon a nervous tissue
resembling that in the leaves of plants. These flies
154 PIIRYGANL.E.
are vulgarly called green flies and yellow flies, from
the colours of their bodies, and also willow flies, alder
flies, or other names, according to the trees that may
be most prevalent on the banks of the rivers, as they
usually deposit their young on the leaves of trees.
The eggs are attached to those parts of the tree that
hang over the stream, the mother glueing them on
with a viscid juice that nature has supplied her with
for the purpose. The eggs remain there till they are
hatched, and produce larvce, which are long, with the
body divided into rings, and having six feet. When
those larv<z fall into the water they would instantly be
devoured by water beetles, by fish, and by the larvce of
other insects, such as those of the dragon-fly and the
dytiscus beetle, were it not that they instantly build a
house or case for themselves. These houses are formed
of various substances, as grains of sand, small shells,
bits of vegetable matter, cemented together by a glue
which the larva produces. One species makes choice
of lemna or duck-meat, the little green plant which
covers the surface of ponds and other stagnated waters
in the summer. The leaves of the duck-meat are
naturally round, and therefore not very well adapted
for being united into a solid fabric without a great waste
of materials , but the larva cuts them into perfect
squares, and puts them together so neatly, that its
house seems to be covered with a delicately chequered
green riband wrapped spirally round it. This case
connects them entirely, but they can at pleasure pro-
trude the head for the purpose of feeding, which they
do indiscriminately upon vegetable and animal food.
These larvae are well known to anglers, who give them
PHRYGANE^E. 155
the name of callis, and consider them as an excellent bait.
When the larva is about to change its state, it rises with
its case to the surface, fastens that to some water-plant
by silken threads ; and after remaining for two or three
weeks in the state of a chrysalis, comes forth from its
case a perfect fly. The Phryganese are usually the
first flies upon the water, and on that account they get
their common name of spring flies. In the early part
of the season they appear only during the warm time
of the day, and in those gleams of clear sunshine which
brighten the variable weather of March and April ;
but as the season becomes warmer, they make their
appearance only in the morning and evening ; and at
the very hottest period of the season only during the
night. Thus their habits, as well as the structure of
their wings, have some resemblance to those of the
moths. Fish are exceedingly fond of those insects ; and
therefore when they are upon the waters, imitations of
them are the surest fishing-flies.
150
EPHEMERA.
THE EPHEMER/E, or day-flies, which name they get
rather on account of the period to which their longest
life is supposed to be limited, than to the time of their
appearance, come later upon the water than the Phry-
ganese. These, like the former, have four neuropterous
wings, but the hinder pair are so small, that they seem
only to have two. Their antennae are short, compared
with those of the spring flies ; and they carry their
wings erect. Some of them have three, and others two
long filaments in the tail.
The economy of these little creatures is very curious.
The females of most, if not of all the species, deposit
their eggs upon the surface of the water, when they
sink to the bottom, and the maternal duties and cares
are at an end. The egg thus deposited is soon hatched
EPHEMERA. 157
in the water, and the little animal enters upon the
longest of its states of existence. They are furnished
with six feet and six fins, so that they can either burrow
in the mud or swim in the water. The former is a
favourite practice with many of them : they are said to
live upon the soft mud ; and they certainly do make
holes into it for some little distance, when they turn
and burrow their way back to the water by another
route. They live in this manner for two or three years,
or possibly for a longer period, without quitting the
water, or coming to its surface ; and the larva and
chrysalis are not easily distinguished from each other.
They are supposed to remain in the latter state for some
time, until the temperature of the air suits their final
transformation. When in the water, they cast their
coats several times, and empty coats may be found
floating on the surface ; but these may in many cases
have had their substance sucked out by the larvae of
other insects.
There seems indeed to be more labour in the bring-
ing forward of this little creature of a few hours'
existence, than in that of an elephant. The three or
four years' preparation in the water, and the change at
the surface, from the cased nymph to the winged insect,
are not all. Even when winged, it is but for flight to
the nearest bank, where it again casts its covering,
wings and all, and comes out the final fly in which the
wonderful life soon closes. The males appear to do
little else than shake their wings, and then drop down
and die ; but the females are more active, though they
too hurry their task of depositing their eggs, lest death
should overtake them ere it be accomplished.
158 EPHEMERAE.
The numbers in which these creatures escape from
the water, are truly astonishing. Under favourable
circumstances, they literally fill the air in a few minutes,
and their cast skins are like a scum upon the water.
Those which appear in the heat of summer are sup-
posed to be the longest lived ; for in spring and autumn,
when the nights are cold, there is usually a new and a
different race every day ; and sometimes two or more
between sunrise and sunset. The females of most of
the species light upon the surface of the water, and
deposit the whole of their eggs ; but there are others,
such as that called the grey drake, that gambol over
the surface, and only occasionally touch the water.
Skilful anglers often take advantage of this, by having
an imitation of the green May-fly which they allow to
float, and a grey drake farther up the line, which by a
nice management of the rod they contrive to make
touch the surface only occasionally. Those which sit
upon the water, deposit their eggs all at once, in two
packets or bags, each containing from three to four
hundred. So immediate a change of bulk might derange
the action of the little animal, but it is prepared with
two air-cells of considerable magnitude, which it in-
stantly inflates, and thus is enabled to rise if it shall
escape the watchful eyes of the fish ; and as there are
thousands for every fish, abundant store of eggs is at
all times deposited. We are apt to wonder at this
apparent waste of labour upon creatures so small, so
short-lived, and so destined for destruction ; but nature
knows no labour ; the laws of her productions are
simple, certain, and unerring, and no effort is needed
but the primary one of creation.
TIPUL^E. 159
The TIPUL^E are different in their appearance from
any of their genera. Gaffer Longlegs, who so often
buzzes round the candle, and pays for his temerity
with limb and life, is one of the giants of the race.
They are dipterous or two-winged insects, and their legs
are generally long in proportion to their bodies. The
small insects that are seen so constantly over moist
places in warm weather, are tipulae. They frisk, gam-
bol, and buzz like the gnat, (culex pipiens,) but they do
not sting like that insect, neither is their noise trouble-
some during the night. Many of the species deposit
their eggs in the earth ; but there are also others that
do so in the water, the larvae of which burrow in the
banks.
Those three genera of little creatures, in their suc-
cessive generations, probably exceed in number every
other description of visible animals ; and as one passes
from them to those that are still more minute, and
cannot be discovered without the aid of magnifying
glasses, one cannot help being astonished at the abun-
dance and variety of life of which the world is full ;
nor is the demonstration of an Almighty Creator the
less clear and forcible when we attempt to trace the
infinitely small of his works, than when we think of
millions of systems of worlds, and turn our contempla-
tion to that universe, " whose centre is everywhere,
and its boundary nowhere ;" wherever our course of
inquiry lies, there is always a point at which we must
drop that inquiry as beyond our powers, and turn in
adoration of Him who is infinitely mightier and more
wonderful than it all.
Of the inhabitants of the water, by which the summer
p 2
160 THE TROUT.
triflers on the surface are consumed, the most interest-
ing to man are
THE GENUS SALMO.
THAT prince of fishes, the salmon, (salmo salar,} from
which the genus is named, is an estuary fish rather
than a river one ; and though angled for in some rivers
at a great distance from the sea, it is never there
in its primest perfection It ascends the rivers for a
particular purpose, and when it has reached the grounds
that are adapted for that, it should be left undisturbed,
as the capture is then wanton, a race being destroyed ;
and yet the parent, in whose capture they are lost, is
not in a condition for being wholesome food. The
proper fish for the river angler's sport is
THE TROUT.
THERE are a good many ascertained varieties of trout,
and there are probably more supposed ones, arising
from differences of the water in which they live, or the
substances on which they feed. The proper fresh-
water trout (salmo fario) is found, in large lakes, of a
very great size, weighing as much as sixty or seventy
pounds. It is somewhat like the salmon in the sea,
however, not often or easily caught ; but when it begins
to ascend the rivers, which it does for the purpose of
spawning, at an earlier or later period of the summer,
according to the situation, it may be taken. Whether
the fishes themselves be large or small, the eggs in the
roe of the trout are said to be all of the same size,
THE TROUT. 161
only the very large ones contain ten or even a hundred
times as many as the small.
The time when the trout spawn is generally about
the month of November. The eggs, or roe, are first
deposited, and then the milt over them, and they are
wholly or partially covered with sand or gravel. The
bottom of clear running water is the best adapted for
the purpose ; and that is the kind of ground which the
trout instinctively choose for their operations. Four or
five weeks are supposed to be sufficient for the hatch-
ing of the eggs, but that depends a good deal upon the
situation and the weather; the eggs in a shallow moun-
tain stream which is apt to freeze, being supposed to
remain unhatched till the ice be cleared away in the
spring. When the young fish first make their appear-
ance, they are riot wholly detached from the egg, but
have a portion of the yolk attached to the lower part
of their bodies, which is understood to constitute their
first nutriment. It does not appear that the eggs can
be hatched in water that is distilled, or in any other
manner deprived of air, or in that which is impregnated
with lime, or any other ingredient that is deleterious
to the fish in a grown state. Some have even said
that they have seen the young trout still attached to
the remains of the eggs upon a shallow sand bank,
poking their little heads above the water ; but though
we have looked for this, we have not found it, neither
have we found the fry of the trout adhering to the
place where the spawn had been deposited. We have
seen it in the case of those of the salmon, and thus
can have no doubt that it also happens with trout.
About a week or ten days after the first bursting of
p 3
162 THE TROUT*
the egg, the fry are entirely clear of it, and begin to
seek their food with avidity, preying upon very minute
insects and larvae, though there are some larvae which
are said to prey in turn upon them, while they are also
the prey of all larger fishes, even of those of their own
species.
The trout, when in a healthy state, is always marked
with fine crimson spots, but the general colour varies
with the quality of the water in which it is found. If
that be good and clear, the trout is of a fine pale
brown on the back, passing into yellowish and silver
grey on the belly ; but when the water is blackened
with moss or otherwise habitually foul, the colour is
more dark and dusky. The colour of the flesh is
always white, and the scales never have any of that
pearly lustre which characterizes the sea-trout and
salmon. The river-trout is not understood to migrate
to the sea ; or if it does, its habits become changed,
and the stages of the change have not been observed.
There is a good deal of confusion about the history
and habits of fish, especially of some of those that are
found only at particular places, such as periodically in
the estuaries of rivers, and, indeed, with trout them-
selves,— the produce of different rivers, even those that
are at no very great distance from each other, being
dissimilar in their appearance, though not so much so
in their habits. It is generally supposed that the larvae
and insects, and earth worms in a recent state, which
form the principal food of trout in clear and rapid
streams, are the causes of the greater brightness and
beauty of their colours, as well as of their superior
sweetness. It is said also that the Gillaroo trouts at
THE TROUT. 163
Galway in Ireland, are not a peculiar species, but that
they are the common trout changed by habit, the thick
and almost cartilaginous stomach, somewhat like the
gizzard of a fowl, being produced by the shell-fish
upon which they feed ; and that the sea-water, with
the saline substances on which they feed, redden the
flesh and give the pearly lustre to the scales of the
sea-trout. The salmon is adduced as a collateral proof,
and certainly the flesh of the salmon is a much finer
red, and the scales have much more lustre, when it first
leaves the sea-shore, than when it has been long in the
fresh water, and especially after it has spawned. But
the condition of the flesh at those two times depends
upon other causes than the difference between fresh
and salt water ; and if salt water had a tendency to
redden the flesh of any kind of fish, one would be apt
to think that it would have the same with all fish ; yet
of those taken in the sea the majority are white.
The trout is a very voracious fish ; and as, like those
of very many fishes, the teeth are not adapted for mas-
tication or chewing, the prey is taken into the stomach
entire ; and there, in ordinary cases, probably reduced
to a chyme, or substance fit for nutriment, by solution.
In some cases, however, such as that of the Gillaroo-
trout, where the animal has to subsist on crustaceous
food, which it has no means of taking out of the shells,
or otherwise managing, but by swallowing them whole,
the stomach acquires great thickness, and probably the
food is ground and reduced by muscular action. That
part of the subject is, however, involved in consider-
able obscurity ; and indeed a great part of the economy
of fishes demands more careful attention than has
hitherto been bestowed upon it.
164 THE TROUT.
Besides larvae, insects, worms, fresh-water mollusca,
and smaller fishes, trouts feed on frogs, water lizards,
and sometimes, it is said, on toads, though from the
acrid secretion that exudes from the skins of the latter,
which they seem to be preparing when they swell
themselves up, and which is probably their only means
of defence, they cannot be either palatable or whole-
some. It seems doubtful whether trout, or any of the
other fishes that swallow their food without mastica-
tion, have much, if any, sense of taste. On their
tongues, or the internal surface of their mouths, there
is nothing analogous to the papillce on the tongues of
the mammalia ; and it may therefore be concluded
that they have no means of discriminating the qualities
of the substances on which they feed. Some writers have
even gone so far as to conclude that, as the fishes have
no means of judging of the substances that enter their
stomachs, they cannot be poisoned in that way. Per-
haps that may be going a little too far ; but certainly
they admit of a wonderful latitude of aliment, and are
certainly much less affected by any change of it than
quadrupeds or birds. The organs of respiration seem
to be the only delicate or sensitive part of fishes ; as it
is always in the gills that they are immediately affected
by impure waters.
Though there has been a good deal of investigation
of the subject, and organs of hearing, of some sort or
other, have been found in most species of fishes, yet
they are simple and obscure, as compared with those of
land animals; and hence we may conclude that their
sense of hearing is proportionably feeble. That they
are affected by loud sounds has been proved by ex-
THE TROUT. 165
periment ; as there are authenticated cases of trout and
carp coming for their food upon the ringing of a bell.
It is not understood that there is much sense of touch
in the mouth of fishes, and that the fixing a hook there
does not affect them much, unless it interpose with, and
prevent, the action of those muscles, upon which the
motion of the gills and the operation of respiration
depend. But that they are not destitute of sensibility
on the general surface of their bodies, is proved by the
well known operation of tickling a trout ; in the course
of which, the fish, instead of making the least effort to
escape, will press itself against the hand, as if to invite
a continuation of the enjoyment.
When out of the water, trout appear to feel a great
deal of pain ; and as that is an unnecessary continu-
ation of suffering, anglers generally dispatch them the
instant that they are off the hook. Eager fishers, when
they have a prospect of success, sometimes neglect
that, and we once witnessed rather a ludicrous retri-
bution. A gentleman, who is now a professor in one
of the universities, was a great enthusiast both in
literature and angling ; and as he lived in a fine retired
part of the country, well adapted for both, he generally
pursued them together by the bank of the river.
When it was unfavourable for the rod, he took up the
pen ; and when the shadow or the breeze came, the
rod was resumed. One day he had succeeded in
landing a fine trout, which he put into his basket alive,
and as the time was favourable, he began to fish with
double ardour : but his hook got entangled in the
bank, which was rather steep, covered with long grass
and bushes, and contained the holes of water-rats,
1GG THE OTTER.
shrews, and, as was understood, otters. As he lay
along the bank, and stretched down to disentangle the
hook, the trout, in the basket on his back, gave a
flutter, and the belt of the basket came in contact with
his neck. The idea that lutra had him by the throat,
in vengeance for the inroad both upon his mansion and
preserve, darted across the angler's mind ; to escape
from the foe, he tried to start up ; but position had
given his heels the buoyancy, and he pitched somerset-
wise into the water.
THE OTTER.
THE COMMON OTTER (lutra vulgaris, muslela lutra,
Linnaeus) is the most formidable of British aquatic
quadrupeds. It is found near both lakes and rivers,
but it prefers the latter, as they are better fishing
grounds.
The body of the otter is of a blackish brown colour,
with three white spots ; one under the chin, and one on
each side of the nose. It is a long animal, the body
measuring about two feet, and the tail sixteen inches.
THE OTTER* 167
Though the otter swims and dives with wonderful
facility, it cannot be considered as an amphibious
animal, or an animal that can remain very long under
water. When by accident it is entangled there, which
it sometimes is, by getting into nets, and attempting to
plunder them of fish, but not able to get out again, it
is soon drowned. It is indeed provided with a diving
apparatus, which shows that the water must be care-
fully excluded from its lungs ; the nostrils are fur-
nished with membranes, which close them like valves,
whenever the muzzle gets under water. The ears and
eyes of the otter are also very small ; but the latter,
which are clear and bright, and adapted for enabling it
to see under the water, are so placed, that its vision
takes in a very wide range. The feet of the otter are
short, but they are armed with very strong claws or
nails, which are grooved on their under sides, as is
usual with animals that burrow in the earth.
Otters are rather solitary animals ; at least, not more
than one pair are usually found in the same immediate
neighbourhood, and their haunts are in concealed
banks. As is the case with the golden eagle and some
other birds of prey, the young are driven from the
paternal dwelling by the old ones, as soon as they are
able to procure their own food.
The nest or burrow is sometimes a crevice that is
found ready made, but as often an artificial one, the
entrance of which is under the water, or at least so close
to it, that no land animal can enter. The female goes
with young about nine weeks, and brings forth four or five
at a litter. The time of their usual appearance is in
March or April, later in the colder parts of the country
168 THE OTTER.
than in the warm. When taken young, the otter may
be tamed with very little attention, and in that state it
is very playful, and shows a good deal of affection for
those who feed it. It may be trained to catch fish for
its master. The cubs may be suckled along with
puppies, or fed upon milk and bread, as if they get
animal food, especially fish, at too early a period, they
are not so apt to obey, but will attempt to make their
escape when allowed to take the water. When once
its attachment has been won, it is, however, very steady ;
as is the case with all animals which, in their natural
state, find their food chiefly in the water.
When in a state of nature, the otter is exceedingly
ferocious, or rather it maintains its ground with great
resolution* Its bite is very hard ; and when seized by
dogs, it catches them by the fore leg, a part in which
they are very tender, and will retain its hold till the
bone snaps. Vulgarly, it is said to do the same with
men ; and stories are told of the hunters stuffing their
boots with cinders, in order that the animal, which is
then allowed to fasten upon the boot, may mistake the
cracking of the cinders for that of the bone ; but
though we have seen an otter send dogs off howling,
we never saw one offer to attack a human being, but
rather show every wish to be suffered to carry on its
fishing with peace and quietness.
When food is plentiful, the otter is delicate in its
eating. The time when the salmon are ascending the
rivers to spawn, is the feasting time of the otter ; and
then it is so dainty, that it eats only the choice portion
near the head ; and the country people, in some places,
watch, and carry off the rest of the fish. It is sometimes
THE OTTER. 169
taken in a naked trap, set in the pathway between its
hole and the water, but seldom in a baited one, as it
is not fond of any prey but that which it catches for
itself. Instances are mentioned, in which it has been
said to be taken by seizing the minnows with which
people have been fishing, but the accounts are not very
well authenticated.
The fishings of the otter are not confined to, though
they be chiefly carried on in, fresh waters. In the
Shetland Islands, it frequents the shores of the sea,
and fishes along with the seals.
When the otter is " frozen out," by the snow storms, it
is forced to enter upon a new course of life. It will then
travel to a considerable distance, attack lambs, poultry,
and sucking pigs ; and is very destructive to rabbits, as it
follows them through all the windings of their burrows.
These are the times at which it is most successfully
hunted, and the time too at which the skin, which is a
very excellent fur, is the most valuable. When the
water is not frozen, the otter is difficult to capture,
unless it can be shot, as it takes to the water, and only
occasionally " vents," as the hunters call it— that is,
raises its nose to the surface to breathe. The old
hunters, who set more value upon the difficulty of the
capture, than on the prey itself, attack the otter in
posse comitatus, beat the banks with dogs, hedge in a
space with nets, and assail the otter with clubs and
spears, when he comes up to breathe. In catholic
times, the otter was eaten, and was ranked among fish,
of which it has the smell and taste, certainly ; and
therefore it was a feast in Lenten days. Now it is
caught only for the skin, which is valuable at all times,
Q
170 THE WATER-SHREW.
except in the very heat of summer, when the fur is dry
and loose. The hair, which is delicately sleek and
glossy, is used, either along with the skir as a fur, or
felted as a finishing pile to fine hats. Almost the only
other British quadruped that is found near, and in
fresh waters, is,
THE WATER-SHREW, OR WATER-RAT.
THE WATER-SHREW (sorcx fodiens) is a small quad-
ruped, compared with the otter. It is a handsome
little creature, at least, in as far as hue and gloss of
covering go. On the back, it is of a fine raven black,
and the under part is white, but with a black line along
the middle. The ears are wide, and lined with a tuft
of pale-coloured fur, apparently to defend them from
the action of the water. The eyes are small, and have
the same sort of protection. The hair upon the tail of
the water-shrew is very short, and the tip is almost
wh'ite. Its body is about three inches long, and the
tail two, its weight is less than half an ounce.
When alive, the fur of this animal is remarkable for
its power in resisting water, and as it plunges into the
streams, the drops recoil from its dark coat like pearls.
For so little a creature, it swims and dives very fast,
and shows great agility in catching the fry of small
fishes, young frogs, and insects ; but it also feeds upon
roots, and probably upon grass, as the approach to its
hole is kept very neatly shorn. It burrows very fast
in the soft banks of rivers and ponds, and as it carries
its galleries a long way, it is injurious to the banks of
the latter. In Holland, where a great portion of the
THE WATER-HYDRA. 171
surface is below the level of the tide and the sea fenced
off by dykes, the water-shrew is hunted as one of the
most dangerous enemies of the country. In Britain it is
not much heeded, though dogs search for it, and some-
times make their appearance with it hanging to their
noses. The female shrew is said to produce nine young
in a litter, and to have several litters in the course of
the year.
There is one very singular aquatic animal on which
the shrew feeds — an animal at the very lowest extremity
of animated life — an animal without organs of loco-
motion, and, indeed, hardly organized, and yet it preys
upon animal food. That is the fresh-water polypus,
(hydra viridis). It is found sticking to plants, in slow
running shallow streams of fresh water, and it is by no
means uncommon. It consists of a single sack or
tube, about an inch in length, and open at both ends.
Its substance is of a jelly-looking matter, mixed
with small glandular bodies. It is furnished with
filaments, or tentaculce, by means of which, it lays
hold of small molluscte, the remains of which are,
after digestion of the soluble parts, discharged by the
mouth. Simple as it seems, however, it can make a
sort of progressive motion, in which it fastens its head
and tail like a leech. It can even rise to the surface,
where, opening the tail like a funnel, it holds itself
suspended, its body with the air in the funnel being
lighter than the bulk in water. It is chiefly when in
this state of exhibition that it is hunted and captured
by the shrew.
The means of reproduction in this apparently very
simple animal are very singular. Little buds appear
172 PRODUCTION OF FISH.
on the sides of the parent hydra, gradually expand and
acquire tentaculae, and when these are of sufficient size
for catching food, the young animals loosen from the
sides of their parent, drop off, and become independent.
Nor is the reproduction confined to the formation of
new animals by buds ; for sluggish as life seems to be
in this Zoophyte, it seems not to depend on even the
simple organization of the whole animal, but to be in-
stinctive and perfect in every part of it : if the water
hydra be cut in two or more pieces, these pieces do
not die, but gradually reproduce the other parts and
become perfect animals. Thus, even in that which a
careless observer would not believe to be a living
animal at all, but merely part of the remains of a dead
one, there is not only one life, but absolutely a number
of lives, — all so perfect and vigorous as to be capable
of fabricating new organs for their use, and preserving its
existence. Here we have a remarkable instance of that
ingenuity which is displayed in all the works of nature ;
which is even the most remarkable where we would
least expect it ; and which should teach us, that every
thing around us is fraught with information.
As the greater number of fishes deposit their spawn
in shallow water, where it may be acted upon by the
air — an action which appears to be absolutely necessary
for the hatching of the young, the estuaries of rivers
are the resorts of many finny visitants ; and, at times,
they literally swarm with the fry, or young. These are
sometimes beaten back by storms when they are in the
act of entering the sea, and cast upon the shore in my-
riads. We have seen a bank of young herrings nearly
a foot high, and extending for miles along the shore,
MIGRATION OF FISHES. 173
after a sudden and violent storm, cast on the eastern
coast of Scotland. That might naturally be expected :
the soft structure of a young fish cannot be supposed
capable of resisting the tumbling and lashing of that
broken water, which can tear asunder beams of oak
and bolts of iron. When the fish is in the deep, it
is safe from those casualties ; but even whales, that
sometimes leave their distant haunts, and visit the
British seas, are unable to contend with the surge, and
thus they are wrecked, cast on shore, and left by the
tide. We are not aware of any instance where that has
taken place, except upon low and shelving beaches, or
where the fish has got entangled among rocks and been
left dry or aground at low water. Thus we find that,
though the provisions of nature are abundant, they are
never superfluous : the animal that can live and move
in the water, which is a homogeneous element, is unable
to sustain the conflict of air, sea, and earth in a storm.
The migration of fishes is even a more curious matter
than that of birds, especially in those that alternately
visit salt and fresh water. The water is their atmo-
sphere— the element from which they elaborate the air
necessary for their life and growth ; and any change of
air, even nearly as great as the change from salt water
to fresh, would be fatal to any land animal with which
we are acquainted. Change of temperature in the ele-
ment which they breathe, is that which land animals
can endure best, while fishes are adapted to bear a
change in the composition. The former are protected
against variations of temperature, by the heat of their
bodies being, in general, greater than that of the air ;
for, when the air is warm, they suffer and pant, pro-
Q 3
174 STRUCTURE OF FISH.
bably, because they have no excess of heat to enable
them to decompose the air, and mix the oxygen with
the blood and the superfluous carbon.
Fishes do not bear their change so easily. A salmon,
when caught in the open sea, dies if put into fresh
water ; and if one that has been for some months in
fresh water, be put into salt, it also dies. It is the
same with almost every fish. Hence the breathing ap-
paratus of a fish must undergo a change, every time
that it passes from the sea to fresh water, or from
fresh water to the sea. These changes are not imme-
diate ; and therefore the fish linger awhile in the estu-
aries, upon every journey, in order that, by the brackish
water, and by that alternate play of fresh and salt water
which is occasioned by the tides, they may prepare
themselves gradually for their new element.
Though, generally speaking, the sea pasture tends
more to promote the growth, vigour, and fatness of the
fish, than the river pasture; yet it also demands the
stronger organization ; and thus, those fish that enter
the rivers for the purpose of spawning, are all of deli-
cate descriptions, and the young often linger so long
about particular parts of the estuaries, that they are not
unfrequently mistaken for distinct species. Still, all
this is in strict accordance with principle ; and affords
(as, in fact, every thing upon which we can reflect
affords) a proof that, though the works of creation be
many, the plan and the purpose are one. There is not
one power to adapt the fish to the water, and another
to adapt the water to the fish : the adaptation is reci-
procal, clearly proving that the power is one. The
whole is one complete machine, and no part can be
STRUCTURE OF FISH. 175
wanted or subsist alone. If the accomplishment of
any purpose demands a change of power, or even of
structure, there is ample provision for the effecting of
that. When young frogs, and naked larvae of insects,
continue habitually in the water, they have the fins and
the habits offish ; but, when they change their abodes,
they change also their forms and habits.
The organs of respiration in fishes are very curious,
— more so, perhaps, than those of land animals, because
they have a double function to perform, — first, to sepa-
rate the air from the water, — and then, to decompose
it. The system of circulation in fishes is, however, less
complicated than that of the warm-blooded land animals.
In these, the heart is double ; and every time that it is
compressed, that which has been aerated in the lungs,
is poured, by the aorta and its ramifications, over the
whole system ; while that which has passed through the
system, and in its course supplied new materials, and
washed away such as were unfit for life, is sent by the
pulmonary artery to the lungs, in order that it may be
there washed, renovated, and made fit for the purposes
of life, by contact with the air. It may be that this
double circulation is necessary for keeping up the heat
of the animal ; and this is rendered as probable as any
thing of a similar kind can be, by the fact of its being
peculiar to the warm-blooded animals, and by their
being always the animals which are most exposed to
the atmosphere, and liable to be affected by its changes
of temperature.
In fishes, the heart is single, and the whole of the
blood which returns from the circulation by the veins
is sent directly to the organs of respiration. For this
176 STRUCTURE OF FISH.
purpose, the heart of a fish is situated very near the
gills ; and sends off from its ventricle one artery, which
is ultimately ramified over the whole fibrous mass of
the gills in a very minute manner, and forming a tissue
which is very tender and sensible, and bleeds profusely
when lacerated. The surface which the gills present
to the water is very great ; for Dr. Monro, whose re-
searches threw much light upon this curious branch of
Natural History, calculates that those of a large skate
at 2250 inches, about equal to the whole surface of a
man's body.
In the cartilaginous bodies, which have their skele-
tons comparatively soft and pliable, and are therefore
without distinct joints, the gills are fixed ; while in
bony fishes they are free ; each gill, or mass of fringe,
being attached to a separate curved and moveable bone.
The gills are, with at least few if any exceptions, open
to receive the water from the mouth only. The fila-
ments float backwards from the bones, and the action
is produced from the motion of the gills themselves —
and the gill-covers and the gill-flaps in which these termi-
nate in some species. If the water enters the gills from
behind, the filaments appear to get entangled, the cir-
culation of the blood is stopped, and the fish is stran-
gled, or as it is usually called, drowned. The very
same takes place when, by wounding the muscles that
move the breathing apparatus, the motion of the gills is
prevented, and also, when the application of any caustic
substance, such as quick-lime, destroys the surface.
The breathing apparatus of fishes is thus liable to be
deranged both by mechanical and by chemical injuries.
It is impossible to contrast this complicated respi-
THE SALMON. 177
ratory apparatus in fishes, with the simplicity of their
general structure, without admiration. Their organs
of motion are as simple as the fluid in which they
swim, considered merely in a mechanical point of view ;
but when they have to perform their double purpose of
decomposing water and air, nature heaps resource upon
resource, till observation is bewildered and confounded
at the multiplicity of parts and the nicety of their
action ; while acuteness of feeling, which would be super-
fluous in the organs of motion, or in those of the mouth
and palate, is bestowed largely upon the gills to defend
them from injury. When a fish is allowed to expire,
the last convulsive motion is in the gills and gill-covers.
In fishes that inhabit the sea, there is a triple func-
tion for the gills, as the salts which the water holds in
solution have to be separated. They have also, in
many cases, to be separated from the food : and pro-
bably it is this separation which calls for a more
powerful organization in sea fishes than in those that
live only in fresh water. Among the older marvels
with which triflers in the study of nature amused them-
selves, one was, "why the salt sea produces fresh fish!"
but that is nowise more wonderful than that the sea
should produce fish at all.
THE SALMON.
OF all the migratory fish that frequent the British
rivers, the salmon is by far the most valuable, both as
an object of study, and an article of food. Its form is
fine, its motions graceful, and when in the very prime
of its condition, it is certainly the most delicious food
178 THE SALMON.
that the water supplies, and it has the advantage over
other delicious kinds, of being very abundant. So long
as the inhabitants of the north have their salmon, they
need not envy those of the south their turtle.
Salmon being fond of a low temperature, are con-
fined to the northern hemisphere, and even in that
they are not found only from about the parallel of
the south of England northwards, from which, toward
the arctic circle, they are found in the greatest num-
bers. They seek the alpine streams, but they prefer
those that are not frozen over ; and they are said
instinctively to return to those in which they were
produced. This cannot of course be absolutely au-
thenticated, as their march in the deep cannot be
followed ; yet there are characteristic differences in
those of different rivers, sufficient to enable the fisher-
man to know them ; but whether these characters be
derived from the place of their nativity, or stamped
upon them annually after they leave the sea, and enter
the estuary, is not absolutely determined. There are
some facts, however, which would lead one to con-
clude that their local characters are not annual. After
they have once entered an estuary, there is no reason
for supposing that they descend again, till they have
deposited their spawn ; and thus it is by no means
probable that the same individual would be found in
two estuaries during the same season ; and yet if the
characters were seasonal, this would be required, be-
fore a Tweed salmon could be found in the Tyne, or
a Tay salmon in the Forth. These are, however, of
frequent occurrence, and so decided, that those who
are familiar with the varieties of salmon, never mistake
THE SALMON. 179
them. The salmon having ascended the streams as
far as they are able, and penetrated into rivulets and
brooks, where there is hardly water to cover them,
begin to deposit their spawn in the early part of Sep-
tember, and continue it till the end of October ; those
which leave the sea first, being the first to deposit the
spawn. The growth of the roes and the milts is
attended with a falling off in the flesh, flavour, and
general condition of the fish ; and by the time that
the eggs in the roe have acquired the size of common
duck-shot, the fish ceases to be eatable, or at least
to be wholesome. As the period for depositing the
eggs approaches, the head of the male salmon under-
goes a considerable change. The points of the jaws
are elongated and curved, and become of a horny
consistency, which is a- preparation of nature for en-
abling him to make the nest or bed for the young.
When the female is ready to deposit the eggs, she
becomes the suitor, going in quest of a male, which
accompanies her from the deep water, to the shallow
or bank that is fitted for their purpose. When she
has made her choice, they begin their operations by
the male forming a trench, which he does in a hollow
of the bank as soon as possible ; and the female assists
him, though she takes a comparatively light share of
the labour. Those poachers who destroy salmon in
close time, are well aware of the p'ower which the
female has of attracting the male to the shallows ;
accordingly they watch till the two have begun dig-
ging; and then, knowing the male by his crooked
jaws, they transfix him with a spear. The capture
is both wanton and wicked : wanton, because the fish
180 THE SALMON.
is not really wholesome food; and wicked, because it
causes, for no adequate compensation, the loss of thou-
sands of salmon. When the male is thus captured, the
female does not continue her operations, but goes in
quest of another male ; and we have heard of instances
in which one female has thus occasioned the death of
five or six males in the course of a day.
When no such wasteful outrage is committed, the
salmon labour at their trench, till it and the heap of
sand or gravel with which it has again to be covered,
be of sufficient size. Then the female deposits her
eggs, and the male deposits upon them a milky fluid,
in appearance very like that which is found in lettuce
and many other plants ; and when the eggs are all
deposited and covered in this manner, the parents
spread the gravel and sand over them, which closes
their paternal labour for the season. The opera-
tion lasts for some time, often for several days ;
and the male is so assiduous in digging the beds and
replacing the gravel, that he has been known to die
of fatigue.
Both are indeed very much exhausted; their very
appearance is altered. Their heads seem out of pro-
portion, and the horny curvature of the lower jaw of
the male penetrates, and even perforates the upper jaw ;
their colour is dull and brownish; their bodies lank
and flabby ; their scales almost entirely rubbed off;
and their fins are ragged. Nor is exhaustion the only
inconvenience to which they are subjected ; for a fresh
water worm, (lernea salmonea,} infests that most sensitive
part of them, their gills — and is, in all probability, in-
strumental in driving them to the sea.
THE SALMON. 181
Salmon that have spawned, are called " shotten sal-
mon." They are also called kelts, black fish, foul fish,
shedders, and kippers. They are found only in the
deep places, and avoid the banks of the rivers. Their
course is regularly toward the sea ; but it is sluggish,
on account of their exhausted state ; and they are often
observed resting in those places where the water is
more than usually still. The length of time that the
salmon take to descend the rivers must, of course, bear
some proportion to the distance to which they ascend.
In British rivers, the descent may be considered as, on
the average, over by the end of December ; but as they
are not gregarious, and do not even go in pairs, except
while spawning, their progress is quite irregular, and
some have begun to ascend, or at least appeared in the
estuaries, before the last of the kelts have descended
the river.
A question has been raised as to whether the salmon
do, or do not spawn every year ; and, though the ques-
tion does not admit of direct proof, there are some cir-
cumstances that would lead to a belief, that they do not
spawn annually. The fishers include both males and
females under the common name of " spawners ; " and,
in addition to these, they distinguish " barren fish," in
which neither milt nor roe is found, and which do not
ascend the rivers, or change their places, except by
going a little further off the shores, or out of the estuary,
in the tempestuous months. Another fact is, that the
length of time between the kelts leaving the river, and
the fish, in very fine condition, entering it, is rather
short for allowing the great change which they exhibit
to take place. We have heard intelligent salmon-fishers
182 THE SALMON.
say, that those barren fish are not quite in so high con-
dition, or nearly so much infected with the sea-louse, as
the spawners, when these are first found in the salt
water. Further, those barren fish are not gilses, or
young salmon ; as they are of full size, and as the gilses
ascend the rivers to spawn, as well as the full-grown
salmon. Thus there is, at least, some ground for be-
lieving that, after the exhaustion of ascending the rivers
and spawning, the salmon take one season, or probably
more, to recruit themselves in the sea ; and if such be
the fact, the continuance of the barren fish, for the
greater part of the year, would lead one to conclude
that salmon never make long journeys at sea ; and this
again would explain why the varieties, peculiar to dif-
ferent rivers, are so easily distinguished. The same
fishers have assured us, that, in the lower part of the
estuaries, the spawning salmon, or, as they are some-
times called, the " run fish," are never taken near the
shore, but that the barren fish are more abundant there
than in the strength of the tide or current. This fur-
ther strengthens the opinion that has been hazarded,
and it also agrees with the habits of the salmon. Its
principal 'food in the sea, is the sand-eel or launce,
(ammodytis tobianus,) a fish, on the average, about four
inches long, which buries itself with wonderful rapidity
in the sand, and which is most abundant in shallow
water, or near the shores.
It is rather singular that the natural history of a fish
which is so well known, and so productive of profit,
should be so very imperfect. But we ought to reflect
who have been the compilers of the popular systems of
natural history in this country. Even Lord Bacon, in
THE SALMON. 183
spite of all his sagacity, set down the salmon as a
short-lived animal, because it grows rapidly, an analogy
which may be true in animals or plants of the same
species, but which is certainly not true in those of
different ones. The goose and the eagle are both
rapid growers, and they are both remarkable for their
longevity. Goldsmith has set the salmon down as a
ruminating animal, and the mullet arid some others
have also been said to chew the cud : they do not chew
at all; though they, in all probability, discharge by the
mouth those parts of their prey which are not digestible,
and which are too large for passing through the pylorus
into the intestines, just as is the case with the birds of
prey ; or, the motion of the jaws and gill-covers, when
the fish is breathing, may have been mistaken for rumi-
nation. The food of the salmon, when in the rivers, as
well as that of the herring, when on the coasts, is
rather an obscure matter ; as the stomachs of both are
generally found empty. That they do eat flies and
also small fishes and worms, is certain, as they are
taken by imitation flies, and by various baits ; but
the fly is their favourite food, as when they do not
rise to a well-dressed fly, it is in vain to attempt their
capture with bait. Even those that are captured in
the sea, have not, generally, any thing in their stomachs,
though instances have occurred of their containing
the launce above mentioned, as also sprats, and other
small fish ; but it has not been ascertained whether
the individuals in which these substances were found,
belonged to the spawners or the barren fish of the fishers,
as they have been met with only in salt water,
At a period, varying a little with the state of the
184 THE SALMON.
weather, but, generally, about the month of April, the
heat of the sun begins to hatch the eggs, which not
only lie dormant during the winter, but are supposed
not to be in the least injured, though completely frozen.
The young fish begin to raise their heads through the
sand and gravel, but continue for some time attached
to the eggs, from the remains of which they derive
their nourishment. A fisherman, who had long been
familiar with salmon, in all their visible stages, com-
pared their first appearance to the springing of a bed
of " young onions."
After the fry are once detached from the eggs, they
increase very rapidly in size ; and at the age of a
month or six weeks they take their passage down-
wards to the sea, increasing in bulk as they proceed ;
and making a halt for some time when they first come
to brackish water, as they are not able to bear the
salt without a sort of gradual preparation. In this
state they are called "smouts" by the fishermen, and
numbers of them are often stranded in stormy weather.
In June and July the smouts disappear; and by the
time that the last of them have vanished, the first
re-ascend the river as gilses. Sometimes these are
larger than the smaller full-grown salmon, but in
general they are not so large ; their tails are straight
at the end, whereas those of the salmon are forked ;
and they have neither the pearly lustre, nor the rich
colour and flavour, of a salmon immediately from the
sea. They ascend the river for the purpose of spawn-
ing, which operation they no doubt perform in the
same manner as the mature fish; but they either
change to salmon after their first spawning, or they
THE SMELT. 185
continue more than one season in the sea ; as they
have not been found to ascend the rivers twice as
gilses.
The appearances of the salmon in these three states,
have led to the same mistakes with regard to them
that we have noticed in eagles. There are milts and
roes in the gilses, and rudiments of them in the smouts ;
and on this account, as well as on the differences in
their appearance, they have been regarded as distinct
species, — although a different appearance before and
after the period of full maturity be so far from a rare
occurrence, that it is one of the most common in the
economy of nature. The salmon is not the only fish
about which there is this confusion and difference of
opinion. The smelt, (osmerus epirlanusj) which comes
from the sea to the estuaries of some rivers in the
beginning of winter, hardly ascends farther than the
water continues to be salt, or at least brackish, spawns
early in the spring, and retires to the sea in the
summer, has been often regarded as the fry of some
fish, known or unknown. The fry of the Shad, or
mother herring, (clupea alosa,} has often been con-
sidered as a distinct species. The shad is a larger fish
than the smelt, being as long as eighteen inches ; while
the other is seldom so much as twelve. But, except-
ing that they come into the rivers at different times of
the year, they are rather similar in their habits. The
shad leaves the sea about May, ascends a little way
into the fresh water, and having deposited its eggs,
again returns to the sea. Salmon fishers often catch
it in their nets ; and when " stake nets," or permanent
nets, were used in the lower parts of rivers, for the
R3
186 WHITE-BAIT.
purpose of catching salmon, they entangled and de-
stroyed a great deal of the fry, both of the smelt and
the shad. The fry of the shad lingers a good while
in the fresh water before it enters into the salt. In
the Thames it remains about Greenwich during the
month of July. During the time that it remains it
is sought after as a great delicacy ; and the corporation
of London, as conservators of the river, in vain attempt
to monopolize it, under the name of WHITE-BAIT. As
this fry of the shad, when in the state of white-bait, is
very young, not above a month or six weeks old,
it contains only the mere rudiments of roes and milts ;
and thus they who have made a species of it, have
been put to some shifts in attempting to account for
the mode of its production.
Besides the instinct which guides them to those
places where they can deposit their spawn in fresh
water, so shallow as that it can be acted upon and
warmed into life in the spring, the salmon appear
to have another inducement to quit the sea. At that
time it is covered with a parasitical insect, which,
. though the fact be not very well authenticated, is
supposed to cause a disagreeable itching in the surface
of its body. The natural history, and even the species
of this insect, is obscure ; and it has not been properly
studied ; neither is it known whether it feeds upon the
substance of the salmon, or merely attaches itself to
the body of that fish in the same manner that other
sea-insects attach themselves to rocks, marine plants,
the bottoms of ships and other substances, from which,
though they can get support, they cannot get any
nourishment. The fishers call this parasite the " sea-
THE SALMON. 187
louse; " and that may have led to the belief that it
feeds upon the salmon, or is annoying to it. But the
remarkably high condition and vigour of the salmon
are proofs that this adhering animal cannot be a very
great annoyance, or very destructive in its ravages,
if it be a ravager at all. At all events, if the salmon
be necessary for its existence, the sea is obviously
more so ; for it shrinks and drops off almost imme-
diately after the fish has entered into fresh, or even
into weak brackish water. The more that this para-
site is found upon the fish, the more exquisite the
flavour; and those who have not tasted it, can form
no idea of the richness of a sea salmon, instantly out
of the water, which has not been injured either by
its own struggles or by being handled. The flakes
are firm, brilliant in colour, and delicious ; and sauce
is superfluous, any further than a little of the liquor
in which the fish has been boiled. There is a rich
curdy matter between the flakes which dissolves in
the liquor and thickens it to the consistency of cream ;
and there is a flavour, and even a perfume about the
whole, which cookery would find it very difficult to
imitate. But this exquisite richness of the salmon,
like the aroma of some of the more delicious fruits,
cannot be transported. The salmon that are taken
with it, lose it when they are carried, even in boxes
of ice ; and those which pass only a small number
of miles up the fresh water lose it also. So striking
is the difference, that those who are accustomed to
taste the salmon caught in the estuary of the Tay, to
seaward of Broughty Ferry, where the banks and
shallows are of pure sand, and the water is nearly as
188 THE SALMON.
much impregnated with saline matters as that of the
ocean, do not relish the salmon that is caught about
Perth, only about five and twenty miles up the river,
with a wide estuary for great part of the way, and
a tide, though of fresh water, to the termination.
On this account it is to be regretted that, in conse-
quence of a decision of the House of Lords, given, as
one regrets to say, more in the spirit of aristocracy
than in that of wisdom, the fishings in the lower or
sea part of the Scottish estuaries have been in a great
measure destroyed ; and that, for the keeping, or upon
the pretext, of laws and privileges, made and granted
in times of comparative barbarity and ignorance, the
public should be compelled to use salmon in a state
much inferior to that in which they might have had it.
At one time, permanent nets, extending for a consider-
able way into the water, were erected in all the estua-
aries ; and, while there was plenty of room for the free
run of spawning fish in the centre or deep part of the
river, great numbers of fish in the very best condition
were caught in these nets. But as these modern im-
provements could not have been contemplated gene-
rations before any one thought of putting them in
execution, the proprietors of the upper parts of the
rivers had got vested rights in the salmon ; and, that
these might not be interfered with, the public are
obliged to content themselves with salmon in a state
closely verging upon that in which it is not wholesome,
instead of having it in prime condition.
When the salmon have once entered a river, their
progress is not easily stopped. In Europe, notwith-
standing the length of the course, and the number of
THE SALMON. 189
difficulties with which they have to contend, they are
said to ascend the Rhine and the Aar, pass through
the Lake of Zurich, and find those places in the shal-
lows of the Limmat, among the secluded valleys of
the central Alps, in which they were at first produced.
In like manner, the salmon of North America ascend
the long rivers of that country, pass through the lakes,
and find their way to their native streams, with the
most persevering industry and the most unerring cer-
tainty.
In their progress, they always have their heads to
the stream ; and their muscular power must be very
great, as they shoot up the rapids with the velocity of
arrows. They are sensitive and delicate in the extreme ;
and equally avoid water that is turbid or tainted, and
that which is dark with woods or any other shade.
They serve as a sort of weather-glasses ; as they leap
and sport above the surface before rain or wind ; but
during violent weather, especially if it be thunder,
they keep close to the bottom ; and they either hear
better than many other species of fish, or they are
more sensitive to those concussions of the air produced
by sound, as any loud noise on the bank throws them
into a state of agitation. When their progress is
interrupted by a cascade, they make wonderful efforts
to surmount it by leaping ; and as they continue to do
that at places which a salmon has never been known to
ascend, their instinct cannot be to go to the particular
spot where they were spawned, but simply to some
small and shallow stream.
Many " salmon-leaps " are celebrated, in those parts
of the country where there are cascades upon the clear
190 THE SALMON.
rivers in which they delight ; and their efforts and
devices have been a little exaggerated both in prose
and in verse. All fishes that take long or powerful
leaps, incurvate their bodies when they spring from the
water ; and that has given rise to the vulgar belief
that, when they are to spring over a cascade, they take
their tails in their mouths. Michael Dray ton, the poet,
has described this as part of the economy of the salmon
at the leap of Kennerth upon the Tivy, in the county
of Pembroke ; and the same has been said of those at
other places ; but instead of fact, it is utter impossi-
bility,— a salmon so fastened could not leap at all.
That the fish bends itself laterally is true, because the
muscles have of course their principal action in that
direction in which the tail can act as an oar in swim-
ming, and as a fulcrum in leaping ; and that, when
they put forth all their vigour, the tail is brought
nearly in contact with the head. We have watched
them often, both in places where they could succeed,
and where they could not ; but though we could dis-
tinctly see the curvature before the fish vaulted into
the air, the whole effort was so instantaneous, that we
could not discover clearly whether the body was bent
to or from the fall ; we think, however, that it was
bent toward it ; and as, in the eddies from which they
take their spring, this position would give the tail most
power as a fulcrum, there is every reason to believe that
that is their position.
The rivers of the Scottish mountains are the best
adapted for witnessing those feats ; and the places
where we have seen them to most advantage are at the
fall of Kilmorac, on the Beauly, in Inverness-shire, and
THE SALMON. 191
at the Keith of Blairgowrie, upon the Ericht, in Perth-
shire. Both these places have many charms for the
naturalist and the lover of nature. They are the first
passes into the mountains ; the scenery around is pecu-
liarly fine ; and plants and animals are very abundant.
The rocks by the very margin of the stream are in some
places of stupendous elevation, while their bases are
shaded, and even their beetling tops crowned with native
timber, rich in foliage and vigorous in growth. They
are, in fact, zoological and botanical gardens of nature's
own preparing, in which there are very ample collec-
tions. The rocks are lofty enough for affording an
eyrie to the eagle ; and the coppices by the banks of the
stream are close and tangled enough for sheltering the
wood-cat and the otter. Both have this advantage too,
that they have habitations which harmonize with the
wildest of these beauties. The house of Craighhali
stands hundreds of feet above the foaming Ericht, on
the top of an abrupt precipice. The garden at Kil-
morac parsonage also overhangs the fall.
The pool below that fall is very large ; and as it is
the head of the run in one of the finest salmon rivers
in the north, and only a few miles distant from the
sea, it is literally thronged with salmon, which are
continually attempting to pass the fall, but without
success, as the limit of their perpendicular spring does
not appear to exceed twelve or fourteen feet ; at least,
if they leap higher than that, they are aimless and
exhausted, and the force of the current dashes them
down again before they have recovered their energy.
At Kilmorac they often kill themselves by the violence
of their exertions to ascend ; and sometimes they fall
192 THE SALMON.
upon the rocks and are captured. It is, indeed, said,
that one of the wonders which the Frasers of Lovat,
who are lords of the manor, used to show their guests,
was a voluntarily cooked salmon at the falls of Kil-
morac. For this purpose a kettle was placed upon the
flat rock on the south side of the fall, close by the
edge of the water, and kept full and boiling. There
is a considerable extent of the rock, where tents were
erected, and the whole was under a canopy of over-
shadowing trees. There the company are said to have
waited until a salmon fell into the kettle and was boiled
in their presence. We have already mentioned the
avidity with which the wild cats watch the salmon at
this fall, and we need hardly add that the otters com-
mit great depredations. The salmon are remarkably
abundant in that river ; and as the fall confines them
to the space below, they are found in good condition.
We have seen as many as eighty taken in a pool lower
down the river, at one haul of the seine, and one of
the number weighed more than sixty pounds.
The Keith of Blairgowrie is a still more singular
place. It is at the junction of the hard mountain
breccia, with the soft red sand-stone which is found
along a great extent of the southern edge of the
Grampians. All the rivers in that quarter have cut
deep channels in the sandstone : but the breccia being
in many places very hard, it offers interruptions. Its
hardness is, however, not uniform ; so it is hollowed
into very singular cavities. Some of these are circular
pits of regular figure and considerable dimensions and
depth ; often deeper than the adjoining bed of the
river, and unconnected with it, save during floods.
THE SALMON. 193
Locally, they are called " giants' kettles ;" and the
country people regard them as the productions of men
or of magic, though they be simply the effect of the
stream dissolving the softer parts of the rock. It is
probable that they have been produced by little cas-
cades, caused by interruptions that are now worn
away ; as they are found under those cascades which
still exist. The Keith is a remarkable one. The
river has cut a channel for itself in the upper surface
of the mass of breccia, by which, during drought, it is
almost concealed, and it is so pent up in the gorge,
that an agile and adventurous person could at these
times jump across. In this gorge, there is still par-
tially concealed, under the rocks, a fall of about thirteen
feet in height, which would not prevent the ascent of
the salmon on account of its height, but does so when
the river is low, on account of the great velocity with
which the water passes through and discharges itself
from the narrow gorge. The pool, or kettle, into
which the water falls, is of great depth, not less than
thirty feet. During a long continuance of dry weather,
the salmon accumulate in it in considerable numbers ;
and in a favourable state of the light, they may be seen,
not merely covering the extent from side to side, but
actually built, as it were, one stratum above another,
all hanging suspended in the water, and waiting till a
flood shall come, and, by filling the gorge, overflow the
rocks, and thus convert the fall into a brawling rapid
which they can ascend. As this place is much further
from the sea than the fall at Kilmorac, the fish are not
in so good condition when they arrive at it ; but great
numbers of them are caught by a bag-net on the end
194 CATCHING A SALMON.
of a very long pole, which is plunged into the water
until the net is supposed to be further down than the
salmon, then it is moved laterally out of the place
where it was plunged, and drawn to the surface, gene-
rally with success. This fishing is not, however, un-
attended with danger ; the rocks are slippery with
spray, and small aquatic plants ; and as the fishers have
to overhang the rock in getting to the best fishing, they
are sometimes thrown off their balance by the strug-
gling of the salmon, and precipitated into the abyss,
from which escape, even on the part of an expert
swimmer, is very difficult. The otter, which is active
enough in many other parts of the Ericht, is said never
to attempt fishing in the cauldron at the Keith. But
we must close our desultory notice of this beautiful
and interesting fish. Its natural history would fill
volumes ; and therefore, all that can be done in a
portion of a single chapter, is to point out how worthy
it is of the most complete investigation ; and that in
studying the instincts and habits of the salmon, science
and practical use are inseparably united. We cannot,
however, resist quoting the following directions for
salmon-angling from the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.
They accord far more with our own observation than
any thing that we have seen in print.
CATCHING A SALMON.
" THERE is scarcely any time, unless when it thunders,
or when the water is thick with mud, but you may
chance to tempt the salmon to rise to an artificial fly.
But the most propitious are critical moments; or, un-
CATCHING A SALMON. 195
doubtedly, when, clearing after a flood, the water has
turned to a light whey or rather brown colour ; when
the wind blows pretty fresh, approaching to a mackerel
gale, (if not from the north,) against the stream or
course of the river ; when the sun shines through
showers, or when the cloudy rack runs fast and thick,
and at intervals discovers the pure blue ether from
above. In these situations of the water and of the
weather, you may always depend upon excellent sport.
" The most difficult thing for a beginner, is to throw
the line far, neatly, and to make the fly first touch the
water. A few attentive trials will, however, bring him
to do it with dexterity. It should always be across
the river, and on the far side, when you expect the fish
to rise. If he appears, do not be too eager to strike,
but give him time to catch the fly ; then, with a gentle
twist, fix the hook in his lip or mouth ; if he is hooked
on a bone, or feels sore, he will shoot, spring, and
plunge with so much strength and vehemence, as to
make the reel run with a loud and whizzing noise, and
your arms to shake and quiver most violently. In this
situation, take out the line from the winch quickly,
though with composure, keeping it always at the same
time stretched, but yet ever ready to yield to his leap-
ing. Do not let it run to any great length, as it is
then apt to be unmanageable, but rather follow him,
and if he comes nearer, you retire, and wind up as fast
as possible, so as to have the line tight ; and hold your
rod nearly in a perpendicular situation. When he be-
comes calmer, he often turns sullen, and remains mo-
tionless at the bottom of the water. Then cast a few
stones upon the spot where you think he is, and this,
s 2
196 CATCHING A SALMON.
in all probability, will rouse him from his inactive
position. If you have no servant or attendant to do
it for you, be cautious in the lifting and throwing of
them, as the salmon may spring at that instant, and
break your tackle, should you be off your guard.
Being again in motion, he generally takes his way up
the current, do not then check him, as by this way his
strength will be the sooner exhausted. When, now
fatigued, and no longer able to keep his direction, he
once more tries all his wiles in disengaging himself
from the guileful and hated hook ; he crosses and re-
crosses, sweeps and flounces through every part of the
pool and stream ; but finding all his efforts to be vain,
he at last, indignant of his fate, with immense velocity,
rushes headlong down the stream. If the ground is
rough or uneven, or if you cannot keep pace with him,
give him line enough, and when it slackens wind up
again until you nearly approach him. You will then
probably observe him floating on his side, his motion
feeble, and all his vigour gone. Being unable to make
any farther resistance, it behoves you now to lead him
gently to the nearest shelving shore ; use no gaff, as it
mangles the fish very much, but take him softly by the
gills into your arms, or throw him, if not too heavy,
upon the top of some adjacent bank."
As the salmon is seldom in the rivers in time for the
spring fly, the May fly is often imitated as a lure for
him, but is only an imitation, as it has to be made of
gigantic dimensions. The only fly of which a natural
imitation makes a good salmon fly, is,
197
THE DRAGON FLY.
The under figure is the nymph case ; the one attached to it, the fly in the act
of escaping. The upper is the full formed llbellula varia.
OF the DRAGON FLY (llbellula) there are several
varieties, called water nymphs, adder bolts, and other
names, varying in length from half an inch to two
inches and a quarter. They are all remarkable in their
appearance, and gaudy in their colours ; and salmon at
all times, but more especially when the water is
clearing after a flood, prefer them to any other food.
The dragon flies are the most vigorous of British
winged insects ; and their long wings, of which they all
have four, make a whizzing noise as they vibrate
them in the air. Though the largest and most gaudy
are usually seen about the margins of rivers, rivulets,
s .3
198 THE DRAGON FLY.
and ponds, they are not, when in their winged state,
confined to those situations, but roam to a considerable
distance in quest of their food. They may be often
seen hovering over flowers, especially those of which
the nectaries are so deep that the small flies, which
live upon the honey, are forced to creep into them.
From this, one who had not watched them, would be
apt to suppose that they were in quest of honey.
That, however, is not their food : they frequent those
places in order that they may prey upon the flies
which are intent upon the honey ; and if one finds a
dragon fly quietly pounced upon a flower, one may be
sure that he has made a capture. The large ones may
be found on the margins of rivers, beating the reeds
and sedges, and other aquatic plants, with the greatest
assiduity, in order to discover the moths that shelter
there in the heat of the day. The only safety of the
moth is in concealment, for the dragon fly is provided
with powerful organs of vision as well as of motion,
and if he once gets sight of the prey, he seldom quits
it, and will even pick it up from the surface of the
water with great agility, though, in those cases, the
salmon sometimes make reprisals. The usual way
with the dragon fly is to pounce upon his victims while
they are sitting ; and for that purpose, his favourite
time of hunting is when the sun is clear. This not
only finds him easier prey, as the moths are very
reluctant to stir in such states of the atmosphere ; but
it also contributes to his security, as the times when he
feeds are those at which the fish usually lie basking
and inert.
The female deposits her eggs in the water, and as
THE DRAGON FLY. 199
the times at which she does that are those that are too
dusky for hunting, she is very apt to be captured hy
the fish. Indeed, when the salmon are intent upon
fishing, they do not wait till the fly touches, but spring
up and catch it at a considerable distance ; and we
have observed, that when a dragon fly has been thus
hit in the air by a salmon, but not caught, and fallen
upon the surface of the water, another salmon has
risen at it, and borne it off in triumph.
The bringing of so many winged insects to hover
over the water, either in search of food, or for the
depositing of their eggs, is one of the principal means
by which the fish of ponds and rivers, whether migrant
or stationary, are nourished ; for if there were no flies
upon the water, there would be neither salmon nor
trout ; and even in the vulgar view of the matter, in
which animals which know no law but the law of
nature, and never violate that unless they are com-
pelled, are accused of cruelty, the dragon fly suffers no
injustice. The whole of its own history is a tissue of
destructions, both when it has come into the air and
become a fly, and when it is in the water. Nay, such
is its voracity, that it slaughters prey in all the states
of its being, even in those states in which many insects
are not only abstemious, but motionless.
The eggs which the dragon fly drops into the water,
fall to the bottom, and if they are not found by fishes
or insects, they are soon hatched in the sand ; and when
the larvae make their appearance, they commence their
depredations upon every thing smaller and weaker
than themselves. It is generally understood, that, all
insects, whatever may be the number and times of
200 THE DRAGON FLY.
their transformations, and however much they may
vary in appearance, have the forms or cases of the
whole, the one within the other, in the same manner as
those that cast their skins without altering their forms,
are understood to have the rudiments of all the skins ;
but where the transition from one state to another is great,
a period of quiescence is required ; for which the insect
prepares, by forming for itself a case, out of materials
furnished from its own substance. With water insects,
the transitions are not so great ; and therefore there is less
quiescence, and a less change in the quantity and nature
of their food. The phryganece and ephemera, already
mentioned, have, both in their larva and their chrysalid
state, a very remarkable resemblance to the perfect fly,
only they are without wings, which would be worse than
superfluous, so long as they inhabit the water. When
they come up to the surface, it is only the bursting of a
thin membrane, in which they are enclosed, and they
are free and fit for their new mode of life. It is the
same with the dragon fly. The head of the larva bears
a very great likeness to that of the fly ; the body is also
like, only it is not so thick at the thorax, most likely,
because the muscles that are to move the future wings
are not developed till they be needed. The larvae of the
dragon flies are of a dusky colour, inclining to brown or
green, according to the species, — those of the Lib. varia,
the largest and most showy of the British species, are
brown, and far from handsome. They have the same
hard mandibles as the winged insects, and six legs,
ending in feet armed with claws. They eat voraciously,
and cast their skins several times before they arrive at
their full growth. No prey comes wrong to them ; for
THE DRAGON FLY. 201
be it insect or larva, if they can hold it with their man-
dibles, they do not quit it, till it be drained of all its
juices. They are even said to commit havoc for its
own sake, and kill when they have no intention of eating.
This can hardly be supposed, because there is no pur-
pose in it, and there is a purpose for every instinct ;
but still they may kill without the necessity of imme-
diate eating. Many animals hoard up food ; and, when
a fox or a vicious dog kills a number of sheep, he does
it not from* any hatred to sheep, but that he may have
a store of food. Now there is no reason why a voracious
larva should not obey, in the water, the same kind of
instinct which a voracious quadruped obeys upon the
land. The larva is, no doubt, a much smaller animal
than the other, and we are much less acquainted with its
habits ; but it does not thence follow that its instincts
are less perfect. — Life and instinct have nothing to do
with physical extension.
The dragon fly is understood to inhabit the water for
about two years, during which time it continues to feed
voraciously, and to change by slow degrees from the
first larva to the ultimate fly. Sometime before this
takes place, the rudiments of the wings are discernible
under the covering or sheath of the animal, and the
thorax has increased considerably in size. When it is
to change to a fly, it creeps up the stem of some water
plant during the night, that it may not fall a victim to
the swallow or any other insectiverous bird, that preys
on the surface of the water. In order to -extricate
itself, it collects the whole energy of its body into the
head and thorax, and by grasping the stem on which it
hangs with its claws, and making an effort, apparently
202 THE DRAGON FLY.
inflating the thorax at the same time, it bursts the case
along the back, and gradually effects its escape ; but it
does not entirely leave the case, until its wings, which
are at first folded together, have acquired their full ex-
tent and lustre, which they speedily do upon exposure
to the atmosphere ; and the new-born fly wings away
to sport its beauties and continue its ravages.
The eyes of the dragon fly are singular pieces of
mechanism, and admirably adapted for enabling them
to see, in all directions, those insects on which they feed.
The surface of the eye is reticulated, or divided into a
net-work, of which the compartments are regular six-
sided figures. It is computed that there are between
twelve and thirteen thousand of these in each eye of the
species that has been examined ; and that each of these
is a distinct and perfect organ of vision, though the
whole five and twenty thousand, which the two eyes
contain, are for the information of one living principle,
and the preservation of one little insect !
We are apt to envy the dragon fly his five and
twenty thousand eyes, when we think we have but
two ; and yet, when we come to reflect upon it, we
have the advantage even in the number of our points
of vision. The single lens of our eyes is capable of
motion in every direction, and with almost instant
celerity, over the whole field of vision. The number
of points that we can therefore examine without turn-
ing the head, is not only greater than that which the
eyes of the dragon fly can command, but greater than
arithmetic can sum up.
Such are a few of the most obvious and accessible
subjects which offer themselves to human contem-
THE DRAGON FLY, 203
plation on the banks, or in the waters of a river ; but
they are few as compared with the whole catalogue ;
and he who would hope to linger by the margin till
he had exhausted the whole of its natural history,
would be as sure of disappointment as the clown, in
Horace, who sat down on the bank to wait until the
stream should run dry. The information and the
flood are equally perennial ; and the one is as re-
freshing and fertilizing to the mind, as the other is
to that accumulated abundance of life of which it is
the parent and the support.
204
CHAPTER V.
THE SEA.
FROM the consideration of rivers, the transition is
natural to that of the sea, — the grand parent and
destroyer of rivers, — the source whence they derive
their waters pure and limpid, and into which they
discharge them to be cleansed from those impurities
which they have acquired in their progress through
decaying animal and vegetable substances, and their
motion along the surface of the earth.
To those who are capable of only gazing upon its
surface, the ocean is a sublime sight. " The waste of
waters," as we are in the habit of calling it — though it
be any thing but a waste, girdles the globe from pole
to pole, and occupies nearly three-fourths of its sur-
face. When, on some calm and pleasant day, when
there is not a cloud to dapple the sky, or a breath to
ruffle the waters, we look out from some lone pro-
montory or beetling rock, upon the soft green face
of ocean, and see it extending on and on in one glassy
level, till it blend its farther blue so softly with that
of the air, that we know not which is sea and which
sky, but are apt to fancy that this limpid watery
curtain is drawn over the universe ; and that the sun,
the planets, and the stars, are islands in the same sea
in which our own habitation is cast. In the soft but
THE SEA — CALM. 205
sublime contemplation, we find the mind expand with
the subject ; the fancy glides off to places more high
than line can measure, more deep than plummet can
sound ; we feel the link that binds us to creation ; and
finding it to be fair and lovely, our kindly feelings only
are touched, and we exult in the general happiness
of that of which we feel that we are a part. If then
a vessel should come in sight, with the sun illuminating
its canvas, like a beam of light on the blue sea, and
moving slow and stately, not seeming to us to be
in motion, and yet shifting miles before we can count
minutes, how we long to be passengers — to walk upon
the waters — to be wafted by the winds — to visit the
remotest parts of the earth without half the effort
which is required before the sluggard can turn on
his couch. Then, if we linger till the sun declines,
and his beams are wholly reflected from the glowing
surface, what an excess of brightness ! An infinitude
of burnished gold, and of burnished gold all living
and in motion, stretches out at our feet; and as the
reflected light upon the shore wakens a gentle zephyr
of the air in that direction, the dimpling water plays
in alternate sunshine and shade, as if the luminary
had been broken to fragments, and gently strewed
along its surface.
But if the elements are in motion, if the winds are
up, — if the " blackness of darkness," which cloud upon
cloud, rolling in masses and roaring in thunder, which
answers to the call of the forked lightning, has flung
its shadow upon the sea, so as to change the soft green
to a dark and dismal raven blue, which gives all the
effect of contrast to the spray that dances on the
T
206 A STORM. — THE WAVES.
crests of the waves, chafes around the reef, dashes
with angry foam against the precipice, or ever and
anon, as the fitful blast puts on all its fury, covers
the whole with recking confusion, as if by the force
of the agitation, the very water had taken fire ; — if
one can stand so as to view the full swell of the tem-
pest-tossed ocean sideways, it is indeed a spirit-stirring
sight ! The dark trough, between every two ridges,
appears as if the waters were cleft in twain, and both
a pathway and a shelter displayed, while ridge courses
after ridge in eager race, but with equal celerity.
Some, indeed, appear to fall in their course, and to
be trampled down by those that are behind. They
are hit by one of those momentary gusts which fall ;
and where, as Burns expressively has it, the wind is
every where blowing
" As 'twould blaw its last,"
it lashes a portion of the surge to a greater elevation than
it can bear ; or, some bank or hidden rock from below
arrests it in its course ; and down it thunders in brawl-
ing and foam, interrupting the succession, and embroil-
ing its successors in its fate.
Even when seen from the pebbly beach of a lee-
shore, the ocean in a storm is a sight both to be enjoyed
and remembered. The wave comes rolling onward,
dark and silent, till it meets with the reflux of its pre-
decessor, which produces a motion to seaward on the
ground, and throws the approaching wave off its equi-
librium. Its progress is arrested for a moment ; the
wall of water vibrates, and as it now meets the wind,
instead of moving before it, its crest becomes hoary
POWER OF WINDS AND WAVES. 207
with spray ; it shakes — it nods — it curls forward, and
for a moment the liquid column hangs suspended in
the air ; but down it dashes in one volume of snow-
white foam, which dances and ripples upon the beach.
There is an instant retreat, and the clean and smooth
pebbles, as they are drawn back by the reflux of the
water, emulate in more harsh and grating sounds the
thunder of the wave.
Here we may see what a wonderful thing motion is.
What is so bland and limpid as still water ! what sub-
stance half so soft and fine as the motionless atmo-
sphere ! The one does not loosen a particle of sand :
the other — you must question with yourself, and even
add a little faith to feeling, before you be quite sure
of its existence. But arm them once with life, or with
that which is the best emblem and the most universal
indication of life, motion, and they are terrible both in
their grandeur and their power. The sand is driven
like stubble ; the solid earth must give way ; and the
rocks are rent from the promontory, and flung in ruins
along its base. Need we, therefore, wonder that the
masts and cordage that man constructs should be rent as
if they were gossamer, and his navies scattered like chaff.
The grandest scenes, however, are found at those
places where former storms have washed away all the
softer parts, and the caverned and rifted rocks — the
firm skeleton of the globe, as it were — stand out to
contend with the turmoiling waters. The long roll of
the Atlantic upon the Cornish coast ; a south-easter
upon the cliffs of Yorkshire, or among the stupendous
caves to the eastward of Arbroath ; a north-easter in
the Bullers of Buchan ; or, better still, the whole mass
208 CAVES AND PRECIPICES.
of the Northern ocean dashed by the black north wind
against the ragged brows of Caithness and Sutherland ;
those — that especially — are situations in which, if it
can be viewed in these islands, the majesty of the deep
may be seen. Upon the last, in the acme of its sub-
limity, one dares hardly look. The wind blows ice ;
and the spray, which dashes thick over five hundred
feet of perpendicular cliffs, falls in torrents of chilling
rain ; while the vollied stones which the surges batter
against the cliffs, the hissing of the imprisoned air in
the unperforated caves, and the spouting water through
those that are perforated, and the dashing and regurgi-
tation of the latter, as it falls in the pauses of the com-
motion, produce a combination of the terrible, which
the nerves of those who are unaccustomed to such
scenes can hardly bear.
And yet there is an enchantment — a fascination
almost to madness — in those terrible scenes. Mere
height often has this singular effect, which is alluded
to by the Philosopher of Poets in his admirable de-
scription of Dover cliff:
" I'll look no more ;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."
But when the elements are in fury, — when the earth
is rocking, and the sea and the sky reeling and con-
founding their distinctive characters in one tremendous
chaos, — when, in all that is seen, the common laws of
nature seem to be abrogated, and her productions of
peace cast aside, in order that there may be an end of
her works, and that the sway of " the Anarch old"
may again be universal— the heroism of desperation —
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 209
that which tempers the soldier to the strife of the field,
and the sailor to the yet more terrible conflict on the
flood — comes, and comes in its power, — and the dispo-
sition to dash into the thickest of the strife, and die in
the death-struggle of nature, is one of the most power-
ful feelings of one who can enter into the spirit of the
mighty scene.
We leave those who allocate the feelings of men
according to the scale of their artificial systems, to
find the place of this singular emotion, and call it a
good or an evil one, as they choose. But we have
been in the habit of feeling and thinking that it is an
impulse of natural theology, — one of those unbidden
aspirations toward his Maker which man feels when
the ties that bind him to nature and the earth appear
to be loosening, and there remains no hope, but in the
consciousness of his God, and of that eternity, the
gate of which is in the shadow of death. Thus, amid the
fury of the elements, the unsophisticated hopes of man
cling to HIM, who " rideth in the whirlwind and direct-
eth the storm."
But beautiful or sublime as the ocean is, according
to situation and circumstances, we should lose its value
were we to look upon it only as a spectacle, and were
the emotions that it produced to be only the dreams
of feeling, however touching or however allied to re-
ligion. To admire and to feel are both essential and
valuable parts of our nature ; but neither of them is so
essential, as to know. That is the antecedent matter ;
because by it, and by it only, the admiration and the
feeling can be properly directed. The first property of
the ocean that strikes our sight, is its vast extent ; and
T 3
210 MOTION OF THE SEA.
the first that addresses our understanding, is the vast
extent of its usefulness. The evaporation of water from
its surface, cleared from the impurities of the land, and
adapted for the promoting of life and fertility, has already
been mentioned. But the ocean is also the grand mes-
senger of physical nature : that general law, or pheno-
menon of the constitution of matter, (for the laws and the
phenomena of nature are the same,) by which the earth
is maintained in its orbit, and has the figure and con-
sistency which it possesses, and by which the objects
on its surface preserve their forms and their places, —
that simple law occasions the tides of the ocean ; and
these, by moving in the very directions which an obedi-
ence to this law points out, produce currents, by means
of which there is a constant circulation of the waters of
the ocean through all parts of the earth's surface ; and
the immediate consequence is an equalization of warmth,
by means of which, the extremes, both of heat and cold,
are mitigated, and the general fertility and comfort
promoted.
But, when we come to look a little more attentively
at the structure of the earth, we find that the ocean has
been one of the grand agents in elaborating it to its pre-
sent consistency. Large tracks are covered, to a great
depth, by beds of gravel, containing nodules of the hard-
est stone, which are not in angular masses, as if they
had been reduced from their native rocks by any action
apart from the water — such as that which, by means
of alternate frost and thaw, produces the heaps of
broken stone that we find on the brows of rocky moun-
tains, and at the bottoms of precipices — but smoothed,
and rounded, as if they had been for ages rolled upon
FORMATION OF LAND. 211
a beach. The gravel in the valley of the Thames, for
instance, which we find in the most elevated parts of
that valley, as at Wimbledon Common, and Hampstead
Heath, contains no stone but that very same flint, which at
a distance from the river, or even near it, as in the county
of Kent, is contained in the chalk formation ; but while
the pieces of flint that are found in the chalk are an-
gular, and covered with a rugged crust, those in the
gravel are all, more or less, rounded ; and they have
been rounded by rubbing against each other in water,
as the hollows in them, which could not be so easily
rubbed, have still the same rough surface as those
found in the chalk. It is therefore impossible to
avoid coming to the conclusion, that the gravel in the
valley of the Thames has been formed out of the chalk
soil, and formed too by the action of water ; nor can
we easily suppose that that water has been any other
than the sea ; because, the gravel has a principle of
adhesion, which is not found in the gravel of rivers.
Great part of the connecting matter in the binding
gravel, is the powder of flint, just in the same manner
as in that which does not bind ; but it also contains a
quantity of salts of lime, which it could have derived
only from the impregnation, by the sea, of a portion of
the original chalk ; and to that it owes its adhesive
nature. But wherever the river has continued to wash
it, those salts of lime have been decomposed and
floated away, and the flint-dust has been left loose.
The very same happens if we expose a heap of the best
" binding " gravel to the action of rain for a sufficient
length of time ; it loses its adhesiveness, and becomes
loose. Thus it is evident, that the gravel Jias been
212 FORMATION OF LAND.
produced by the action of water, and that that water
must have been the sea. Many more striking instances
could easily be adduced, but this one has been pre-
ferred, just because of its simplicity. If we find vast
masses of gravel, some of them moulded into hills of
considerable elevation, which could not have been pro-
duced without the action of the ocean, we need not
hesitate to refer to that action, those formations in
which the remains of marine plants and animals are
clearly to be seen.
But we see the operation in progress. Along most of
the high and cliffy shores, even in this country, we
find places where every storm and every season take
something from the land. We find the stony fragments
in the course of being ground and rounded on some of
the shelving beaches, and new banks in the progress of
formation upon others. It is generally the lofty shore
that suffers, because that offers a resistance both to the
water of the ocean, and the wind upon its surface,
while shores that shelve out, receive the water in a
thin plate, and allow the wind to pass over.
In some districts, we find very remarkable traces of
the former action of water. In the vicinity of granitic
mountains, there are always found vast detached masses
of that rock, exposed upon the surface, and rounded as
if they had been rolled in water. If those were found
only upon the slopes of granitic mountains, their pre-
sence could be accounted for by the frost loosening
them in winter, and their rolling down the slopes
during the rains of spring or summer. Even the
rounding of them might be at least partially accounted
for, by the action of the water in the places where they
MASSES OF ROCK. 213
are now found. In Cornwall and Devon, those blocks
of stone are numerous ; and, indeed, there is hardly a
granitic country in which they are not to be found.
In fact, we meet with them in all places where there is
a valley or water-course, or slope, from mountains of
granite to the sea ; and yet they could not have been
brought to the places where they are found by the
action of the existing rivers, in a state any thing like
their present one.
The southern part of Finland, which is far from the
granitic mountains, and consists of an alternation of
pine forests and pools of water, is full of them ; and
they have lain so long, that the soil has accumulated
thick enough for the growth of trees ; and that which is
only a single stone, has all the appearance of a hillock.
The pedestal of the celebrated equestrian statue of
Peter the Great, at St. Petersburg!!, is formed of one
of those masses. It is fifteen hundred tons in weight ;
was found as a single detached fragment, and brought
from a distance of several miles. Some of the granite
quarries at Aberdeen consist of those enormous frag-
ments, which are not found in a continuous mass as
granite is in the primitive mountains, but in huge sepa-
rate masses, among gravel and rubbish, which in the lapse
of years has become covered with heath or grass.
A very singular stone of this description, lies upon a
hill, on the south side of the valley of the Earn, near
Perth. We forget whether that stone is granite,
sienite, or gneiss, we rather think the latter; but at
all events, it lies upon the top of a hill, nearly, or fully,
twelve hundred feet high, which is surrounded by
lower grounds on every side. This hill is green-stone
214 ANIMAL REMAINS.
itself; and there is not a portion of any of the three
alpine rocks above-named found native within twenty
miles of it ; and the nearest is separated by the deep
beds of two or three rivers. Though nothing to the
pedestal of Peter's statue, this is rather a large stone,
weighing at least six tons, and it is so poised upon a
ridge of the green-stone, that it vibrates to the slightest
touch of the little finger. Art has had something to do
in producing this easy vibration, as the one end of the
stone has been chipped, and as these " rocking stones,"
as they are called, were used as ordeals in the times of
superstition ; but art had nothing to do with the bringing
of it, or of the hundreds of others in the same district,
to the places where they are now found. Thus there
must at one time have been a power in operation, at a
higher level than the present surface of the ocean,
which could move masses of many tons in weight to
considerable distances; and the only power adequate
to effect that purpose, with which we are acquainted,
is the ocean.
The remains of animals, even of marine ones, are
usually found in soft deposits, where they may have
been covered by the return of successive floods, in the
rivers now existing. The bones and teeth of the north-
ern elephant, the latter of which, as ivory, form an
article of export from Siberia ; the accumulated animals
in the caves of Germany, England, and other places ;
the vast mass of fishes in the hill of Bolca, near
Verona — with the whales and other animals that have
been found in the flat lands near the mouth of the
great rivers — such as in the clay at Brentford, and in
various clay formations in Scotland, may all be ac-
ANIMAL REMAINS. 215
counted for in this manner : and yet there must have
been some general change since they were deposited ;
because we believe we may say that, without excep-
tion, they have been all found higher than the present
level of high water. The skeleton of the whale found
in the clay at Airthrey, on the Forth, was twenty feet
higher than the highest tide. It was seventy-two feet
long ; and it would not be easy to see how, without the
agency of water, a fish of such dimensions could have
been raised to such a height. That, however, is nothing
to the heights at which remains, in all probability, of
marine shells have been found in other countries. They
have been found on the Alps, at an elevation of more
than seven thousand feet ; on the Pyrennees, at more
than ten thousand; and on the Andes, in South America,
at more than thirteen thousand. Nay, the probability is,
that in all the formations of carbonate of lime, from the
primitive lime-stone of the mountains to chalk, and
those marbles in which shells are distinctly visible,
animals have been employed ; as we know of no process
in the chemistry of dead matter by which carbonate of
lime can be produced. We are therefore at a loss to
see how those marbles could have been consolidated
and crystallized, without the aid of another power than
the water ; but we do know, from direct experiment,
that carbonate of lime in the state of shells, or even of
powder, can be consolidated and crystallized by heat
under pressure.
Thus, if we attempt to look back at the history of
the ocean, we find that it involves also that of the
whole surface of the globe, and the subject becomes
too mighty for our comprehension, and too obscure
216 WHALES.
for our being able to draw any certain conclusion
respecting it. On tins most interesting, but most
difficult branch of the science of nature, modern in-
vestigation has done much, but it must do much more
before any general theory can be established with
the certainty of being true. Out of the existing mate-
rials, it would be easy to form a hypothesis — just as
it is easy to manufacture the tale of a life out of a few
traits ; but a mere hypothesis in the study of nature is
a much more blind and unsafe guide than a mere ro-
mance in the study of man.
But we do not need to ransack the tombs and monu-
ments of the ocean and its inhabitants, for subjects
of pleasure or instruction. Every portion of it is full
of life ; and though the structure, habits, and economy
of its plants and its animals are different from those of
the land, the wisdom displayed in fitting them for the
element in which they live is not the less manifest, or
the less worthy of admiration. In the British seas,
though only as occasional visitants, the animals that
claim the first attention are
WHALES.
THERE are many species to which the general name
of whales or cetaceous animals is given ; and they vary
considerably in their size, their habits, and the struc-
ture of particular parts of their bodies ; but they all
have these. in common; — that they inhale the air directly
into lungs, and do not separate it from the water by
gills ; that they are warm-blooded, and have the cir-
culating system and the composition of the blood very
WHALES. 217
little different from those of land animals, and that
they bring forth their young alive, and suckle them
with milk, in the same manner as the mammalia ; they
are therefore not fishes, but mammalia,-— adapted to
swim, feed, and do every thing in the water but breathe,
and that they must do at the surface.
Though the skeleton of this tribe of animals be
concealed under the mass of muscles and of fat, it
has many points of resemblance to those of land
animals. The hinder part of the animal is that in which
the greatest difference is found. There are no pelvis
or lower extremities, but the vertebrae of the back
are continued to those of the tail. The bones of the
fore extremities are very similar, both in number and
articulation, to those of the human race : there is a
scapula, or blade-bone, a humerus, or shoulder-bone,
two bones in the fore-arm, and the articulation of a
hand with five fingers. The substance of the muscles,
too, is not like fish, but like that of land animals, hardly
to be known from the flesh on the horse or ox.
Even the skin is unlike the skin of fishes, with its
scales and mucus-glands. Externally, it resembles the
skin on the sole of the human foot, and consists of an
epidermis, or scarf skin, a mucous net, and a true skin.
Below all these, there is a cellular texture, similar in
its structure to that of the hog, capable of containing,
and usually containing, a vast quantity of fat in its
cells. That fat generally contains more fluid oil, and
less of white crystallizable suet or stearine, than the
fat of land animals ; but in some of the species there is
a great deal, easily separated from the fluid oil, and
known in commerce by the name of SPERMACETI : and
u
218 WHALES.
those species in which it is found, are called spermaceti
whales. This substance has nothing to do with sper-
matic purposes, neither is it peculiar to whales, but
may be obtained from suet, lard, butter, or any other
animal fat, and is itself easily changed into a colourless
oil, by distillation. Indeed, the fats owe their white
colour to its existing in them partially crystallized, just
as snow owes its white colour to the little crystals of
water it is made of. This great mass of fat, with
which the bodies of this species of animals are sur-
rounded, is of the utmost importance in their economy.
They are, as has been said, warm-blooded animals;
and, therefore, their health demands that the tem-
perature, through all that part of their bodies where
there is a rapid circulation, should be kept as uniform
as possible. But the whale is an inhabitant of the
most inhospitable seas, and at certain seasons, he may
at once be exposed to three great variations of tem-
perature. Even when feeding, the whale swims with a
considerable portion of its body above water. Now as
there is almost always ice, either freezing or thawing, in
the northern haunts of the whale, that portion of its body
which is in the water must have a temperature of
about thirty-two degrees ; the sunny side maybe seventy
or eighty, or even higher, and the shady one as low as
ten, or even at zero. If the muscles and circulation of
the animal were exposed naked to such varieties of
heat, the structure would be destroyed; but the oil,
which has a slow conducting power, defends it.
There is one difference between the bones of whales
and those of land animals : the texture of the former is
loose and spongy throughout, full of pores and of oil,
WHALES. 219
but destitute of medullary cavity or marrow. The fat
probably answers another purpose, that of preserving
the body of the animal from the effect of pressure when
it descends to the immense depths, to which it some-
times plunges perpendicularly.
The respiration of the whale tribe is one of the
most singular parts of their economy. They must feed
in the water, and the balcente, or common whales, must,
from the size of their bodies, and the smallness of their
gullet, which admits a hen's egg with difficulty, spend a
great deal of time in that operation ; so that breathing
by the mouth would be very inconvenient. Instead of
this, the blow-holes, or openings through which the
whale breathes, are on the very highest part of the
head ; and as in land animals the mouth is made to
assist the nostrils in the function of breathing, so the
nose in whales is made to assist the mouth in the dis-
charge of that part of the water, which, from the rapidity
of its motion, cannot so easily escape by the gape of
the jaws.
In all the tribe, there are two openings leading from
the back part of the mouth to the top of the head ;
but in many of the species, there is only one ex-
ternal opening, though in the common whales there
be two. At the top of the larynx, there are two
tubes of the gullet in these animals, one of which goes
to the cavities of the head, into which the blow-holes
open, and the other to the mouth. The larynx opens
into the former, but is so formed, that it cannot be
opened by pressure from without, so that any watei
which gets so far into the gullet, is forced up into the
cavities in the head. The tubes which lead to those
220 WHALES.
cavities have valves, near their upper extremities,
which open only from below, and thus retain any water
that may be forced up by the circular construction of
the canal that leads from the larynx. Above those
valves there are two elastic sacs, capable of containing
a considerable quantity of water, and also of contracting
with great force ; and the structure of the whale is such
that the water, which must, in some portion at least,
always get as far as the gullet, can be sent to those sacs
without interrupting the respiration of the animal.
Thus the whale is enabled to swim and feed open-
mouthed, without the water either entering the stomach,
or disturbing its breathing; a contrivance essential to
its mode of life. The water appears to go to those
receptacles always when the animal swims with its
mouth below the surface ; but only in a small quantity ;
and while it does so, it prevents the accumulation of
mucus in the breathing apparatus. But there is no
waste of power ; the discharge of the water is not so
constant as its reception. It is a voluntary operation,
performed at intervals, and with much force. The
compression of the sacs projects the water, through
the blow-holes, to the height of nearly fifty feet, and
with much noise, both by the ascent of the water, and
by its fall. This operation is called spouting, and it is
one of the means by which whales are found in foggy
weather, as it is audible at a considerable distance.
Whales are now usually divided into four orders :
1. Toothless whales, (edentatce,) or those that have
not teeth in either jaw ; 2. Upper-toothed whales,
(pr<zdentat<z,) or those that have teeth only in the
fore-part of the upper jaw ; 3. Lower-toothed whales*
WHALES. 221
(subdenlatce,) or those having teeth only in the lower
jaw ; 4. Double-toothed whales, (ambidentatce ^) or those
that have teeth in both jaws. The common Greenland
or black whale is an instance of the toothless ; the
narwhal, or sea-unicorn, of those with teeth above ;
the spermaceti whale, of those with teeth below ; and
the porpesse, of those with teeth in both jaws. With
the exception of the porpesse, none of them can be
considered as constant inhabitants of the British seas ;
but they are all at times occasional visitants ; and
therefore, independently of their peculiar interest, they
fall within the proper limits of British Natural History.
BALEEN, OR WHALEBONE WHALES.
OF the common, or toothless whales, there are two
genera, balance, without fins on the back ; and bala-
noptercB, with fins on the back ; and there are usually
reckoned two species of each genus.
The COMMON WHALE (bal&na mysticetus) is the most
renowned of all those giants of the deep ; and it is
still met with of from fifty to seventy feet in length,
and from thirty-four to forty- five in circumference.
But from the length of time that it has been fished for
in the polar seas, the great avidity with which the
fishing has been carried on, and the gentle and unsus-
picious nature of the great animal, there is reason to
believe that there were much larger specimens formerly
than any that are now to be met with. The ancient
naturalists, who were rather too much allied to that
u 3
222 WHALES.
class which deals only in the wonderful, and partially
at least invents the wonderful in which it deals, give to
the whale a length of nine hundred or a thousand feet ;
but there are well authenticated accounts of individuals
having been met with, in the early days of the Green-
land fishery, that have measured from one hundred and
twenty to one hundred and fifty feet. Thus it must be
regarded as the largest animal of which naturalists have
any knowledge. In the present times, indeed, some
of the spermaceti whales, which are much more active
and ferocious animals, and therefore less frequently
caught, are said to exceed the common whale in size,
though none of them come up even to the authenticated
dimensions that were formerly assigned to it.
The whale is, independently of its size, and its
value in a commercial point of view, one of the most
interesting of animals. Its powers of motion are incre-
dible ; and its tail, as a weapon of defence, is most
formidable ; but it has neither the disposition nor the
means of doing voluntary harm to any other fish. It
is endowed with the most tender affection for its young ;
and though its eyes are small, the expression of them
indicates a degree of perception or even of understand-
ing, of which the eyes of fish properly so called have
not a trace. It has been compared to the eye of the
elephant ; and it is not a little singular that the largest
animal, both of the land and the sea, should be endowed
with the greatest intelligence, and not a voluntary de-
stroyer of other animals. Both have this common
character too, that they are clumsy in appearance, and
would not, at the first, lead one to look for that vast
muscular power which they can exhibit.
WHALES. 223
When the common whale is at rest upon the water,
it looks like a shapeless mass — some rock, black with
the beating of many storms, that rises above the sur-
face. On approaching it, the profile of its head ap-
pears triangular, but blunted at the snout, and carried
upwards in the upper part, at the elevation of which
are the blow-holes, and behind them there is a sort of
depression for the neck. The body is cylindrical, a
little thicker just behind the swimming paws than any
where else, and it tapers off to the tail in the form of
a frustum of a cone. Generally speaking, the whale is
of a glossy black upon the back, witb the sides slate-
coloured, and the under part of the purest white ; but
the colour is not uniform ; it seems to depend both on
age and situation — the whales near the European coasts
being in general much whiter than those near the
coast of America. The tail is a curious piece of me-
chanism. It consists of two oval lobes, which are
entirely made up of tendinous fibres, of a very strong
texture, and these are connected with the greater part
of the muscular structure of the body. There are
three distinct layers of those fibres, the two external
ones lying in the direction of the lobes, and the internal
in the contrary direction. In consequence of this struc-
ture, the tail of the whale is, perhaps, the most moveable
organ in the animal creation. The whole of it can
move in all directions with equal ease, and every indi-
vidual part has also its motion ; and while it is so
powerful that a blow of it can stun thre largest animal,
or cut the strongest-built boat in two, its consistency
is so firm, that it sustains no injury from the most
powerful effort, or from striking against the hardest
224 WHALES.
substance. The termination of the lobes forms a very
graceful curve. The one is elegantly convex, and the
other concave ; so that the termination of the whole is
like the cima recta in architecture. The extent of this
organ is immense : the measure, from the tip of the
one lobe to that of the other, being, in a large whale,
more than twenty feet ; so that it can hit the entire sur-
face of a boat at once ; and when it does so, the boat
is plunged so deep in the water that it never is seen to
rise again to the surface. Though the position of the
lobes of the whale's tail be naturally horizontal, and
not vertical like the fishes, the oblique tendons can
bring it into almost any position. The horizontal
position enables it to sink and rise in the water with
much more celerity than fishes ; and when the whale
is struck by the harpoon of the fisher, it often descends
quite perpendicularly to an incredible depth ; and there
are instances of its bounding to the surface again so
near the spot, as to dash the boat into the air before
the crew can guard against that catastrophe.
Notwithstanding the unwieldy bulk of the whale,
and the quantity of fluid which it must displace, its
motion through the water is at the rate of about twenty-
four miles in an hour ; and while moving at that rapid
rate, it continues feeding, so that in six weeks it could
circumnavigate the globe.
The size and structure of the mouth of this animal
are both worthy of notice. The gape extends back
nearly to the swimming paws ; and the lips, which are
firm and cartilaginous, overlap each other so as to form
a curve, which is convex toward the one extremity, and
concave toward the other. The tongue is of vast size,
WHALES. 225
filling the greater part of the mouth, and appearing,
contrary to the tongues of fishes, to be an organ of
taste. It abounds in fat, and sometimes will produce
several tons of oil.
The Greenland whale is, as has been said, wholly
destitute of teeth, or indeed of any means of seizing
its prey with the mouth, vast though that be. It has
jawbones that support the lips, but those bones more
nearly resemble ribs than ordinary jawbones ; and they
are without those organs of rapid compression which
are found in all animals that chew or bite. In feeding,
the whale has little motion of the jaws ; and if it were
to move these unwieldy instruments every time that it
swallows one of the small and soft substances on which
it feeds, the labour would be so out of all proportion
to the result, that it would be contrary to the universal
practice of nature — that of accomplishing every end
by the simplest possible means. The whale feeds with
the mouth open ; and the food is caught within that
huge cavity. Along the middle of the upper part of
the mouth there is a cartilaginous space, called the gum,
from which the palatal bones slope down on both sides,
and form a cavity having some similarity to the inside
of a boat, of which the gum represents the keel. To
both sides of this gum are articulated those horny
plates of baleen, commonly called whalebone, and in
commerce, absurdly enough, whale fins — as if they
formed part of the swimming apparatus of the animal.
Those plates line the whole palate of the animal, and
vary in number and size with its age. In large whales,
the number on each side often exceeds a hundred, and
the principal ones are more than ten feet long. The
226 WHALES.
largest ones are a little behind the middle of the mouth ;
and they become shorter, both toward the throat and
the snout. These plates are a little curved, and taper
toward their extremities. The front edges are nearly
smooth ; and the back ones, which are thinner, are
fringed with horny fibres, of the texture of coarse
hair, which increase towards the extremities. They
are sometimes black, and sometimes of a grayish
colour, though the latter often appears only in the
membrane with which they are covered. The sub-
stance of which these plates are composed, is nearly
the same as horn ; and so is the texture, though less
compact. Parallel to the flat surface, it can be divided
into smaller plates, of indefinite fineness ; but across
that direction the cleavage is rough and thready. It is
used for many purposes in the arts ; but though it has
considerable toughness, elasticity, and gloss, it is very
apt to split. It is sometimes substituted for bristles in
the manufacture of brushes ; but it is very inferior,
and lasts but a very short time.
When the mouth of the whale is open, the fringes of
the whalebone are brought in contact with the surface
of the tongue ; and the mouth is thus filled with a kind
of net, in which the mollusca, which are the principal
food of the whale, are entangled, and by the joint
action of the tongue and the plates of whalebone, con-
veyed to the gullet. From the size and position of
the eyes, they can be of little use to the animal in
finding its food ; though they enable it to make its way
in the water, and to avoid those animals that are hostile
to it, and likewise submerged rocks, which, if it were
to strike when in full velocity, it would be severely
WHALES. 227
injured, if not killed. The organs of bearing in the
whale are nearly perfect, and that sense is rather acute,
but can be of little avail to it in feeding. It has no
visible organ of smell, except we suppose such to exist
in the spiracles or blow-holes ; but there is reason to
conclude that it has such a sense, and that that sense
is of use in guiding it to those streams of green-coloured
water, in which it is chiefly found, and which derive
their colour from myriads of small mollusca.
The habits or age of the whale are not very much
known ; and what is stated, cannot implicitly be relied
upon. The period of gestation in the female is sup-
posed to be about ten months, and the period of
suckling is about a year. The general produce is
one young one, though two have sometimes been
found following the same female. Some fanciful ac-
counts have been given of the mode in which the
mother-whale nurses her offspring; but they are not
to be relied on. Whales are sought for only to be
captured ; and capturing the female when she has her
young under her care, is a matter that leaves little
time for minute attention to her habits, any further
than that she is remarkably careful of her young,
and very bold and active in its defence. If come
upon unawares, she may be harpooned, and then she
clutches the young one in her paws and dives with it ;
but returns sooner to the surface than she would if
she had it not in charge, apparently to enable it to
breathe. If alarmed, or aware of the danger, and
sometimes after she has been wounded unawares, she
makes terrible resistance, boldly approaching the boat,
and lashing at it with blows loud as thunder ; or plung-
228 WHALES.
ing, and attempting to rise under it, and dash it to pieces
with her back. The female is usually larger than
the male, and generally has a young one in attendance ;
so that the desire of capturing her increases with the
danger. Even the young when following the mother,
in which state the fishermen call them short-heads,
yield a great deal of oil, — often as much as fifty
barrels. Those that are in their second year, and are
supposed to be just weaned, being much less valuable.
The fishers call them stunts, and reckon them not
half so valuable as short-heads. After this they get
fatter, and appear to grow progressively for a period
of years, the prime length of which is not known ;
but below a certain size they are called skull-fish, and
after that, fish, the size being described by the length
of the whalebone.
It is by no means improbable that, before whales
were so much thinned by fishing, they occupied a
much greater range of the ocean than they do at the
present time ; as there are many allusions to them in
the writings of the ancients. These accounts must,
however, be received with a great deal of caution, not
only on account of the mass of fable that they blended
with all descriptions of natural objects, but because
we are never absolutely certain of the species. The
M.v(rTiKrJTO$, mentioned by Aristotle, is more likely to
have been some of the spermaceti whales, than the
mysticetus of the moderns ; as these whales range more
extensively, are furnished with teeth, and have much
wider throats ; which last are two qualities that the
ancients generally give to their sea-monsters ; though
as they give them teeth in both jaws, the dolphin or
WHALES. 229
the grampus must have been their general type. At
present, the black whale is found only in the seas near
the two poles ; though it may occasionally pass from
the one to the other : the spermaceti whale is much
more generally diffused, and is occasionally met with
in all latitudes.
If they were not so common that they pass un-
heeded, the voyages for the capture of those vast
animals might rank high in the annals of human ad-
venture. The islands and mountains of ice swimming
about in all directions, and producing winds from
every point of the compass within the same horizon —
the dreadful crashes with which those cold islands
and continents meet, — the fields which they then turn
up on edge — the masses that they project into the
sky — ships thrown out of the water, or having their
hulls cut in two, and one part above the ice and the
other sunk to the bottom — while (for the storms are
often as loud as they are violent) within sight, others
are coursing among the whales, — throwing their har-
poons,— running out their lines after the plunging fish,
and piercing him with their lances when exhausted ; — or
having him lashed to the ship's side, and flencmg off
the fat with shovels, amid the noise of clouds of
sea-fowl, screaming in expectation of the kreng, or
carcass, or contending with the crew for the fat : —
these exhibit both nature and art in an aspect full of
interest; — and, could they be seen by spectators un-
engaged and at their ease, would form a spectacle of
a very animated character. Nor would the interest
be diminished by the consideration, that every full-
sized whale that is captured, is worth upon the average
x
230 WHALES.
about a thousand pounds, a value far exceeding that
of the carcass of any other animal.
As is the case with the ox and the sheep, there are
few parts of the whale that are not useful, in some way
or other. The oil and the whale-hone are well known.
The tendons may be split down, and used as a thread ;
the membranous coats of the intestines make no bad
substitute for window-glass ; the fibrous fringes of the
whale-bone make ropes and fishing-nets ; the jaws and
ribs serve as beams and rafters for the habitations of
those northern people whose countries produce no tim-
ber ; and the flesh is eaten by the same people with
avidity, — the heart and the tongue being accounted
choice dainties. The muscle of the young ones is far
from unpalatable, and both looks and tastes something
like veal.
Though the whale has been often regarded as the
emblem of longevity, and the period of its natural life
set down at a thousand years, there is no information
upon the point, further than that to acquire so vast a
size it must live a long time. Neither is it known
whether, independently of the ravages of man, the race
be diminishing. Analogy would lead one to think so,
because the native races of large land animals are de-
creasing in the northern hemisphere, and some of them
extinct ; but the case is one in which no dependence
can be placed upon analogies.
The NORDCAPER is a smaller variety of the common
whale, the head and under-part of the body are white,
and the upper part, grey. It tapers more to the tail
than the common whale, and is more active in its
WHALES. 231
motions, and more ferocious in its disposition. It is
found further to the south than the other, — on the coasts
of Iceland and Norway, where it feeds upon medusce,
herrings, and shell-fish.
Though both these species were formerly cast upon
the British shores, especially on those of Scotland ; and
though, if we can trust the statements of the Romans,
(which are any thing but precise,) the shores of Britain
were the regular home of great whales in their days, yet
they are now of rare occurrence. Not so with the
bal&nopterce, or whales with a fin on the back. There
are two species of these, and of the one there are two
varieties.
One, the RAZOR-BACK, (Jbalanoptera physalis,) has
been cast upon the shores of Scotland, as long as eighty
feet, and it is met with in the Greenland seas more than
one hundred feet long, but not nearly so thick in pro-
portion as the common whale. It has a large triangular
fin on the back, from which it sometimes gets the name
of the fin-fish. It is a very active fish, swims with im-
mense velocity, and is seldom taken for its oil, as the
quantity is not great; but the northern people like it as
food, especially the swimming paws and the skin, which
is smooth and gelatinous. The plates of baleen, in the
razor-back, are very short, but they are fringed with
long hair. This animal is much more active in its
feeding than the common whale, and preys upon her-
rings, mackerel, and other small fish, which it occa-
sionally follows so far south as the Hebrides, but seldom
so far as the English coast. It blows with much more
force than the common whale, and sends the spout of
x 2
232 WHALES.
water to a much greater height. Its appearance on
the fishing grounds is not liked, because the common
whales then disappear; but whether they are driven
away by any act of hostility on the part of the razor-
back, has not been ascertained.
The ROUND-LIPPED WHALE (balanoptera musculus)
resembles the former in its habits, and rivals it in size ;
and is distinguished by the upper lip being narrow and
pointed, and the under one having a semi-circular
margin. Instances have occurred of its being washed
upon the Scottish shores, in specimens nearly eighty
feet long. Generally, however, it is much smaller. It
follows the herrings pretty regularly as far as the coasts
of Argyleshire, and even into the Firth of Forth and
Loch Fyne. Individuals of this species have often been
known to frequent the same station for many years.
That which is described, by Sir Robert Sibbald, as
having come ashore at Abercorn, in the Firth of Forth,
in September 1692, had been for twenty years well
known to the fishermen, who called it the " hollie pike"
from a bullet hole that had perforated its dorsal fin.
That one was seventy-eight feet long, and thirty-five in
circumference, where thickest. The gape of its mouth
was very wide ; the lower jaw more than thirteen feet
long ; and the tongue, which was much furrowed, fifteen
feet and a half long, and fifteen broad. The plates of
baleen were three feet in length ; the eyes, thirteen feet
from the snout ; the breast-fins, ten feet long ; the back
one, three feet high ; and the extent of the lobes of the
tail, eighteen feet. The skin, on the belly of this spe-
cies, is full of folds and corrugations, as if it could be
WHALES. 233
distended to a much greater diameter than the animal
usually has.
The SHARP- LIPPED variety (baltenoptera hoops?) is of
inferior dimensions, and is indeed the smallest of the
baleen or whalebone whales. The upper jaw in this,
as in the last variety, is much shorter and narrower
than the lower, but they both terminate in sharp points,
which circumstance has obtained for it the name of
the " beaked whale." This, indiscriminately, with the
former variety, is called the " offin whale " by common
observers, and therefore the one may have sometimes
been confounded with the other. Indeed, with the ex-
ception of the form of the lower lip, and the difference
of size in some of the specimens, their appearance and
habits are very much alike. They both have the same
corrugated skin on the belly ; and probably the same
means of inflating or blowing it up, to increase their
buoyancy. Though their native region is the Green-
land seas, they are yet not unfrequent visitants of the
most northern part of the British ocean. They are
often seen in the sounds and bays among the Orkney
islands, at the time when the shoals of herrings are
migrating to the south. A very beautiful specimen,
seventeen feet in length, which was caught upon the
dogger-bank, is described by Hunter in the Philoso-
phical Transactions for 1787. The remains found in
its stomach were those of the dog-fish (spinax acan-
thiasj) the usual length of which is about three feet,
which proves that the finned balance, though equally
destitute of the means of biting, are much more vora-
cious in their swallowing than the common whale. The
x 3
234 WHALES.
largest stranded on the British shores, was at Alloa, on
the Firth of Forth. It was forty-three feet long, and
twenty in circumference ; the jaws were fourteen feet
long ; there were about three hundred plates of baleen
on each side of the mouth, the longest of which were
about eighteen inches.
Both these varieties are great depredators. They may
be seen with just the top of the dorsal fin, and that part
of the head in which the blow-holes are situated, above
water, driving along with vast rapidity, while fishes
even of very considerable dimensions, and which are
themselves given to plunder, are ever and anon leaping
out of the water, to avoid that current which would
carry them into the wide mouth of the finner^ en-
tangle them amid the fringes of the baleen, and ulti-
mately find them their graves in the maw of that
voracious animal. Their only means of escape is
gaining water so shallow, that their pursuer cannot
follow them ; and the huge ones that have been found
on the shores, have generally met their fate by fol-
lowing their prey too eagerly, and running aground
during the ebbing of the tide. These finned whales
are of comparatively little value for their oil ; but the
Greenlanders are remarkably fond of the flesh, which
they procure, not by harpooning, as they do with the
larger whales, but by shooting the fish with arrows.
PR^EDENTAT^E. NARWALS.
THESE, though much inferior in size to the former,
are a singular race of animals. Their native habita-
tions, like those of the whales, are in the Greenland
WHALES. 235
seas, but they occasionally make their appearance on
the northern shores of Scotland, or among the Orkney
or Shetland islands. Of these, there are two species,
the common, or " sea-unicorn," and the " microce-
phalus" or small headed. Their length seldom ex-
ceeds twenty-two feet ; their head and mouth are small
in proportion to their bodies, as compared with those
of the whales ; their mouths have neither teeth nor
whalebone, they have only one blow-hole, and they
have no dorsal fin, but there is a ridge from the tail
to the middle part of their back. The greatest pecu-
liarity about them, and that which has got them the
name of monodon, (one-toothed,) and monoceros, (one-
horned,) is a tooth which projects from one side of the
upper jaw, and extends, in a straight direction, a con-
siderable way in advance of the snout. This tooth is
sometimes on the one side of the head, and sometimes
on the other ; but though there be a preparation for
the production of one on each side, the two have very
seldom been found. The tooth is composed of a sub-
stance resembling ivory, and spirally twisted. The
animal is said to use it both as a weapon of war, and
as a means of driving shell-fish from the rocks. The
tooth, or "horn," as it is usually called, though much
more brittle than ivory, is of some value in the arts ;
walking-sticks are made of the small ones ; and bed-
posts and other articles of those that are larger ; and
the Greenlanders use them as poles. Though armed
with this powerful weapon, the narwaJs are very harm-
less animals, except to those fishes on which they feed ;
but they are said to be very revengeful when ill used ;
and to plunge their formidable tooth into the bodies of
236 WHALES.
animals much larger than themselves. Their motions
are light and graceful, and they swim with uncommon
velocity. The tooth is sometimes ten feet in length,
and according to Captain Scoresby, to whom we are
indebted for much valuable information respecting the
polar seas and their inhabitants, they are found only on
the male ; but sometimes, though rarely, they are
found on the female. The tusk is most commonly
found on the left side, while on the right there is the
rudiment of another, which has not perforated the bones
of the skull in which it is contained. On the British
shores the narwal is very rare ; but it has appeared
on the coast of Lincolnshire, probably at the Isle of
May, ("Prope insulam Mayam? — Tulpius,) in the
Firth of Forth, and at the Sound of Werdale in Zetland.
The oil of the narwal is in considerable quantity, and
peculiarly pure and valuable ; but from the activity of
the animal, the rapidity with which it swims, and the
ease with which it dives, it is caught with the greatest
difficulty.
Mention is made of a very small species of whale,
the Anarnak) found in the Greenland seas, with teeth
in the upper jaw, instead of the projecting tusk of the
narwal ; but its history is rather obscure, and no spe-
cimen of it has been met with upon the British shores.
SUBDENTAT^l. SPERMACETI WHALES.
THE animals of this genus are very formidable, of
great value in the arts, and much more widely diffused
over the globe than any of those that have been hitherto
mentioned. The most remarkable characteristic of the
WHALES. 237
genus, is the immense size of the head which is, at the
least, equal to a third, and in some to a naif of the body.
The upper jaw is remarKao.y broad and deep, with a
very hard gum, in which there are generally some rudi-
ments of teeth, and also cavities to receive the teeth of
the lower jaw, which are strong, conical, and very for-
midable. The spermaceti is found in a cavity under
the snout of these animals, and the substance known
by the name of ambergris, is found in their intestines.
None of their mouths are furnished with plates and
fringes of baleen, as they are all capable of biting and
seizing their prey. Their throats are a great deal wider
than those of the common whale ; and the remains of
fishes, even sharks more than twelve feet in length,
have been found in their stomachs. Their ferocity,
indeed, forms a remarkable contrast to the gentle man-
ners of the balana mysticetus. There are a good many
species of spermaceti whales, inhabiting different parts
of the globe ; but the most remarkable for size and
character are the following, all of which have been met
with on the British shores, and in other parts of the
European seas : —
The GREAT-HEADED. Physeter Microcephalus.
The BLUNT-HEADED. Physeter Trumpo.
The SMALL-EYED. Physeter Microps.
The GREAT-HEADED SPERMACETI WHALE is a very
clumsy-looking animal. The back is black, or slate-
colour, sometimes mottled with white, and the under
part white. The head has something the appearance
of a great tilted wagon ; the jaws are of immense
depth, the eyes small, and very far from the snout, the
238 WHALES.
tongue a huge mass, of a red colour ; the teeth in the
lower jaw very strong, with holes in the upper one to
receive them, and the rudiments of teeth in the inter-
vals between. The head exceeds in size all the rest of
the body.
But notwithstanding the clumsiness of its form, it is
a very active animal, swimming with great rapidity, and
vaulting almost out of the water with apparent ease.
The bones are hard, and made into weapons by the
Greenlanders, while the teeth are of the purest ivory.
It is not very productive of oil, but the Greenlanders
are very fond of its flesh, which is of a pale colour,
and has some resemblance to pork. It attains the
length of sixty or seventy feet, with a circumference of
thirty. It is not very common in the British seas,
though it has been found occasionally there, as also
on the coast of France.
The BLUNT-HEADED SPERMACETI WHALE resembles
the former, only the muzzle is more blunt, and its body,
which grows to as great a length as that of the former,
is thicker in proportion ; and vastly more valuable,
both for its spermaceti and its oil. The capture of it
is not, however, unattended with danger, as it comes
open-mouthed with great velocity against its assailants.
Instead of a dorsal fin, it has a hump or protuberance
on the back. It is occasionally met with in the British
seas.
The SMALL-EYED, also called the ft/ac£-headed sper-
maceti whale, is characterized by the smallness of its
eyes, and the enormous size and dark colour of its
WHALES. 239
head, which, excepting the tail fin, is fully as long as all
the rest of the body. This animal is provided with a
dorsal fin. Its teeth are remarkably formidable. There
are twenty-one on each side of the lower jaw ; strong,
sharply-pointed, and incurvated backwards a little : the
principal ones are more than nine inches in length in a
large specimen, and they project more than four inches
from the jaw, so that its bite is much more powerful
than that of any land animal, — the lion not excepted,
which, were it to come within the crunch of this terrible
animal, would be crushed to death in an instant. La
Cepede, with some poetic license certainly, but still, in
the main, true to the facts, says of it : " The physeter
rnicrops is one of the largest and most eruel and dan-
gerous inhabitants of the deep. Adding to formidable
weapons, the two great sources of strength, bulk and
velocity, — greedy of carnage, — a daring enemy, — and
an intrepid fighter ; what part of the sea does he not
stain with blood ! "
The small-eyed spermaceti whale is often more than
fifty feet in length, and it swims about with the greatest
activity, and an apparent consciousness that it is the
monarch of the deep. The blow of its tail is not, indeed,
so formidable as that of the common whale, and there
is no instance of its venturing to attack full-grown
animals of that species ; but sharks, dolphins, and por-
pesses are an easy prey ; it attacks the balaenopterae,
and tears large masses from their bodies ; and the
Greenland whale, when not full-grown, plunges into the
depths of the ocean at its approach. This animal takes
a considerable range ; and is probably more frequent
upon the Scottish coast than any of the other large
240 DOLPHINS.
whales. It is also found on the shores of Germany
and France; and in the year 1723, seventeen of them
appeared off the mouth of the Elbe, and with their high
dorsal fins, like sails, were, by the Fishermen of Cux-
haven, mistaken for a fleet of Dutch fishing boats.
This species also finds its way into the Mediterranean ;
and La Cepede, who seems disposed to magnify all the
powers of this animal — and they do not stand much in
need of magnifying — will have it, that the sea-monster,
from which the valorous Perseus delivered the fair
Andromeda, was an animal of this species ; and that
the Orca with which, as Pliny says, the emperor Claudius
and his troops fought in the port of Ostia, was another.
These suppositions, like the tales themselves, may be
true or they may be false, but there is enough contained
in authentic history, to show that the physeter microps,
if not the most powerful animal, is among the most
powerful animals that inhabit the globe.
The habits of the animal are of too active a nature
for admitting of a very great quantity of oil ; but its
enormous head contains a good deal of spermaceti, of
very excellent quality. Like the rest of the sperma-
ceti whales, it has only one blow-hole, but that is of
considerable dimensions, and it throws its jet of water
to a great height.
AMBIDENTATJE.
THE animals of this class are not of so large di-
mensions as those of any of the former, — the largest of
them not measuring more than five and twenty feet in
length. Still they are formidable animals, and in some
DOLPHINS. 241
of the species at least, they are much more frequent
and constant inhabitants of the British shores.
The general name which naturalists give to these
animals, is delphini, or dolphins ; and the principal
species are, the common dolphin, the ca'ing whale, the
grampus, and the porpesse, with the bottle-head, and
the beluga or white dolphin, which are more rarely met
with in the British seas. All the species are voracious,
and remarkable for the depredations that they commit
upon various fish ; and many of them are gregarious,
or found in herds.
The DOLPHIN (delphinus delphis) is about as unlike
the pictures that are usually made of it as can well be
imagined. Tt is usually about nine or ten feet long,
rarely more than twelve. Its body is straight, blackish
on the upper part, and white below. The nose is long,
narrow, and pointed, on which account the animal
sometimes gets the name of the " sea-goose." Its
favourite haunts are rather in warmer latitudes ; but it
is occasionally found in the British seas. The ordi-
nary prey is small fishes, but it can eat any garbage.
In former times, it was much esteemed as food, perhaps
on account of the difficulty of getting it, more than any
thing else : at present it is not in much request. The
stories that are told about dolphins changing their
colours when they are dying, and after they are dead,
do not appear to be very well founded. The colour
of the fish is very apt to vary with the angle under
which it is seen, or at which the light falls upon it.
The CA'ING WHALE (delphinus melas) was for a
considerable time confounded with the grampus. It
Y
DOLPHINS.
is by no means rare upon the shores of the northern
parts of the island, where it arrives in herds ; and these
are so sluggish in their motions, that they get aground
and are captured. The largest are rather more than
twenty feet long, and about twelve feet in circum-
ference. The upper part of the body is a bluish black,
and the under part white. They feed upon small
fishes, and are not understood to be so voracious as
some of the rest of the genus. Their teeth are for-
midable, however, and those of the two jaws lock into
each other like a trap ; but they are apt to decay as the
animal becomes old.
The GRAMPUS (delphinus orca) is a constant inhabi-
tant of the British seas. There is a little confusion in
its natural history, some making two varieties, or even
species, and some only one. Probably, there is only
one species, though the habits of that one may be
changed a little with climate and food. It is a most
voracious animal, more so than any other of the genus,
for it attacks the porpesse, and probably, also, the
weaker individuals of its own species. It is large too,
sometimes equalling, or even exceeding, twenty-four
feet in length, with thickness and strength in pro-
portion. Packs of them are said to attack the Green-
land whale, and tear off his flesh in masses. Indeed,
they are so ferocious and such indiscriminate spoilers,
that they spare not even their own kind. But though,
in the one grand object of its being, the grampus be
thus ferocious, there lies against it no charge of cruelty ;
and in the other part, the care of its young, it shows
the greatest tenderness and solicitude. This instinct
DOLPHINS. 243
should be taken along with the other, in every estimate
which is made of the characters of animals ; and it is
chiefly because that is not done, that we find some of
them praised and loved, and others persecuted.
We are apt to carry man, and man's love of governing
and directing, into all our reasonings and judgings of
the works of nature, and by this means we take an
erroneous view of the subject. The preservation of
salmon, though man would like them to be preserved,
and though he be justified in using every means that
men have legalized for the furtherance of his wish, is
no part of the end which nature had in view in the
formation of a grampus, any more than the preservation
of sheep is a natural purpose of the wolf, or that of flies,
a natural purpose of a spider. The law of each is the
preservation of itself individually, and of the race to
which it belongs ; and this law, though it be different
in manner, according to the difference in structure and
habitation, is uniform in principle. The eagle,* the
grampus, and the lion, may be reckoned among the
principal depredators in the three grand departments
of the kingdom of nature ; but they are not on that
account destroyers. They are preservers : preserving
respectively eagles, grampuses, and lions, — the only
animals with whose preservation they are charged.
Where man does not come to claim his dominion,
and to call the prey of those animals his, the system
is so admirably balanced that it never stands still,
or wants the least repair, — the supply being so re-
gulated in accordance with the waste, that, if we
would but imitate it, it is a far better system of
economy than that of the wisest of human philosophy.
244 DOLPHINS.
It must be so : for it is the original and immediate
workmanship of God, while the greatest ingenuity of
man is second-hand, — only one step removed from the
Divinity it is true, but to our comprehension that single
step is infinite. Man can make a trap that will catch
animals, if they go into it, as certainly as the claws of a
lion, the talons of an eagle, or the teeth of a grampus ;
but he must stop at the mere mechanism, — he cannot
give it that little invisible impulse by which it goes of
its own accord to seek them. But man has any thing
but cause to complain of that. He himself is the
animating power of all his engines ; and, armed with
these, he is in truth the lord of the creation ; and, when
he joins wisdom to his power, there is hardly any limit
that can be assigned to his dominion.
Many tales, not only interesting, but absolutely affect-
ing, have been told of the maternal affection of the
grampus. It has even been the theme of poets ; for
Waller has a beautiful description of an instance : — A
mother grampus and her cub had been following their
lawful calling — that is, catching fish as fast as they could
in the estuary of a river ; and they had been so indus-
trious and intent upon their work, that they were
stranded by the ebbing of the tide. This being ob-
served by the country people, their instinct of catching
was immediately roused, and they came, in posse comi-
tatus, to capture the animals. These were speedily
pierced by a number of wounds, and the shallow water
was dyed with their blood. But they made a terrible
resistance ; and the old one bounded into the deep water
and was safe. But her young one was exposed alone
to the danger ; and she had no sooner turned her head
DOLPHINS. 245
toward the shore, than she dashed again into the shallow
water, where she made so terrible a resistance, by
lashing around her in every direction, that she kept the
enemy at bay till the tide rose, upon which she and her
young one rode triumphantly to the sea !
As the body of the grampus contains very little oil, —
not enough to pay for the capture, — the animal floats
very deep in the water ; but then, both its velocity and
its voracity are such, that it is very apt to dash itself
aground, where it makes a violent resistance, and is
exceedingly difficult to kill.
Though many specimens of the larger kinds of dol-
phins have been met with, yet there is a good deal of
confusion in their history. La Cepede, in his natural
history of the cetacece, makes two species of the dark-
coloured and voracious grampus, with the long dorsal
fin, — delphmus orca, the common grampus ; and del-
phinus gladiator, the sea sword ; while Cuvier and
others reckon but one, and some consider the Ca'ing
whale as only a variety of the grampus. In form and
colour they are all very much alike, being clumsy and
unsightly in appearance, dark on the upper part, and
very white below ; but their habits are described as
varying from the extreme of active ferocity to that
of indolence. That may in part be owing to the condi-
tion they were in at the time when they were observed ;
but the ca'ing whale has the swimming paws much
narrower, and wants not only the white spot on the
shoulder and near the eye, that is found on the others,
but sometimes has the body entirely black.
About twelve years ago, a vast shoal of these animals
entered the Firth of Tay, and two dozen, at least,
Y 3
246 DOLPHINS.
grounded on the shoal off Dundee. Their high dorsal
fins had been for some time observed by the fishermen,
coursing to and fro in the offing ; but as the fins of
porpesses are often seen in the same place, they did
not excite much attention. A new harbour being in
the progress of construction, a number of masons, ex-
cavators, and other labourers, were at work upon the
sea-wall and its foundations. As the tide ebbed to the
depth of four or five feet, a violent splashing drew the
attention of the workmen, who found the shoal of
grampuses, close by the place where they were work-
ing ; the larger ones already grounded, and lashing
furiously with their tails, and the smaller ones flouncing
and plunging ; the whole having their heads toward the
land, and working nearer to it. Stimulated by the
joint expectation of great fun and great wealth, the
men armed themselves with shovels, pickaxes, crow-
bars, boat-hooks, mallets, and chisels, and, in short,
every thing that seemed to have any chance of inflict-
ing a wound, and plunged into the water in a body.
Some of them had the temerity to catch hold of the
tails, and vaulting across the narrow part at the root of
the fins, to impel the fish further out of the water ;
but they were jerked off in an instant, and men and
grampuses were weltering in one common confusion ;
still, as the water was very shallow, and the men inured
to it, there was no danger. One got astride, just before
the dorsal fin, with his face to the tail ; and grasping that,
rode the sea like another Arion ; but though he treated
his beast of burden with plenty of music, or at least
noise, it did not show the same gratitude ; for it turned,
got toward the deep water, and he was glad to escape.
THE PORPESSE. 24?
The greater number came close to the wall, however,
and were left nearly dry, and subjected to all sorts of
wounds. Here one man was hacking with a hatchet,
or the edge of a shovel ; there another was aiming a
blow at the head of one fish with a pick-axe, while the
flap of the tail of another sent him and his pick-axe
into the mud. Two were uniting their force at one
place, in order to give a death thrust with a crow-bar ;
while on the neck of one of the largest, sat a stone-
mason, malletting his pointed chisel into the skull.
The place soon became a sea of blood ; and what with
that, and the natural slipperiness of the skins, together
with the convulsive struggles of the wounded animals,
ever and anon caused some one to souse into the mire,
to the great amusement of the rest. The splutter, the
activity, the shouting, and the jocularity and glee with
which the whole was conducted, formed a scene to
which no pen, and hardly any pencil, could do justice.
The largest of these animals was more than twenty
feet long, and the smallest more than twelve. They
produced very little oil.
The cetaceous animal found most frequently and
habitually upon the British shores, is
THE PORPESSE.
THE PORPESSE (delphinus phoctena) is comparatively
a short animal, being seldom more than six feet long,
but it is very thick and fat ; hence the common saying,
" As fat as a porpesse." The weight of the porpesse
is great for its length. One, only five feet three inches
in length, examined by Dr. Fleming, to whom natural
248 THE PORPESSE.
history is under many obligations, weighed one hundred
and thirty pounds. The upper part of the porpesse is
of a dull bluish or brownish black, and the under part
whitish. It has a number of small teeth, at least forty-
eight in each jaw ; the dorsal fin is not very high, and
placed far back, and the animal makes a curious tum-
bling appearance in the water, through which, however,
it courses along with considerable rapidity. Herrings,
mackerel, whitings, and all other small fish, appear
to be its principal food ; though it also catches salmon,
and may be seen coursing them in the estuaries. This
chase is best seen on those clear sunny evenings which,
in the season at which the salmon ascend the estuaries,
often succeed to rainy mornings. The porpesses are
commonly in a shoal, and their dark backs may be
seen tumbling on the troughs of the waves, while the
salmon are, ever and anon, springing out of the water,
with their pearly scales glittering in the sun in all the
radiance of prismatic colours ; but, as is understood,
falling down again to their certain destruction, as they
do not spring out of the water till the porpesse be
near them, and fall down again, exhausted, within its
reach.
With each other, the porpesses seem to be very
affectionate and playful animals. They are always
together ; and frisk, leap, and sport a great deal upon
the water, — especially before storms, as the sailors
allege. In this they bear some resemblance to pigs,
which are understood to be very frolicsome before wind ;
and probably this, as well as the form of their bodies,
may have helped to procure them the name of " sea
swine,'* by which they are vulgarly called in most of
THE PORPESSE. 249
the European languages in which they have any name
at all.
In former times, the flesh of the porpesse was
esteemed a great delicacy. It appeared at the tables
of nobles ; and was accounted by kings a donation
worthy of being granted to favourite monasteries : —
Malcolm IV. of Scotland granted it to the Abbey of
Dumfermline. In modern times it is not eaten, though
it is far from being unpalatable. The old people had
a peculiar sauce for it, made of crumbs of bread, vine-
gar, and sugar. The animal is still valuable for its oil,
which is good in quality, and rather abundant in quan-
tity ; but at many of the fishing villages, the kreng or
carcass is left rather offensively upon the beach. Even
the skin of the porpesse, which is very compact, and
capable of being applied to many useful purposes, is
neglected in this country ; but in America the poor
people use it as an article of clothing ; and it is also
dressed and tanned as a covering for coaches and trunks,
for which purposes it is very well adapted, being firm,
and impervious to water.
The porpesse is rather a timid animal, and is easily
alarmed by any thing moving in the water, on which
account it is sometimes caught by an enclosure made of
twigs. These are fixed on a bank in the tideway, so
that they shall be covered at high water, but appear as
the tide ebbs. Shoals of porpesses pass over them in
the former state, in eager pursuit of the small fishes
which come near the shore with the tide. But as they
continue their fishing till the water has subsided, the
twigs appear in a state of motion, and the porpesses,
250 THE PORPESSE.
afraid to pass or approach them, remain till they are
all dry, when they are killed with clubs.
Two other delphini, of the peaked or long-nosed spe-
cies, are sometimes found in the British seas. These
are, the BELUGA, (delphmus aptera, so called from its
having no dorsal fin, but only a ridge on the back) ;
and the BOTTLE-NOSE, (Jiyperoodon, — so called from
its having tubercles resembling teeth upon the palate).
The BELUGA, which from its colour is sometimes
called the white dolphin, is found in large flocks in the
Greenland seas. It also enters the estuaries of rivers,
after fish, like the grampus ; but so far as we know, it
has not appeared on the coasts of England, and it is
but rare on those of Scotland. It has been found in
the Orkneys, and one was caught in the Forth below
Stirling, in the summer of 1815. Those larger visiters
are found in that river more frequently than in others
further to the north, the entrances of which are less
extended and more interrupted by banks and bars. The
salmon, on the other hand, as if instinctively to avoid
their enemies, are more abundant in the confined
estuaries.
Sometimes this animal, which is to all appearance a
very quiet and harmless one, and finds the Green-
landers in many a dainty dinner, is supposed to create
great alarm. It is large, (from twelve to eighteen
feet long) and it is white, therefore it is mistaken for
the formidable shark of the warmer latitudes. The
shark is not a warm-blooded animal, neither does it
suckle its young, or, though it brings them forth alive,
appear to care any thing about them afterwards. Their
THE PORPESSE. 251
young are produced from eggs, which are hatched in-
ternally, as is probably the case with all the cartila-
ginous fishes that have fixed gills. The white shark
(charcharias vulgar is) is very rare indeed upon the Bri-
tish coasts, and we are not sure that there is any very
well authenticated instance of its appearance north of
the channel, nor very many there ; so that British bathers
are not in any very great danger from it.
The BOTTLE-NOSE, so called from its muzzle being
elongated like the neck of a bottle, is a much longer
fish than the former, being found as long as thirty feet.
The body is conical, the head thick, and terminating in
a projecting snout. It has been occasionally found in
most of the estuaries of our large rivers ; but it is far
from common, and probably it does not follow fish like
the rest of the tribe; but feeds mostly upon mollusca —
as the snout of the cuttle-fish are the remains usually
found in its stomach. It has only two teeth in the
lower jaw ; and the tubercles on its palate serve to
bruise its molluscous food. The habits of many of
these animals, especially the two last mentioned, are
but very imperfectly known. The habits of all the
natives of the deep, even of those that are caught in
thousands every day, want much investigation; and,
from the nature of their element, the task is not an
easy one.
There is one fish, belonging to the same tribe with
the shark, which common observers are apt to con-
found with some of the dolphin tribe, and that is
252
THE SAIL FISH.
THE SAIL-FISH, called also the Sun-Fish, and the
Basking- Shark, (sgualus maximus,) is not often met
with on the east coast of this country, though it be a
pretty regular summer visitant on the west. It is
about thirty feet long, and has two fins on the back,
the one on the middle and the other near the tail. The
former is commonly above water, and, from that cir-
cumstance, with the shape and size of the fin, the fish
has its common name. The fin is dark, and the upper
part of the fish of a bluish colour, but the under part
is white. The skin feels smooth when the hand is
passed over it from the head toward the tail, but rough
and uneven when passed in an opposite direction. It
is a heavy-looking fish, and not easily alarmed by the
approach of boats ; but the story commonly told of its
waiting till the harpoon is pushed a second time into it,
is not true ; as it usually plunges the moment that it is
struck. The liver contains a great quantity of oil. This
fish usually makes its appearance on the west coast in
May, and leaves it again about the end of July.
The division of fishes to which the sail-fish belongs,
though numerous and diversified, and containing some
of the most singular inhabitants of the ocean, yet all
agree in certain parts of their structure. They all differ
from the osseous fishes, or fishes with fibrous bones (of
which some slight notice has already been taken) in the
structure of their skeletons, in the nature of their in-
tegument or covering, and in the mode of their pro-
duction. The division has this farther advantage, that
CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 253
the characters by which it is marked are obvious, with-
out any recourse to dissection, or even minute obser-
vation. The most remarkable and general charac-
teristic is the gristly nature of the skeleton ; and on
that account they are called
CARTILAGINOUS FISHES.
They are also called CHONDROPTERYGIOUS ; and that
name is expressive both of the skeleton and of the
covering of the surface, especially thefins of the greater
part of the division, — %ov$po$ signifying cartilage, and
also granulated, and the remainder of the compound
name meaning Jlnned. And a considerable number
of these fishes have their fins so hard and granular
on the surface, that they serve for polishing, like files,
while others have spines and shelly knobs. These
spines are sometimes very formidable weapons, — as in
the serrated spine, which terminates the tail of the
sting ray, (trygon pastinaca ;) and in those of the
common dog-fish, (squalus acanthius;) although the
wounds inflicted by these animals are said not to occa-
sion nearly so much pain as those inflicted by the
common weever (trachmus draco,) an osseous fish,
about a foot long, the wounding weapon of which
(commonly represented as being venemous) is the first
spine of the dorsal fin. If wre were not prepared to
meet with all sorts of organizations among the pro-
ductions of nature, we should be apt to wonder at this
production of bony matter, as hard as the most com-
pact teeth, upon the surface of fishes, the internal ske-
letons of which never acquire any harder consistency
254 CARTILAGINOUS FISHES.
than gristle or cartilage, and of course composed
almost entirely of gelatine, without any admixture of
those salts of lime to which bones and shells owe their
stiffness. But when we come to examine the matter,
we find this structure a remarkable instance of con-
trivance and economy. The absence of lime in the
skeleton gives wonderful pliancy to the bodies of these
fishes ; while the granulated, tuberculated, or spinous
surface, is a coat of mail to them against enemies, and
not unfrequently a powerful weapon of aggression.
Their external bony substances differ a good deal
from bone. They contain a portion of carbonate of
lime, as well as phosphate, and thus hold an inter-
mediate rank between bones and shells ; and place
those fishes to which they belong as an intermediate
link between the osseous fishes and the shelled mollusca ;
the latter of which have not even the cartilaginous
rudiments of a skeleton, and have their covering chiefly
of carbonate of lime. We find a similar gradation in
those marine animals that are covered with crusts, such
as the crab and the lobster. Their internal bones
are cartilaginous, and the external crusts are com-
posed of carbonate and phosphate of lime. On
land, we find the same gradation in many of the
reptiles. Their bones are cartilaginous, while the
indurated matter is accumulated in the external scales
and crusts. Generally, however, there is a difference
in the composition of those appendages, which shows
that each is fitted to the element in which it is to live.
The scales and crusts of land animals are horny, or
composed almost entirely of gelatine, which, though it
can bear the action of the air, and a considerable change
CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 255
of temperature, would be softened and ultimately dis-
solved by long maceration in water. Those of sea ani-
mals are, on the other hand, composed of what is called
mother-of-pearl, from the play of colours usually ob-
servable in it. It consists of coagulated albumen and
carbonate of lime, in very thin layers ; a structure much
better fitted for bearing the action of water, than that
of the air and variations of temperature.
The breathing apparatus of those fishes is a curious
structure. With the exception of the sturgeon, which
has some other peculiarities, the gills in all are fixed,
and inclosed in a thorax or chest, furnished with carti-
laginous ribs, and a cartilaginous diaphragm, and thus
capable of being extended and contracted like that of
the mammalia. On this account, the romance writers on
natural history have described the cartilaginous fishes
as breathing with lungs, and being intermediate between
the cetacecB and the osseous fishes ; at the same time
that they had gills. Thus furnishing them with two
sets of respiratory apparatus, and yet with but one ven-
tricle and auricle in the heart.
Now the fact is, that if we are to consider the animals
which most resemble man to be the most perfect, (which,
by the way, is a very improper mode of expression, as
a lamprey, or even a polypus, which is nothing but a
little tube or sac, is just as perfect in its way as a
greyhound or a race-horse,) — if we are to use that mode
of expression, we must consider the cartilaginous fishes
as a degree lower than the osseous, on account of their
soft skeleton and their mode of respiration, and also
in their nervous structure. They correspond in another
particular : those animals which are usually accounted
256 CARTILAGINOUS FISHES.
the least perfect, are the most tenacious of life ; and,
generally speaking, cartilaginous fishes are much more
so than those that have bones.
In those fishes the gills consist of a greater or smaller
number of bags or cells, the internal surface of which
is covered with fleshy fibres, the same in appearance
as the gills of osseous fish, and, no doubt, answering
precisely the same purpose, that of affording the blood
the oxygen necessary for the purposes of life, by ex-
posing it to water containing that fluid, in an extended
tissue of minute vessels. Those gill cells vary in
number in different genera, — there being seven on each
side in the lamprey, and only six in the hag. The
openings which lead from those cells to the surface of
the fish, vary even more. The lamprey has seven on
each side ; the hag only one, but each opening in that
communicates with all the cells. At their other termi-
nations, the cells communicate with the gullet, so that
they are adapted as a thoroughfare for water, like other
gills, and not for alternate respiration and expiration
by the same passage, like lungs.
Analogy would lead us to suppose that the water is
received by the mouth, conducted thence by the tubes
to the cells, deprived of the oxygen of its air by the
fibres in these, and then discharged through lateral
openings as useless, by the action of the sides and
diaphragm of the thorax. Nor can there be any doubt
that when the fish is swimming " free-mouthed," this
must be the case. But there are some genera, that
use the mouth as a sucker, during which time it cannot,
consistently with the principle of suction, have any
connexion with the breathing apparatus. Sir Everard
CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 257
Home is of opinion that the water is, in these cases,
both received and discharged by these lateral openings ;
v and the vulgar opinion is, that it is received by these
and discharged by the nostril. The last opinion can-
not be true, as the nostril is not connected with the
organs of respiration at all ; and even that of Sir Eve-
rard is suspicious, as it involves not only a violation of
analogy, but a want of skill not to be found in any
other production of nature. If the gill-openings are
adapted for the ingress of water, they would have this
property at all times, and the thoroughfare by the
mouth would be useless. But in a fish which, like the
shark, swims with great velocity, the entrance of the
water by the lateral openings would be accomplishing
a purpose by the most difficult means. Those openings
are behind rather than before the gill-cells, so that the
mechanical action of the animal through the water
would prevent that fluid from entering by those aper-
tures, though it would facilitate it in getting out. So
obvious is this, upon the very simplest principles of
motion in a fluid, that one can hardly imagine the oppo-
site possible ; and so much is it the case in osseous
fishes, that if they be drawn backward with rapidity,
or held by the tail in a current, they are speedily
drowned, — strangulated, because the gills will not act.
When fishes of this kind are swimming, they must
therefore take in water by the mouth, and pass it out
by the gill openings, just in the same way as other
fishes. Still, the respiration while sucking is a diffi-
culty, though the difficulty does not consist, as Sir
Everard thinks, in how the water gets out, but in how
it gets in ; and that difficulty is not cleared up by his
z 3
258 CARTILAGINOUS FISHES.
supposition that the water enters by the hole on the one
side, passes through, and escapes by the other ; because,
unless there were a difference in the two, which could
shut the one aperture against the escape, and the other
against the entrance of water, it is not easy to see how
it could be accomplished, any more than a person could
at one and the same time draw in breath by the one
nostril, and let it out by the other. If it is found that
there is no other ingress for the water of respiration,
while the animal is sucking, than the gill openings ; the
simplest plan would be to suppose that these and the
thorax had a power of alternate expansion to receive,
and contraction to expel, like lungs; and that is an
alternation of motion and position, for which the struc-
ture of gills but ill adapts them. If, however, Sir
Everard Home has not solved the difficulty, he has
found it out, and that, in such cases, is half the labour.
There is a general rule in all these cases ; the estab-
lished laws of the matter of which animals are com-
posed, and in or by which they perform the functions
of life, must never be violated ; and can never be
suspended, without the existence of some contrivance
sufficient to effect that purpose : and the great beauty
of the whole is, that that contrivance is always the
simplest possible, — does its office completely, but does
nothing more.
THE LAMPREY. 259
CHONDROPTERYGIOUS SUCKERS.
OF these singular fishes, there are three genera
known in the British seas and rivers : the LAMPREY,
(Petromyzon\) the PRIDE, (Ammocteles;) and the HAG,
(Myxine.) All these have a sucking apparatus sur-
rounding the mouth, by which they adhere to that on
which they feed, and also to stones.
Of the LAMPREY there are two species; the sea lam-
prey, which is marbled with brown, yellow, and black.
It grows to the length of about three feet, and has the
second dorsal fin separated from the fin of the tail.
The river lamprey is bluish on the back, and silvery
below ; its second dorsal fin is continued all the way to
the tail, and its length seldom exceeds ten inches.
Though the one be called the sea, and the other the
river lamprey, the habits of these fishes are very much
the same. They both ascend the rivers from the sea
in spring, for the purpose of spawning, which they do
about March or April, and return to the ocean again
about June. When in season, the lamprey is accounted
a very delicious fish ; and both ancient and modern
history record instances of persons having died from
eating it to excess. The mouth is a curious structure.
The sucker consists of a border without the lips, ex-
hibiting an outside row of papillas of a conical shape,
and two or three rows of fringes within. With this it
adheres very firmly, though without preventing the
action of the mouth. There are two primary or fast
teeth, one with two points above, and one with seven
below. There are several rows of moveable teeth
260 THE HAG.
within these, and also smaller ones upon the tongue ;
— thus while it holds by the sucker, it can abrade
and lacerate the surface to which it sticks, so as to get
at and extract the nutritive part, even though the cover-
ing be tough and hard. The accounts that are generally
given about the lampreys fastening on cattle and horses
when they pass rivers, do not appear to be very well
authenticated. Neither is its food known with much
precision, though from the great simplicity of its di-
gestive apparatus, the food must be of a succulent
description when taken into the mouth, or else reduced
to one there.
The PRIDE is smaller than the smallest lamprey, not
being above eight inches in length ; it is barred across
with a dusky colour. It contains fewer palatal teeth
than the lamprey. It is a mud fish, found in some of
the tributary streams of the Thames and some other
rivers, and has not been traced in migration, either to
or from the sea.
The HAG is about the same length as the Pride ;
but its body is very glutinous, nearly a cylinder ; there
are no scales upon it, and it is without eyes. There
is a sucker round the mouth, one large piercing tooth
upon the palate, and a row of very close ones upon
each side of the tongue. The hag has sometimes
been confounded with the pride, but they are different
in their appearance and some parts of their struc-
ture, and also in their habitations ; the pride being
found only in rivers, and the hag in the sea. The hag
is a very voracious fish, and very annoying to the
THE HAG. 261
fishermen on some parts of the east coast. In the
white fishing, the lines are often left for a tide floating
in the sea ; when the fish are caught on the hooks and
struggling, the hag enters their mouths, and fastening
its sucker, soon drains all the juices, leaving only the
skin and the bones, which are called " robbed fish," by
the fishermen.
The most singular circumstance about these fishes,
is the mode of their production. It had long been
noticed, that when the lampreys were in season, that
is, while ascending the rivers from the sea, in order to
spawn, all that were taken contained roes or eggs —
were females, and that a male lamprey had never been
observed. The researches of Sir Everard Home have
very satisfactorily proved, that in all the three genera
that have been enumerated, the male and the female
are united in the same individual, and that each deposits
its eggs in a state fit for producing young, without
any other intervention, though there be a great deal
of obscurity about the time and mode of this singular
impregnation.
But the peculiarities of structure and habit, even in
this single division of the inhabitants of the sea, are so
numerous, that even the bare enumeration of them
would extend to many volumes ; and after all, leave the
subject little more than merely begun. One, however,
possesses a property, which, though not peculiar to it,
is yet too singular for being passed over. That one is
262
THE TORPEDO.
The lower surface is here represented :*— a, the mouth, before which, in
the shadow, are the nostrils, b b, the gill holes, for breathing, c c, the
places where the electric organs are situated ; and where, if the integuments
were removed, the under ends of the pillars would be seen like a delicate
network. The light spaces outside of c c, are the situations of the cartilages
of the pectoral mis, which fins form the dark edges, d, the situation of the
transverse ligament which separates the thorax from the abdomen.
THE TORPEDO, or CRAMP-FISH, (torpedo vulgaris,} is
found on the British coasts, though not very frequently.
The specimens that have been met with, have varied
very much in size, — some being four feet and a half in
length, and more than seventy pounds weight. Lin-
naeus classed this fish with the scate tribe, under the
name of raia torpedo, but it has few characters in
common with them, except that it is cartilaginous, and
the breadth considerable, as compared with the length ;
but its shape is unlike. The head and thick part of
the body form a roundish lump, from which the tail
THE TORPEDO. 263
extends, having two dorsal fins, and one caudal fin on
the termination. The mouth, teeth, and eyes, are very
small, and the fish does not seem to be fitted for much
exertion of any kind.
Its general habits are not much known, but its elec-
tric power has been mentioned from very remote
antiquity. The fact is mentioned by Aristotle, Pliny,
and Appian ; and the Arabic name is the " lightning
fish," which would tempt one to conclude, that, at some
period of their history, the Arabians must have known
more of the nature of thunder and lightning than the
inhabitants of Europe, down even to a time compara-
tively recent.
The ancient allegation was, that the torpedo could
give a shock capable of numbing the hand and arm of
the fisherman ; and among that class of persons, the
fact appears to have been all along known, though it
it did not attract the attention of philosophers till
toward the close of the seventeenth century. Reaumur
described the phenomena with accuracy, but erred in
attributing them to muscular action. Mr. Walsh was
the first to investigate the nature of the numbing
power in this fish, and Dr. Hunter to examine and
describe the singular apparatus by which the shock is
given.
That apparatus consists of organs which occupy the
surface of the sides, from the fore-part of the animal,
to the hind part of the thorax, reaching from the car-
tilages of the fins toward the centre of the fish. The
length of each organ is rather more than a fourth of
that of the animal, and they are thicker toward the
centre, and thinned off toward the edges. They are
264 THE TORPEDO.
fastened to the parts adjoining, by cellular texture and
tendinous fibres ; and their upper and under surfaces
are covered by the common skin of the fish, while
immediately under the skin there is a thin fascia of
longitudinal fibres, which are open in many places.
Another fascia immediately below this, is formed into
a great number of perpendicular sheaths, and these
again are filled by angular columns, of various numbers
of sides. There are several rows of these columns,
and the number appears to increase annually by the
addition of new ones at the exterior. The number of
columns in one organ of a torpedo, four feet and a half
in length, was eleven hundred and eighty-two. The
columns are divided across into cells, of which, with
these partitions, there are one hundred and fifty in an
inch, but they vary with the state of moisture on the
body of the animal. The partitions of the columns
contain a great number of blood-vessels, which come
immediately from the gill cells, in which the blood has
been purified by the action of the air. The cells
formed by the divisions of the columns are filled with
a fluid, which has, upon analysis, been found to consist
of albunum and gelatine, and which, therefore, cannot,
as was once supposed, possess any electric action, but
must merely serve to lubricate the delicate fibrous
structure of which the electric organs are composed.
Those organs contain a great?* portion of nervous
ramifications than almost any other animal texture,
except that which is an immediate seat of sensation ;
and as the shocks given by the torpedo appear to be,
in a great measure at least, voluntary, there can be
no doubt that their production is in some way or other
THE TORPEDO. 265
produced by the action of those nerves. The following
are some of the leading facts in the phenomena of the
torpedo, as established by careful experiments, made
by M. M. Humboldt and Gay Lussac : —
1. "A person much in the habit of receiving elec-
tric shocks, can sustain with some difficulty the shock
of a vigorous torpedo fourteen inches long. The
action of the torpedo below water, is not percep-
tible till it be raised above the surface of the water.
[It does not appear that the shock was tried with both
the torpedo and experimenter immersed in water,
though that would be necessary, to complete the
facts.]
2. " Before each shock, the torpedo moves its pec-
toral fins in a convulsive manner, and the violence of
the shock is always in proportion to the extent of the
surface of contact.
3. "The organs of the torpedo cannot be discharged
by us at our pleasure, nor does it always communicate
a shock when touched. It must be irritated before it
gives the shock ; and, in all probability, it does not keep
its electric organs charged. It charges them, however,
with astonishing quickness, and is, therefore, capable
of giving a great number of shocks.
4. " The shock is experienced when a single finger
is applied to a single surface of the electric organs, or
when two hands are placed, one on the upper, and one
on the under surface at the same time; and, in all cases,
the shock is equally communicated, whether the person
is insulated or not.
5. "If any insulated person touches the torpedo
with the finger, it must be in immediate contact, as no
266 THE TORPEDO.
shock is perceived if the animal is touched with a key
or any other conducting body.
6. " When the torpedo was placed upon a metallic
plate, so that the interior surface of its organ touched
the metal, the hand which supported the plate felt no
shock, although the animal was irritated by another
insulated person, and when it was obvious, from the
convulsive motion of its pectoral fins, that it was in a
state of powerful action.
7. " If a person, on the contrary, support with his
left hand the torpedo placed on a metallic plate, and if
he touches with his right hand the upper surface of the
electric organ, a violent commotion will be felt in both
his arms atthe same instant.
8. " A similar shock will be received, if the fish is
placed between two metallic plates, the edges of which
do not touch, and if a person applies a hand to each
plate at the same instant.
9. " If, under the circumstances of the preceding
experiments, there is a connexion between the edges
of the plates, no shock will be experienced, as a com-
munication is now formed between the two surfaces of
the organ.
10. " The organs of the torpedo do not affect the
most delicate electrometer. Every method was tried
in vain, of communicating electricity to the condenser
of Volta.
11. "A circle of communication being formed by a
number of persons between the upper and under sur-
faces of the organs, they received no shock till their
hands were moistened with water. The shock was
equally felt when two persons, who had their right
THE TORPEDO. 267
hands applied to the torpedo, instead of holding each
other's left hands, plunged a pointed piece of metal into
a drop of water placed upon an insulating body.
12. " By substituting flame in place of a drop of
water, no sensation was experienced till the two pointed
pieces of metal came in contact with the flame.
13. " No shock will be experienced either in air or
below water, unless the body of the electric fish is im-
mediately touched. The torpedo is unable to commu-
nicate its shock through a layer of water, however thin.
14. " The least injury done to the brain of the
animal, prevents its electric action."
Spallanzani made a number of experiments upon this
singular animal, the most remarkable results of which
were — that the back of the torpedo always gives a
shock when irritated, whether it be in air or in water,
but that the action of the breast is neither so uniform
nor so violent ; that when both surfaces are irritated at
the same time, the back gives a shock and the breast
not ; that when the animal is about to expire, the shocks
become more feeble, but are repeated so fast, that
about forty-five are given in a minute, and that the
sensation which they occasion is very similar to that
produced by the pulsations of a heart or an artery ;
that the shocks are always most powerful when the
torpedo is laid upon glass ; and that the young, if fully
formed, are capable of giving shocks even before they
have quitted the eggs.
The difference between the electric action of the
torpedo, and that of a jar or battery in the common
electric apparatus, was explained by Cavendish, who
showed, by very satisfactory experiments, that the
268 THE TORPEDO.
distribution of an equal share of electricity has its
action diminished as the number of jars, among which
it is distributed, is increased ; and upon the very pro-
bable conjecture that each column in the organs of the
torpedo has the nature and action of a separate jar, it
would follow, from the result of his experiments, that a
torpedo, containing 1182 columns in its organ would,
though equally charged as a single jar, send its energy
only through one thirty-second part of the distance, a
space much too small for allowing any shock or sound,
or any effect upon an electrometer. This, to a very con-
siderable extent, identifies the electricity of the fish
with that of the clouds and the electric machine ; and
that identity is farther rendered probable by the fact
that the torpedo does not give a shock till irritated,
and till the electric organs have been excited by the
friction arising from the motion of the pectoral fins.
It was once supposed, that, as the organs contain a
fluid, the action was similar to that of galvanism, and
like it, accompanied by some kind of chemical decom-
position ; but as the substances of which the organs
are composed appear to be unfit for any purpose of
this kind, that hypothesis has been abandoned, and the
action is now considered to be electric. How it is pro-
duced is another matter, and one which does not lie
within the province of accurate science. That it is
intimately connected with the life and health of the
animal, is evident, from its ceasing upon injury being
done to the brain, and from its becoming feeble and
convulsive when the animal is in the agonies of death.
In so far, at least, it is also voluntary, as the animal,
even when in vigorous health, does not always give a
ELECTRIC FISHES. 269
shock when irritated, which it would of course do, if
the operation were purely a mechanical one. Thus,
though the electricity itself be analogous to that which
we can produce at our pleasure by other means, the
mode of its production is a part of the economy of life ;
and therefore we cannot reason about it upon the ana-
logies of dead matter ; but must, as in all cases involving
the singular mystery of vitality, content ourselves with
observing its phenomena, and be careful not to extend
our theory of its nature and laws beyond these. This
is a caution that should never be lost sight of in the
study of nature ; and the distinction between what can
be known and what cannot, is one of the most impor-
tant departments of sound philosophy, though it is
sometimes overlooked both by the learned and the
ignorant.
Though it is probable that the body of every animal,
and indeed every substance in nature, is capable Jof
being excited by electric action, yet distinct organs
for the purpose of producing such action, are found
only in fishes, and hitherto but in a very limited number
of these. These organs, like other parts of the organic
structure, appear to be admirably adapted to the instinct
which they serve, and the purpose which they effect ;
and though, in the different fishes which are furnished
with them, there be some difference in their form,
there is much resemblance in their substance and
structure, — in the same manner as wings, claws, stings,
or any other class of organs, of which the existence at
once suggests the use. They are quite distinct from
the organs of motion, respiration, circulation, digestion,
or any other which belongs to their possessor generally
2 A 3
270 ELECTRIC FISHES.
as an animal, or particularly as an animal of a certain
class adapted for living in a certain element. They do
not, for instance, belong to the torpedo generally be-
cause it is a fish, but peculiarly because it is a fish
capable of imparting electric shocks ; and if one were
to find organs of a similar kind in any other animal,
whether a fish or not, the natural conclusion would
be, that that animal was electric. Although, therefore,
we are unable to trace the action of the electric power
all the way up to the volition of the fish, we can con-
clude from the presence of the organ, that the power
exists.
The other fishes that have electric powers are all
natives of warmer countries, and most of them are
found in rivers ; and even the torpedo is said to be
much more powerful in its action in warmer countries
than it is in England. There is, therefore, some proba-
bility that the action is, in some way or other, influenced
by temperature and light." Indeed it is highly probable
that the sun has much more influence in producing the
phenomena of nature, than we are in the habit of sup-
posing. We know that colours and tastes and scents
are all elaborated by the sun ; for when the summer is
more than usually cold and cloudy, the flowers are de-
ficient both in beauty and in fragrance, and the fruits
in taste ; and as we pass into warmer latitudes we find
all these qualities increased. Nor is it a mere darkening
of the hues, but apparently a greater activity in the
structure of the leaf; for the same sunny weather which
increases the crimson of the rose, gives more snowy and
pearly lustre to the lily. The subject, it must be ad-
mitted, is a nice and difficult one ; but it does not
THE GYMNOTUS. 271
appear to be, on all occasions, treated with the attention
that it merits. There is probably a little prejudice
connected with it : as the ridicule with which attempts to
read the history of men and nations in the heavens has
been very properly treated, may have had some effect
in preventing people from reading in them those lessons
which they are capable of affording.
The other fishes that have been observed to possess
electric power, are four : — the electric eel of Guiana, in
South America, (gymnotus electricus ;) the silurus elec-
tricus, found in the Nile and Niger ; and the tetraodon
electricus, and trich'mrus Indicus, found in the Indian
The GYMNOTUS is found in the muddy places of rivers
and in stagnant pools, in Guiana, and the adjoining parts
of South America ; and from its burrowing in the mud,
it is not very easily caught ; and indeed the large ones
are not very pleasant to kill, except with a missile wea-
pon. They are much more formidable creatures than
the torpedo, killing by their shocks not only every other
inhabitant of the waters which they haunt, but paralyz-
ing the larger land quadrupeds — so that they are
drowned, or even depriving them of life, by the violence
of their shocks.
The gymnotus bears some resemblance to an eel,
only it is thicker in proportion to its length, and more
spindle-shaped. The head and belly occupy only a
small portion of its length, the greater part being taken
up by the muscles and electric organs ; and the under
part terminating, along the whole length, except the
head and belly, in one strong continuous fin ; while on
272 THE GYMNOTUS.
the back there are two rows of glandular apertures,
through which a mucous fluid is discharged, for lubri-
cating the skin. There are two electric organs upon
each side of the gymnotus, — a large one near the back
and immediately under the skin, and a small one nearer
the fin, and beneath the muscular texture by which that
is moved. There is also a portion of muscle between
the small organ and the large one. Both these organs
extend nearly to the extremity of the tail, becoming
thinner as that is approached ; and they occupy about
one half of the mass where they are placed, or more
than a third of the whole fish.
The structure of these organs has a considerable re-
semblance to that of those of the torpedo. They are
divided lengthways into tubes or pillars ; and then
again into cells by transverse partitions. The parti-
tions are very near each other, there being about two
hundred and forty in an inch. The longitudinal ones,
which are at the greatest distance in the largest speci-
mens, are much further apart, some of them being half
an inch or even more. The longitudinal divisions of
the small organs are closer, and they lie in curves, but
the form of their organization is the same. Thus, while, in
their internal structure, the organs of the gymnotus are
like those of the torpedo, they seem to consist of the
same materials, — albumen and gelatine being the pre-
vailing substances in both. The superior power of the
gymnotus may depend partly on the larger size of its
organs, and partly upon the larger surfaces of the trans-
verse cells ; at least that would be the case if they were
batteries of electric jars, which they resemble in some of
their phenomena, — though, as is the case with the other
THE GYMNOTUS. 273
electric fishes, we know of no means by which they can
be either charged or discharged, except at the will of
the fish. The electricity of this fish, as well as that of
the former, has sometimes been conjectured to be gal-
vanic, and some have even pretended that it contains
iron, and is magnetic, and that its action may be de-
stroyed, or at least suspended, by keeping it for some
time in contact with a magnet ; but these, as well as
every other attempt to explain the causes of its action,
by any analogy drawn from dead matter, have failed ;
and it is now admitted to be an animal action, which
we can no further explain than that it depends on the
presence of certain organs.
The accounts of the gymnotus having been found
twenty feet long, are probably without foundation ; as
the largest ones found by Humboldt were only a few
inches more than five feet. The scheme to which that
traveller had recourse in order to capture these animals
was not a little curious. The hook, the net, and all
the ordinary means of fishing having proved unsuc-
cessful, Humboldt had recourse to horses. About
thirty of these animals were driven into a pond known
to contain a number of these gymnoti ; and they were
made to splash and raise the mud and water, by the
shouting and hallooing of a number of Indians, armed
with long forks. The eels, thus attacked by hostile
hoofs in their native mud, rose in the water, and can-
nonaded the enemy with great spirit and determination.
The horses would have fled at the first onset of those
enemies, but they were driven back into the water. Some
of the horses were so completely stunned by the blows,
that they sunk in the water ; and in that way two were
274 THE GYMNOTUS.
drowned, or killed in a few minutes. The eels ap-
peared to attack in the way best calculated for destroy-
ing or impeding the energies of the horses, as they
laid their whole length close to the thorax and belly ;
and it is well known that the shock of the gymnotus is
in proportion to the surface which it touches. Thus
the blows were communicated directly to the most
delicate and essential parts of the horses ; and even
those that did not sink down, gave every sign of the
utmost agony and alarm ; and those that made their
way out of the water stumbled at every step, and lay
down upon the sand as if their nervous energy had
been completely destroyed. Their exertions had been
very severe to the eels also ; for, after it was over, the
shock, on drawing them out with a dry line, was
hardly perceptible.
The gymnoti destroy all other kinds of fish in places
where they are abundant ; and they are said also to
prevent the multiplying of the alligators, by benumbing
the young ones till they are past recovery ; and when
the Indians find gymnoti and these together in their
nets, the alligators are stunned or lifeless, while there
is no appearance of a wound upon the others, so that
the alligators must have been struck before they could
bite. Fishes are stunned in an instant : and in the
experiments of Dr. Williamson, when he threw a cat-
fish of considerable size, into the vessel of water con-
taining the gymnotus, the eel first took a look at the
fish, and retired to a little distance ; but it instantly
returned and gave the cat-fish a shock, which made it
come to the surface motionless, and with its belly up-
permost. The death was not instant, however ; for if
THE GYMNOTUS. 275
the fish were immediately taken out of the water that
contained the gymnotus, they recovered their powers,
though slowly ; but if they were allowed to remain in
the same water with it, they died.
The shock of the gymnotus is felt most strongly
when it is actually touched ; and the violence of the
shock bears some proportion to that of the touching ;
being much more violent when it is pressed, than
when the hand is simply brought into contact with
it. The shock is communicated to a considerable
extent through the water, though the violence dimi-
nishes with the distance, — a shock at three feet distance
being much less severe than one obtained by immediate
contact. When the shock is not received by immediate
contact with the fish, but through some connecting
substance, the violence of the shock is in proportion
to the conducting power of those substances ; and with
a dry glass rod, or silk handkerchief, it may be touched
without inconvenience.
Like the action of the torpedo, that of the gymnotus
cannot be transmitted in the air, except to very minute
distances. If the ends of two wires be as much as
even the fiftieth part of an inch asunder, the shock
does not pass from the one of them to the other ; and
along a line it is weak, unless the line be wet.
Though the gymnoti are understood to be very vo-
racious animals, they kill much more than they are
able to eat ; and in the case of small fish, it is pro-
bable that they may kill several with one shock, as the
shocks are propagated all round the animal that gives
them. We are not aware that any satisfactory obser-
vations have been made as to the effects which the
276 THE GYMNOTUS.
shocks of the gymnotus have upon other individuals of
its own species, — though it would only be in accordance
with the general law of nature, that it should use them
against its own kind as well as against others. Even
the exhaustion which it is said to experience after
giving repeated shocks, is not very well explained.
There is not much muscular effort, to induce the lassi-
tude and exhaustion that take place, and the electric
affection is so unlike any other animal exertion with
which we are acquainted, that we do not very clearly
see what should be the effect of it. The effect upon
the muscles, or rather, perhaps, upon the nervous
energy of other animals, is very great. Humboldt
mentions one place where the direction of a road had
to be changed, in consequence of the number of bag-
gage mules that, while fording a river, had been killed
by the shocks of the gymnoti. But formidable as the
gymnotus is, it is not like the greater number of de-
stroying animals, useless when dead. The electric
organs are, indeed, disagreeable, or at any rate insipid ;
but the muscular parts are very good and wholesome,
and much relished by the Indians.
The other electric fishes seem to be much more
simple in the construction, and inferior in the power of
their organs, to those that have been described ; but
still the organization, so far as it has been examined,
has some resemblance. At all events, there are suffi-
cient data for considering this electric action as one of
the natural means, both of attack and defence, with
which animals are furnished ; and we have occupied
the more space with it, on account of the very few, even
of the inhabitants of the water, in which it is found.
FECUNDITY OF FISHES. 277
The habits even of some of th6se fish with which we
are most familiar, and which, in a commercial point of
view, are the most important, have been very much
misunderstood and misrepresented. The annual value
of the whale fisheries, that are fitted out on or from
the British shores, is nearly nine millions of pounds
sterling, — the nets spread out for the capture of her-
rings alone would cover almost two millions and a half
of square yards ; and yet such are the productive
powers of fish, that the quantity taken might be aug-
mented a hundred fold, and no perceptible diminution
of the number occasioned. It is in the sea, indeed, that
we have a proper view of the power of nature in mul-
tiplying her productions, and providing for the con-
tingences to which they are exposed. If a hen rears
more than a dozen of chickens, we think it an abundant
brood, and if a ewe happens to have three lambs, her
fecundity is published in the journals of the day ; but
we never hear one word about the sole, the average of
whose progeny at a single birth is one hundred thou-
sand ; or of the flounder, that brings nearly a million
and a half; or of the cod, with her maximum of almost
four millions ! and all those vast colonies come from
the parent egg, which is hatched in the general bosom
of the deep, without any care but that which they are
capable of taking of themselves. Every female her-
ring, in those countless shoals which throng round us
every season, that escapes the snares of man, and the
jaws of larger fishes, prepares little short of forty
thousand to increase the shoal of the future year. It
is true that there are many casualties and sources of
destruction in that element in which those abundant
278 SEA ANEMONE.
shoals have their being, yet the resources of nature
are mightier than them all ; and man may fish away,
fully assured that for every fish that he can catch, not-
withstanding the utmost endeavours of his skill and
his industry, nature will be sure to provide a thousand.
So excessive, indeed, is the production, — so full is that
pale green expanse, which we in the inaccuracy of our
speech sometimes call the " waste of waters," — so full
and exuberant is it of the springs of life, that all
which man can win from its stores is not more in com-
parison than one little pebble from the ample bed of a
mighty river ; and what man does withdraw has this
beautiful adaptation in it, that he takes both the pre-
datory fish and the prey.
We are too little acquainted with the general history
and economy of the deep, to be able to say what may
be the food of all its animated inhabitants. Some
of them may eat its vegetable productions ; but in
general these seem rather to protect the spawn and the
fry, than to be consumed as food ; and whatever be
the size, form, and habits of the animal, we find it
living upon other animals, and not unfrequently on its
own kind among the rest. It may be adapted for
swimming rapidly through the water, for crawling
among the holes of the rocks, or it may be fastened to
the rock, and have externally the character of a plant
rather than an animal ; but we almost invariably find it
living upon animal food.
The common sea anemone, (actinia aquina,) which is
so common upon most of the rocky shores of this
country, appears, when left dry by the tide, to be a
little hemispherical lump of jelly, the texture of which
CATCHING A CRAB. 279
is hardly organic, and which is even more simple and
less like a living thing than the common sea-weed ;
and yet, when it is covered with water, one can see it
spreading out its numerous tentacula like the petals
of a dull purplish flower, closing them with unerring
certainty upon any little shell-fish that the motion of the
water brings within their reach, and very soon after
ejecting the shell completely cleared of its contents.
And not only that, but it can choose its residence, —
detach itself from one part of the rock and adhere to
another, although the precise way in which its migration
is accomplished be not known.
Even those natives of the sea that are defended by
crusts, and seize their prey by claws and pincers, like
the lobster and the crab, have the same fecundity and
the same voracity as the fishes properly so called. As
many as twelve or thirteen thousand eggs have been
found upon a single lobster, and the number in some
of the crabs is probably much greater. Those two
species answer some of the purposes of scavengers of
the deep, — -devouring substances in a state of putridity
and decay, though they are very apt to seize any thing
that comes within their reach. We have seen rather
a small crab marching rapidly with a piece of offal,
several times its own size, while smaller ones were at
the other extremity holding on, and attempting to
divide the prize. Nay, we remember an instance in
which, but for timely assistance, the corporation of
a royal borough would have been deprived of its head
through the retentive clutching of a crab.
The borough alluded to, is situated on a rocky part
of the coast, where shell-fish are so very abundant that
2 B 2
280 THE CRAB AND THE BAILLIE.
they are hardly regarded for any other purpose than
as bait for the white fishery. The official personage
was a man of leisure, and one favourite way of filling up
that leisure was the capture of crabs, which after much
care he had learned to do, by catching them in the
holes of the rocks, so adroitly as to avoid their formi-
dable pincers. One day he had stretched himself on
the top of a rock, and thrusting his arm into a crevice
below, got hold of a very large crab, — so large, indeed,
that he was unable to get it out in the position in which
it had been taken. Shifting his position in order to
accommodate the posture of the prey to the size of the
aperture, he slipped his hold of the crab, which imme-
diately made reprisals by catching him by the thumb,
and squeezing with so much violence, that he roared
aloud. But though there be a vulgar opinion, of course
an unfounded one, that lobsters are apt to cast their
claws through fear at the sound of thunder or of great
guns, the thundering and shouting of the corporation-
man had no such effect upon the crab. He would
gladly have left it to enjoy its hole ; but it would not
quit him, but held him as firmly as if he had been in
a vice ; and though he rattled it against the rocks with
all the power that he could exert, which, pinched as
he was by the thumb, was not great, yet he was unable
to get out of its clutches. But " tide waits for no
man," even though his thumb should be in a crab's
claw ; and so the flood returned, till the greater part
of the arm was in water, and the ripple even beginning
to mount to the top of the rock, which, as the tides
were high at that particular time, was speedily to be
at least a fathom under water, and destruction seemed
CRABS. 281
inevitable. A townsman, Who had been following the
same fishery with an iron hook at the end of a stick,
fortunately came in sight ; and by introducing that, and
detaching the other pincer of the crab, which is one of
the common means of making it let go its hold, he re-
stored the official personage to land and life.
There is not a great deal known of the habits of those
curious creatures, further than that they are exceedingly
voracious, and that as they are betrayed into traps by
garbage, they must be possessed of some sense of smell ;
but it is generally understood that they have desperate
feuds at the bottom of the sea ; and that many of those
mutilations, with which they are found, are obtained in
the field of battle. Against such casualties they are
much better provided than nobler animals who are sub-
jected to the same loppings in their encounters ; for the
lost member is restored, at least, at the annual change
of the shell ; and probably also when not undergoing
that change. That animals, which are in common lan-
guage termed imperfect, should have this power of re-
producing mutilated parts, and that it should be want-
ing in those which are usually considered perfect, ought
to be a caution to us how we decide as to the different
degrees of perfection in the works of Him, who " in
wisdom made them all."
One of the fish whose history and habits have been
very much misrepresented, is
THE HERRING.
OF the herring genus there are three species, — the
common herring, (clupeaharengus^) the pilchard, (clupea
2 B 3 '
282 THE HERRING.
pilcarduSy) and the shad, (clupea alosa,) of which the
fry has been already mentioned as the white-bait of the
estuary of the Thames and other places. The common
herring and the pilchard are nearly of the same size,
about twelve inches long when full grown ; but there
are some obvious distinctions between them, both in
their appearance and in the places where they are found.
Their colour is nearly the same ; but the pilchard is
more elevated in the back, and rounder than the herring ;
it is also blunter in the muzzle, and the scales are larger.
The most obvious distinction between them, however,
is the position of the dorsal fin. In the pilchard that
is placed exactly over the centre of gravity, so that if
the fish be suspended by it, the body hangs in a hori-
zontal direction. In the herring it is placed further
back than the centre of gravity, so that the head droops
when the fish is lifted by it. The same distinction
holds in the fry as well as in the full-grown fish. The
fry of both are taken in great numbers, and known by
the common name of sprats. In its locality, the pil-
chard is a little further south than the herring, being
most abundant on the coasts of the British channel, and
very rare on those of the north of England and Scot-
land ; while in the latter the herring is found in great
abundance. Both fish are, however, a little capricious
with regard to the places which they frequent, and the
regularity of frequenting them ; and no cause can be
satisfactorily assigned for their caprices.
When salt was subject to a high duty, and sufficient
salt was not kept at those places where herrings make
their capricious appearances, great loss was often sus-
tained. This happened occasionally on many parts of
THE HERRING. 283
the Scotch coast, but particularly on the north of the
entrance of the Firth of Forth. That Firth, as it is
deep water, and without any shallow or interruption,
is a favourable resort of herrings in the autumn and
early part of winter. They come from the deep water
in immense shoals or masses, which not only occupy
a great surface of the sea, but extend to a considerable
depth. For this reason they prefer the deep water,
and, generally speaking, avoid the shoal coasts ; and
when they do get entangled upon one, great numbers
are wrecked.
The rocky promontory at the east end of the county
of Fife, off which there lies an extensive reef or rock,
sometimes has that effect ; and there have been seas in
which, when the difficulties of the place were augmented
by a strong wind at south-east, that carried breakers
upon the reef and a heavy surf along the shore, the
beach for many miles has been covered with a bank of
herrings several feet in depth, which, if taken and
salted when first left by the tide, would have been
worth many thousands of pounds ; but which, as there
wras not a sufficient supply of salt in the neighbourhood,
were allowed to remain putrefying upon the beach,
until the farmers found leisure to cart them away as
manure. The herring is a remarkably delicate fish,
and dies almost the instant that it is out of the water,
or gets the slightest injury in it ; and these circum-
stances, while they render the stranded shoals a much
more frequent, abundant, and easy prey than if they
were more tenacious of life, cause them to putrefy much
sooner. One of those strandings took place in and
around the harbour of the small town of Crail, only a
THE HERRING.
few years ago, but before the new regulations were
passed with regard to salt. The water appeared at first
so full of herrings, that half a dozen could be taken
by one dip of a basket. Numbers of people thronged
to the water's edge, and fished with great success ; and
the public crier was sent through the town, to pro-
claim that " callar herrin'," that is herrings fresh out of
the sea, might be had at the rate of forty a penny.
As the water rose the fish accumulated, till numbers
were stunned, and the rising tide was bordered with
fish, with which baskets could be filled in an instant.
The crier was upon this instructed to alter his note,
and the people were invited to repair to the shore, and
get herrings at one shilling a cart load. But every suc-
cessive wave of the flood added to the mass of fish,
and brought it nearer to the land, which caused a fresh
invitation to whoever might be inclined to come and
take what herrings they chose, gratis. The fish still
continued to accumulate till the height of the flood, and
when the water began to ebb, they remained on the beach.
It was rather early in the season, so that warm weather
might be expected ; and the effluvia of so many putrid
fish might occasion disease ; therefore the corporation
offered a reward of one shilling to every one who would
remove a full cart-load of herrings from that part of the
shore which was under their jurisdiction, — the fish being
immediately from the deep water, were in the highest
condition, and barely dead. All the salt from the town
and neighbourhood was instantly put in requisition, but
it did not suffice for the thousandth part of the mass,
a great proportion of which, notwithstanding some not
very successful attempts to carry off a few sloop loads,
THE HERRING. 285
in bulk was lost. In the bays or " lochs," on the west
coast of Scotland, where the shoals of herrings are
very abundant, and apt to be driven ashore and stranded
by heavy gales from the north-west, these casualties
often occur. But though these occurrences are a great
and obvious loss, they do not appear to have any effect
upon the supply of herrings, whose numbers do not
seem capable of apparent diminution, either by the
casualties of nature or the schemes of art.
The habits of this most abundant, and, perhaps, all
things considered, most valuable fish, are but imper-
fectly known ; and they have been a good deal mis-
represented. Their apparently capricious visits to
particular parts of the .coast, which did not seem
to depend upon any known law, naturally enough led
the inhabitants of the places which they thus periodi-
cally, but irregularly, visited, to impute to them certain
superstitious likes and dislikes. The naturalists, too,
or those who took upon themselves that character,
publishing their opinions from little observation and
less reflection, rendered the delusion more extensive
and inveterate ; till those who had never seen a live
herring, were able to trace its migrations in the deep
with as much certainty as they could the motion of
the hands upon the dial of the village clock.
The disposition to endow the other animals with
that erratic propensity, — that aimless wandering which
idle men display, has been a stumbling-block in
the path of natural history. The powers of man are
placed under his own management, and when he does
not manage them properly, he becomes an idler, and
wanders or talks, as it may be, without an aim. But
286 THE HERRING.
man is the only animal that has the control of his
powers ; and therefore he is the only one that can be
idle ; and when all the other creatures are in a state
of nature, — that is, when they are not confined, fed, or
otherwise restrained by man, — not only have an object
in what they do, but what they do is always the best
and shortest means to the accomplishment of that
object. The preservation of the individual and the
race are the only ultimate objects of animals which
have not the means of accumulating knowledge ;
and thus becoming wiser in one generation than in
another; and thus all that can be alleged of them
must conduce to the one or the other of these ends,
otherwise it is a fancy of man, and not a fact in natural
history.
The alleged migration of the herring is a very strik-
ing instance of man's propensity to people nature with
his own whims. As the hordes that overran the empire
of the Romans (when its weakness and worthlessness
rendered it a piecemeal, and, therefore, an easy prey
to people whose numbers were but as a handful to its
•whole population,) — as those are said, rather roman-
tically, to have issued from the frozen bosom of the
north, that became the general origin of all sorts of
hordes, whose motions could not be distinctly seen
from the very beginning.
Accordingly, in all those books called popular, which
pretend to treat of the habits of British fishes, the
pilgrimages of the herring have been described as an
established fact. Produced by some unknown process
in the polar regions, even at a time when the surface
there is solid ice and snow, under which the spawn
THE HERRING. 287
of no animal could be hatched, they are said to be full-
grown, and on their march to warmer regions as soon
as the weather begins to get warm ; indeed just as
the sun begins to decline northward from the tropic of
Capricorn. Onward they move through the wide waves
of the spray, followed and feasted upon by sea-fowl ;
which, if they obeyed nature, should, at that very time,
be attending to their nests, instead of plundering a
column of herrings on their march across the wide sea.
In the latter end of spring, or beginning of summer,
the herrings come to the Shetland islands, where their
fancied column is divided, and a division passes up
each side of Britain, near the southern coasts of which
they are found in autumn and the beginning of winter.
The same accounts which particuliarize this progress of
the herrings, mention that they are full of roe in June ;
and that the young ones " come to our shores " in July
and August. Such are the outlines of the annual motion
of this fish, as they are detailed by one compiler after
another ; and believed by thousands of readers, who
never pause to ask if the tale be true, or even possible.
Let us ask the question. But before answering it,
we must state, that mere criticism of the errors of
others is not our object : our own find us full employ-
ment in that way. The object which we have in view
is to impress upon the reader the absolute necessity of
looking at nature as a whole, and seeing that no general
law is violated by the theory that is given of any parti-
cular part. The migration of the herring was, we be-
lieve, first made a pleasing romance by Pennant, a man
of much merit for industry, but sadly wanting in that
general science, without which no naturalist ought to
288 THE HERRING.
proceed one step beyond the fact that he actually
observes.
Simply, then, the story cannot be true, because it is
impossible. The herrings do not come in myriads
from the polar sea, beginning their progress in January,
because there are no means of producing them there.
Spawn has not been found to animate in any place
except floating near the surface, or in shallow water,
where both the sun and the air act upon it ; and while
the polar seas and shores are open to such action, the
herrings are not there ; they are on our shores, the full-
grown and the young. But setting aside the impossi-
bility, the supposed emigration would be without an
object : they would not come for food, as they are
said to leave the north just when food would be found
there ; and if they are annually produced in the north,
they could not come to our shores for the purpose of
spawning, even though they are all obviously in prepa-
ration for such a purpose. Beside, there is no animal
that migrates southward m the spring ; and therefore
the theory would require one law for the rest of crea-
tion, and another for the herring; that the latter should
be chilled by the general warmth of the spring, and
warmed by the polar frost. Now, so far is the pro-
duction of fish from being independent of the influence
of heat, that, just as we would be led to infer from
the slow progress of the solar beams through the ele-
ment in which they live, they require the whole, or the
greater part of our summer, to mature the germs of
their countless broods. Nay, it appears that many, if
not most of the species, cannot mature their spawn
in the depths of the ocean to which they retire to
THE HERRING. 289
recruit their strength ; but that they come to the shores
and shallows, where the heat of the sun can penetrate
to the bottom, and be reflected by it, for the purpose
of maturing as well as of depositing their spawn.
We know not, and we cannot know, the secrets of
those mighty depths which no plummet can fathom ;
but we have every reason to believe that there is a
profundity where animals, constructed as the fishes
that we see are, could not by possibility exist. Imagine
the pressure of a thousand atmospheres, or between six
and seven tons, upon every square inch of surface, and
think of the miracle of muscular power which could give
motion even to the smallest fish there ; imagine, too, a
permanence of state where the air never moves, and
the sun never warms ; and think what a dwelling for
that which must breathe by an apparatus so delicate as
the gills of a fish ! It may be said, that God is capable
of making creatures adapted for living there. We do
not deny that he is, neither do we deny their existence ;
but we deny that the laws of nature are ever violated, —
which they would be, were the fishes which we know,
able to move under such a pressure, or propagate, so
completely excluded from the action of the sun and
the air.
The herrings come to the shores and estuaries to
mature and propagate their spawn, which they do over
a greater range of the year than most other fish; con-
tinuing the operation to the middle of winter, and
retiring into deeper water after that is done. But
there is no reason to conclude, that they have much
migration in latitude ; or, that they ever move far from
those shores which they frequent in the season. The
290 WHITE FISHING.
fry too are found on the shores and in the bays and
estuaries frequented by their parents ; and they do not
go to the deep water till late in the season. They
even appear to go farther up the rivers than the old
fish, for they may be taken in brackish water, with a
common trout-fly.
The habits of the herring are thus a good deal like
those of the salmon ; and it is probable that there is a
great similarity in the whole oviparous fishes ; that they
all frequent the banks and shoals for the purpose of spawn-
ing, and go to some short distance in deeper water to
recover their strength. Those which are ovoviparous,
or bring forth their young hatched, are under no such
necessity ; though they follow the others, to feed upon
them and their spawn or fry ; and probably require the
influence of the air and heat of the shallow water to
perfect the internal hatching of their eggs.
It has not been ascertained whether any of these fish
spawn every year; but there are some facts which
would lead to the conclusion that they do not. The
white-fishing, on the east coast of Scotland, which is
principally carried on for the common COD, (morhua
vulgaris,) and the HADDOCK, (morhua ceglijinus,) used
to be, in a great measure, suspended during the spring,
when the fish had spawned ; but, in time, the fishermen
found out, that when the fish were neither plentiful nor
good upon the shallow banks, they had only to be a
little more adventurous, and go into the deep water,
in order to be successful all the year round. Now the
fish found in the deep water cannot be those which
have just spawned, for they are fat and firm, and have
young milts and roes in them; and hence, there is
THE STORMY PETREL. 291
some probability that the cod, and other fish of the
same structure, take two years, or more, to produce
their immense progeny ; and that thus there is not a
fish in the sea but which is in season all the year, if its
place of residence, and the mode of taking it, were
known. It is by these general views, that the particular
facts are made to connect themselves with the system
of nature, and lead to useful discoveries in the arts.
When the fish are upon the shores and in the estu-
aries, nay, when they are upon the wide ocean, they
have a host of enemies. All fishes seem to be them-
selves omnivorous — consuming every thing that they
can swallow ; and the number of sea-birds is perfectly
incredible. The numbers that are upon the uninhabited
islets in Orkney, Shetland, and the Western isles, as
well as at those inaccessible promontories on other parts
of the coast, would exceed the belief of any one who
has not actually seen them, and yet they are nothing
to the numbers found in lonely places, surrounded by
more extensive seas. One of the most abundant, and
the one which is found farthest out at sea, is
THE STORMY PETREL.
THE STORMY PETREL, (procellaria pelagica,) or,
" Mother Gary's Chicken" has been found in flocks,
which, from the extent that they occupied, and the close-
ness with which they were serried together, could not
contain less than one hundred and fifty millions. It is
a bird about five inches and a half long ; sooty black on
the body, and white on the rump, tail, and wings ; but
having the principal feathers of these tipped with
2 c 2
292 THE STORMY PETREL.
deep black. It is found constantly on the coasts of this
country, and seems to be generally diffused over the
world. It lodges and nestles in holes of the rocks, or
in burrows which it makes for itself in the earth or
sands ; but it is a sea-bird, in the strictest meaning
of the term, not being found on the land, except
in the breeding season, or when it is driven there
by the violence of gales. Ordinary gales have not,
indeed, much effect upon it. It is small and swift, and
powerful on the wing ; and in appearance and manner
of flight, not unlike the swallow. It seems to take par-
ticular delight in storms, probably, because the motion
of the water brings to the surface the substances on
which it feeds ; and it skims along the hollows of the
waves, and through the spray upon their tops, with
astonishing rapidity, at the rate of sixty miles an hour,
as is supposed. The sailors dislike it, and account it
the harbinger of storms. That it is an accompanier of
them, may be true ; but it is more a follower of ships
than a forerunner of storms. Oil, of which there is
always a considerable quantity floating on the sea,
appears to be its favourite food ; and it is supposed
to collect that upon the feathers of its breast, as it rides
on the waters. It is for the greasy substances which
are thrown overboard, that it follows in the wake of
vessels, and it probably picks up molluscce, in the
stormy weather, when it skims the surface. It is very
easily tamed, and in that state it has been fed with train
oil, in which it dipped the feathers of its breast, and
then sucked off the oil with its bill, — which goes far
to confirm the mode of feeding on the ocean that has
been mentioned. As the oil upon the surface of the
THE SEAL. 293
ocean is not, except when some large fish has been
mangled in the vicinity, so thick as to be perceptible, it
could not well be gathered by the bill of a bird, and
therefore, the feathers on the breast of the petrel are
so contrived, that it can collect the oil as it swims, and
continue that operation until there be enough for being
taken with the beak. Both the condition and flesh of
the petrel are in favour of this kind of feeding. It is
so fat, that the inhabitants of some of the northern
islands make a kind of candles, by simply drawing a
wick through its body ; and its flesh is so rank and dis-
agreeable that even those who in a great measure subsist
upon sea-fowl, do not eat it. The little petrel is,
therefore, a kind of sea-scavenger, and removes the oil,
which, if it were to go on accumulating, would interfere
with the two important operations — of the impregnation
of the air with water for the respiration and life of
fishes, and the evaporation of water for the formation
of rain and rivers. Thus we find that there is not a
production of nature, or even a function of one of
nature's productions, but which, when we examine it, is
essential to the existence of the individual, and at the
same time connects the individual with the whole.
One of the most singular of nature's fishers, and one
which forms the best connecting link between sea animals
and land animals, properly so called, is
THE SEAL.
THE SEAL, which, except in external shape, is a per-
fect quadruped, resembles the otter more than any other
British animal in its swimming apparatus, but it is
more gentle in its disposition, and more easily tamed ;
2 c 3
294 THE SEAL.
and though its feet be webbed like those of the water-
fowl, they are not so fully developed, and therefore it is
not so well adapted for motion upon land. There are
two species of seal on the British shores : the great
seal, or bearded seal, (phoca barbata,) and the common
seal, or sea-calf, (phoca vitulma).
The BEARDED SEAL is an inhabitant of more north-
erly regions than Britain, being found in greater num-
bers in the Greenland seas, where the natives reckon
the flesh of it a dainty; but among the remote Scottish
isles, there are generally a few to be met with, which
bring forth their young in the caves, though at a later
period of the season than the common seal. This is
another argument against the migration of any sea
animals toward the polar regions for the purpose of
breeding ; as we find those of the same genus that
have their habitude farther to the north, two or three
months longer in producing their young, which proves
that they need a longer continuation of the action of
the summer heat to bring them to maturity.
The bearded seal is rather a large animal, being
about twelve feet in length, and weighing at least two
tons. The hair with which it is covered is brownish,
or dark gray, and coarse. The upper lip is divided
into two lobes by a furrow, which is black and naked,
and upon each of the lobes there are eight rows of
strong white bristles, semi-transparent, and curled at
the end, from which it gets its specific name. As seals
do not swallow their food entire, as is the case with
the fishes, and even the cctacctz, they are furnished
both with incisorcs or cutting teeth, and molar 'es, or
THE SEAL. 295
grinders. The teeth in the bearded seal are by no
means formidable, and indeed the whole formation of
the animal shows that it is not ferocious in proportion
to its bulk. The remote places in which it is found,
however, render its habits comparatively little known
as a portion of British Natural History. It is much
more easy, and probably more interesting, to become
acquainted with its congener —
THE COMMON SEAL.
THE COMMON SEAL is, when full grown, about half
the length, and consequently about one-eighth of the
size and weight of the former. [We need hardly mention
that, as the bodies of animals are solids, having length,
breadth, and thickness, two which are of similar shape
will have their bulks as the cubes of any one dimen-
sion, double the length, double the breadth, and double
the thickness, producing, when multiplied together,
eight times the volume.] The fore legs of the seal
are very short in proportion to the size of the body ;
the head and neck have a considerable resemblance to
296 THE SEAL.
those of land quadrupeds ; but the pelvis narrows off like
the hinder part of a fish, and the hind legs are nearly
united to the body, lie backwards on each side of the
tail, and the webbed feet in which they terminate, form
with that a very efficient swimming apparatus. The
body is covered with fur, which is short and glossy ;
most frequently of a dark brown colour, but often
varied or spotted, and generally supposed to whiten as
the animal gets old.
Though a considerable destroyer of salmon and other
fish, the seal is a lively and playful animal, very gentle
in its manners, but at the same time very watchful and
timid. Seals are found in great numbers upon the
banks in the estuaries of rivers ; but they are not so
much to be considered permanent inhabitants there
as visiters, following the fish in their migration. They
are fond of basking in the sun ; and they always sleep
upon the rocks or the bank, where at low water they
may be seen in hundreds together. But they are never
all asleep at the same time ; for if one approaches them
ever so eautiously, there is always a sentinel at the
outside, or on the highest part of the bank, that gives
the alarm, and the whole wriggle off to the water
much faster than one would imagine. When a part
of their march is over a beach of loose pebbles, they
get on with a good deal of difficulty, as the loose
stones give way to their paws, and instead of helping
forward the seal, are flung behind it with some force,
and to some distance. This has given rise to the
vulgar opinion, that the seal voluntarily throws stones
at its pursuers, an opinion for which there is not the
slightest foundation. The object of the animal is to
THE SEAL. 297
escape, and that would be better accomplished if the
stones, instead of giving way, formed a fulcrum, from
which it could project itself forward.
When a seal cannot escape, it will bite in self-defence,
but it does so only in extremities ; and if a blow be
aimed at it with a stick, it tries to seize the stick rather
than bite the assailant. In this it sometimes succeeds,
and then wriggles off to the water, where it swims
about with the stick in its mouth, in a playful or
triumphant manner.
It is more easily tamed than, perhaps, any other
animal ; is capable of feeling a great deal of affection ;
and appears fond of the society of man. During the
time that rumoured invasions by the French caused all
parts of the coast of Britain to be fortified, a small
party on one of the little islands in the Firth of Forth,
above Edinburgh, amused themselves by taming a seal.
It had all the affection and all the playfulness of a dog.
It fished for itself, and (we believe) sometimes for its
masters. It fawned about them, licked their hands,
and, if it did not accompany those who made an excur-
sion in the boat, it was sure to meet them on their
return. It always came to their hut to sleep, and con-
ducted itself as if it felt that it was one of the party.
Sometimes it would snatch up a stick or a brush, and
scamper off to the water, where it swam about with the
plunder in its mouth, often approaching the shore till
within reach of its observers, and then it would be off
to a distance. But though it seemed to take delight in
teasing them in that way, it always ultimately came
back with whatever it had taken, and laid it at their
feet, fawning and fondling all the while. Indeed, if
298
THE SEAL.
they did not give chase, it seldom remained long in the
water, but came back apparently disappointed at being
deprived of its sport. When they went to Leith for
orders or stores, the seal generally accompanied them,
swimming all the way at the side or stern of the boat ;
and when the boat was made fast at the pier at Leith,
it took up its position inside, and kept watch till they
returned. Fish was not its only food ; it could eat
many things, and it was very fond of bread and milk.
There was no saying how far its training might have
been carried, but it fell out of a bed and was killed while
young.
The ease with which the seal can be tamed, the
playfulness of its manners, and the steady attachment
which it has for its home and its human associates,
together with the value of its skin and its oil ; (its flesh
used formerly to be eaten, and there is no question,
that the quality could be greatly improved, if a mix-
ture of other food were given along with the fish ;)
these, and also its disposition to part with a portion,
at least, of the produce of its fishing, point out a great
probability of advantage that would result from the
addition of the seal to the list of domestic animals.
Probably it might be found to combine many of the
valuable qualities of the ox and the dog, while no
rent would have to be paid for its pasture. It so
happens also, that the places where seals are now
most abundant, are those at which the keep of land
animals is most expensive; and the idea that the
herd should come from the sea to be milked, or give
their carcasses as food, or that a man should go forth a
fishing with a pack of seals around his boat, involves
THE SEAL. 299
no more of the impossible or the ridiculous, than many
things, that are now of every day occurrence, would
have involved, if mentioned only fifty years ago.
The female seal generally produces two at a birth,
and the time of their production is about Midsummer.
She is an affectionate mother, and battles keenly for
her young, if she be there when any one goes to annoy
them. Her nursery is generally in a cave : and in the
large caves, such as those upon the north coast of Scot-
land, there is often a number in the same. The people
frequently enter with torches and clubs, for the purpose
of dispatching them, and they are killed by a compara-
tively slight blow on the nose ; but when there are
many old ones in the cave, they often upset the intru-
ders in the scuffle, and thus the scene becomes ludicrous
if not dangerous. Seals are often caught in rather a
cruel manner: iron hooks are placed in the front of
the rock or bank on which they are basking, or in a
beam of timber placed against it ; a person then steals
near to the place where they lie, fires a musket, or
makes any other loud and sudden noise, at which they
take alarm, and, forgetting their usual caution in avoid-
ing dangers, plunge headlong toward the water, and are
caught and suspended upon the hooks.
As seals approach more nearly to the nature and
character of land animals than any other inhabitants of
the water, which are not very well fitted for loco-motion
upon land, so they are, like these, subject to epidemical
diseases, which often affect them to a very great extent.
There have been instances in which the beaches every
where on the north coast of Scotland, and the islands of
Orkney and Shetland, have been covered with the
300 THE SEAL.
bodies of dead seals which were cast ashore by the tide ;
and when that has occurred, the seals that were seen
swimming in the water were weak and sickly. The
source of these casualties is not known ; and no obser-
vation appears to have been taken of the particular
state, either of the atmosphere or of the sea.
But we must get ashore, and devote a few pages to
the phenomena and productions of another and a dif-
rent scene.
301
CHAPTER VI.
THE MOOR, OR UPLAND.
THE configuration of surface to which the one or
the other of those epithets may be applied, has not
the grand features of some of those that have been
mentioned. Still, it is so far from being barren of
interest, that we should have had abundant store of
observation though we had had nothing else. Moors
admit of more latitude of description than mountains ;
and, according to their different elevations, they may
partake more of the Alpine or the champaign country.
They are the favourite haunts of many of our most
interesting animals, both quadrupeds and birds ; and
though the very name expresses a certain character
of bleakness, there is a feeling of freedom about it.
It is not nature either in the terror of her majesty,
or in the tastefulness of her beauty ; but still it is
nature, where man has not altered her appearance.
We are not sure if there be any place where the
heart beats so lightly, and the breathing is so free, as
when we enter upon one of those wide expanses ; and,
whether it be the Alpine table-land, purple with the
blossom, or green with the young shoots of the heath,
where there is nothing to interrupt the course of your
meditations, or chequer the uniformity of the wide
302 THE MOOR, OR UPLAND.
scene, save the white tops of the cat's-tail grass,
(phleum alpinum^) playing over some little morass,
like spray over a rock in the midst of the dark sea,
and where the ear catches hardly a sound, save the
patting foot-fall of the deer, as he springs buoyant in
the invigorating atmosphere, — the booming of a bittern,
as he shakes the quagmire in some hollow, — or the
croak of the raven, as he limps cold and sullen from
behind some stone; whether it be this, — which is
wedded to sublimity, and would be sublime if there
were not so much of it, — or any of the gradations down
to the common, which just rises above the fertile fields,
with its green bushes browzed to perfect hemispheres,
and its cowslips and wild hyacinths, with the twitter
of the little birds, — the chirp of the grasshopper, as
he dances careless from flower to flower, — or the tinkle
of that sheep-bell, the least musical of metallic instru-
ments,— one stands in doubt which the most to admire ;
and can resolve it only by admiring them all. They
are admired in turn, according to the mood of the
mind ; or rather, each one has the power of raising the
mind to that mood which is best adapted to its own
admiration.
When we come to consider those elevated and
seemingly barren portions of the earth's surface, with
a proper reference to that by which they are sur-
rounded, we find that, though they be apparently
unproductive themselves, they are the causes of pro-
ductiveness. The flat summits, which are kept cold
by moss and damp, attract the air, and by the con-
densation arising from their cold, make it part with
its humidity ; and thus lay up a store of water,
THE MOOR, OR UPLAND. 303
which would spoil vegetation if it fell wholly upon the
cultivated plains, and cause overwhelming floods, if it
fell upon the narrow tops, or steep sides of mountains.
Thus, though a moor be the least like a lake of any
of the broad features of a country, it serves some of
the most important purposes of one. Moors are very
generally composed of beds of gravel, — far more gene-
rally than of any thing else. They are the waste of
mountains collected together by causes which we
cannot explain. This gravel is porous to a great
depth in some places, and to a smaller depth in others ;
and there are some in which it is made retentive by clay,
or rendered so by the accumulation of moss. Thus
it answers as a set of reservoirs, placed at various
elevations, from which springs are given out all along
the slopes that descend from it; and those clear
fountains and crystal streams, which add so much to the
beauty and fertility of the little sheltered glens and
dells with which the slopes from an elevated moor
abound, owe their existence to the apparent sterility
of its surface. The heath, with the mosses and lichens
with which the spaces between the roots of the heath
are usually filled, prevent the water from running off
the surface, even where the obliquity is considerable ;
and while the mosses and lichens retain as much of it
near the surface as suffices for the nourishment of them-
selves and the heaths, the roots of the latter penetrate
farther into the ground, and serve as conducting pipes
to the more porous strata. The heath also shades,
from the action of the sun and atmosphere, those more
lowly plants which arrest a portion of the humidity
in its motion downward ; and thus there is little waste
304 THE MOOR, OR UPLAND.
of water by evaporation. The chief plants upon a
moor have, in fact, the power of satisfying themselves
with abundant humidity for life and growth ; and at
the same time laying up a store for the vegetation
lower down, in such a way as that it is regularly
distributed. Thus that which at first sight seems only
a wasteful heap of rubbish, is a powerful instrument
of good in the hand of all-bountiful and all-beneficent
Nature.
When one leaves the highest fields of the cultivated
ground, where the crops, though admirable in quality,
are scanty in bulk, where moss creeps over the sur-
face, and a bush of rushes, or a sprinkling of heath
upon the old lea, puts man in mind, that if he
will have even a grassy pasture for his cattle, he
must manure and plough again ; and when you have
cleared the last rude fence of dry stones, and feel
under your foot the soft elastic sod of hassocky grass,
rather harsh and hard for being eaten, — the foremost
to salute you with an apparent welcome, though, in
reality, it is a species of coquetting to divert you from
what she fears is your purpose, is
305
THE LAPWING.
WE have never seen the lapwing playing its singular
evolutions in the air, or even sitting sagacious on a
stone, or tripping lightly among the grass and heath,
without being impressed with the belief that it is the
most beautiful bird that this country produces : — we
say, " produces," because, though it be a migratory
bird, it first finds its being upon our moors, and its
migrations seldom extend out of the country. Many
birds have more gaudy plumage, and a few may have
more graceful forms ; but taking the two combined,
we can recollect none that we ever so much admired,
as the lapwing. Then it has evidently more mind —
more speculation in it — than belongs to the majority of
birds. Without being at all disposed to eat what it
kills, it fights with the greatest bravery. The hooded
or carrion crow, whose shapeless carcass and dull
hue render him deserving of even a worse 'name, flies
2 D 3
306 THE LAPWING.
and hops prowling about in the moors, uttering his
hoarsely-whispered croak, and preying upon the eggs
of all the birds that nestle there, without mercy or
discrimination. But woe be to him when the lapwing
catches him in the air. She wheels in curves so mazy,
that instead of a carrion crow, not the best mathema-
tician could determine the form of her orbit, so as to
know where she is to be at the end of the next second
of time. She is above, below, on every side, all in
the same instant, you would think ; and the poor crow
(for one pities even a carrion crow in such company) is
quite bewildered. Well, so he may ; for the lapwing hits
him a bang on the one side, and before he can turn his
lumbering neck, to find out where it came from, or how
to avoid another, bounce comes her strong wing against
the other side of his head, with so much force that
you may hear it at a considerable distance. He gene-
rally attempts to get down upon the ground for safety ;
but the lapwing, though no match for him on foot, so
stoops at and works him even there, that there is an
end to his egg-sucking while she has him in charge.
The LAPWING (vanellus crestatus) is a bird about
fourteen inches long, and more than thirty in the ex-
pansion of the wings. The bill is about an inch long,
slender, and thickened a little at the point. The legs,
which are of a dull orange colour, are slender ; but the
figure is remarkably compact ; and the plumage is as
smooth on the surface as if it were one polished body.
The crown of the head, and the crest, in which the
nape terminates, as well as the breast, are of an intense
glossy black. It is a curious black, however, being
THE LAPWING. 307
irridescent, and giving a play of colours, for some of
which you cannot find any adequate name. Some of
them one would feel disposed to call bronze, and others
green ; but while they put one in mind of those colours,
they retain the depth of the most intense black. The
back is of an irridescent green, alternating, as most
greens in the colours of animals do, with burnished
gold, — it is composed of very minute dots of intense
blue and golden yellow. The sides of the neck, the
belly, and the bases of the tail, are of the most brilliant
white. The principal feathers of the tail are white,
with black tips; the tail-covers and vent are of a russet
or rusty colour. The principal wing quills are black,
with a white spot on the tip of each of the first four ;
and the second ones are white for half their length from
the root, and black for the other half. There is a
great deal of harmony, both in the arrangement and
proportion of the different colours ; and altogether, the
bird is certainly a beauty. Though of considerable
expanse, and powerful wings, it is but a light bird,
seldom weighing more than eight ounces.
The wailing cry from which the lapwing has got
the English name of " Peewit," is the alarm cry in
danger, and is habitually uttered by the female when
endeavouring to decoy invaders away from her nest.
The male also utters this cry when disturbed. He
has another, however, a sort of love- song, which he
carols to his mate ; but only when he is unobserved.
That note is a kind of whistle, but very subdued and
soft.
They repair to the moors in the spring ; and there
is often a good deal of rivalship and fighting among
308 THE LAPWING.
the males, before the pairing be satisfactorily adjusted ;
when that is done, all animosity ceases, and they com-
bine in beating off formidable enemies, when such come
upon their ground. The nest is on the dry surface,
but generally not far from some pool or marsh, in which
a supply of food may be found. It is very simple,
merely a little bed of the withered grass which has
been bleaching in the storms of winter ; but the sim-
plicity of the nest, and the resemblance of its colour
to that of the ground on which it is placed, conceal it
better than a more artificial structure ; and what with
that, and what with the manoeuvres of the parents, there
are, perhaps, fewer lapwings' nests robbed than of any
other birds. The eggs are four, of an olive colour, with
black spots ; and they are very neatly arranged, with
the small ends, which terminate nearly in points, all in
contact at the middle of the nest. While the female is
sitting, the male, when not occupied in finding food,
and that is chiefly got in the evening, acts as sentinel,
and very artfully decoys boys or dogs, and as boldly
drives away birds, from the vicinity of the nest. If he
should not be in the way, the female herself is abun-
dantly vigilant ; spies the intruder a good way off, and
if he be coming in the direction of her eggs, goes off
to meet him. She does this as fast and silently, and as
far from the nest as possible ; but still it is done with
a great deal of art and tact. She does not go in a
straight line, but works traverses, like a ship beating
to windward, or a besieging party approaching a fort ;
and " puts about" whenever she thinks she has been
observed. When she gets sufficiently far from the
nest, and near the visitor, she springs up in fluttering
THE LAPWING. 309
alarm, as if she were just driven from her nest ; and
as she wheels round him, often dashing the wind in his
face with the sweep of her wing, she tries to wile him
away in another direction. If she fail by her ma-
noeuvres in the air, she has recourse to stratagem on
the ground. She lights very near, and hops as if crippled
in the legs and unable to fly ; but if she be pursued,
which is very often the case, from her apparent lame-
ness and the consequent ease with which she may be
caught, she always contrives to keep at the same dis-
tance, till she be so far from the nest, as to be sure that
that is safe ; then she again takes to the wing ; and when
she has wheeled and screamed a little longer, takes her
departure, but alights at some distance from the nest,
and works back to it on the ground, in the same man-
ner that she left it. She contrives to practise these
arts till the young are able to fly ; but the lapwing,
which will thus come close to and hover about an un-
armed person, or a dog, alters her tactics if a gun, or
even a large stick, be presented at her. She appears
to know the danger of weapons, and the instinct of
providing for her own safety gets the better of that
which prompts her to protect her offspring. Rooks,
and many other birds that frequent places where there
is much shooting, have this dread of fire-arms ; and
when one is near them, they appear to know the dif-
ference between a stick and a gun : we know that to
be fact, for we have tried it several times. When the
rooks were at a considerable distance, they rose indis-
criminately, whether the object pointed at them was
stick or fowling-piece, but when very near, they did not
heed the stick ; and when they were scattered over a
310 THE LAPWING.
field, we have found the distant ones rise at the pointing
of the stick, while those that were nearer did not.
Even upon shifting a stick from the usual way that a
walking stick, or a stick merely carried in the hand, is
carried, to that in which a sportsman carries his gun,
the rooks do not like it, and fly off to a distance.
The habits of the lapwing afford stronger instances of
sagacity than one would be led to expect ; and they are
evidence that, with proper care, it might be added to
the number of domestic birds.
It has, indeed, often been partially tamed, and kept
in gardens for the purpose of clearing them of worms
and other insects. A case mentioned by Bewick throws
a good deal of light upon the habits of the bird : Two
were presented to a clergyman, who put them in his
garden for the purpose above mentioned ; but one of
them died in the course of the summer, and the other
remained shy and distant till the cold weather set in,
and its supply of food in the garden began to fail, when
it came to the door of the back-kitchen and sought
admittance by uttering its cry of peewit. As the winter
advanced, it gradually became more familiar, and ven-
tured to visit the kitchen ; though it was at first very
cautious, as a cat and dog were in possession. When
it found, however, that these were not disposed to be
hostile, it made companions of them, — Cctme to the
kitchen every evening, and sat with them, enjoying
the warmth of the fire. It continued to do this during
the winter ; but when the summer came, it abandoned
the house, and betook itself to its insect-hunting in the
garden. When the winter again set in, it returned to
the house ; but without any of the caution that it had
THE LAPWING. 311
observed at its first approach in the former season ;
for it marched boldly into the kitchen at once and joined
the cat and dog, and took more liberties than it had
done the preceding year. Lapwings are particularly
cleanly in their habits, and wash themselves very often
in water ; but though there was a bowl in the kitchen,
out of which the dog drank, the lapwing did not,
during the first winter of their acquaintance, offer to
avail himself of it. The second year it did so fre-
quently ; and showed a good deal of impatience if either
the cat or the dog offered to interrupt its ablution.
The progress of domestication in this interesting bird
was cut off, by his attempting to swallow something
that he had picked up in the kitchen, too large for
his gullet.
When we meet with lapwings on the moors, we
may be very apt to suppose that they live upon very
little food, as during the day they are almost perpe-
tually upon the wing, or running along the ground;
but in summer their principal feeding-time is in the
evening, when the worms come out of their holes.
They showr a good deal of art in this, for when they
come to earth that is newly cast up by a worm, they
instantly remove it ; and if the worm be too quick for
them, and has disappeared in the earth, the lapwing
begins beating with its feet, and agitating the ground,
till the worm again makes its appearance, when it is
instantly seized and drawn out. In this way it catches
a great deal of prey in a short time, and thus it is
enabled to remain on the wing during the day, for the
protection of its nest.
The young, which are hatched in the space of three
312 THE LAPWING.
weeks, are able to run about a day or two after they
leave the egg ; but they are unable to take the wing
till they be nearly full-grown, so that the period of
nursing and watching is longer than that to which some
other birds are subjected. This protracted maternal
care answers very well with the lapwing, which finds
its food in the greatest abundance in the latter part of
the summer, when the young birds have increased the
flock. When the frost begins to set in, the lapwings
collect in flocks, and betake themselves to the marshes
and brooks of the low parts of the country, or to the
shores of the sea, which are the common resource of
all birds that live upon insects, when the severity of
the frost prevents them from obtaining any upon the
land.
From the number of birds that inhabit the moors,
or resort to them for the purpose of nidification, they
become the haunts of many ravenous birds, — as these
can there carry on their hunting with less chance of
interruption than in the woods or inhabited places.
There are not many of these spoilers that actually breed
in the open uplands, as birds of prey usually make
their nests in places that are not easily accessible ; but
as they are birds of powerful wing, they make hunting
excursions over the open heights. All of these are
formidable to the smaller birds, as well as to the young
of the larger, and of hares and rabbits, though these
last are by no means common on elevated plains ; but
almost the only one which is a match for the lapwing
in fair combat in the air, is
313
THE GOSHAWK.
THE GOSHAWK (falco palumbarius) is, after the golden
eagle, the boldest and the most destructive of the British
birds of prey ; and, like that bird, it is much more fre-
quently seen in Scotland than in England. It does not,
indeed, appear that it ever bred in England, though
its nest has been often found in Scotland. Like the
eagle, the goshawk does not stoop to ignoble quarry,
and therefore the smaller birds are safe from it ; but it
pursues the larger ones with great activity. The female
goshawk is about two feet in length, and five in the ex-
pansion of the wings ; and the male about a third less
in each dimension. The goshawk builds its nest indis-
criminately, on the tops of lofty trees or in the clefts of
rocks ; but it always chooses a situation which, while it
314 THE GOSHAWK.
is both retired and inaccessible, is so chosen as that
there shall be plenty of game at no great distance.
The female lays from two to four eggs.
The colour of the goshawk varies so much at differ-
ent ages, and even at the same age, that it has been
called by a number of names ; but in the times when
falconry was a favourite sport, the goshawks were the
" gentil falcons," which were trained for flying at geese,
cranes, and other large birds. When on the wing, the
bird cannot be mistaken by those who have once been
acquainted with its size, its boldness, and the straight-
ness and rapidity of its flight, together with the unerring
certainty and deadly power of its stroke.
Among rapacious birds, the hawks stand in nearly
the same relation to eagles, that the canine species do
to the most powerful of the feline among quadrupeds.
The lion and the tiger spring, the eagle darts down
upon her quarry; and when any of them miss, they
do not course the prey. The hawks, on the other
hand, start their prey, run it down on the wing, and
strike it to the earth ; and the majesty with which they
shoot through the air is very great ; at the same time
one can see that there is an effort so to drive the game,
as that it may not reach the ground, or escape into
bushes. The goshawk dashes through the trees of a
forest with great vigour ; but in such situations, her
prey often escapes ; and therefore, when she can find
a proper place for her nest in the vicinity, she daily
beats a considerable distance of the moor, more espe-
cially if it abound in
315
GROUSE.
THE two distinct kinds of grouse that inhabit the
moors and wilds of the Alpine parts of Britain, are
among the most famed of its feathered tribes ; and one
of them, the
RED GROUSE (lagopus Scoticus) is almost peculiar
to this island ; or, if those continental birds .which have
been called by the same name are of the same species,
they are different varieties, occasioned probably by
difference of food and climate. It is rather singular
that these birds, which are so rare in Europe as not to
have been known to Linnaeus as any thing else than a
supposed variety of the ptarmigan, should have been
met with in Tristan d'Acunha, a lonely island in the
opposite hemisphere, between St. Helena and the Cape
of Good Hope.
In this country they are found in the open heaths
only ; so that the names of heathcock, which they get in
England, and moorcock, which they get in Scotland, are
strictly apposite. So fond are they of heath, that they
are very seldom met with in the grassy parts of the
moors ; and they quit a planted moor as soon as the
trees make any considerable appearance, even though
the heath should have been improved by the planting,
which it generally is until the pines — the trees most
generally planted on heaths — have grown so large, as to
exclude the air, and destroy the heath with their falling
leaves. We knew one large heath, the centre of which
was once very thickly stocked with grouse ; but after
it had been planted for a few years, the birds entirely
2 E 2
316 THE RED GROUSE.
forsook it, and betook themselves to the outskirts,
though those were so near the cultivated lands that the
birds had previously avoided them, unless when forced
from them by the severity of the winter. In passing
along the side of the young wood, in the evenings of
April and May, we have every where heard the cry of
the heathcock on the outside, but never once within the
wood ; even though there were wide openings between
the trees, and none of them above eight or ten feet in
height.
Many circumstances lead to this habit in the red
grouse : the heath is, at all seasons, nearly of their own
colour; as when there are not purple flowers upon it,
the old leaves, which are falling in the summer, are
brown. On an open moor the heath is short and firm,
and the birds can run amongst it ; while, when sheltered,
it gets long and lank, and makes a very bad pathway
even for a hare. The open heath is also dry and fra-
grant ; and the buds, which are the principal food of
the grouse in the breeding season, are sweet ; while in
the shaded places it is damp and rank. The superiority
of the path, (for grouse do not get on the wing till their
running be unavailing,) and also of the food, are, there-
fore, inducements to prefer the open heath.
But the instinct of preservation leads them to the
same places. Trees, the shade of which would be incon-
venient to grouse, afford shelter to animals that would
prey upon them ; not to predatory birds only, but to
weasels, martens, and foxes, which would prowl about
and destroy the eggs during the day, and the old birds
in the night. Thus the necessity of food, and the
desire of life, equally confine these birds to situations
THE RED GROUSE. 317
which have, comparatively, few other inhabitants ; and
while they do this, they place the birds in the very
situation where man can preserve them most securely
from other destroyers.
The grown-cock is about fifteen inches long, and
twenty-three in the expansion of the wings ; but as the
majority of those that are bagged by the sportsmen in
the season, are poults or young ones, the full-grown
bird is not often met with, except " on whirring wings,"
as Burns most accurately expresses it, on his native
heather. The general colour is a very red chestnut brown,
barred and spotted with black, with a circle of white
round each eye, and a spot of the same at the root of
the lower mandible. The carbuncles on the eyelids are
prominent, of a very bright scarlet, and fringed along
the upper edges. The feathers of the tail are black,
but the four middle ones are finely banded with red,
and the lateral ones are tipped with rich reddish
brown. The quill feathers of the wings are of a dusky
colour, and there is about the whole covering of the
bird that rich gloss, by which gallinaceous birds are so
generally characterised. The tarsi, and even the toes,
are covered with ashen-coloured feathers, as fine and
delicate as hair. The hen-grouse is rather smaller in
size, and has the colours less bright, and the gloss less
brilliant, with the carbuncles on the upper eye-lids
small and pale ; and the poults are much lighter in
their colours than the full-grown birds, and not un-
frequently mottled with white.
As soon as the pairing season commences, for, con-
trary to the habits of the black grouse, they do pair,
the cocks make the moors ring with their amorous
2 E 3
318 THE RED GROUSE.
noise ; and 'though the sound which they utter cannot
be considered as a song of any description, it is still
very lively ; and as it is heard in lonely situations, and
over wastes of brown heather, the peasants listen to it
with pleasure. It is a sound not easily expressible in
words, but it is one which, when once heard, there is
no danger of forgetting. Perhaps the nearest approxi-
mation that can be made to it in writing, is curr-rr-rrr
— bec-bec~bec, the r's being prolonged and strongly
aspirated, and the last syllables gradually shortened
and lowered. This cry is so loud, that it seems to
proceed from a much larger bird than the heath-cock ;
and, probably, it may have other uses than being a
mere love-song. It must, indeed, have for it is con-
tinued after the female has begun to sit upon the eggs,
and even after they are hatched. While the hen is
performing her incubation, and while she is sitting
upon her infant brood in their young state, the cry,
which the cock repeats at intervals during the night,
is obviously the cry of a watchman. This cry is never
uttered in the immediate vicinity of the nest after the
female has begun to sit, but always from some spot at
a little distance, as if it were intended to draw off any
spoiler of the night, that may then be prowling about.
Neither, in so far as we have observed, is it twice
uttered from the same spot; for after the cock has
sounded his watch-note on one side of his charge, he runs
quickly and silently past the nest, and sounds it on the
other side, and thus continues till he has made sure
that there is no enemy in the neighbourhood.
The nest of the grouse is very rude and simple, con-
sisting only of a few twigs of heath, and leaves of
THE RED GROUSE. 319
withered grass ; and the place chosen for it is some
elevated mossy sod, concealed by tall heath, there being,
in all birds that build on the ground, an instinctive
caution against rain. The eggs are never fewer than
eight, and rarely more than fourteen ; they are of a
dull yellowish white and straw colour, marked with
minute rusty spots, with large blotches toward the
small end. The brood continue with the hen till winter ;
and when the cold sets in, a number of families unite
in a flock. It is late in the season before they come
to their full power of wing, though they grow rapidly
in size ; and after they have assembled in flocks, they
are so very shy and vigilant, that the best sportsmen
can with difficulty get within shot of them. When
they are in families only, they are much more easily
shot. They lie close in the heath, until they be ap-
proached very near. Then the cock is the first to
spring, which he does in one direction with much noise
and motion of his wings ; and the hen and brood run a
little way upon the ground, and then take their flight
in a direction a little different ; but when they have got
out of reach of the danger, they again unite, and after
flying in various circles, as if to bewilder their pursuers,
alight again, but run a considerable way, and generally
in an oblique direction toward the sportsman, before
they are again at rest. Grouse-shooting is a very
favourite sport, especially in the Scottish mountains ;
not, however, on the lofty summits, but on the lowest
uplands and slopes, that are covered with heath. The
shooting is most successful in the commencement of the
season, and before the birds have begun to flock ; but
the birds are in better condition afterwards. As is the
320 THE RED GROUSE.
case with salmon, grouse is the more wholesome and
finely flavoured, the more recent it is ; though fashion
has led to the using and even praising of it, and all
sorts of game and venison, in being in the finest con-
dition when in a state of incipient putridity. In all
cases that taste is, of course, a vitiated one, and most
likely has arisen from the circumstance of food of that
kind not being attainable, in a recent state, in large
cities. In a matter so very capricious as taste, we by
no means give an opinion ; but we have eaten grouse,
with the coarse and plain cookery that it got in the
open air on a mountain side, within less than an
hour of the time that it had been on the wing, and
having done so, we never had any wish to taste it
when in the state which is called " high." Chacun d
son gout, however ; and if people will prefer rotten
food, nobody has a right to quarrel with them.
If grouse is to be kept for any length of time, or
carried to any distance, it should be drawn as soon as
killed ; as it very soon begins to putrefy internally, and
draws round it a number of flies, which deposit their
eggs, and, in brief space, have it full of maggots.
One would not, at first, suspect this in a bird which
feeds on substances that resist putrefaction so long as
the heath-buds and heath-berries, upon which the grouse
lives ; but yet it should seem that this hard food is the
cause of the rapid putridity. The gastric juice of the
bird must be more powerful than that of animals which
live upon food, which is softer and naturally more assi-
milated to the animal structure ; and a very short time
elapses before the juice begins to act upon the coats of
the stomach ; and, though this action prevents any
THE RED GROUSE. 321
farther production of the juice, yet, when putridity
has once begun, it proceeds irresistibly ; not only in
that which otherwise would have kept for a long time,
but even in living substances. One apple, or one po-
tatoe, that has begun to rot, will, in a short time, pro-
duce rottenness in all the heap ; gangrene of the smallest
member of the body, will occasion dissolution ; and the
puncture of a needle which has passed through the
substance of a putrid body, will occasion gangrene and
death, even though the quantity of putrid matter upon
it should be so small as not to be discernible.
Though the grouse, from being pursued with so much
avidity by man, is a shy and wary bird, it will breed in
confinement ; and thus we do not doubt that, with a
little attention, it might be added to the list of domestic
poultry, and probably improved both in size and in
flavour. Iildeed this might, in all probability, be done
with most of the gallinaceous birds, more especially
those, of which the family continue together till the end
of the season.
The descent of the grouse from the uplands to the
margin of the cultivated fields, is a certain indication
of a storm. In September, 1807, we started a flock
of grouse upon the edge of a field of oats, distant at
least a mile and a half from the moors ; and upon
mentioning the fact to the owner of the field, he
shook his head, and wished that all his crop had been
gathered in. The day was more than usually fine
for the season. There was not a speck of cloud in
the whole expanse of the sky ; the sea (the Moray
Firth it was) lay motionless as a mirror ; the extent
in the offing seemed interminable, and the outlines of
322 THE RED GROUSE.
the surrounding objects were as firm and well defined
in the aqueous reflection, as in the terrestrial reality ;
the ground was everywhere glittering with the snares
of the little field-spiders, and thousands of them were
navigating the atmosphere in their silken balloons.
The night continued serene till we had retired to rest,
and we thought not of the fear of the farmer. About
midnight, however, the wind sung in those melancholy
murmurs which are always the signs of some rapid
change for the worse in the state of the atmosphere ;
and in the morning, the ground was white with snow
to such a depth, that it concealed both the standing
corn and the shocks. It lay for some time, and was
followed by heavy rain and black frost, which com-
pletely destroyed the potatoe crop, and reduced the
poor, who depended principally upon that, to a state
closely bordering upon famine.
When the grouse leave their upland haunts, and even
in these, in some instances, especially if there be rocks
or woods at no great distance, one of their destroyers is
THE KITE.
THE KITE (milvus vulgaris) belongs to a division
of rapacious birds, different from any of those that
have been mentioned. Its organs of flight being much
greater, in proportion to its organs of destruction ; and
while it is one of the most ravenous of birds, it is also
one of the most cowardly. The smallest of the hawks
puts it to flight; one lapwing, or two rooks, more than
match it ; and when it comes to the poultry-yard, it will
not dare to take any of the chickens from a vigilant
hen, but hovers about till she be off her guard? and
then steals ; but when it succeeds in getting prey, it
becomes so intent upon the satisfying of its appetite,
that it forgets every thing else. Advantage is often
taken of this, in order to destroy the bird; and one
chicken is sacrificed, in order to save the rest. When
the kite is hovering about, a chicken is put in its
S24f THE KITE.
sight, and a person with a club is set to watch. The
moment that the kite spies the chicken, down it
pounces, and as the chicken is purposely left in a
retired place, the feast is instantly begun. While
it is luxuriating, the peasant comes in the rear of it,
and aims a blow at its wing, which generally takes
effect, — indeed, if the bird be not hit at all, a second
blow may be given, — and the kite is soon dispatched,
and nailed on the wall in terror em to all future kites.
This is often accomplished in so short a time, that the
chicken, though killed, is not mangled. This attention
to its meal, on the part of the kite, has procured it the
adjunct of " greedy" to its provincial name of " glead."
Nor is its absorption by the feast taken advantage of
by man only ; for though we have never seen an in-
stance, we have heard it often stated that the pole-cat,
and even the common weasel, will set upon and dispatch
the kite while it is feeding, and then eat up both the
preyer and the prey.
Though thus cowardly arid rapacious, the kite is
both a large and a handsome bird. When full-grown,
the length is nearly two feet and a half, and the extent
of the wings five and a half. More of the length is
taken up by the tail, than in the case of eagles and
hawks ; so that the kite is not so heavy in proportion
to its extent, its weight being generally under three
pounds. The beak is weaker and more slender in pro-
portion ; and the tarsi are thin and scaly, and the claws
weak, and not very much hooked ; but still, from the
nature of its food, and the fact of its killing nothing
on the wing, as the eagles and hawks do, but pouncing
its prey on the ground, and attacking it with beak and
THE KITE. 325
claws at the same time, the assistance of each compen-
sates for the weakness of the other ; and greater strength
in either would have been superfluous.
The motion of the kite is remarkably graceful. It
sweeps along in curves, which it is enabled to describe
by using its long forky tail as a rudder ; and there is a
considerable interval between the times at which it gives "
a single jerk to its wings. Its flight is low, compared
with that of the eagle ; but it is higher than that of
some other rapacious birds that beat the ground.
The size, or even the condition of the prey, is no
consideration with the kite, so that it is not a creature
that offers resistance. The young of hares, rabbits, and
all sorts of game — those young that cannot fly, espe-
cially— very young lambs, carrion, mice, snakes, worms,
insects — all come alike to the kite. Thus it has a
great range of food, and is in consequence fitted for a
number of situations. It is not so much a moor bird
as a prowler about woods, fields, and farm-yards, and
even the vicinity of towns ; but it often takes an excur-
sion over the moors, even to a considerable extent, if
it meet with a peculiarly fine day.
It is in fine weather only that the kite beats the
ground gracefully. The objects of which it is in quest
are smaller than those on which the eagle preys ; and
it requires, in consequence, greater light. On the fine
sunny days too, young heath-poults, partridges, or
chickens, according to the nature of the place, lie
basking, or even asleep, in more exposed places than
when the sun is clouded and the air cold. Thus the
sailing kite, though certainly not a harbinger of fine
weather, is a concomitant of it, because then its prey
2 F
326 THE KITE.
is most in sight, as well as most easily seen. There is
not any thing majestic in the stoop of the kite, — it
rather sneaks cowardly down, like a thief. In stormy
weather, or rather in that warning before storms, when
the air is dark and the birds take to their coverts, the
kite, when it does appear, is clamorous ; and hence it
has been said that its noise presages bad weather.
That it does precede bad weather is true, for we have
often observed it ; and therefore there is no more harm
in taking it as an omen of the weather, than there is in
predicting thunder and rain when the sky is full of
thunder-clouds. But still the crying of the kite has no
reference to the weather that is to come, for it refers
to the existing state of the atmosphere. The kite is
more than usually hungry, or it would not hunt in such
weather : the state of the air keeping the birds at rest,
they are difficult to be seen, and the kite screams to
rouse them to motion, and make their attempts at securer
concealment the means of their more easy discovery.
Considered merely in itself, no phenomenon or event
is an indication of the future, though there is not one
that may not be made so by due observation ; and the
principal distinction between superstition and philosophy
consists in this, — that philosophy looks carefully into
nature, and finds what is the future event or pheno-
menon that follows a present one ; while the super-
stitious person either overlooks the succession of the
phenomena of nature altogether, or connects with the
present a future event, which has no natural connexion
with it. All knowledge is founded upon this observation,
and all ignorance arises from the want of it ; nor is
there any occurrence, however apparently trifling and
THE HEN HARRIER. 327
simple, which would not bring us a lesson, if we would
but wait and watch for it But we are so apt to attend
only to the great events which are striking, and force
themselves upon our notice, that we lose the connexion
by not heeding those minor ones, which are the cement
by which the whole succession is bound together, and
without which the insulated partitions are of compa-
ratively small value.
The kite usually builds in trees, its nest is formed of
twigs and lined with wool. The female lays, generally,
three eggs, of a dirty white, and occasionally blotched
with rusty brown at the thick end. The eggs are larger
than those of the domestic hen. The young are produced
early in the season ; and, ^m the continent, the bird is
migratory, proceeding southward to Greece and Italy,
or even to Africa in winter, and returning as far as the
shores of the Baltic in the summer ; but in Britain they
do not leave the country ; they descend toward the sea,
where, though they do not appear to catch living fish,
they prey upon dead ones and aquatic insects, and,
when they can come upon them unawares, sand-pipers
and other birds. The kite is only an occasional visitant
in the bleak and northern parts of the country ; and it
is rather a rare bird, except in some particular districts.
It is far from being the most destructive bird that beats
the moors, and other places where there are gallina-
ceous game : a much more formidable destroyer is
THE HEN HARRIER.
THE HEN HARRIER (circus cyaneus) is like the
kite, not a regular inhabitant of the moors, but it makes
excursions there, and is very bold and destructive. It
2 F 2
328 THE HEN HARRIER.
is not so partial to woods as the kite, and often makes
its nest in rushes, or among long grass or autumn
wheat ; but it also occasionally builds in trees. It is a
small bird compared to the kite. The length is about
a foot and a half; and the breadth about forty inches.
Its tail is long, like that of the kite, but it is not forked.
The general colours of the male are, gray above, and
white on the under side ; and those of the female,
brown above, and white below, and in both places
more or less marked with orange. The colours vary a
good deal, however, both in the individual and with
age ; and that has led to the bestowing of more names
upon this than upon almost any other bird.
The hen harrier flies very low, with a swift and
smooth motion, and few birds or small quadrupeds
escape its fury. It is said even to attack deer and
sheep, especially at the season when they are weakly,
and to prevent their escape by striking them blind with
its beak. Of all the birds of prey that are known in this
country, it is the most destructive in the poultry yard,
and also in all places where there are game. It is an
extensive rover, and wherever it roves it is certain of
success. Though it has none of the cowardice of the
kite, it has the same extensive range of feeding, —
making prey of every thing that it can muster, and
eating garbage when it can find no food to kill. The
hen harrier is easily distinguished from all other hawks
by the length of the ear feathers, that form a complete ruff
round the neck, which in the female is white and very
stiff. Notwithstanding the hen harrier produces more
eggs than the kite, it is not much more common, though
it is more generally diffused over the low parts of the
THE MOOR BUZZARD. 329
country. It is never found upon the mountains, and
but seldom on the higher Alpine moors ; yet it is pretty
general upon those that lie low. One pair seem, how-
ever, to require an extensive range of pasture, as they
are thinly scattered at any one place.
There are two other species, the moor-buzzard,
(falco rufusj) and the ash-coloured harrier, (Jalco cine-
rarius9) the first, larger every way than the hen harrier,
and the last exceeding it in length and extent, though
very much lighter. They have the same general
habits and structure, but they are more exclusively
confined to marshy places, and their peculiarities will
come in with more propriety, when we notice a few of
the leading inhabitants of those situations.
Though the red grouse be now the prevailing bird
of the Alpine moors of this country, there is an extinct
species, of which both naturalists and sportsmen have
some cause to regret the extinction ; the more so that
it has, in all probability, been occasioned by an indis-
cretion which has been otherwise very injurious to
the country. We allude to the cutting down of the
woods, without planting others for a succession, which
was the general practice to a period comparatively
recent, and which is still done in all new countries
colonized by the British. They find woods ready
grown by nature ; they never think of the time that has
been taken to produce them ; thus they take the
hatchet and cut away ; and that which was a sheltered
forest — riches in itself and rich in living productions,
becomes an unprofitable bog, or a bleak desolation of
black surface and stunted heath, according to the situ-
ation. Ireland and Scotland have both suffered very
1*3
330 THE COCK OF THE WOOD.
much in this respect, the former having been, to a very
great extent, converted into unprofitable and unwhole-
some bogs, and the latter, even where the roots of the
large trees still stand bleaching on the surface, being
for many miles, black mud, with water almost equally
as black, and not producing as much, even of heath, as
would pasture one grouse an acre.
Among the other losses, has been that of the GREAT
GROUSE, cock of the wood, or cock of the mountain,
(tetrao urogallus, Linnaeus). That bird, which grows
almost as large as a turkey, was once met with in the
remote parts of Ireland and Scotland ; the last found
specimen was killed in the latter country about fifty
years ago, and before that time it had been extinct in
Ireland. The severity of the climate cannot have been
the cause ; for the bird is still met with in places that
are colder, as among the mountains of Norway, Sweden,
Russia, and Siberia, and high upon the ridges of the
Alps and Pyrenees. But the forests that afforded it
shelter are gone ; and both the vegetable and the insect
food, which the shelter of these also afforded, have been
swept away by the bleak winds that now play over the
exposed surface, and hurry all that is moveable, and
consequently all that is fertile of it, into the valleys
where it is not wanted, or the lakes and rivers, where it
is lost.
For these reasons we can notice this superb bird
only as one of the departed wonders of the British
Fauna, until some patriotic proprietor shall introduce
it again into one of those planted forests with which
the spirit of recent times is clothing the bleak moun-
tains, and labouring (sometimes with but little success,
THE COCK OF THE WOOD. S3l
because the operation has been delayed till the soil is
useless) to hide the shame of former ages.
The prevailing colour in the male is dusky, waved
with cinereous on the upper part of the body, the
breast of a deep glossy-green, marked with bronze
colour, and the tail black, with two white spots on
the tip of each feather. The female is ash-coloured,
and variegated and barred with black. The male
is two feet nine inches in length, and three feet in
the expansion of the wings, and has been met with
weighing as much as thirteen pounds, though it does
not generally weigh more than eight. The female is
considerably smaller, and not above half the size. Both
are compact and rather handsome birds, the hen being
not unlike the ptarmigan. The legs and tarsi of both
are feathered down to the toes, and these are well
protected by plates on the upper surfaces, and adapted
with knobs on the under for taking hold.
On the continent there are several species of these
birds ; those in the woods of Sweden are large, and
there are smaller ones in Norway and Lapland, as
far north as the shores of the Arctic ocean.
These birds are properly birds of the woods ; but
they come out to the sheltered moor-lands between the
woods in the morning and evening, and retire into the
silent depths of the forest during the heat of the day.
They scratch the earth for insects and their larvae, and
swallow pebbles in the same manner as domestic poul-
try. The breeding season begins about the middle of
April, at which time they remain much upon the trees.
The gestures and love-song of the male are both sin-
gular. The middle of the song is like the cry of a
332 THE COCK OF THE WOOD.
drake, or rather the sharpening of a scythe, and the
beginning and end are a kind of explosion, as if a
quantity of air were shot from the beak, with a sound
that is not easily described. During the time that he
is thus agitated, he becomes insensible to danger ; and
though at other times a vigilant and wary bird, may
be shot, or even knocked on the head. The nest is
formed on the ground among the natural moss, and is
very simple in its construction ; the eggs vary from
eight to sixteen, about the same size as those of the
common hen, but blunter at the ends, and of a yel-
lowish white, irregularly spotted with yellow. The flesh
of these birds, which acquires a peculiar pungent taste
from the juniper berries on which they feed, is highly
prized ; and it is so little disposed to putridity, that, in
the winter months it may be brought fresh from Nor-
way to Britain ; the eggs too are highly valued, and
accounted more valuable than those of any other bird.
All circumstances, indeed, conspire to make one regret
the loss of so valuable an animal ; but if it ever again
should be restored to the country, it must be in the wild
state ; for even in those countries where it is abundant,
it has never been brought to live in a state of do-
mestication. Hybrids which are barren, and thus
prove, independently of other evidence, that the spe-
cies are distinct, have been produced between these
birds and the
333
BLACK GROUSE.
THE BLACK GROUSE, black game, or black cock,
(tetrao tetrix^) though inferior in size to the cock of
the woods, is still a bird of considerable dimensions,
being much larger than the red grouse; and when full-
grown, larger than the pheasant. The black cock is
a very handsome bird ; the general colour is black,
but it is irridescent, arid in certain positions of the
light shows a very fine purple. The tail is very much
forked, the outside feathers curled, and the lower part,
toward the base, white. Upon the throat there is a
kind of down, but no long or regularly-formed feathers.
The length of the male bird is about twenty-eight
inches, and the extent of the wings nearly three feet ;
and the weight between three and four pounds. The
female is a much smaller bird, and has not the curled
feathers in the tail.
Though the places at which the black grouse is
found are not quite so elevated — so near to the
summits of the mountains as the habitations of the
ptarmigan — it is yet a bird fond of wild and secluded
spots ; and its numbers in these islands are very fast
declining. What with improvements of land, and im-
provements in the arts of its destruction, it is not nearly
so abundant in England as it was formerly; though
it be still met with in the more elevated and secluded
places in the south of England, in Staffordshire, in
North Wales, and generally where there are high and
lonely moors. In the Alpine parts of Scotland it is more
abundant, though the introduction of sheep, generally,
334- BLACK GROUSE.
upon the mountains, is said to be diminishing the
numbers. The black cocks are more frequently found
in the woods than the red grouse, though the moors,
with a difference of elevation, be the favourite abodes
of both. Their food is also similar ; consisting of
mountain-berries, the tops of heath, and the buds of
pine and other Alpine trees. Though they seek their
food in the open places during the day, they, where
they have the accommodation of trees, perch during
the night, like pheasants. It is chiefly during the
winter months, however, and the early parts of spring,
when all food, save the tops of the pines, is hidden
under the snow, that they do that ; for when the breed-
ing season commences, they assemble on the tops of
the mountains and highest parts of the moors, but
never higher than they can find heath; the young
shoots and embryo blossoms of which are at that time
their principal food.
Some parts of their character resemble that of
common poultry. They do not pair; but when the
breeding season commences, the cocks ascend to the
tops of the mountains, and clap their wings and crow ;
to which call the females answer, by making their
appearance, and uttering a sort of clucking sound.
War immediately ensues among the males, as each is
anxious to have in his train as many females as
possible. Their heels are armed with spurs : their
mode of fighting is the same as that of game-cocks,
and they enter upon the strife with the same devoted-
ness. Although upon other occasions they are among
the shyest of birds, they are then so intent upon the
victory in their own battle, that they do not heed the
J3LACK GROUSE. 335
approach of strangers. Not only may all that are
within the spread of a musket-shot be killed at one
shot, but they may be struck a second time with a
stick, so eager are they for victory among themselves.
The nests, like those of most of the gallinaceous birds,
are rude ; the eggs are usually six or seven ; they are
of a yellowish white, dotted with very minute ferru-
ginous specks ; and about the size of those of the
pheasant. The young are produced rather late in the
season, but as there is then plenty of food, they grow
rapidly. In their early stage they follow the mother,
and nestle under her wings in some safe place during
the night ; but after about five weeks, they have ac-
quired so much strength and use of their wings as to
be able to perch along with her. As the winter sets
in, the different families leave their mothers, and the
whole assemble in flocks like the red grouse. They
are never, so far as our observation has gone, found,
like those, even in the margins of the cultivated fields,
but continue in the mountains during the winter ; find-
ing, as is supposed, their food under the snow, and
being also often found in their retreats by beasts and
birds of prey.
When the snow begins to fall heavy, the black grouse
betake themselves to the shelter of tall heath, juniper,
or any other plant, that will afford them cover while
the violent wind with which falls of snow are usually
accompanied in Alpine districts lasts; or they roost
under the thick branches of the pines, in situations
where they have access to these. Even upon the
pines, the snow forms a close canopy, which lasts for a
considerable time, while below there is a sufficiency of
336 SNOW STORMS.
air for the breathing of the bird. In the shelter of the
bushes they are obliged, like the white hares and other
inhabitants of the mountains, to open breathing holes
for themselves ; and while they are pent up in their ha-
bitations of snow, the tops of the heather, or leaves of
the bush, find them in food. When the surface be-
comes hard [which it does in no great length of time
after the fall of snow is over, in consequence of the
softening of the surface by the action of the sun, and
the congealing of it again at night, till it is converted
into a crust of smooth ice, and reflects off the greater
part of the solar heat obliquely, as the rays then fall
upon the surface] those breathing holes often betray
their inmates to the ravages of predatory birds and
quadrupeds. The mountain-eagles and hawks then
fly over the snowy surface, and beat it in the same
manner for these holes, as they do for the birds them-
selves when there is no snow upon the ground ; and
the four-footed ravagers, that then find an easy passage
along the hard surface, join in the spoil. Man some-
times also takes a part in it, but much less frequently,
because there are concealed holes and precipices under
the snow, which are full of danger.
But the winds by which the falls of snow in the
Alpine countries are accompanied, though they render
these formidable to the animals, whether quadruped or
bird, while they last, and fatal to man if he be over-
taken by them late in the day and far from his home,
have yet their uses, and tend in some measure to the
preservation of life. Some portions toward the wind-
ward are left bare, or at any rate with the tops of the
heath and other plants above the surface, and the
SNOW STORMS. 337
vigorous find their way to these, and subsist on them till
other parts of the surface be clear. When, however,
the snow falls in continued storms, and especially with
the wind from opposite points during the different falls,
the sufferings of the creatures are extreme ; first, those
that live on vegetables, perish through suffocation or
of hunger ; and then the carnivorous ones, which can
in general subsist longer without food, follow in their
turn ; and when the snow clears away, the raven comes
to enjoy the spoils of both.
These are but a few of the inhabitants of the moor ;
but moor means so many different kinds of country,
according to the situation in which it is placed, that
there is no possibility of including in a short space the
characters that are common to all. There are compa-
ratively few quadrupeds peculiar to such situations,
and the number of insects is not great ; the plants, too,
though more abundant and more numerous in their
species, are not those that are the most striking in
their appearance, or the most interesting in their pro-
perties.
Alpine hares are sometimes found in the more
elevated parts of the higher moors, and the common
hare in the lower parts of those that are near the culti-
vated grounds ; but the only quadrupeds which can be
considered as natives, and permanent inhabitants of the
moors in any part of Britain, are deer ; and they pro-
perly fall into the description of a more limited and pe-
culiar description of scenery. We must, therefore, even
though the subject be merely begun, close our account
of this division of the surface of our country. There are
other circumstances connected with it in common with
338 SNOW STORMS.
other places, to which we can afterwards advert with
more effect. What has been mentioned will tend to
show that, even in one of its departments, that portion
of the earth's surface which, on account of its flatness
and its sterility, is the least pleasing or promising, is yet
fraught with lessons of the greatest importance, if we
would only pause and read them. Nor even when the
moor has advanced one step further, and become a
desart in the burning climate, or a peat-bog in the cold
and marshy one, can we dare to say, that it is without its
usefulness. The peat-bog is the coal-field of future
times, and the waste of Zahara must have its use, or it
would not have existence.
339
CHAPTER VI.
THE BROOK.
THE greatest charm about the works of nature is,
that, however they may vary in extent, or in the kind
of emotion that they excite, they never fail to be inter-
esting ; but when we have wearied ourselves in the
study of one, the change to another one destroys the
incipient lassitude, and we turn to the new with the
same freshness as if we had come at once from rest to
labour. If we have become giddy with the contem-
plation of lofty summits and wave-lashed shores, — if
the broad-rolling tide of the river has ceased to please,
— if the brown moor has moulded the mind to its own
dusky monotony, — nature has still something to charm
us ; and when we have contemplated one part of her
works till we are weary, and our eyes ache, and our
temples throb, — if the voice of another call but, " come
and see," the mind is up, and the momentary weariness
of the body is forgotten.
Even the human body is so constituted and con-
structed, that indolence, or even rest, is not the only
means by which it may be recruited. Change will do
the work. If the burden has been on the one shoulder
till pain is felt, shift it to the other, and not ease
340 THE BROOK.
merely, but pleasure is the result. If we have been
walking upon level ground till the limbs are stiffened,
let us ascend or descend a steep, and we are at once
vigorous. Even the sluggard, who has lain dozing in
bed till the weight of his own flesh and bones has
pressed the vessels and stopped the circulation of the .
one side, feels ease, and even pleasure, as he turns
himself with slowness and hesitation to the other side.
If the sight has become pained and dim to the per-
ception of one colour, nature has another, in her won-
derful beam of radiance, which will not only give
relief to the aching eye, but absolutely, a clearer per-
ception of the new colour, and a keener admiration of
its beauty, than if the former one had never been seen.
All the senses have this power ; the most luscious
taste palls upon the tongue, and the sweetest perfume
offends in the nostril, when the one or the other is
borne too long ; and the organ and the feeling equally
demand that change which brings relief.
Now if the members of the body, which are merely
the earthy tools with which the mind works, perform
their offices so much better by a change in their
objects, how much more must it be the case with the
mind ! — That grasping and comprehensive energy, which,
taking tangibility from one sense, colour from another,
sound from a third, scent from a fourth, and sapidity
from a fifth, moulds all their combined reports into one
idea of existent substance, distinguishes that from all
other substances around, however fine their shades of
difference may be, finds out what has been its past
states of existence, the uses to which it may be turned,
and the rank that it holds in the general scale of being —
THE BROOK. 341
how much more must it exalt and find delight in those
transitions with which the study of nature abounds !
The bodily pleasure, and the mental delight, which
we feel in changing from one posture and one study to
another, are given to us for the most wise and bene-
ficent purposes ; they are among the most powerful
incitements to study ; and were it not that we are apt
to dissipate and misapply our faculties, we should
never think of being idle, but during those hours when
the body needs refreshment or sleep, and them we
should make as few as possible.
Of those scenes which are alike calculated to bring
us vdown from over excitement, or rouse us from the
exhaustion of lassitude, none is better than the margin
of a brook. There is not an indication of any thing
either disposed or fitted to destroy : those elevated
banks, with their alternating glades and coppices, for-
bid the action of such winds as sweep the hill-side
and the heath, lash the shore in sounds like thunder,
make the lake curl its white crusted billows, and even
the river run foaming to the sea. That small and
gentle stream, now stealing unseen under beds of the
sweetest wild flowers, which, like a kind modest friend,
it nourishes in secret and in silence, — now curling round
the large pebble, as if it would not disturb the repose
of even a stone, — then gliding away into some stagnant
angle, where it woos the wild plants to come and quench
their thirst, and seems more a garden of herbs, than
even an appendage of running water ; and yet again, as
if it would not derange the little bank of gravel which
has found a resting-place in its bed, it broadens out into
a little pool where the gentle water-fowl may swim in
2 G3
342 THE BROOK.
safety, the songsters of the neighbouring trees perform
their ablutions, the small quadrupeds drink, and the
insect tribes spend their brief hours in joy ; — that gentle
stream is the cause of no inundation, tears up no soil,
and hardly bends a rush or drowns a fly. There is no
din of wings, no shadow of the eagle, no rushing of the
hawk, not a death-doer, or a death-cry, from all unrea-
soning nature in this little place ; and if man come not
in with his snare, or his weapon, he may make it, or
rather have it, the very Eden of innocence. How easily
can we trace it upward to the fountains, or downward
to the point at which it blends its waters, and loses its
name in the river. The well under the hawthorn, by
the base of the rock, the depth of whose sources defy
the heat of summer and the cold of winter, and which,
for virtues more valuable than those for which modern
idols are worshipped, the simple people called by the
name of their favourite saint; and, for the health that the
draught of liquid diamond had given them, hung with
garlands and other votive offerings, as they hymned him
in their grateful hearts ; — that shining and sainted well
is the farthest source of our little brook. And though
the brook apparently loves to linger in the shade of its
little grove — where the willows, whose rough stems are
the parents of fifty generations of osier twigs, and are
as likely as ever to enrich the peasants with fifty
more, stand rooted in the water among lofty reeds and
glowing iris, and sport the soft glory of their green
and silver in the waveless pool ; — where, too, the alder
and the elm blend their passage, and all is so still that
the fluttering leaves of the aspen, ever in motion in
other places, are here still — as if the zephyrs themselves
THE BROOK. 343
had forgotten to breathe. — Though it thus lingers and
broadens, the fountain is not at the distance of an hour's
walk ; and that walk is across little swells, fragrant with
the vernal grass, the white blossom of the creeping tre-
foil, the wafted sweets of the wild hyacinth, or the more
powerful perfume of the bean-blossom, according to the
season. And the inhabitants of those little cottages, as
one passes along to the foot of the mountain, and which
are so pleasingly simple, with their thatch and their
white walls, and their trailing briars and their cluster-
ing roses, with here and there a poeony or a tulip —
when the horticultural skill and pride are more than
common — they are as innocent as they look. They
are in happy ignorance, both of the grandeur of the
world and of its grievances. The storm that unroofs
the cottage, or sends the swathes of hay or the sheaves of
corn coursing each other over the field — the fine day that
follows, and permits all to be recovered and safe — the
revolving year — the sun, the moon, and the stars in
their courses — the weekly prayer and the weekly sermon
— the noise of the mill, and the noise of the " smithy " —
these are the world to them ; and to their minds and
their desires, they are more than the conquest from
Rhodope to the Indus was to the monarch of Macedon.
Those who have not visited such scenes, and known
such people, have something yet to learn — something
which is one of the most delightful parts of natural
history. Simple as those people are, there are in them
the germs of all the arts and sciences, and fineries and
blandishments of life. The gold is there, and we want
only the coiner with his stamp, to make them pass
current among those whose superior value in exchange
344 THE BROOK.
depends far more upon the impress than upon the
bullion.
The human heart is as warm there, and the feelings
are as true, as where every sentence is " cut to model,"
and every attitude ordered by the posture-master. The
evening walks of lovers are as enchanting there as
the evening medleys in the fashionable world: eyes
are as bright, when the star of eve or the moon of
night is their only rival, as when they have to contend
with the glitter of jewels, and the glare of angular
crystal and coloured glass. Neither is the music less
fascinating, or less in melody with all around, that it
comes without purchase from the feathered tribes, than
if it warbled in all the wild meanders of German har-
mony. All are well in their own places ; and the nuptial
songs of the birds are just as much in accordance with
the plans of those rustic youths and maidens, who have
chiefly to consider how they shall best construct their
nests and rear their broods, as the exhibitions of splen-
dour are to those of whom splendour is the idol and
the joy.
There is something about a brook which leads one
more insensibly, but more irresistibly, to the con-
templation of rustic life, than any thing else in rustic
scenery. It is not germain to wildness and desolation,
and it is no kin to greatness. There is life and pro-
ductiveness about it ; but it is life which is simple and
unexpanded — a shelter and repose from the sweep of
the elements and of time. Every thing in the place
itself, and in all the accompaniments of the place, pro-
claims that here is a fulness of life, and of life that
knows no enemy, unless when man steps in to play the
THE MOLE CRICKET. 345
fowler. But when we come to examine it, we find that
it is only the exuberance of production ; for nature is
every where true to her economy, and the consumption
of life is the means of life as much on the margin of
a peaceful brook as in the haunts of the most formidable
destroyers. Still all is redolent of life, and it is of
little consequence whether you turn your attention to
the air, the earth, or the sky. Of the earth, one of
the most singular inhabitants that you meet with in such
places is
THE MOLE CRICKET.
THE MOLE CRICKET (gryllus gryllotalpd) is one of
the most singular insects which Britain produces. We
have one upon our table at this moment, (Nov. 2,)
that was brought us in the morning enclosed in a mass
of moist sandy clay, which, when we divided it, was
346 THE MOLE CRICKET.
found to be perforated in all directions, by the subter-
raneous passages of the insect. These passages inter-
sected each other at short distances, where they formed
chambers, in some of which a quantity of white silky
matter remained, but we could find no appearance of
eggs ; at certain places the passages were shut by little
heaps of loose clay, which the cricket appeared to be
able to move almost as fast as we could open a door ;
though these would no doubt have formed an effectual
barrier against any insect not accustomed to burrowing.
The insect was found at the depth of about a foot,
not in the chamber but in one of the passages. There
were some roots of aquatic plants passing through the
lump of clay, but there was no sign of a store of any
kind of provision, and the insect appeared in rather a
dormant state. It was not, however, in a state of hy-
bernation, or any thing approaching to it, for it moved
immediately on being placed upon a plate ; and when
an inverted jar was placed over it, it ran rapidly round
the inside, alternately in the direction of the head and
the tail ; and so hard are the long claws upon its fore
legs, that the sound of them tapping the receiver, and
also the China plate, was distinctly audible.
Upon placing a lump of the clay in which it was
found under the receiver, the cricket ceased to make
any further attempt at escape by the sides of the
receiver, but instantly began burrowing in the clay
with so much vigour, that it had a portion, equal to
the half of its body, in motion in an instant ; and in
a few minutes, a passage, in which the cricket could
run easily, was made all round where the clay touched
the receiver. When disturbed by agitating its abode,
THE MOLE CRICKET. 347
its motion was backwards with considerable rapidity,
and it kept tumbling down the clay after it, with its
burrowing paws as it proceeded. The motion of those
paws is rapid; and the articulation to the thorax seems
to be by a sort of universal joint, as it can instantly
make a semicircle with them in any direction out-
wards. The claws are semi-transparent, very sharp
at the points, and moderately hooked, and they have
a lateral motion as well as one of opening and shutting.
In those parts of the clay that were friable, from con-
taining much sand, the claws were spread out wide,
and as much was pulled down at one effort as covered the
head of the insect ; but when it came to a part of
more consistency, the claws were narrowed, so that
the mass attempted to be moved was still proportioned
to its strength. The eyes of the mole cricket, which
are large and prominent, seem very sensible to the
action of light; for when brought near an argand
lamp, though the eye gleamed like a little gem, the
insect retreated with great rapidijty backwards, and
hid itself on the shady side of the mass of clay ; but
when turned with the other extremity to the light, it
did not retreat by the head, but rather in the other
direction, until its eyes encountered the light ; and
even then it seemed to prefer the backward motion.
It is by no means improbable, that this backward
retreat may be intended for showing front to insect
foes, as well as getting more rapidly out of the way ;
but it offered no hostility to any thing with which we
could irritate it. The specimen alluded to was about
half-grown, and the elytra or wings were not fully
developed.
348 THE MOLE CRICKET.
The precise age to which mole crickets live, is not
accurately known ; but it is probably much longer
than a year. The earth is their constant abode in the
winter. It is understood to dig downwards, so as to
elude the penetration of the frost ; and we have traced
in its burrows in loose soil, something like a drainage.
As the heat of the spring augments, it comes nearer
to the surface ; and is understood to come out and
fly abroad in the night, in order to pair ; but the fact
has not been well ascertained.
The female prepares a nest for her progeny in clay.
It is excavated near the surface ; and though the
passages generally contain a quantity of loose mud,
the inside of the depository for the eggs is smooth
and beaten, so that the young may not suffer in their
helpless state. The eggs are hatched by the heat of
the sun, but the mother remains near, to defend them
from insects : but we have heard, though we have had
no opportunity of verifying the fact, that they and
she often fall a sacrifice to her half namesake the
mole ; which is now ascertained to be, what its struc-
ture always led one to suspect, one of the most vora-
cious little animals in nature.
The mole crickets do not pass through what can
strictly be called a larva state ; and they have no
abstinent, or chrysalid state at all. Their first form
resembles the last, with the exception of the wings
and the thorax, which are not developed till the insect
has attained a considerable size. The wings are what
Linnaeus calls hemiplerous, or half-winged ; the upper
part consisting of two short, parchment-like cases,
under which the membranous wings, which are very
THE MOLE CRICKET. 349
delicate, long and pointed, are folded when the insect
digs its way in the earth.
As soon as the young ones leave the eggs, they
begin to burrow along below the surface of the ground,
and when they are numerous, not only disfigure it
much, but are injurious to hosts of young plants.
These habits are not perfectly known, but it is not
impossible they may be of some service in return, by
destroying something that is as injurious as themselves.
It is possible that some may get their wings the first
year, which they do after successive scalings of the
skin ; but there are at least some which do not have
the means of flight till they come abroad upon their
amorous voyage in the spring, upon which occasions
the bats are understood to lay them under heavy con-
tributions. Though a singular insect, both in appear-
ance and in habit, the mole cricket is by no means
unhandsome. The shape is rounded off to both extre-
mities, so that it can easily make its way. The antenna
and palpi are remarkable for their sensibility and
power of being bended ; the down upon the body is
of extraordinary gloss and closeness, though not of
gaudy colour ; and with the exception of the harm
that it does by its burrowing, it appears to be an in-
offensive insect.
All insects which are met with about a brook, are
not, however, of that disposition. One of the most
remarkable of these, both for the rapidity of its mo-
tions, and the havoc that it occasions, is
350
THE GREAT WATER-BEETLE.
THIS insect (dytiscus margmalis) is a more constant
inhabitant of the water than the mole cricket is of the
earth, remaining there in all the stages of its existence,
even after it has become winged, and only, as is sup-
posed, using that apparatus for enabling it to range from
pool to pool, in quest of more abundant prey. Its
flights are generally in the twilight or during the night.
Whether it may or may not capture land insects during
its flight, has not been ascertained, but it bites lustily
when an attempt is made to keep it prisoner in the
hand. From the rapidity with which it dashes from
the surface of the water to the bottom, it has got the
name of the " plunger." It is a large beetle, flattish
and broad for its length, and of a very compact form.
The head is rather small, compared with the body,
but the mandibles are strong, hard, and have a
powerful articulation; the eyes are placed so promi-
nently in the head, that the insect can readily see in all
directions; and its motions in the water along the
bottom, and even into the mud, are almost all as rapid
and vigorous as its plunging.
THE WATER-BEETLE. 351
Properly speaking, it is an inhabitant of stagnant
waters, rather than of brooks ; but when a brook forms
a stagnant nook, where moss and mud are deposited,
that is a favourite spot for it, as larvae and insects are
always brought down by the current. It watches for
these with the greatest attention, and we have seen it
catching the larvae cases of the phrygancea, and shaking
them till it could get hold of the inmate, and plunging
into the mud after those of the ephemera. It is a very
indiscriminate devourer, and will attack not only its
insect neighbours, but the very young tadpoles of frogs,
and fry of fishes ; nor is it confined to animal food, for
we have seen it catch small crumbs of bread before they
reached the bottom, with so much apparent relish, that
there was little doubt that it ate them.
The young plunger has the elytra or horny covers
of its wings nearly transparent ; but as it gets to ma-
turity, they become of a deep olive green, inclining to
black. They have not the brilliant gloss of the elytra
of some insects, but they are very hard and strong,
and supplied with a kind of oil or varnish, by means of
which the water is repelled, and the insect kept con-
stantly dry. This beetle may easily be known from
the colour, and also from the margin of dull reddish
orange with which the body is surrounded, and which
has given it its specific name of marginalis.
As is indeed the case with most insects, especially
those that inhabit the water, the economy of the plunger
is but imperfectly known. It has been stated that the
female encloses her eggs in a cocoon of coarse silk.
But we have never been able to find any teats or nip-
ples, similar to those found upon ordinary spinning
2 H 2
352 THE WATER-BEETLE.
insects, whether in the perfect or the larva state,
and such a practice would rather be an anomaly in the
case of insects that deposit their eggs, or have their
early stages of life in the water. The threads are
always discharged from the body of the insect in the
state of a viscid fluid, which acquires consistency the
moment that it comes in contact with the air ; and,
therefore, until it is actually seen, we are not prepared
to admit that a similar operation could go on in the
water. The plunger is, indeed, so far analogous to
the coleoptera, that inhabit the land, that it cannot
remain under water without coming up to breathe ; but
even that would not justify for it the imputation of a
power which was to be exercised in the water, and
which yet was not in accordance with the general laws
of the inhabitants of that fluid.
Upon most subjects, the only danger of gross error
lies in too hasty a generalization ; but in the study of
natural history, and in no part of it more than the
adaptation of creatures to the element in which they
live or find their food, there is an opposite danger —
generalizing too little. This is too much the case in
the history of insects. The particular creature, or the
particular habitis, taken apart, and one insulated fact
is put in succession to another insulated fact, not only
without any direct observation of the fact of invariable
sequence, but against that which appears to be a ge-
neral law. In the inhabitants of the air, including
those that cannot fly, as well as those that can (for the
air is the medium in which they all live), we find a
certain uniform organization, varied much in form, no
doubt, but uniform in principle. So very uniform, that
RESPIRATION. 353
not one of those creatures that have it, can remain in
water unless they are suffered to come to the surface
and breathe. This holds in the case of the plunger
now under notice, as well as in all the insects and
larvae which are not, through the whole succession of
their changes, to be confined to the water ; and any
one who waits by the side of a stagnant pool, during
those warm months when all is activity and life, may
notice the incessant ascent of larvae and full-formed
insects to the surface, for the purpose of that aeration
which is essential to life. On the other hand, the
animals, be they large or small, which are furnished
with apparatus that can separate oxygen at once from
water, cannot live in the air, but must get to the water
in order to breathe ; and it is quite as correct to say
that a water animal is drowned in the air, as that a
land animal is drowned in the water.
And whatever specific difference there may be in
their structure, there is a generic form of organs for
each class. The land animal, — that which breathes
" free air," or air without the admixture of water,
whether it inhale the air by nostrils or by pores in
the skin, — always receives it into cells, and after a
little time discharges it again; while those that breathe
air in conjunction with water, and have a double sepa-
ration to make, — first the air from the water, and then
the oxygen of the air from the nitrogen, — receive the
water in a passing current ; and perform the double
chemical operation by the delicate fringes of gills of
some description or other ; over the surface of which,
the minute vessels of the circulating system are rare-
fied.
2 H 3
354 RESPIRATION.
Thus these two distinct sets of processes, by which
this important and essential function of animal life is
performed, have a distinct set of organs for each,
adapted admirably for that, but not for the other.
There is no instance of an organization that can
perform both operations, though the frequency with
which the performance is necessary varies very much,
according to the habits of the animal, and the place
and manner in which it finds its food. It has been
said that there is a change in some cases, from the one
of these organizations to the other, in those animals
which spend their infant states in the water, and their
mature ones alternately in the water and the air, or
wholly in the latter ; that the gills, with which they are
furnished in the first state, change to lungs when they
assume the last. The fact has not been verified by
the actual observation of one of those animals at every
instant, from the time of its being deposited in the
water as an egg, to that of putting on the form and
habits in which pulmonary breathing is unequivocal,
and, therefore, the better evidence is that of the uni-
formity of the laws of nature ; more especially, as all
the creatures alluded to are furnished with apparatus
for enabling them to ascend to the surface, and many
of these have no other apparent use, The germ in
nature, be it that of plant or of animal, contains the
whole elements of the future being, and there is no
well-established instance of any such change, as that
from breathing air to breathing water, or the reverse.
That insects in their chrysalid state may remain
under the water, though both the larva and the perfect
insect should have to come to the surface at long or at
RESPIRATION. 355
short intervals, is nothing to the purpose. The neces-
sity that animals have for breathing, depends upon the
quantity of food that they take, or, which is the same
thing, upon the rapidity with which the matter of their
bodies is changed. In those animals which pass the
cold months in a state of torpidity, breathing and
feeding are nearly equally suspended, and as the animal
intrudes toward its state of quiescence, the breathing
becomes interrupted. But the greater part of chry-
salids are in a dormant state, and therefore they may
remain under the water without breathing, in the same
manner that a dormant marmot remains under the
earth.
But though the process of breathing differs so much
with the two fluids breathed, that it seems contrary to
the usual law of nature, that the one should be changed
to the other, yet the result and purpose of the ope-
ration are the same in both cases. The result is the
separation of a certain quantity of oxygen. It was
long supposed that this oxygen was an aliment, and
that it was taken into the blood, and thence into the
structure of the animal ; but that did not agree with
the fact that the blood is always exhibited to the organs
of respiration after it has gone its circuit for the
nourishment and repair of the system ; and that a
substance in nature should be made fit for its purpose
only after that had been accomplished, really seems
contrary to the wisdom and design that pervade the
works of nature in operations ten-fold more complicated
than this, so that one cannot help being a little surprised
that it should ever have been entertained. It must have
arisen from that disposition to look at, and draw con-
356 RESPIRATION.
elusions from, the particular fact, instead of the general
induction, which existing men sometimes call philo-
sophy in themselves and their contemporaries, but quite
another thing in those men that lived two hundred years
ago ; and it shows how careful even the most accurate
observers and the most sagacious reasoners should be,
that the statute with which they are going about to
augment the code of nature, does not run counter to
another, which is more general. Had they put the
question to the merest clown, whether the agents of
nature should be made fit to do their work before
doing it, or after, he would have had no difficulty in
pointing out the absurdity involved in the hypothesis
of imparting the oxygen to the blood of animals in any
other way than as an instrument for taking up some
matter which the blood had received in its circulation,
and which had become unfit for the purposes of life.
The precise time that the oxygen may remain in
contact with the blood, and whether the whole, or only
part, and if any, what part of each inspiration is
given out again at the following expiration, is not
within the range of accurate experiment ; but we are
certain that the volume of expired air is very much the
same with that inspired, and that it comes out of the
lungs not deprived of the oxygen, but with oxygen,
(either its own or that of former inspirations,) com-
bined with a new substance, which is known in a sepa-
rate state only as a solid. That substance is carbon or
charcoal, which, when combined with oxygen, forms
carbonic acid ; the combination in which the oxygen
of air, that has been taken into and decomposed by the
respiratory organs of animals, is discharged from those
RESPIRATION. 357
organs. The discharge, too, appears to be in proportion
to the air that is respired ; the same whether the solution
be performed through the operation of lungs or of gills,
and whether these belong to an elephant, a whale, a
water insect, or a mite.
Whatever may be the mysterious principle, or fact,
or whatever we may name it, that we call life, and which,
like the mind of man or the Maker of the universe,
can be seen and known only in that which it does, there
is in the functions of life, a wonderful resemblance to
the operation of fire as combustion, — they are both a
consuming, and carbonic acid, — charcoal united with
oxygen, is produced ; and the production of that sub-
stance is in both cases in proportion to the intensity of
the operation. In the dormant animal there is little
consumption of oxygen and production of acid, just as
there is in the smouldering fire ; and violent muscular
exertion is accompanied by a correspondingly increased
consumption of oxygen and production of acid. Before
results are so uniformly the same, we are warranted in
concluding, that there must be some uniformity in the
process ; but in what that consists, the present state of
information does not enable us to say.
In these remarks we have rather diverged from the
simple assertion, the truth of which we were led to
question ; but still they are proofs of the uniformity of
the laws upon which nature acts, and should lead us
not to receive as truth any departure from that uni-
formity, of which the fact and the reason have not
been carefully observed. That should teach us, that
when we cannot find a reason for the fact, which yet
seems a violation of the observed laws of nature, we
358 THE WATER-BEETLE.
must be mistaken ; and that, if we attempt to reason
from foundations of that kind, we are umpires, and not
philosophers.
The usual way in which water insects, and indeed
aquatic animals of all kinds, take, to fasten together
protection for themselves or their progeny, is not the
spinning of threads, but cementation by some fluid;
which, though it holds chips, straws, grains of sand,
or other solid substances together, and resists the motion
of the water, when used in small quantities as a mortar,
does not seem capable of resisting that action when in
the state of a slender filament, however well such a
filament may resist the action of the air ; and unless
we actually see an aquatic animal deviating from that
general habit, and actually spinning a cocoon, we have
a right to contend that such is never the case.
The hatching of the eggs of the plunger has not, as
we have said, been observed through every stage of the
process. When, however, the larvse make their appear-
ance, they are not to be mistaken, either in their form
or their habits. They are well adapted both for running
and for swimming. The body is about double the
length of that of the full-grown beetle, formed into
joints or rings, the last of which tapers to a point, where
the body of the animal is formed round, not unlike the
tail of an eel ; there are six legs, which have crooked
claws at the extremities, and are beset with spiny fringes,
so that they answer the purpose either of feet or of fins.
The most remarkable and formidable part about it,
however, is the head, which is large, flat, and strong,
and furnished with a very powerful pair of forceps, each
in shape not unlike the tooth of an elephant, but more
THE WATER-BEETLE. 359
hooked. These it can close with great force, and if
they meet with no resisting substance too hard for them
to penetrate, they can cross each other. It takes a very
firm hold with them ; for when a pond was in progress
of being cleaned, we have seen those larvae drawn out,
hanging by the pincers to an iron shovel.
It is possible that the larvae of the plunger are more
voracious than the full-grown beetle ; for they eat
every thing that they are able to seize ; and no sooner
have they sucked the juices of one victim than they
assail another. A portion of stagnant water, in which
these and other insects and larvae are contained, when
exhibited by a good solar microscope, is a singular
spectacle, and with only the difference of size, records
one of the ravages of a lion in a flock, or that of a shark
or grampus in the ocean. Indeed it is much more a
scene of slaughter; for the quadruped and the fish,
after they have gorged themselves full, must pause
and allow some time for digestion and the assimilation
of the solid matter of the prey with that of their own
bodies ; and in the case of the lion, at least, that is a
work of labour and lassitude. But the larva drains
only the juices which appear to pass to its own sub-
stance without any after process of assimilation ; so that
one victim only whets its appetite for a fresh one.
The microscope, of course, magnifies the velocity in
the same ratio as the size, and thus while an apparent
length of three or four feet, and a correspondence of
breadth is given, the assailant shoots from side to
side of the field of view in the microscope, with the
rapidity of lightning ; and when he seizes and shakes
his victims, the size, the distance, and especially the
360 SOLAR MICROSCOPE.
velocity of the motions, are all more terrible than the
shaking by a lion; and forgetting the magic power of
the optical instrument, one shrinks back, and listens to
hear the yell of victory, and the shriek of death. All
is quiet, however, and one soon recollects that this fell
destroyer is a little insect, not two inches long.
Those who have not otherwise access to a solar mi-
croscope, and happen to be in London, may see this
contest very well exhibited by the powerful solar micro-
scope shown at Carpenter's Microcosm in Regent-street ;
where, on a fine sunny day, the sight of this and many
much smaller creatures, magnified to giants, and conse-
quently moving with apparently incredible swiftness,
the wonders of the minute of nature, may be contem-
plated with considerable advantage ; and though these
exhibitions be but mere sights, they are sights which
make one wish to see a little more, which is no incon-
siderable matter *in the study of nature. That study
wants only a beginning, and the size or habit of the
production with which we begin, is a matter of no dif-
ference, so that it excites the desire that is to urge us
on. It must be admitted, however, that a study which
requires microscopes, or any other apparatus, is not
the one best adapted for the great body of the people ;
and, fortunately, it is not the one most useful.
The insects which are found on the margin of a brook,
or living in its water, or skimming along its surface,
are very numerous, and they vary much with the situ-
ation, of the brook and its elevation above the level of
the sea. It is this plenitude of insect life that makes
the water of brooks impure and disagreeable; and
which, for culinary purposes and for drinking, causes
IMPURE WATER. 361
it to be so inferior to the water of springs. When
allowed to stand in reservoirs, that water may let fall
the earthy substances that it holds mechanically sus-
pended ; but nothing, except filtration through a bed
of sand or some other substance, that can completely
keep back the feculent eggs or larvae that can float in
it, will preserve it from putrefaction if it afterwards
be allowed to stand for any length of time. It is the
same whether these animal impregnations live or die,
If they live they are unseemly, they prey upon each
other ; and whether they do or not, they leave their
exumce behind, when they change into the fly or imago
state, and sport their new wings in the air; these
putrefy, — a decomposition takes place, — some of the
water is decomposed, mixes with sulphur, and the
odour is offensive. Boiling, if the water be allowed
to settle afterwards, gets the better of those impurities;
but they are got rid of at an expense ; the water is
deprived of its air — of that very carbonic acid with
which the respiration of the little things impregnated
it ; both its sparkle and its sharpness are gone, and
it is flat and insipid — a vehicle merely, and not a
stimulant.
Situations which abound so much with insect life
both on the wing and in the water, as brooks and their
borders, of course, supply food for numbers of insecti-
vorous birds. Of these, a portion are adapted for
wading, and preying upon their insect food in the
shallow water, while others course it on the wing;
and in both descriptions, but more especially in the
latter, there are some of the most extraordinary con-
trivances in nature. Of the waders in brooks, one of
362 THE RAIL.
the most peculiar to such situations, if not the most
interesting in itself, is
THE RAIL.
THE RAIL, or king of the quails, or velvet runner,
(rallus aquaticus,) is very frequently met with running
along with great velocity under the hanks, or in the half-
dry channel of brooks, and often engages village boys and
village curs in successless chase, which is the more annoy-
ing that the bird, though never taken, seems always within
reach. This bird has considerable resemblance to the
land-rail, or crake, (rallus crex,) and has sometimes
been confounded with it, or believed to be a sort of
transmutation of it. In their habits, however, they
are altogether different. The land-rail is a summer
visitant ; at which season the peculiar note of the male
fills the corn-fields with music, though the musician be
very seldom seen. When its brood is reared, it retires
altogether from the colder districts of the British isles,
though a few are met with during the winter, in the
south of Ireland, and also occasionally in England. It
never frequents the water, but prefers dry, though
low and warm, situations. Its gizzard is strong and
muscular, as is the case with all birds that feed upon
entire seeds, and swallow little pebbles for assisting
them in bruising the husks.
The food of the water-rail is understood to.be insects,
larvae, and the fibrous roots of aquatic plants. It is a
lively and beautiful bird. The plumage on its back is
of a rich black, with an olive brown border to each
feather ; and it is on account of the gloss and beauty
THE RAIL. 363
of those feathers that it gets the name velvet, while
runner is characteristic of its motion ; as, though it can
fly tolerably well, it seldom has recourse to that ope-
ration. In some respects it is the most singular runner
among British birds. It runs through bushes that seem
perfectly closed with grass ; it runs up the stumps of
old trees ; it runs along the leaves of water-lilies and
other aquatic plants ; it runs from plant to plant on the
surface of the water ; and sometimes it dives and runs
along the bottom. The front plumage of this bird, and
also of the land -rail, is ingeniously contrived for en-
abling a passage to be made through reeds and bushes
without ruffling the feathers. The shafts of the feathers
in front are without webs at the points, and each ends
in a little knob or weight, by which the feather is kept
down.
The rail measures about ten inches in length, and
sixteen in the expansion of the wings, and it weighs
about a quarter of a pound. The nest is carefully
concealed among the tallest aquatic plants, or in beds
of willows ; and it is said to take particular care that
there shall be openings as paths past its nest, in all
directions, but none leading straight to it. The eggs
vary from six to ten, are rather larger than those of the
blackbird, generally of a pure white at first, but be-
coming covered with spots, or otherwise changing their
colour, in the course of the incubation.
The rail is wonderfully safe from the attacks both of
quadrupeds and birds ; and if it have sufficient cover, it
generally exhausts them by its doublings and evolutions,
without requiring to take to the wing. When reduced
to that necessity its motion is slow, and its flight re-
364 THE SWIFT.
markably short ; and it flies with its feet hanging down,
in readiness to run the moment that they touch the
ground. All its practices, indeed, point out that its
wings serve the purpose of balancers in the uneven
paths along which it runs, rather than as organs of pro-
longed motion. Thus it is remarkably well adapted
for hunting for its food in the rough channels of brooks,
though not for seizing of any thing which is at a con-
siderable elevation above the surface. But there are
other birds equally well adapted for that purpose ; and
perhaps the one of these that evinces the most won-
derful power of wings in a little creature, is
THE SWIFT.
THE SWIFT, (cypselus murarius,) perhaps, passes
over more space than any other living creature, and
evinces powers, both of eye and of wing, which are
probably greater than those of the eagle. The flights
of the eagle are powerful, but they are only occasional,
and strong as she is, she seems exhausted ; but the little
swift continues on the wing for sixteen hours every
day, and moving with velocity, and with evolutions
that are equally rapid and graceful. The vision of the
swift is also wonderful ; for it has been ascertained, that
it can easily discern, at more than a hundred yards
distance, an object not half an inch in diameter. Not-
withstanding the great powers of the swift in the air, —
its incessant flight during the summer, and its days'
journey to tropical climates in autumn, and back from
them in spring — it can hardly walk, but crawls along
the ground. In passing through holes and crevices it
THE SWIFT. 865
is, however, remarkably adroit; its claws are well
adapted for holding, and it can move edge-ways, or, in
fact, almost in any direction. The nest is constructed
much in the same manner as that of the common swal-
low, but the swift prefers more elevated and retired
situations, such as lofty precipices, steeples and towers,
and beneath the arches of bridges. The materials of it
are very diversified. Grass, moss, bits of threads,
feathers, (which they sometimes pull very dexterously
from other birds,) in short, any light substance, animal
or vegetable, that can be soaked, and cemented to the
mass of the nest, by that viscid substance secreted in
the throat and bill of the bird. They defend their nests
with great bravery, return instinctively to the same
ones for successive summers ; and if the swallow, which
generally comes a little earlier, should venture to take
possession, they drive her off the instant that they
come. They even take possession of the nests of
swallows, though the building by these birds is not ac-
counted close and fine enough for their purposes, until
the interior has received a coating of their own cement.
The female swift sits very patiently upon her eggs,
and never leaves them during the day, as then they
would be exposed to depredators ; but dashes forth at
dusk, hunts for her supper with great rapidity; and
then returns to her charge. The young swifts remain
in the nest for five or six weeks, during which time
both parents attend to them with the most constant
affection, and feed them regularly five or six times a
day. In the course of this, the parent-birds are greatly
exhausted, and fall off very much both in their flesh
and their plumage. When they first arrive they are
2 i3
366 THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH.
of a glossy black, with only a white spot under the
throat; but before the season is over they are of a
dirty brown.
The swifts do not appear able to endure the greatest
intensity of the summer heat ; for, on very warm days,
their huntings are confined to the mornings and even-
ings ; when, in places that abound with insects, they may
be seen darting about in all directions. Like swallows,
they drink on the wing, sipping the surface of pools
and brooks, and also dew-drops from the leaves of
plants. They have different hunting times, and lay all
descriptions of insects under contribution. In the
morning their chief prey consists of day-flies ; in the
evening they pursue the moths; and during those hot
gleams at mid-day, when the dragon-flies are beating
the sedges along a brook for moths, the swifts may be
seen coursing and capturing the spoilers with equal assi-
duity. By a brook, those bright hours are particularly
interesting, and one is at a loss to determine whether
most to admire — the ingenuity displayed in the produc-
tion of life, or that displayed in its extinction.
If the course of a brook is through rich, cultivated
lands, in a warm situation, a singular insect is some-
times met with near its banks. That insect is
THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH.
MOTHS, though often very beautiful, always indolent,
and, as compared with some other insects, harmless to
man, have, like bats and owls, got some prejudices
raised against them on account of the time at which
they are most upon the wing. Their wings are closely
THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 367
feathered ; their bodies heavy and unwieldly ; and their
motions in consequence slow; so that they offer a
prey to hirds which is easily seen from its size, and
which has difficulty in escaping. Were they, therefore, to
appear during the day, they would be almost sure
to fall a sacrifice : the larger to birds, and the smaller
to dragon flies and other predatory insects. The night,
therefore, is their favourite time for being abroad;
and thus they have come in for a share in those
imaginary terrors which ignorance always has, and
most likely always will, associate with darkness ; and
it is one of the evils of those prejudices, that, as there
is no reason for their existence, they cannot be re-
moved by reasoning.
The DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH (sphinx atropos, Linnaeus)
comes in for its full share of this prejudice; and
wherever it is found, except by an insect- fancier, who
knows or cares nothing about its habits, but merely
368 THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH.
transfixes it with a pin, and sells or shows the carcass,
it is regarded as an insect of evil omen.
In this country it is not often found, — at least, it
is one of the rarest of the moths, and found only in
warm places. It also selects particular flowers on
which to alight; such as the potatoe, the wild sola-
nums, and the jasmine. Its size, its solitary habits,
and, above all, its peculiar markings, have procured
it the vulga-r name. But yet it is an elegant insect : its
feathers are peculiarly soft and glossy ; and its colours
are arranged with very fine effect. Like the rest of
the moth family, it has four lepidopterous — scaly, or
rather, feathery wings. Of these, the upper pair are
of a rich dark gray, marked with orange and white ;
and the under ones are of a rich orange, with irregular
black bands ; the upper part of the abdomen is orange
barred with black; and there is upon that of the
thorax a large black spot with white markings, which
a moderate degree of imagination might regard as a
sort of resemblance of a death's-head and cross-bones ;
which last representation is the cause of the greater
part of the apprehension and dread with which the
appearance of this harmless and handsome insect is
regarded.
There are concurrent causes for the superstition:
the moth comes very seldom, being comparatively
scarce in all countries ; and when it does come, it
comes as " a warning voice ; " and as it carries the
markings of the hatchment and the hearse upon its
back, that voice can warn of nothing else than a pre-
paration for the tomb.
Now, if a warning of that sort had the proper effect,
THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 369
— that is, if it made people do better in this world,
it would matter but little who were the messenger;
whether moth, or monitor of a more rational kind :
but the mischief is, that those superstitious admoni-
tions, whether they proceed from moth or man, do
harm instead of good, — cause the alarm, but not the
amendment, and therefore they ought, upon all oc-
casions, to be exposed. From this insect they are
not prevalent in this country ; for, to the knowledge
of naturalists at least, the death's-head moth is com-
paratively recent, as well as rare.
On the continent, it has been longer and better
known ; and there are instances in which its appear-
ance has excited great alarm. Reaumur mentions
an instance where, at the entrance of one, by the
window of a convent on a fine summer's evening,
the whole of the sisterhood were thrown into an alarm
of instant mortality; but whether the warning was
attended with the requisite preparation for the event—-
whether they called upon the fathers to double their
diligence in the hour of peril — has not been recorded ;
and, therefore, cannot now be known. Consequently,
we are left to consider the sphinx atropos simply
as an insect, in which character it is at least, as an
object of curiosity, entitled to rank at the head of
British moths.
The unfrequency of the appearance of this moth
is a proof of its delicacy, rather than of any deadly
power. It seems, indeed, to be much more difficult
to rear than any of the other kinds that we have ; as
the winged insect is often unknown, in places where
the larvae are met with. That mature insects must
370 THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH.
have been in such places is clear, otherwise there
could not be larvae, but the habits of the creature are
so retiring that it sculks under the leaves of its
favourite plants, and thus may exist in many places
where it has not been seen.
When the larvae is met with, it occasions nearly as
much alarm as the moth, though the alarm be of a
different kind. The peasantry, and even a great
number of persons who have had considerable ad-
vantages of education, are ignorant of the changes
that take place in insect life; and therefore, every
caterpillar of an unusual size or shape portends some-
thing. We have more than once known one of the
death's-head larvae excite the dread of a plague of
locusts, of which ignorance and fear set it down as the
pledge and harbinger. True, it is far from being like
a locust ; but they who felt the alarm knew just as
little of a locust as they did of the change of the cater-
pillar to a moth ; and thus the unusual shape and size
of the young death's-head made it every way a locust
to them.
The caterpillar is, indeed, an unusual one ; and both
in size and beauty has few equals in the country. The
length is between four and five inches ; the eyes and
antennae are conspicuous, and the colours are bright.
The prevailing colour is a brilliant yellow, with a row
of stripes on each side, of azure and violet. These
are transverse ; the ends of them toward the back are
pointed, and there are black dots, which are considered
by the country people as eyes.
The sound which this moth utters, must, like the
chirping of some other insects, and the notes of birds,
NOISE OF INSECTS. 371
be considered as a kind of love-song, when it is in a
state of nature and free ; but it emits a cry of the same
kind when captured, upon occasions when fear must be
the prevailing passion.
The noise which this, or indeed any other insect,
emits, is not a cry or voice of any kind, as those terms
are understood among mankind, — that is, produced by
the action of certain organs upon the breath, emitted by
the animal in respiration, for insects have no such organi-
zation. The sounds which they produce arise from the
action of some part upon the external air, and are effected
generally by the rapid vibration of such part of their
bodies or their wings, or the rubbing or striking of
one part against another. The sound of the common
death-watch, which has been so often and so foolishly
considered as counting up the moments of human life,
is practised by the insect drumming upon wood with
its hard and stiff mandibles, in order that its mate may
answer to its call. Sometimes the sounds are produced
by grating against each other the horny edges of the
elytra or wing-covers ; in a few instances the insect is
provided with a natural drum, or elastic plate drawn
over some hollow, by which a vibrating motion is given
to the air, and sound produced ; and in the case of the
death's-head moth, Reaumur found out that the noise
which it makes when confined, proceeds from the friction
of the palpi against the mandible, which, though a sound
originating in part in the mouth, yet can, in no sense
of the word, be considered as voice. Voice, or not
voice, this sound is obviously intended to answer only
insect purposes, though how it affects them has not been
clearly ascertained ; because, with the exception of the
372 STRUCTURE OF INSECTS.
sense of seeing, and that which is usually called touch,
the senses of insects have not been referred to any
particular organs.
The structure of insects is altogether a very curious
matter, at least, a matter different from those animal
structures with which we are the most familiar, and
which we are, in consequence, too apt to take as our
standards. They are all annulose animals, that is, have
their bodies divided across into a greater or smaller
number of rings or segments. They are without a
spine, or any thing like an internal skeleton, and thus
the insertions of all the muscles, by which their parts
are moved, are on the external covering, which is to
them at once both skin and skeleton.
That skin, though it do not contain, even in those
that have it the hardest, carbonate of lime, like the
crusts of crabs and lobsters, and the shells of oysters
and snails, is yet more like a horny substance than
the skin'of those that we call the more perfect animals.
The substance in the skin of the more perfect animals,
which the covering of insects the most nearly resembles,
is the epidermis, or scarf-skin ; and there is no appear-
ance of vessels in its structure, or of a mucous net or
true skin. In its composition, it is a good deal like horn,
though it is not fibrous, like that substance. It also
varies more in hardness, being in some as hard as horn,
and in others as flexible as leather ; in some, too, it is
elastic, and may be bent considerably and resume its
form, while in others it is exceedingly brittle. The
pincers, stings, claws, mandibles, and all the grasping,
cutting, and piercing organs of insects, are formed of
the same substance, though thickened and hardened
STRUCTURE OF INSECTS. 373
where necessary, and also softened into pads and suckers
where these are required ; as on the feet of those insects
which retain their hold upon polished surfaces, and
those that are perpendicular or inverted, without the
aid of claws. All these, even to the minute hairs with
which the bodies of insects are covered — as in those
that form the fur of the mole cricket, are, without any
insertion of new substance, merely elongations of the
general covering, by which means the delicate struc-
ture of the insect is kept together ; and those that
burrow in the earth, or bore into wood or stone, for
the purpose of a dwelling for themselves or a nidus
for their offspring, never have the most delicate hair —
even that which requires the assistance of a powerful
microscope before it can be seen — abraded by the
hard substances which they have to encounter. Those
which burrow in the mud, too, even though their
bodies be furry, seldom have the mud adhering to
them ; and those that are smooth have so exquisite a
polish, that they are nearly proof against the action
of water. We are not aware, indeed, of any surface
so perfectly smooth as that of the covering of some
insects. This substance, also, admits of every degree
of colour and transparency. The horny coats that
protect the fixed eyes of insects from external injury,
are, in some instances, as colourless as the air itself;
while in other parts of them we meet with hues, which
not only defy all the imitations of art, but are quite
unrivalled among the works of nature. We also meet
with an irridescence or play of colours, arising from the
light being differently reflected ; but, generally speak-
ing, that is mere difference of reflection from the sur-
2 K
374 STRUCTURE Otf INSECTS,
face, and not of refraction from the inner parts of the
covering. It is the varying colour of the pigeon's neck,
or of shot silk, and not that of a mother-of-pearl shell
or an opal, — it arises from minute surfaces of different
colours intermixed, and not from laminae or plates, of
different texture and transparency, placed the one over
the other. In short, it is probably the most plastic,
and therefore the most curious substance in nature,
being of all hues and all consistences, and adaptable
to all purposes ; and yet in its composition always the
same. It forms - the fine down or feathers upon the
moth and butterfly, the large nervous wings of the
dragon-fly, trie sting of the bee, the crust of the beetle ;
and it is very doubtful whether it does not also form
the web of the spider, and even the cocoon of the silk-
worm.
But there is a further uniformity of purpose in the
muscular structure of insects — in those organs that move
their little feet, their wings, their jaws, and their won-
derful antennae or feelers. Those muscles, downward
as far as the microscope can follow them, are of the
same fibrous texture as the muscles of large animals ;
but as they do not, like these, move over internal ful-
crum bones, they are without tendons, and have their
fibres inserted immediately into the covering or crust.
The body of an insect was, by Linnaeus, regarded as
made up of three parts, — the head, the trunk, and the
abdomen ; but as the middle part, or trunk, consists of
two distinct portions, more modern naturalists have
considered the whole body as made up of four, — the
head, the thorax, the breast, and the abdomen. The
relative proportions of those parts, and also the mode
STRUCTURE OF INSECTS. 375
and magnitude of the articulations, by which they are
jointed to each other, differ much in the different
species. The articulation of the head with the thorax
can always be determined, and so can the division of
the others, if not by the articulation, at least by the
annuli or rings. Whatever may be their dimensions,
or the mode in which they are joined together, the first
ring behind the head is the thorax, the second the breast,
and all the remainder, however many rings there may
be, the abdomen.
The head, as is the case with other animals, contains
the mouth and the organs of the senses : the only
ones of which the functions or the plan is known with
certainty, are the eyes, and the antennae or feelers, which
last are conceived to be more particularly organs of touch.
The muscles that move the head, take their rise near
the abdominal extremity of the trunk, and have their in-
sertion within the occipital opening. They are inserted
in the direction toward which they move the head, and
have their origin at the opposite side of the trunk, so that
they cross the trunk inside diagonally ; and they produce
their motion by contraction, the same as the muscles of
quadrupeds. In most insects the muscles that move
the head downwards, are more powerful than those that
move it in any other direction.
The thorax occupies the first ring of the trunk. It is
in some species very small ; but generally the centre of
the under part of it is formed into a prominent sternum,
or keel, and the fore legs are articulated to it — one on
each side ; and the upper part sometimes terminates
backwards in a spine, with which the insect is capable
of inflicting a wound.
2K 2
376 STRUCTURE OF INSECTS.
The breast forms the second and generally the largest
ring of the trunk ; but sometimes it and the thorax are
so united, that only the depression between the two
can be traced ; and sometimes they are so loosely arti-
culated, that the breast seems part of the abdomen.
The upper part of the breast, which is that in which
the principal muscles are inserted, is covered with a
shield or scutellum, of a horny consistency. The ima-
ginary death's head and cross-bones are the bearings
upon this shield in the sphinx atropos. The under
part of this has a sternum or keel, as well as that of
the thorax ; to the sides of that, the two remaining
pairs of legs, the middle and the hind ones, are arti-
culated, and it sometimes covers the articulation and
part of the first joint of the legs, and sometimes shields
part of the abdomen. The wings are articulated to
the breast, at the sides of the scutellum, — immediately
to the sides of it in those that have not elytra or wing-
covers, and in those that have, the wings and wing-
covers are articulated to the abdominal edge and angles
of the scutellum — so that when the wing-covers are
raised, they separate from the scutellum as well as
from each other at the middle.
The abdomen occupies the rest of the body. It
consists of a greater or smaller number of wings, ac-
cording to the genus of insect ; and the muscles by
which it is moved are inserted in the breast, the same
as those that move the head, and they pass diagonally
in the same manner. Thus the trunk, and usually
the breast, or second ring of the trunk, is the general
fulcrum of motion for the whole body.
The wings of insects are worthy of attention, not
STRUCTURE OF INSECTS. 377
only from the beauty of their structure, and the nicety
with which they are adapted to the other habits of the
animal ; but as they are a very convenient means of
classing the animals.
Most winged insects have four wings, though in all,
the four are not of similar structure, or equally deve-
loped. The wings, which are the proper organs of
flight, are constructed of a delicate network, of the
horny substance which has been alluded to, upon which
is spread a thin membrane of the same. Frequently
those membranous wings are covered over with fea-
thers or scales, which also sometimes, as in the sphinx-
moths, cover other parts of the insect.
The two upper wings are often horny and not adapt-
ed for flying, but they serve as a protection to the
others. These are the elytra ; and the insects which
have them, — beetles, as they are indiscriminately called
in common language, are in the habit of creeping into
places where membranous wings would be in danger
of being torn ; or diving in water, where they would be
rendered unfit for the purposes of flight. Even the
membranous wings of insects, however strong in every
thing but the scales with which some of them are co-
vered, are much less liable to injury than one not ac-
quainted with them would be apt to imagine.
Sometimes the upper wings are only half the length,
and adhere to the membranous ones that are below ;
and in many, the two under wings are not developed,
but form a slender stalk behind each wing, ending in a
knob. These organs are called halter es or balancers.
It is doubtful, however, whether these ought, in all
cases, to be considered as the rudiments of the second
378 STRUCTURE OF INSECTS.
pair of wings, because they have been found wanting
in some two-winged insects, and present in some four-
winged ones, as in the dytiscus marginalia.
The legs of insects consist of nearly the same distinct
parts as those of larger animals. They are : —
1. The hip, (coxa?) which is immediately articulated
to the side of the sternum.
2. The thigh, (femur,*) which is articulated to the
hip.
3. The leg, (tibia,) which is articulated to the thigh.
4. The foot or toe, (tarsus,) which consists of several
joints, the first of them articulated to the leg, and the
last to
5. The claw, (unguisj) which terminates the organ.
The form and articulations of these are often exceed-
ingly curious ; but we find in them all that perfect har-
mony of organization and use, which can be so clearly
traced in all the mechanism of animated nature, and
which indeed forces itself upon our notice, whether we
attempt to trace it or not. Thus, if the insect has only
to walk and not to leap, the thighs are slender; but
when it has to leap, they are swelled out in breadth to
afford room for the action of the muscles ; and the
swelling always takes place in that direction which is
best calculated for giving ease and force to the motion.
The articulation of the femur is equally well adapted
to the habits of the insect. In some, the motion is
most easy forwards, in others backwards, and in a con-
siderable number it answers equally both ways.
The tibia, too, is made to answer all the purposes of
a simple leg; or it is lengthened, flattened, and fringed,
that it may serve as an oar ; or yet again it is made
STRUCTURE OF INSECTS. 879
compact and firm, and toothed in the edge, so that it
may form an engine for digging and cutting.
The tarsus, or foot, varies very much, and exhibits a
wonderful deal of mechanical contrivance, and a very
nice adaptation of parts to the office that the organ has
to perform. There is generally, whatever may be the
number of joints or articulations in the part of the
limb, a very strong flexor or contracting muscle, by
means of which it is enabled to attach itself firmly to
any substance.
The claw is equally varied in its structure. Some-
times, as in the case of the mole cricket, it is in the
form of a rake, for hewing down and drawing along
mud j at other times there are hooked claws, all bend-
ing in the same direction, by means of which it can
suspend itself; sometimes again the claws act opposite
to each other like a hand ; and at other times there is
but a single claw, to which a little protuberance on the
tarsus serves as a thumb.
Such are the outlines of the merely mechanical struc-
ture of insects. The other parts are equally curious,
even those that are general to the class, and have no
reference to the peculiar habits of any one. The nervous
system, which is ramified from the brain contained in the
head ; the singular formation that often is displayed in
the mouth, which is at one time a pump, and at another
a pair of scissors ; the complicated contrivance of cells
and tubes, by which the blood is aerated ; and, above
all, the way in which nature has provided for the con-
tinuation of the species, with the long probation and
the singular changes through which many of them have
to pass before they can enjoy the day or the hour
380 STRUCTURE OF INSECTS.
which is given them to wanton in the beams of the
sun. Taking them, diversified as they are among many
genera and species, — they form, even in one corner of
the smallest province of nature's kingdom, ample and
delightful study for the most active mind, through the
most prolonged life.
We are apt, because we cannot move from one part
to another without labour, to associate interest with
magnitude, — measure power with a line, and reckon
wisdom by the tables of chronology ; but when the
work is His, " with whom a thousand years are as one
day, and one day as a thousand years," we find also
that space is not an element of the wonderful in His
works ; or, time of the wisdom with which they have
been made.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
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